#pendragoff

newt leans back in his chair as he crumples up his piece of scrap paper. he aims for the garbage can that rests on the yellow line down the middle of the lab, shoots, and scores. he lets out a cheer and throws him arms in the air, only to hear hermann scoff moments later from his own desk.

“what?” newt says, because he’s bored, and he suspects hermann is too. “like you’re such an athlete.”

“i’m a mathematician, newton,” hermann replies in a tone of voice that’s meant to suggest he’s only giving partial attention. “half of earning a degree in maths is competitions in calculating trick shots. not that what you just did what a trick shot by any means.”

newt stares for a long minute, not sure if hermann is messing with him.

“prove it,” he says, and before the second word is even out of his mouth, hermann balls of a piece of paper and throws it into the garbage can without looking.

newt’s mouth drops open, but he closes it again quickly before hermann can see, not that hermann has looked in his direction since this conversation began.

“i’m not going to play HORSE with you,” hermann says, and there’s amusement in his tone now, so newt crumples up two more pieces of paper to add a little weight and control, and then chucks them across the lab.

they hit hermann on the shoulder, which is pretty satisfying even though he was aiming for his head. hermann sighs and puts down his pencil and finally looks up at newt.

“what will convince you that i’m telling you the truth and to let me go back to work?” he asks. “non-dominant hand? eyes closed? from the top of the ladder?”

“yes,” newt says, and hermann’s eyebrows rise. “i know you didn’t mean all of those combined but yes.”

hermann rolls his eyes, but he stands up and grabs his cane and some paper. newt’s pretty sure there’s some kind of satisfaction in his expression, though, because really newt is goading him into showing off, isn’t he.

“what happens if you miss?” newt asks. “what do i get?”

“you get to annoy me without complaint for the next hour,” hermann says as he climbs his ladder. “but i’m going to make it and you’re going to leave me alone.”

newt scoffs loudly.

“the probability of you making this shot is zero, but you go ahead,” he says, because he wants to see hermann seethe.

“taunting me with inaccurate terminology and hyperbole isn’t going to throw me off,” hermann says, though newt can tell his jaw is clenched.

“hyperbole?” newt asks as hermann takes aim, closing his eyes. “isn’t that that one type of graph?”

“shut up,” hermann says calmly, and then he throws the balled up paper, and then his eyes fly open as newt kicks the garbage can to the side so that the paper doesn’t land in it.

“you didn’t establish any parameters,” newt says, shrugging and grinning.

15. singing headcanon

you’ll never catch hermann belting out a tune like newt, but he will often hum or sing softly underneath his breath. he often does this while carding his fingers through newt’s hair, and newt falls in love with him a little more each time

Fingertips smudged in blue ink

Hermann is not nearly as neat as he thinks he is. He might be a lot neater than Newt, sure, but he’s not totally put-together and perfect. For one, as professional as he wants his image to be, his clothing can often look messy as a result of not fitting properly, begging to be readjusted. And another thing - he always leaves half-drained, cold mugs of tea around the lab, sometimes on Newt’s side, and seems to have no idea that they’re his after the fact.

And the most persistent one - he’s always covered in whatever he was writing in. Chalk dust settled into his hair, streaking up his sleeves, absolutely coating his hands like he’s a gymnast or something. When he works with paper and pencil, it always ends up smudged all over his hands and sometimes, as a result, his face. It’s unbelievable; Newt doesn’t know how he manages it.

Newt’s startled when he walks into the lab one morning to find Hermann’s fingers stained with blue ink. He notices it as he sets down a mug on Hermann’s desk and glances over at his hands on the keyboard.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

oooh i listened to so much music while writing this year... ben folds and radiohead were probably the two artists i listened to the most! i also listened to my newmann playlist nonstop

15. something you learned this year

hmm.. i think i RE-learned how to just... not overthink my writing, if that makes sense? i learned to just write things i wanna write because i want to write them, and not agonize over posting them or getting x number of comments, etc. one of my fav fics i wrote this year got like 1 comment and i’m just like, it be that way! i wrote that fic for Me so who cares! it’s been a good lesson and helped me be more productive, i think

18. current number of wips

i Think just 3... i have two multi-chapter fics (but one is way on the back burner) and a one-shot in the works to post eventually. there’s probably more buried in my google drive though lmao

I fucking knew you would do this

8. the shortest fic i wrote in 2018 and posted to ao3 on its own was touch my gently, which is 818 words and i THINK the first thing i wrote that was about the first war rather than post-uprising. i still like it a lot! of all the short ones i wrote - like 2k-ish and under - it might be the one i think about the most.

17. fics i’ll continue next year - i mean, i’m in the middle of writing a secret santa fic, but that’s the only one i’m actively working on. i’m planning a continuation of when the summer’s over, because i can’t let go of newt’s shitty crafting. i also want to continue if you let me try. and of course i would love to add to the you make me think that you will change my life forever series, if i have more ideas for it.