[OPEN] MISSION 3.1 | Dream a Little Dream of Me

[groupiedrifter]

CHARACTERS: Newton Geiszler and YOU!
LOCATION: Newt's Dreamscape / Memories
DATE: During Mission 3: The Sleeper
CONTENT: Newton's fallen into a deep sleep; in this log are multiple memory prompts people may venture into, to be updated as they're completed!
WARNINGS: Basic warnings include: possible violence/blood, monster imagery, domestic and emotional abuse (including a toxic relationship memory), and removal of bodily autonomy.

MEMORY 1: YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG ONCE. 1997.
MEMORY 2: BUT YOU CAN BE IMMATURE FOREVER. 2008.
MEMORY 3: CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTES. 2015.
MEMORY 4: THE BUFFET LINE. 2025.
MEMORY 5: XIMILIA, N̷̥̑Ì̵̱Ĝ̴̩H̵̩͐T̷͈̀T̶͙̂I̸̛̹M̴̤̉E̷̠̾. XXXX.
PERSONAL GOAL: THREE LETTERS YOU'LL NEVER SEND.

[OOC NOTES: If you would like to have multuple memories (i.e. one memory segways into another), feel free to let me know via PM, through the subject line, or at my plurk, simpledog! If none of these speak to you in particular, feel free to post a top level with 'WILDCARD' as the subject line, and I'll whip up a randomized memory not on this list. ;)

ALSO — feel free to have your character interject anywhere in the “‘memory”, they absolutely don’t have to wait until the dream prompt is over and can change the flow of the dream at any point they’d like; I just write a lot for each prompt to give lots of meat for ya.]

Comments

(frozen comment) Personal Goal: Write Three Letters You'll Never Send

[groupiedrifter]

["Write three letters sentimental letters to significant people in your life but do not send them," the orbs tell him.

... Well, at least he's not sending them anywhere.

The first two letters Newton writes are for his uncle and father; they're easy enough — questions about their work, about Illia's retirement or Dad's tendency to overwork. He's no spring chicken, right? Better start thinking about ways to enjoy a similar retirement, right? Ha, Dad's someone who'd work until he died. Newt inherited that from him. Other parts neg them about their love lives — any sexy ladies you're all hitting up on dating sites? will I finally have a step mom for more than a few months? — and he absolutely explains in excitable detail the journey he's on right now. Ximilia...! Space...! The final frontier! X-Files was Right, and he Does Believe. But with his writings comes a vulnerability; it's easy to write to Illia about his feelings of weariness, of his headaches and nosebleeds and sleepless nights. It's easy to write to his father about the frightening situations he's been in, be it getting handcuffed and left in a quaking tower or slammed into a pillar by an angry monster (not a monster, just infected, just an upset person).

But when he gets to the third letter, it admittedly takes him a lot of time to just sit and write. Because...]

Dear Hermann,

Man, this is weird. I haven't written a letter to you in so many years, feels like my writing skills have atrophied. Well, this is a letter you're not actually ever getting, because part of it is never sending the letter, so it works out. What kind of stuff would I put into the first paragraph of these again...? How are you? How's your mom? How's your piece of shit dad? Have you finally watched that episode of X-Files I've been begging you to try out? Ha! Man, so weird. This is weird. I kinda like it, though. Feels comforting, or like scratching an itch that I haven't been able to reach until I got a backscratcher. Heavenly, right?

Anyway. I don't really know what I need to write. I guess the orb wasn't super specific? I could probably just write 'sup Hermano!' with a smiley face and as long as it has 'dear' and 'sincerely' I win. Right? But that felt shitty to do. I don't know why, but it does. So hey! I'll use this as a little diary. It's 2025 back home! The 'diaries are for girls' thing is a relic of a stupider time! But I imagine you'd probably say it was immature anyway. Or maybe you'd secretly think it sounds nice, to catalogue thoughts and feelings? You've always been so good at writing out data of whatever kind. I'm so impatient with that stuff. Sorry I always ran off and left that part to you for so many of our projects at the PPDC. I'd say that was the unmedicated ADHD talking, but frankly it just sounded like the worst way to spend my time ever.

Immature? Absolutely. That's me, ol' Childish Geiszler.

Stuff like that, stuff like me staining your fancy sweater vest with kaiju blood in the laundry, or misplacing your half of a report, or shoving guts on your side of the line when you piss me off, it made me figure you'd be creaming your knickers when the war was finally over and we had to go our separate ways (was that too disturbing a visual? too bad, you'll never see this anyway). But hey! You said I'm your best friend. You know, that's one of the best things that I've heard in, like, half a decade. Do you know how much I thought I'd completely blew any chance of being called that? Man. After our big fights, I used to angst for days after. You remember all that. Sure you do. You probably even have some drift memories of me stomping around and screaming into a pillow and calling you all kinds of real colorful names. I'd like to think you were doing the same, but I'm the dramatic one, so. Probably not.

Truth is, since we're being honest here: I definitely am in love with you. Like, not just love, because in my scientific opinion there's a lot to love about you and your bitchin' science brain, but in love, as in I would kiss you on your dumb mouth and spend my life with you in a way that is definitely not 'no homo'. You know what I'm saying? Like, I love you. Are you mortified? Well, I guess you wouldn't be mortified, you're not getting this message. But I am absolutely head over heels, and it's been that way since before we met in person. Which is tragic, huh? Honestly, the reason it went so poorly is because I loved you, I think. I screwed that up. I freak out, I get too emotional, I make the situation uglier than it has to be. That's one of my tragic hero flaws, right? I screw things up and make them worse. Who else but me would meet someone they'd come to pine after and utterly destroy that relationship in one meeting at a cafe? I'd like to say it was totally your fault, but I know myself too well to actually believe it.

Yeah, yeah. Woe is me. It's my diary-letter-thing, I'll cry if I want to.

You don't have to love me back or anything, btw. This isn't a hostage negotiation. You won't destroy me forever if the feeling isn't mutual. I'm a big boy, I've had a lot of relationships fail, I can take it. I'm just happy that you're my best friend, okay? And really, the biggest reason I don't just say all this is I don't want to ruin that. I'd spend a lifetime with these feelings in a confidential folder if it means not ruining the things we've fixed here.

I'm really, really, really, really fucking glad we ended up at the PPDC together. I'm glad that wasn't the last time I saw you.

Having you to bitch at was both torture and the highlight of my day, man. Masochism isn't always a distant concept, apparently.

We were great. We were phenomenal. The PPDC needs to bend down and kiss our feet, we got their asses out of so many jams. Putting all of that on a science division made up of two people in the end? We handled it like rockstars. We were rockstars! Like, you put your ass on the line for this. I mean, you risked your ass for me, too. Kind of. Not to make myself out like I'm remotely as important as saving the world... Kinda bold (selfish???) of me, but I like to think you did it for me, too. But wow. Just. Drifting with a kaiju to save the day. We knocked it out of the park. Raleigh and Mako better high-five us when we're actually back to the 'dome. Actually, maybe Rals will since he's here, too. I'm gonna make him highfive me sometime. If I remember to.

Drifting, though. What a rush.

... Yeah.

Hey, so. Since this is 'letters you'll never send' in personal goal format, uh. I guess I can admit I'm scared of something? OK.

I think something's wrong with me. I know something's wrong with me. More than before, I mean. More than the normal. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I'm worried I really fucked myself up when I drifted. I'm scared I did something and it's doing something to my brain, and I'm scared to tell anyone honestly because it means I have to actually face it, and I'm scared that I did it to you too, because you're having these symptoms, right? And the nightmares, the nightmares I don't remember, the kind I want to remember so bad but I also never want to know. I'm scared I fucked something up. Something's not right, something's WRONG, but when I try to think about it too long, I start panicking and I just want to run away from it. I don't want to tell you, but I want to tell you EVERYTHING. My mouth opens and I don't say anything, like I just can't, like my brain just stops me because it knows I would rather run away from my problems than ever say them out loud. But you're being effected too, and that's my fault, even if it's not it IS. I'm so sorry, Hermann, I'm sorry I tried to push you into my drift project, and I'm sorry you felt guilty for what happened after, and I'm sorry you had to be the one to drift with me. If something happens to you because of it, I'll never forgive myself, okay? I'll never forgive myself in a million fucking years if I messed up your head.

Something's wrong with me, I just know it. I don't know what. But I'm not okay. Please don't be 'not okay' too.

Sorry, I think I ruined this letter. I should probably get rid of it now. But.

I'll probably keep it.

Sincerely Love,

Newt

[All three letters end up shoved into the very back of a drawer in his room aboard the Ximilia, after the mission.

He's never discarded a written letter before; despite being the one who'd written them, he can't bring himself to do it, even now.

Especially now.]