(fic) a tin of plastic dinosaurs
Title: a tin of plastic dinosaurs
Fandom: Pacific Rim
Author: cattiechaos/stormingthecastle on tumblr/omnia-sol on ao3 (phew, that's a lot!)
Summary: kid!fic with Newt and Hermann as precocious first graders who argue over plastic dinosaurs and the merits of mathematics.
Notes: Written for the Jaegercon gift exchange on tumblr for eggwish! Please enjoy! * g *
+ + +
It starts with a tin of plastic dinosaurs, some juice boxes, and the first day of grade school.
Hermann has always prided himself on his maturity, but even his dignity can’t keep him from clinging to his mother’s leg when she tries to drop him off at his new classroom. They are greeted by a man wearing suspenders and a bow tie who looks nothing like what Hermann imagines a teacher to look like, but he smiles kindly and kneels down to say, “hello Hermann, why don’t I take you to your seat?”
Hermann’s mother takes that opportunity to (gently, but firmly) pry him off her leg. “Auf Wiedersehen Mäuschen,” his mother says, leaning down to give him one last hug. He squeezes her tightly until he feels brave enough to let go, and then he follows the man - Mr. Choi - to his seat. He desperately wishes he were home - and not their new home in San Francisco, but their old house in Bavaria that lay in the shadows of the Wetterstein mountains, near the Austrian border. The classroom is filled with a dozen other children who are much too loud and untidy for his liking, and he dearly wishes he had brought his Carl Sagan book with him so he didn’t feel quite so vulnerable.
There is a boy sitting at the desk next to his - Chuck Hansen, the name placard reads - and Hermann remembers what his older brothers taught him about how to make friends, even if the prospect is more daunting than the thought of splitting an atom.
The boy is ginger-haired and freckled and clutches a bulldog plushie in one hand, scowling.
Undeterred, Herman attempts a smile. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Hermann.”
The boy glares at him. “Go away,” he growls, squeezing his bulldog plushie tighter as if he’s suspicious Hermann’s going to steal it.
Yes, Hermann’s quite sure he’ll stick to his mathematics and science, thank you very much.
+ + +
Hermann has never really understood people; numbers are so much easier to get his head around. They are reliable; they behave in predictable patterns. The hallowed rules of mathematics are not subject to fanciful whims, and Hermann takes comfort in their constancy and stability.
His father understands. He is Dr. Lars Gottlieb when he’s in the field, but at home he’s just the one who teaches Hermann the beauty and poetry of mathematics: abstract concepts and mathematical constants like pi, whose infinite digits spiral onward for infinity, never once repeating.
Meanwhile, Mr. Choi is wrestling a laughing, messy-haired kid down from the bookshelf as two other children run circles around his polished loafers.
“Everyone gather around!” he calls eventually, rather breathless as he wrestles the laughing child back down onto solid ground. “Sit in a circle, please!”
They end up sitting in a shape that resembles a concave polygon more than anything, but Hermann supposes it’ll have to do.
“Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves?” Mr. Choi suggests brightly, sounding much too chipper for someone that has just spent the last five minutes chasing a small child around the room. “Hermann, would you like to start? Just tell us a little bit about yourself.”
Hermann freezes. “I...I’m Hermann,” he stammers out finally, trying to keep himself from shaking. He doesn’t know what to say about himself. Oh dear, why did Mr. Choi have to start with him? He goes with the first thing on his mind: “I want to be a mathematician when I grow up.”
“Mathematician? What’s that?” someone immediately blurts, and Hermann feels himself blush. He looks pleadingly at Mr. Choi for rescue, but he only nods encouragingly.
“They solve math problems,” Hermann explains finally. “Like Archimedes and Isaac Newton.”
“Hey, my name’s Newton too!” another kid pipes up, and Hermann recognises him as the wild-haired one that Mr. Choi had been chasing around the room. “But I hate math,” he adds, and before Hermann even thinks about what he’s saying, he argues back, “The truth of the universe can be found in numbers. My dad says politics and poetry are all lies, but numbers are the handwriting of God!”
Dead silence.
The impact of what he’s done dawns on him, and Hermann is very much tempted to say the impolite word his older brother taught him, the one he’s not supposed to say.
Scheiße.
Hermann dearly wishes there were a mathematical equation that could bend the laws of physics and allow him to sink into the floor.
+ + +
By the time everyone’s introduced themselves, Hermann can pretend his embarrassing outburst is a figment of his imagination. He learns about the other children as well - there’s a boy named Raleigh who has floppy hair and wears a lumpy blue sweater and reminds Hermann of a golden retriever puppy that wants to be Godzilla when he grows up, and a soft-spoken girl with bright red shoes that nevertheless tells everyone she’s going to be a swordmaker like her entire family has been for generations. The boy who said he didn’t like math - Newton - announces proudly that he’s going to be a rockstar biologist.
Mr. Choi looks amused, to say the least. He praises them for their creativity and to Hermann’s relief, tells them that they may go outside for recess, and that there are juice boxes in the cooler if anyone would like a snack. Everyone immediately makes a mad dash for the door, but Hermann doesn’t want to play tag or climb the monkey bars. Instead he finds a little red table and bench beneath the shade of a tree, and he can almost pretend he’s in his back in his yard in Bavaria. Raleigh trots over and invites him to play Red Rover with Mako and some other kids, but Hermann shakes his head and plays with the miniature dinosaur figurines he finds in the toy chest. There are even some model horses to go with the dinosaurs, and he thinks, well, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
And of course, because the universe hates him, Newton just has to wander over and ask if he can play with the dinosaurs too. There is dirt on his face and his glasses are crooked; Hermann is thoroughly unimpressed. Besides, he’s been arranging a nice little habitat for his dinosaurs and horses and he doesn’t want Newton to come in and ruin it all.
“Aw, come on, sharing is caring!” Newton protests, and Hermann resists the urge to roll his eyes (his vati tells him that six years old is too young for him to be rolling his eyes).
“If you take my dinosaurs, you’d throw off the Lotka-Volterra equation,” Hermann says instead, although he doubts that Newton, the self-professed hater of mathematics, would understand.
Predictably, the boy stares at him. “What’s that?” he asks.
Hermann draws himself up with great dignity, delighted that someone other than his parents are actually listening to his spiels. “It’s a differential equation that describes how two species interact in order to survive. These,” he says, gesturing to the dinosaurs, “are the predators - there are 20 of them - and the 15 horses are the prey. In order for both species to survive, their relationship has to be in equilibrium. If the dinosaurs eat all the horses, then they’ll starve and die. But if there’s a shortage of dinosaurs - for example, if you took them - then the horses will overpopulate. Therefore,” he finishes solemnly, “if you take my dinosaurs you are ruining the equilibrium and therefore breaking one of the fundamental laws of nature.”
Silence descends.
“Okay,” Newt says finally, shaking the hair out of his eyes, “but you know that dinosaurs never ate horses, right? They lived in the Triassic period 231 million years ago, and horses, or Equus, have only been around for 55 million years.”
The two stare at each other for a few moments, regarding each other with equal parts suspicion and - although they would never admit it - admiration. They had both since long given up on making friends their age who would understand what they were passionate about, so they had given up - Hermann by retreating into books, Newton by wreaking havoc on the classroom that was too small to contain his imagination. For all Newton had said about disliking mathematics, Hermann knew then that he was facing what his mother would call a kindred spirit.
Then, Newt grins at Hermann like he is the best thing in the world. “Wanna go get juice boxes?” he offers.
And even Hermann, socially awkward six-year-old that he is, still knows an invitation to friendship when he sees one. “Sure,” he agrees, holding out his hand. “My name is Hermann Gottlieb.”
“I know,” the other boy grins. “And you know I’m Newton, but my friends call me Newt!”
Friends.
Hermann quite likes the sound of that.
end.
Fandom: Pacific Rim
Author: cattiechaos/stormingthecastle on tumblr/omnia-sol on ao3 (phew, that's a lot!)
Summary: kid!fic with Newt and Hermann as precocious first graders who argue over plastic dinosaurs and the merits of mathematics.
Notes: Written for the Jaegercon gift exchange on tumblr for eggwish! Please enjoy! * g *
+ + +
It starts with a tin of plastic dinosaurs, some juice boxes, and the first day of grade school.
Hermann has always prided himself on his maturity, but even his dignity can’t keep him from clinging to his mother’s leg when she tries to drop him off at his new classroom. They are greeted by a man wearing suspenders and a bow tie who looks nothing like what Hermann imagines a teacher to look like, but he smiles kindly and kneels down to say, “hello Hermann, why don’t I take you to your seat?”
Hermann’s mother takes that opportunity to (gently, but firmly) pry him off her leg. “Auf Wiedersehen Mäuschen,” his mother says, leaning down to give him one last hug. He squeezes her tightly until he feels brave enough to let go, and then he follows the man - Mr. Choi - to his seat. He desperately wishes he were home - and not their new home in San Francisco, but their old house in Bavaria that lay in the shadows of the Wetterstein mountains, near the Austrian border. The classroom is filled with a dozen other children who are much too loud and untidy for his liking, and he dearly wishes he had brought his Carl Sagan book with him so he didn’t feel quite so vulnerable.
There is a boy sitting at the desk next to his - Chuck Hansen, the name placard reads - and Hermann remembers what his older brothers taught him about how to make friends, even if the prospect is more daunting than the thought of splitting an atom.
The boy is ginger-haired and freckled and clutches a bulldog plushie in one hand, scowling.
Undeterred, Herman attempts a smile. “Hello,” he says. “I’m Hermann.”
The boy glares at him. “Go away,” he growls, squeezing his bulldog plushie tighter as if he’s suspicious Hermann’s going to steal it.
Yes, Hermann’s quite sure he’ll stick to his mathematics and science, thank you very much.
+ + +
Hermann has never really understood people; numbers are so much easier to get his head around. They are reliable; they behave in predictable patterns. The hallowed rules of mathematics are not subject to fanciful whims, and Hermann takes comfort in their constancy and stability.
His father understands. He is Dr. Lars Gottlieb when he’s in the field, but at home he’s just the one who teaches Hermann the beauty and poetry of mathematics: abstract concepts and mathematical constants like pi, whose infinite digits spiral onward for infinity, never once repeating.
Meanwhile, Mr. Choi is wrestling a laughing, messy-haired kid down from the bookshelf as two other children run circles around his polished loafers.
“Everyone gather around!” he calls eventually, rather breathless as he wrestles the laughing child back down onto solid ground. “Sit in a circle, please!”
They end up sitting in a shape that resembles a concave polygon more than anything, but Hermann supposes it’ll have to do.
“Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves?” Mr. Choi suggests brightly, sounding much too chipper for someone that has just spent the last five minutes chasing a small child around the room. “Hermann, would you like to start? Just tell us a little bit about yourself.”
Hermann freezes. “I...I’m Hermann,” he stammers out finally, trying to keep himself from shaking. He doesn’t know what to say about himself. Oh dear, why did Mr. Choi have to start with him? He goes with the first thing on his mind: “I want to be a mathematician when I grow up.”
“Mathematician? What’s that?” someone immediately blurts, and Hermann feels himself blush. He looks pleadingly at Mr. Choi for rescue, but he only nods encouragingly.
“They solve math problems,” Hermann explains finally. “Like Archimedes and Isaac Newton.”
“Hey, my name’s Newton too!” another kid pipes up, and Hermann recognises him as the wild-haired one that Mr. Choi had been chasing around the room. “But I hate math,” he adds, and before Hermann even thinks about what he’s saying, he argues back, “The truth of the universe can be found in numbers. My dad says politics and poetry are all lies, but numbers are the handwriting of God!”
Dead silence.
The impact of what he’s done dawns on him, and Hermann is very much tempted to say the impolite word his older brother taught him, the one he’s not supposed to say.
Scheiße.
Hermann dearly wishes there were a mathematical equation that could bend the laws of physics and allow him to sink into the floor.
+ + +
By the time everyone’s introduced themselves, Hermann can pretend his embarrassing outburst is a figment of his imagination. He learns about the other children as well - there’s a boy named Raleigh who has floppy hair and wears a lumpy blue sweater and reminds Hermann of a golden retriever puppy that wants to be Godzilla when he grows up, and a soft-spoken girl with bright red shoes that nevertheless tells everyone she’s going to be a swordmaker like her entire family has been for generations. The boy who said he didn’t like math - Newton - announces proudly that he’s going to be a rockstar biologist.
Mr. Choi looks amused, to say the least. He praises them for their creativity and to Hermann’s relief, tells them that they may go outside for recess, and that there are juice boxes in the cooler if anyone would like a snack. Everyone immediately makes a mad dash for the door, but Hermann doesn’t want to play tag or climb the monkey bars. Instead he finds a little red table and bench beneath the shade of a tree, and he can almost pretend he’s in his back in his yard in Bavaria. Raleigh trots over and invites him to play Red Rover with Mako and some other kids, but Hermann shakes his head and plays with the miniature dinosaur figurines he finds in the toy chest. There are even some model horses to go with the dinosaurs, and he thinks, well, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
And of course, because the universe hates him, Newton just has to wander over and ask if he can play with the dinosaurs too. There is dirt on his face and his glasses are crooked; Hermann is thoroughly unimpressed. Besides, he’s been arranging a nice little habitat for his dinosaurs and horses and he doesn’t want Newton to come in and ruin it all.
“Aw, come on, sharing is caring!” Newton protests, and Hermann resists the urge to roll his eyes (his vati tells him that six years old is too young for him to be rolling his eyes).
“If you take my dinosaurs, you’d throw off the Lotka-Volterra equation,” Hermann says instead, although he doubts that Newton, the self-professed hater of mathematics, would understand.
Predictably, the boy stares at him. “What’s that?” he asks.
Hermann draws himself up with great dignity, delighted that someone other than his parents are actually listening to his spiels. “It’s a differential equation that describes how two species interact in order to survive. These,” he says, gesturing to the dinosaurs, “are the predators - there are 20 of them - and the 15 horses are the prey. In order for both species to survive, their relationship has to be in equilibrium. If the dinosaurs eat all the horses, then they’ll starve and die. But if there’s a shortage of dinosaurs - for example, if you took them - then the horses will overpopulate. Therefore,” he finishes solemnly, “if you take my dinosaurs you are ruining the equilibrium and therefore breaking one of the fundamental laws of nature.”
Silence descends.
“Okay,” Newt says finally, shaking the hair out of his eyes, “but you know that dinosaurs never ate horses, right? They lived in the Triassic period 231 million years ago, and horses, or Equus, have only been around for 55 million years.”
The two stare at each other for a few moments, regarding each other with equal parts suspicion and - although they would never admit it - admiration. They had both since long given up on making friends their age who would understand what they were passionate about, so they had given up - Hermann by retreating into books, Newton by wreaking havoc on the classroom that was too small to contain his imagination. For all Newton had said about disliking mathematics, Hermann knew then that he was facing what his mother would call a kindred spirit.
Then, Newt grins at Hermann like he is the best thing in the world. “Wanna go get juice boxes?” he offers.
And even Hermann, socially awkward six-year-old that he is, still knows an invitation to friendship when he sees one. “Sure,” he agrees, holding out his hand. “My name is Hermann Gottlieb.”
“I know,” the other boy grins. “And you know I’m Newton, but my friends call me Newt!”
Friends.
Hermann quite likes the sound of that.
end.