Sparkles

Sparkles
(Parental Instinct: Two)
4th quarter, 2017
Anchorage, AK, United States
Chuck Hansen's day has been absolutely, positively horrible.
To start with, his supposed friend Mako succeeded in coating his hair with some sort of pink glitter that none of his efforts have budged in the least. The cherry on top of his shit sundae is he is due back at the Jaeger academy in less than an hour. His classmates will try to kick his ass if he shows up looking like this. It's tough enough being the youngest and
shortest student and having a damn legend for a dad. So Chuck makes the executive decision to go AWOL until he can get the hair emergency sorted.
Right.
Chuck looks for a quiet place to hide and miss the shuttle back across the island from the proving ground to the Academy. As he runs, he wishes, for the first and certainly not the last time, he could kick Mako's ass. He darts down abandoned corridors, checking after each corner for pursuers. Chuck generally prefers to get in people's faces when there's a problem, but it doesn't mean he can't be sneaky when he needs to be.
He finally picks a door at random after going at least five minutes without seeing another human being and slips inside. After waiting a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark, he examines the space and comes to the conclusion he's found a small classroom. One wall is completely covered with—what were they called again?—blackboards.
Chuck dives behind the biggest desk in the room as a door opens in the opposite wall, spilling light across the floor. He can't get a good look at the guy who walks in, but sees and hears enough to know his steps are slow and uneven. Not a Ranger, then.
“Excuse me? May I help you?” the man calls in a no-nonsense, British-accented voice while looking directly at Chuck's hiding place. The newcomer flips on the lights.
How the hell did he see me in the dark? Chuck wonders. Still, Chuck needs this guy on his side, so he goes for polite. He stands up and does his best to look apologetic. “Sorry for barging in, sir,” he says, “I was ... .”
“Looking for a place to hide?” The man's voice has changed quite a bit. He sounds friendly now and maybe a little amused.
“Well, I certainly can understand why, cadet,” he says. “You can't rejoin your comrades in your current state.”
Chuck searches the man's words for sarcasm and finds none. If he wasn't so suspicious, he'd swear the guy sounds like he understands what he's feeling. It's confusing as hell. Adults definitely don't understand Chuck and they're almost never friendly to him.
The man sees Chuck's confusion and explains, “I have an older sister and suffered a similarly sparkly indignity several times.” He gives Chuck a sympathetic smile. “I may be able to undo the damage if you're willing to let me try.”
“Really?” Chuck's traitorous voice cracks with hope and he scowls at himself.
“Really,” the man affirms. “There's a sink in the next room that will serve our purposes, if you'd care to step this way.” He gestures toward the door through which he entered the room. Chuck goes.
The room turns out to be a small kitchen. The man tells Chuck to take a seat, excuses himself, and steps out another door. He returns a few minutes later with a pair of bottles and a couple of bath towels. Chuck gives the guy credit for how easily he carries the unwieldy while relying on a cane to walk.
“Oh. I've been terribly rude,” the man says. “I'm Doctor Gottlieb. You are ... ?”
“Chuck Hansen.”
“I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Cadet Hansen.” Hermann offers his hand and Chucks shakes it. “This stuff smells terrible,” Hermann says as he picks up one of the bottles, “but it will loosen the glitter's hold. Then we'll use shampoo to get rid of it and the smell.” Chuck understands and nods. “Let's get started, then.”
Hermann wets Chuck's hair at the sink and then ... massages
in the bad-smelling gel, carefully coating all of Chuck's short hair. It surprises Chuck how gentle the man is and how good it feels. It kind of reminds him of how his mum used to wash his hair when he was tiny. But he's not going to think about that.
“We have to leave that in place for a while to loosen the adhesive,” Hermann says.
Chuck studies his potential savior and decides he needs to know more about him. “You're not a soldier or an academy teacher or a regular tech. What do you do here?” he asks.
“Beside rescuing cadets from pranks, you mean?” Hermann responds with a smile. “I'm in charge of the Kaiju Science division's physics section. I also help the J-Tech software developers with coding.”
A memory finally clicks into place in Chuck's brain. “You're the Doctor Gottlieb who wrote the Mark I OS!” His face falls. “So you've worked with my old man.”
Hermann nods.
“Why haven't you mentioned him yet?”
The man looks genuinely confused. “Why would I mention him? The only Hansen I'm interested in right now is you. Your father has no place in our conversation unless you want to give him one.”
“Oh,” Chuck says while he tries to process Hermann's statement. He can think of nothing further to say so they sit in relatively easy silence, Hermann scribbling something on a scrap of paper. Chuck, meanwhile, tries to get over how weird his interaction with the doctor has been. He's not acting like any of the other adults Chuck has dealt with lately and it's throwing the boy off.
A few minutes pass and Hermann runs his hand over Chuck's hair and pulls back a palm covered in sparkles. “I believe the
gel has done its job. Over to the sink for a rinse, Cadet Hansen.”
Rinse. Shampoo. Rinse. Chuck relaxes again under the gentle touch, watching the glitter swirl down the drain, but since he has his pride insists on toweling his hair dry himself.
“Let's get a look at you.” Hermann studies Chuck from multiple angles. “Yes, you look like a proper Academy student again. If I'm not mistaken, you still have enough time to catch the shuttle to the dorms if you run.”
Chuck glances at his watch and goggles. “R-right. Thanks, Doctor.”
“Go on! Run! You don't want to be stuck on this base with whomever did that to you, do you?”
“No, sir!” Chuck spins and sprints the way he originally came.
His old man said Doctor Gottlieb was a real pain in the arse, stuck up and a know-it-all, but the guy seems nice enough to Chuck. And he treated Chuck like his own man, which is worth a hell of a lot more than his dad's opinion any day.
Category:Ficlet
Category:Pages in need of tags
Category:Parental Instinct storyline