Newt Geiszler | Pacific Rim (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
groupiedrifter) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ximilialog2021-10-17 01:27 am
groupiedrifter) wrote in ximilialog2021-10-17 01:27 am
[OPEN] who doesn't like neon trees?
CHARACTERS: Newton and You!
LOCATION: Around the Ximilia
DATE: The rest of October catch-all!
CONTENT: Newton exists in October, doing Newton things.
WARNINGS: mostly just alien possession and dream invasion in prompt IV! will add more if needed
I. Kiss With a Fist | Closed to Rosinante
[It takes Newton a ridiculous amount of self-control not to find and explode at Rosinante before the dust even clears in the teleportation room; he's tired and feels sick as hell on return, but for one stupid, Newtonian moment, he sees a glimpse of him skulking around the place (he's not hard to notice, towering over everyone else) and feels his blood go hotter. It's like those times he'd get heated in a dive bar, quick to bark and quicker to get knocked on his ass, but it's a compulsion he hadn't quite mastered in his time alive.
Only this time, people are hurt and exhausted, him admittedly included, so he bides his time in an infirmary first. It's much later in the day (if it is, in fact, a day; time in space is atrocious to keep track of) that he notices Rosinante walking along the hall Newt had just turned onto himself. The sight of his extremely broad back brings the fiery temperament and outrage to the forefront again, and he thinks: well, if I get the shit kicked out of me here, at least I'll have made my peace.
His scraped up hands clench shut in offense and he walks briskly, quietly, teeth gritted behind his lips.
And then — ]
Hey, Rosi.
[Before the ever-so-tall Rosinante turns to his voice, Newt rears back a fist —
And when the pirate turns in full, Newton slams that fist as hard as he can into the man's groin.]
II. Lust for Life | The Lab
[After Sabriel's kind enough to help with his injuries, he makes a point to take it easy for the first few days. His ribs are still super sore, but he feels better and better, more prepared than ever to get back to the projects that had to be left on pause while he was gone for two months. It's been nearly four months, hasn't it? Since they'd woken up on this ship. Five months for some others. Anyway... All play and no work makes Newton a needy bastard just as much as the opposite, so he gets to it.
First on the agenda: finish Viveca's hovering robo-body, which is currently close to being done. The arms have been attached, and now the backside of the robot is opened up, wires spilling out and leaving a great tangle of work around a motherboard. The area is a bit cluttered and different to parse with one's eyes, but... he's getting it done!
He is, of course, as predictable as ever... and so anyone wandering close to the lab will be alerted to his presence by listening first, seeing second:
The sounds of Neon Trees' old hit Everybody Talks wanders down the hallway, the lead singer's smooth voice accompanied by Newton's telltale vocal fry as he croons messily along; he's by no means a skillful singer, but hey, he's got the soul of a man having fun at a concert for one, ratatapping two pencils on the side of the metal table in rhythm with the drummer. His boots squeak on the linoleum floor as his bottom half moves side to side of its own accord, and he sings:]
♪ It started with a whispeeeeer, And that was when I kissed heeeeer, and then she made my lips huuuuurt! ♪
♪ I can hear the chit-chaaaat, take me to your love shaaaaack...! ♪
[He is, as always, in his own little world, and only stops to dig his hands back into the robot's body like he would any Kaiju — only this time, instead of harvesting, he's building, and that's kind of a novel idea, ain't it?]
III. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid | The Lab
[Once he's got his other projects squared away, he starts back to square one for an oldie but goodie: artificial tissue replication. Feels like so long ago that he'd even worked on anything other than extraterrestrial beings, but it'll be a good thing to work on, in case anyone on the ship's in dire need of skin grafts — he's already got a new theory when it comes to the Magical Sciences (which he's elected to name it, even if it doesn't exist where he's from) and he'd love to develop shortcuts to accelerated healing for anyone's post-surgical state.
This may very well be a stranger scene to walk into, but it's as follows:
New York Dolls quietly playing from an iPhone on 4%, a dish with a half inch by half inch square of what appears to be human tissue set off to the side, a shockingly tidy workspace where papers are properly stacked and tools are in their correct spaces, and a plate of carrots and celery that Newton is grumpily dipping into some hummus concoction and eating.
The papers he's scribbling on looks a lot like chicken scratch, but if you focus hard enough, you can pick out phrases like skin substitutes in the management of acute burn injury and cells are then encouraged to lay down matrix to produce the foundations of a tissue for transplantation and autograft and magic healing spells, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!.
Normal science stuff.]
IV. Remember What the Dormouse Said | Newt's Room → Communal Laundry Area
We've got to admit, we don't really understand the appeal.
[Newton sits in the middle of an endless expanse again, legs folded and elbows sinking into the soft flesh of his thighs. It's been easier to remember where he is in these dreams — back here again, sitting in the company of the creatures that are slowly invading his mind. He sighs tiredly, and glances up to the exact copy of him. Where he is slumped with his face in his hands, the other him is sitting eerily straight and neat, as if the beings that inhabit that body have no concept of how to naturally be human.
(Because they don't.)
Newt replies wearily:]
Of what?
Of being singular. Different minds, different goals, different beliefs.
[Newt glances up into his own eyes, which are hyper-aware and staring without blinking back at him. The pupil is so wide in other him's eyes, it's hard to see the hazy hazel corollas.]
Well, you're a bundled mess of sociopathic monstrosities, so...
We're just saying... If you were all like us, you wouldn't have had to worry about that. Not that it matters much; you'll be with us sooner than later. But imagine what sort of team the Ximilia could have been, if you were all of one mind. Different bodies, but a shared consciousness... Efficiency at its finest. You wouldn't have been left behind by your friend, because he would have been you, and you would have been him.
[Newton scoffs, disgusted. He hates how much more they've adopted right now, to sound like him. Mannerisms. Vernacular. It leaves something uncanny about the way they exist.]
... You guys didn't seem to have a problem abandoning kaiju on Earth when they failed.
[The precursors laugh, high and humored.]
Mmm. You've got the wrong idea, amigo. The kaiju are more like... detachable arms. They take part in our collective, but they're just as easy to remove for survival. Like... how lizards in your world can lose their tails to predators, in order to survive? The tail is no less important, but it isn't the brain or the heart. It isn't a necessity. It's expendable, in a very noble way.
Sounds fucked up, if you ask me.
That's what you are to them, Newt. That's what you are to Viveca and the faceless crew of this place. A tail. A detachable tail. We warned you, remember? We told you.
[Rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, he grumbles:]
Can you stop looking like me? Just go back to looking like big creepy monsters again.
[Something flickers in their eyes. Judgement. He's always hated judgement; people loved to heap it on him growing up. Heap it on him after, if they felt as bold. After he got old enough to really defend himself, he was a snapping turtle, ready to take their fingers if they pointed at him with any kind of castigation. The precursors — other him — they look at him keenly, and he feels his hackles rise.]
Ah, yes... The man with monsters covering his skin thinks he can't be a monster, too. You've seen the way people look at you. You've dedicated your life's work to monsters, fawned over their innards, guilted your poor lab partner to drift in their hivemind with you, and yet you can't bear the thought of being one.
[He feels something crawling beneath the epidermis of his arms and chest. And as he looks down, he watches with growing panic as the kaiju there push out against his skin like creatures trapped in a net, writhing and gnashing their teeth, ripping through and growing and growing — ]
But look at you; if you're not a monster, why are they in your head?
Maybe you're the one who should be looking like us.
[And it's only when the largest tattoo on his chest rips free of his flesh that he screams —
Newton sits up sharply in his bed, blood pouring from his nostril before his hands can move up and cup around his nose. He's quivering as he looks himself over, eyes every tattoo on his skin with paranoia; the inked faces on his flesh don't move. There has to be some trophy won here, though, because he doesn't just leap out of bed and race out of the room like his sweat pants are on fire. He just sits there in the dark until breathing feels like it should again, remembering nothing once more — except for the distinct memory of Kaiju bursting from his body, which leaves him shuddering at the thought. He wipes his red hand off on his covers for a moment before he drags himself up out of bed, pops four aspirin and washes his face up.
Then he begrudgingly collects his pillowcase and bedsheet, stained with a rust-brown stain from months ago and a newly bled stain from tonnight, and he bundles them up, slipping on his tank top and using the quiet of later hours to sneak out of his sleeping quarters and into the common living area. His feet carry him quickly to the laundry area where clothes can be properly washed and he grabs the bleach, opens the washing machine —
And looks up owlishly when he hears footsteps, holding blankets that look like they belong to a crime scene against his chest.
After a long pause, he says — ]
Uuh. I started my period?
V. Wildcard | pɹɐɔplᴉM
[Got something for the remainder of October that isn't in the above prompts? Hit me up via PM or via plurk!]
LOCATION: Around the Ximilia
DATE: The rest of October catch-all!
CONTENT: Newton exists in October, doing Newton things.
WARNINGS: mostly just alien possession and dream invasion in prompt IV! will add more if needed
I. Kiss With a Fist | Closed to Rosinante
[It takes Newton a ridiculous amount of self-control not to find and explode at Rosinante before the dust even clears in the teleportation room; he's tired and feels sick as hell on return, but for one stupid, Newtonian moment, he sees a glimpse of him skulking around the place (he's not hard to notice, towering over everyone else) and feels his blood go hotter. It's like those times he'd get heated in a dive bar, quick to bark and quicker to get knocked on his ass, but it's a compulsion he hadn't quite mastered in his time alive.
Only this time, people are hurt and exhausted, him admittedly included, so he bides his time in an infirmary first. It's much later in the day (if it is, in fact, a day; time in space is atrocious to keep track of) that he notices Rosinante walking along the hall Newt had just turned onto himself. The sight of his extremely broad back brings the fiery temperament and outrage to the forefront again, and he thinks: well, if I get the shit kicked out of me here, at least I'll have made my peace.
His scraped up hands clench shut in offense and he walks briskly, quietly, teeth gritted behind his lips.
And then — ]
Hey, Rosi.
[Before the ever-so-tall Rosinante turns to his voice, Newt rears back a fist —
And when the pirate turns in full, Newton slams that fist as hard as he can into the man's groin.]
II. Lust for Life | The Lab
[After Sabriel's kind enough to help with his injuries, he makes a point to take it easy for the first few days. His ribs are still super sore, but he feels better and better, more prepared than ever to get back to the projects that had to be left on pause while he was gone for two months. It's been nearly four months, hasn't it? Since they'd woken up on this ship. Five months for some others. Anyway... All play and no work makes Newton a needy bastard just as much as the opposite, so he gets to it.
First on the agenda: finish Viveca's hovering robo-body, which is currently close to being done. The arms have been attached, and now the backside of the robot is opened up, wires spilling out and leaving a great tangle of work around a motherboard. The area is a bit cluttered and different to parse with one's eyes, but... he's getting it done!
He is, of course, as predictable as ever... and so anyone wandering close to the lab will be alerted to his presence by listening first, seeing second:
The sounds of Neon Trees' old hit Everybody Talks wanders down the hallway, the lead singer's smooth voice accompanied by Newton's telltale vocal fry as he croons messily along; he's by no means a skillful singer, but hey, he's got the soul of a man having fun at a concert for one, ratatapping two pencils on the side of the metal table in rhythm with the drummer. His boots squeak on the linoleum floor as his bottom half moves side to side of its own accord, and he sings:]
♪ It started with a whispeeeeer, And that was when I kissed heeeeer, and then she made my lips huuuuurt! ♪
♪ I can hear the chit-chaaaat, take me to your love shaaaaack...! ♪
[He is, as always, in his own little world, and only stops to dig his hands back into the robot's body like he would any Kaiju — only this time, instead of harvesting, he's building, and that's kind of a novel idea, ain't it?]
III. You're Gonna Go Far, Kid | The Lab
[Once he's got his other projects squared away, he starts back to square one for an oldie but goodie: artificial tissue replication. Feels like so long ago that he'd even worked on anything other than extraterrestrial beings, but it'll be a good thing to work on, in case anyone on the ship's in dire need of skin grafts — he's already got a new theory when it comes to the Magical Sciences (which he's elected to name it, even if it doesn't exist where he's from) and he'd love to develop shortcuts to accelerated healing for anyone's post-surgical state.
This may very well be a stranger scene to walk into, but it's as follows:
New York Dolls quietly playing from an iPhone on 4%, a dish with a half inch by half inch square of what appears to be human tissue set off to the side, a shockingly tidy workspace where papers are properly stacked and tools are in their correct spaces, and a plate of carrots and celery that Newton is grumpily dipping into some hummus concoction and eating.
The papers he's scribbling on looks a lot like chicken scratch, but if you focus hard enough, you can pick out phrases like skin substitutes in the management of acute burn injury and cells are then encouraged to lay down matrix to produce the foundations of a tissue for transplantation and autograft and magic healing spells, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!.
Normal science stuff.]
IV. Remember What the Dormouse Said | Newt's Room → Communal Laundry Area
We've got to admit, we don't really understand the appeal.
[Newton sits in the middle of an endless expanse again, legs folded and elbows sinking into the soft flesh of his thighs. It's been easier to remember where he is in these dreams — back here again, sitting in the company of the creatures that are slowly invading his mind. He sighs tiredly, and glances up to the exact copy of him. Where he is slumped with his face in his hands, the other him is sitting eerily straight and neat, as if the beings that inhabit that body have no concept of how to naturally be human.
(Because they don't.)
Newt replies wearily:]
Of what?
Of being singular. Different minds, different goals, different beliefs.
[Newt glances up into his own eyes, which are hyper-aware and staring without blinking back at him. The pupil is so wide in other him's eyes, it's hard to see the hazy hazel corollas.]
Well, you're a bundled mess of sociopathic monstrosities, so...
We're just saying... If you were all like us, you wouldn't have had to worry about that. Not that it matters much; you'll be with us sooner than later. But imagine what sort of team the Ximilia could have been, if you were all of one mind. Different bodies, but a shared consciousness... Efficiency at its finest. You wouldn't have been left behind by your friend, because he would have been you, and you would have been him.
[Newton scoffs, disgusted. He hates how much more they've adopted right now, to sound like him. Mannerisms. Vernacular. It leaves something uncanny about the way they exist.]
... You guys didn't seem to have a problem abandoning kaiju on Earth when they failed.
[The precursors laugh, high and humored.]
Mmm. You've got the wrong idea, amigo. The kaiju are more like... detachable arms. They take part in our collective, but they're just as easy to remove for survival. Like... how lizards in your world can lose their tails to predators, in order to survive? The tail is no less important, but it isn't the brain or the heart. It isn't a necessity. It's expendable, in a very noble way.
Sounds fucked up, if you ask me.
That's what you are to them, Newt. That's what you are to Viveca and the faceless crew of this place. A tail. A detachable tail. We warned you, remember? We told you.
[Rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, he grumbles:]
Can you stop looking like me? Just go back to looking like big creepy monsters again.
[Something flickers in their eyes. Judgement. He's always hated judgement; people loved to heap it on him growing up. Heap it on him after, if they felt as bold. After he got old enough to really defend himself, he was a snapping turtle, ready to take their fingers if they pointed at him with any kind of castigation. The precursors — other him — they look at him keenly, and he feels his hackles rise.]
Ah, yes... The man with monsters covering his skin thinks he can't be a monster, too. You've seen the way people look at you. You've dedicated your life's work to monsters, fawned over their innards, guilted your poor lab partner to drift in their hivemind with you, and yet you can't bear the thought of being one.
[He feels something crawling beneath the epidermis of his arms and chest. And as he looks down, he watches with growing panic as the kaiju there push out against his skin like creatures trapped in a net, writhing and gnashing their teeth, ripping through and growing and growing — ]
But look at you; if you're not a monster, why are they in your head?
Maybe you're the one who should be looking like us.
[And it's only when the largest tattoo on his chest rips free of his flesh that he screams —
Newton sits up sharply in his bed, blood pouring from his nostril before his hands can move up and cup around his nose. He's quivering as he looks himself over, eyes every tattoo on his skin with paranoia; the inked faces on his flesh don't move. There has to be some trophy won here, though, because he doesn't just leap out of bed and race out of the room like his sweat pants are on fire. He just sits there in the dark until breathing feels like it should again, remembering nothing once more — except for the distinct memory of Kaiju bursting from his body, which leaves him shuddering at the thought. He wipes his red hand off on his covers for a moment before he drags himself up out of bed, pops four aspirin and washes his face up.
Then he begrudgingly collects his pillowcase and bedsheet, stained with a rust-brown stain from months ago and a newly bled stain from tonnight, and he bundles them up, slipping on his tank top and using the quiet of later hours to sneak out of his sleeping quarters and into the common living area. His feet carry him quickly to the laundry area where clothes can be properly washed and he grabs the bleach, opens the washing machine —
And looks up owlishly when he hears footsteps, holding blankets that look like they belong to a crime scene against his chest.
After a long pause, he says — ]
Uuh. I started my period?
V. Wildcard | pɹɐɔplᴉM
[Got something for the remainder of October that isn't in the above prompts? Hit me up via PM or via plurk!]
no subject
Breakdowns could happen to everyone under stress, they're nothing to be ashamed of. They can be helpful too, because they point towards an issue that needs to be addressed, Newton.
no subject
Yeah? Well, I've got no reason to have a breakdown, so we're good. No issues here.
[As he says that, blood drips out of his nose again.
Because of course it does.]
no subject
Newton, come on...don't act like Hermann.
[ YES, HE WENT THERE. ]
no subject
If a human could bristle like a feral cat, it's right now in this moment.
With a huff, he starts stomping off.]
I'm going back to bed!
[Yes, like an offended teenager going to his room.]
no subject
To what? To try to sleep in a bed without sheets?
[ Peter raised a teenager tree, or tried, he's seen worse tantrums. So he follows Newt outside, a moment later complaining under his breath about the station's cold floors on his bare feet. ]
no subject
Don't be an amateur!
[He's huffin' and puffin' as he walks.]
Stop following me, dad. And wash your hands! It's so unsanitary to touch someone else's blood!
[... Sure, he's touched blood before without gloves, but still. One time it gave him some first degree burns!]
no subject
[ Says the guy who sleep on prison floors before. Peter does concede the point about the blood, though, and carelessly wipes his hands on his sweatpants. He storms after Newt, undeterred. ]
I'd let you know I'd be a great dad! I raised a baby tree before and...well fine, he knows more swears than actual words but still. He grew up just fine!
[ Except for that one time that Groot died when Thanos dusted half the galaxy. Gods, Peter is bad at this.
They're going to end waking up the whole station if they keep this up. ]
no subject
[Ugh, his head hurts. This stupid. Throbbing. Headache!]
What do you want from me?! To say that I'm having a mental breakdown?
What'll get you to stop hounding me?
no subject
[ Peter is horrified, and probably also not thinking all that clearly due to the lack of sleep, or he might have realized Newt was talking about normal plants and not the sentient, talking kind. ]
I'm 38! Or maybe 43...,if we count the years I was dead...do we count those? Anyway!, NO! I want you to admit that something might be wrong, so we can start finding ways to help you fix it. People cares about you, a-hole!
no subject
[He says like the Guardians of the Galaxy would ever actually visit a Home Depot on Earth. Well, wait, maybe? They will? Home Depots can be super helpful...! Anyway, he's still making a beeline for his room. Wait, what is Peter mumbling about? He spaced out thinking about the alleged raccoon friend destroying every hardware store on earth-]
People care, cool cool cool! I don't need them to worry, though! Caring is cool, worrying is not, so cut that out, huh?! Nothing's wrong! I'm perfectly well! Never been more well in my fucking life! And there's not even any ADHD medication involved! So drop it!
[He's just gonna slip through his door and try closing it behind him as he rants.
Watch your fingers, Pete.]
no subject
[ There might be space!Home Depots out there in the galaxy, or the alien equivalent, who can tell. It's a big place. Peter's frowning the longer Newt's rant goes on, and he does try to make a grab for the man before he sneaks into his room again, but alas, he's not fast enough. He has enough experience with the sort of doors used in spaceships to know he doesn't want to put his fingers anywhere where they can be crushed. And so, after a second, he ends starting at a closed-door, grumping in annoyance. He's also banging on said door with every word he yells. ]
You! Can't!Lie!To!Yourself!Forever!Newton!..Ouch,owww...oh, fuck.
[ Okay banging on a metal door maybe is not the best strategy if one doesn't want to hurt their hand. As Peter just learned the hard way. ] Fine! be that way...