PROMPTS:
Pacific Rim/IASIP -> I can totally see Charlie Kelly as the FATHER of Newton Geiszler.
Though there’s a plotline where Charlie is Newt.
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“Smartpills” – story where Charlie received smartpills from Scientist and set out to learn stuff. He begins by studying the rats he mashes, which leads to him receiving a biology degree. From there he widens his research into many other fields and begins collecting PhDs.
1. He’s brilliant and he helps defeat the Kaiju. And then the pills begin to wear off. (It’s small things at first. Forgetting a phone number here or there. Looking at the pages of a book and seeing only a jumble of puzzle pieces. And usully he’s tired, and that’s the excuse he gives for all the little mistakes.
– I’m not stupid. I can read. Stop making fun of me. –
But things happen, as they’re wont to do, and he finally has to recognize that it’s not because he’s tired. It’s not because he’s sloppy or distracted.
The pills are wearing off.
He’s losing that borrowed brilliance. He’s going back to being the dummy. The mocked. The Charlie.)
It made him feel sick to his stomach.
There’s no way he can let Herms or anyone else see what he’s becoming. He doesn’t want to be remembered like that. He wants to be the rockstar scientist god.
Newt gathers up Algernon and packs up the things he can’t do without. He hires movers to clear out the rest of his apartment on his way out of town and hopes they don’t steal too much of his stuff.
He’s always hated being stolen from. It was the thing that had finally had him kick Frank out of his life.
When Frank stole the Waitress from him.
And now he’s going back. To see Frank[A1] and the gang one last time. When he’s still near to brilliant. He won’t be Newton brilliant anymore, but he’ll at least be a Ben Franklin when he meets them. It will be enough to impress the shit out of them.
It might be nice to see them all. When he’s sober and in control of himself. (He hadn’t huffed dangerous chemicals in years. And as a recovering alcoholic he stayed far away from the booze. The only thing he ever indulged in was weed, and he mostly kept that to when he was writing Bondlock fanfiction and watching TV — or when Hermann was being particularly Hermann.) It will be nice to see them one last time. Impress the hell out of them.
And afterward he will quietly check himself into an adult care facility and enjoy the last days of his life as Newton Geiszler.
It wasn’t how he’d ever wanted things to end. But it wasn’t so bad.)
*
*
A1. Waitress[A2] has married Frank.
It should totally shut him off from her. But she’d always been his obsessive love. His guiding light.
He’d do anything for her even now– which explained the walking away, and even the staying away. It had hurt his heart, but he’d kept himself on the other side of the planet.
He’d wanted to give her the chance to enjoy the world without him hanging around.
And now he wished that he’d kept tabs on her. Because her life was FUBAR, and it felt like his fault.
The gang had screwed up her life to try to get him back to the bar. They’d stalked and harassed her, and somehow she’d gotten Stockholmed — it was the only explanation — and married Frank.
Charlie eyed her in shock. He swallowed down all the things he wanted to say and pasted on the old cheery disposition.
“You look great.”
“I look like shit.”
Yeah, you kinda do. “No you don’t. You look beautiful.”
“Thanks Charlie.”
He waved it away. He loved her. Of course he was going to tell her she was beautiful. She kinda was, and always would be.
Charlie had no great plans to hook up with her. He was glad just to be in her life. And while he was here, he was going to help her straighten herself up.
First things first: Get rid of Frank. (Not murderously, of course. He wasn’t Dee with her failed assassination plans. He just had to get her away from Frank and into a secure life.)
Thing the second: Get Waitress an awesome job. (She needed to make a good living. She was taking care of herself and the kids too. There was no way he’d leave her hanging.)
Harper Kingsley
Ko-fi: HarperWCK
Paypal: HarperKingsley
And maybe throughout it all he could take the kids out and see if they were happy. He was their big brother after all.
He didn’t want any of them to turn out like him.
*
A2. It was stupid, but she missed him. Charlie.
For years she’d treated him like shit for clinging around. Then he’d left. And she missed him.
And somehow Frank slipped into the gap he’d left behind.
The horrible troll was always hanging around. And wherever he was, alcohol and drugs appeared. And she was weak. She was an addict.
And he followed her to rehap.
By the time she seriously started thinking about sobering up, they’d gotten married with a shitty prenup and she had three kids. There was no place for her to go, and there was no way she was leaving the kids behind. (She’d heard the story of the baby and the samurai sword.)
But there were times that she hated Frank with a passion. Not because of his disgusting nature and the messes he left around the house for her to clean up. No, it was because he was a terrible influence for the kids.
She’d come to empathize with Mrs Kelly. Always before there’d been some disgust for the way Charlie had turned out — a little more discipline and he would have at least learned how to read. It had always seemed as though the woman had failed in raising her son.
And then Nikki was married to Frank and there were children, and she realized that Mrs. Kelly had done the next to impossible. She’d booted Frank Reynold out of her son’s life and kept him away for twenty years. It wasn’t her fault that Charlie had invited Frank into his adult life. She’d still managed to instill some level of goodness into her son.
Nikki couldn’t say that she’d managed the same. Her children were growing up to be hooligans and she couldn’t seem to stop it.
She needed Frank’s money to raise the kids, and he demanded to be in the kids’ life in return. He had all the power and there wasn’t much she could do about it.
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She’d barely made it through high school. (Charlie rescuing her from That Party, when things had gotten too out of control and she couldn’t stand up anymore. He’d straightened her coat and remembered to grab her bag, and he’d gotten her home to her mom. She told him thank you and bought him a bag of tacos from a truck. He’d clung to her after that. Taking care of her and always being around, until she’d wanted to run away screaming.) Most of the jobs she’d had involved delivering food and drink to someone.
There was no way she could raise three kids in the city on her own. And she didn’t know where else to go. She’d never lived anywhere else — New Jersey was the farthest she’d ever traveled (and Charlie had shown up there too, protecting her).
She was trapped in her life.
Where else could she go?
(Charlie was gone. He couldn’t give her a place to crash. He couldn’t use one of his numerous “friendships” to talk her into a well-paying job.)
She had three kids and Frank. It made Nikki half-wish she could go back to being The Waitress. At least then she’d only had herself to support.
* * *
B. Newt had grown up with the knowledge that he was adopted.
His parents had always been very open and honest with him. They’d even introduced him to his birth parents — Deandra “that’s Sweet Auntie Dee to you” Reynolds and Charles “I’m Charlie. I guess I’m kind of your dad” Kelly — when he’d asked about them.
So the whole being adopted thing was just a part of his life. Right up there with K-Science, Hermann Gottlieb, and being a genius rockstar.
Then he Drifted with a Kaiju and saved the world.[B2]
B1. And suddenly there was a strange group of people thrusting themselves into his life. And he recognized his birthparents, so he couldn’t just throw them out.
So he invited them to stay for the week, even though dinner in the messhall had been awkward and maybe a bit embarrassing. He should have taken it for a warning.
Because the next week was a miserabe and grueling experience. They were such awful people.
And he didn’t even want to think about the revelation that his birth parents were brother and sister. Except Frank wasn’t really Dee’s father and Charlie might not possibly be his son, but was totally his son and…
The story had been convoluted and by turns horrifying, disgusting, and hilarious. The expression on Hermann’s face had been worth the mental trauma.
And the Hermann thing… Newt took it to mean that they’d always been meant to be science bros. It was too much of a cosmic coincidence that Hermann’s father had once given “smartpills” to Newt’s birth father in some half-cocked experiment — the same experiment that led to his discredition and subsequent move to Germany where he met Hermann’s mother.
*
B2. And from Hermann he’d somehow gotten the idea that he needed to know more about his birth parents.
It didn’t even matter that the idea had come from someone else. He felt it and he wanted to do it. He had to do it.
So he put in for the time off. And he bought a plane ticket to Philadelphia. And he managed to not throw up when he thought about it.
*
B2-1. Charlie was a surprisingly good guy. Dee was a bit hysterical but seemed to be trying. The “gang” was terrible.
Newt heard the story of his conception over beers. It was mostly Mac and Dennis talking loudly and horribly with Frank about “that time Charlie and Dee totally banged each other.” And since Dee wasn’t there, Charlie had stepped in to try to smooth out some of the crudeness of the explantion.
Newt still felt traumatized.
And then somehow things had progressed and the trip to Philly had ended with the revelation that Dee and the gang had been scheming to use him for money. He didn’t stick around for the explanation, though he did slip Charlie his email address before he left.
He returned to Hermann with an “I-told-you-so. My parents were right about those people. I don’t need that kind of out-of-control wackiness in my life.” He didn’t have to mention the mood stabilizers he took everyday. Hermann understood.
Life went back to the way it was supposed to be.
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