Archive of Our Own

Hermann had been told what to look for: glasses, tattoo sleeves on both arms, looks like he raises giant carnivorous talking plants, can’t miss him. He had asked Tendo what his currently unnamed date had been told to look for, mildly suspicious; Tendo justified with how else could he describe Hermann to someone who had never met him other than that he dressed like someone’s grandfather?

He had never done this before, going out with someone he had never met, let alone someone whose name he didn't even know, and he wasn't really sure what to do with himself when he looked at his watch. He wasn’t that early, but he didn't see anyone matching the description Tendo had given him when he looked in through the restaurant’s window, wasn't sure if his mystery date would think to check inside.

He really would have liked to be able to sit down, he thought, shifting a little more weight onto his cane, but—

“Are you the grandpa I'm supposed to be looking for?”

It was a good thing he had asked Tendo about that.

He turned around, no doubt that he was the right grandpa when he saw the bright, stylized tattoos on the other man’s arms, and he did look like he raised giant carnivorous talking plants; Tendo had had to explain that one.

“How would you have expected that to go if I wasn't?”

The man grinned as he held the door open for Hermann.

“Probably really bad,” he said, looking around at the couple of people ahead of them to wait for a table. He held his right hand out, pulling it back a second later to replace with his left without pause, pleasantly unexpected; Hermann had gotten used to the awkward hesitation before handshakes when the other person didn't seem to know what to do with his cane, usually leaving him to swap which hand he held it with. “Newt.”

It must have been more of a common name than he had realized, he thought as he shook his hand, but Newt’s eyes narrowed slightly when he said, “Hermann.”

It was a date, Tendo had told him, leave the doctor.

“Hermann,” Newt repeated. “Not—not Gottlieb, right?”

It took a second for that to click.

“Geiszler,” he said, just before they both shouted at the same time, “You.”

“Excuse me,” the hostess said, but it went as unnoticed as the fact that they were the first in line by then.

“You keep tanking my fucking reviews!”

“As if you’re not tanking them yourself with that drivel—”

“That drivel,” Newt repeated, hands on his hips. “I don’t see your degrees in—”

“In what, paranormal studies? Did you go back to get that at one of those colleges that advertises on—?”

“MIT,” Newt said, not seeming to realize how much louder he had started to get until Hermann gestured towards the rest of the restaurant after a failed attempt at pointedly looking around them. “And it’s not—that’s not even a thing, like you know so much about—”

“I do, actually,” Herman interrupted. “Which you might know if you had bothered reading any of my comments.”

“I did, and they’re full of shit,” Newt said. “Just ‘cause it’s easier repeating whatever you read about than—or your math, what the hell’s that even got to do with anything—actually going out and doing your own research—”

“As if you can call that research.”

“Excuse me,” the hostess said again, ignored just as much as the last time, and neither of them noticed when she rolled her eyes and waved the next group forward.

“Your methods are questionable at best,” Hermann continued, “and your hypotheses are all obviously just what you can pretend to prove—”

“There's nothing wrong with—I can prove them—”

“Not very well if they can be disproven halfway through your prologue.”

“Did you not even—?” Newt asked, his jaw tight as he stood up straighter. “You're seriously gonna call bullshit when you haven't even read—did you even watch the—”

“I have better things to do with my time than read all the way through your clickbait papers.”

“Your time,” Newt said, holding his wrist up to look at his watch. “Got time right now unless you'd been planning on standing me up.”

“I certainly am now.”

“You know what,” Newt mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose before he continued, his glasses slightly lopsided until he pushed them back up. “I was gonna go shoot it tomorrow—”

“Not another one of those,” Hermann muttered; he had seen the videos embedded on the website for Newt’s books, and the GHOST CAUGHT ON VIDEO: NOT EDITED title had been more than enough for him to scroll past it—though not before leaving another comment—but Newt continued as if he hadn't said anything.

“But if you see anything—”

“Which I won’t.”

“You have to take those reviews down, you’re fucking with my ratings.”

“I will gladly do that,” Hermann said, turning back towards the door without either of them having to actually agree to what Newt was not-so-implicitly suggesting, “because I won’t have to take any of my reviews down.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

While Hermann had taken the bus to the restaurant that they never ended up eating at, Newt had driven, his car old and a little bit rusted in some spots, the back peppered with worn-out stickers of various cryptids and far more ghosts than could possibly be respectable.

“So you're hunting down Bigfoot as well?”

Newt snorted as he turned on the car. “Bigfoot isn't real.”

“Well,” Hermann said, “it’s not exactly easy to tell where your cutoff is for which fictional creatures you think you can find.”

“I don’t think I can find anything,” Newt said. “I already did, which you would know if you—”

“If I read further than your prologue, I know.”

“I was gonna say if you ever watched the videos, but that too.”

Hermann shook his head to himself and leaned his arm against the car door with his chin on his hand.

It hadn't really occurred to him to ask where they were going—the possibility of his failed date turning into a cautionary tale of why not to get into cars with strange conspiracy theorists hardly even crossing his mind, just look at him—until the traffic began to clear as they got farther out of the city.

Newt started to explain before he had to ask.

“This old house has got the weirdest shit going on,” he said, prodding his GPS until it found where they were again. “Like—”

“That seems awfully cliched.”

“I know, right?” Newt said, grinning at Hermann before he continued; he looked like he was practically buzzing, more than a little over the speed limit. “No one’s lived there since the ‘80s, so it’s not, like, cool-and-creepy old, but I’m pretty sure someone got murdered there, so, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“I gave it the first run-through last week,” Newt said. “I didn't get anything recorded, but the EMP meter was going nuts in one of the bedrooms, and there’s still some old stuff lying around, but I started getting hives before I could check them out enough for anything good.”

“Didn’t realize you could be allergic to ghosts.”

“You can’t be allergic to ghosts,” Newt said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Kind of a lot of poison ivy, though, it’s pretty overgrown.”

“I think I would rather find the ghosts,” Hermann muttered.

Hermann was getting stiff from sitting in the same position for longer than he would have preferred by the time they crossed another town limits sign, but the GPS had them getting to the house in only a few more minutes.

The roads started to get narrower, the car bump-bumping once Newt turned up a small hill; he parked a little ways back from a wide, squat building with splintering boards over most of the windows, one corner charred and crumbling.

“Is this it?”

“One of it,” Newt said, gesturing around as he and Hermann got out; it hadn't been easy to see at first in the dark, but there were a couple more buildings scattered around with overgrown paths between them, a small house that looked less rundown than the larger one and an old shed down the other side of the hill. “We’re going to that one.”

Hermann shivered and pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself as Newt opened the trunk of his car. He slung a heavy backpack over his shoulders, digging around until he found a couple headlamps and a small camera with a strap that he hung around his neck.

“This is just a cover,” he said, flicking the strap when Hermann raised an eyebrow at it. “I got a GoPro for the videos.”

“A cover.”

“Photography projects sound a little less, uh…”

“If you end up getting me arrested—”

“You're not gonna get arrested,” Newt said, about to toss the other headlamp to him before he thought better of it and handed it over. “I fixed the groundskeeper’s internet last month, we’re good.”

“The groundskeeper?” Hermann asked. “You said it was abandoned.”

“The family still owns the place, so that one’s abandoned,” Newt said, closing the trunk before pointing towards the house. “Think they just don’t want people poking around.”

Hermann frowned, but Newt started off towards the house without checking that Hermann was following him.

Newt slowed down a few steps later for Hermann to catch up, swatting his hand away before he could turn on the headlamp.

“Wait until we’re inside.”

“You said—?”

“Cars can still see over here from the road.”

Hermann frowned again.

The cold made the hair at the back of Hermann’s neck stand on end as they walked down the thin path, each rustle in the grass and dull coos from birds he couldn't see making him twitch; he had never been arrested before, and he would like to keep it that way, but he wasn't feeling particularly confident about that anymore.

He really should have just gone home and let Newt continue making a fool of himself; he knew he had lost any chance when Newt turned his headlamp on a few feet from the charred part of the outer wall.

“Gimme a sec,” Newt said, climbing up a pile of rubble that looked like it used to be a window. “I gotta open it from the inside.”

Hermann’s heartbeat started to rush as soon as Newt’s headlamp went out of view.

It was just an empty building, he told himself, just the chill making his skin prickle; he still backed up against the wall so he could face the rest of the grounds.

He squinted down at his watch a couple times, twisting his wrist until he was able to see the time in the faint light from the moon. It was another few seconds before he jumped at the sound of old door hinges shrieking open, and he had to cover his eyes against the glare of Newt’s headlamp.

“Can you squeeze in there?” Newt asked, shoving his shoulder against the door until it wouldn’t open any farther.

“I should never have agreed to this,” Hermann mumbled, but he managed to slip through without snagging his clothes too much, his knee scraping uncomfortably against the door frame just before he made it inside.

“You can leave it like that,” Newt said.

He gestured for Hermann to turn on his headlamp, swinging his backpack off of one shoulder to reach in for a bulky metal box with a couple antennas sticking out of one end. It took Newt hitting the heel of his palm against the side a couple times before it started, and Hermann could hear a soft buzz coming from it as a couple lights switched on, a red light steady and the green blinking slowly.

“Hold this,” he said, and he handed Hermann a small camera before he could say anything. “You gotta—”

“I only came here to prove you wrong, not be your camera crew.”

“Then you can have video evidence for proving me wrong,” Newt said. “It gets all wobbly when it’s just me.”

Newt kept shaking the camera in front of Hermann’s chest until he rolled his eyes and took it from him.

“How do you expect to be able to see anything on this?” Hermann asked quietly; even without the worry of someone hearing them outside somehow, it still felt like he had to keep his voice hushed.

“A lot of editing,” Newt said as he put his backpack on again, and despite all the babbling on the way there and the lack of volume control he had demonstrated back at the restaurant, he wasn't any louder then than Hermann had been. “And it sets the mood.”

Hermann snorted and started following him down the hallway. “So that’s how you get your views,” he mumbled, but Newt didn't seem to hear him, watching the EMP meter too intently to notice.

It was so dusty he could see it floating in the line of light from his and Newt’s headlamps, almost enough to look like fog; the faded wallpaper was chipped and peeling almost all the way down to the floor in some places, and Hermann had to force himself not to look down more than once when he felt something sticky under the tip of his cane.

“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Hermann whispered, a couple turns down a couple hallways later. The air seemed to get thicker the longer they walked, dead-still and heavy with dust and damp trapped in by the boarded up windows as they got farther from the charred part of the outside wall, chilly and uncomfortably clammy at the same time.

“I told you I’ve already—” Newt started to say, but he paused, frowning to himself before he turned and passed Hermann in the other direction. “It’s this way.”

“Apparently not,” Hermann muttered to himself.

His breath caught in his throat a few steps later at a creaking floorboard that nearly rang in his ears in the otherwise still silence, freezing up for a second until he realized the sound had only come from him and not someone else.

“Some of these are kinda busted,” Newt said, emphasizing it with a couple bounces on an equally squeaky floorboard. “You wanna watch out for holes.”

“Because that’s just what we—”

Newt cut him off with a sharp shh, holding up the EMP meter so Hermann could see the green light beginning to blink faster before gesturing for him to start the camera.

“Is it—?”

“It’s on,” Hermann said.

Newt nodded and tried to smooth his hair out under the strap for the headlamp before clearing his throat.

“We’re back at the Linden Estate tonight to investigate the disappearance and suspected murder-turned-haunting of Joan Hastings from ‘89,” he said, gesturing wildly with the EMP meter, “with a special guest—”

“Do not bring me into this,” Hermann snapped.

“God, fine, make me start over, why not,” Newt said. He paused, waiting for Hermann to nod before he continued. “We’re back at the Lichen—shit, fuck—no, keep the camera up, just give me a sec.”

Hermann pointedly raised the camera a couple inches.

“We’re back at the Linden Estate tonight to investigate the disappearance and suspected murder-turned-haunting of the investigative reporter Joan Hastings from 1989,” Newt repeated, waving the EMP meter towards a door a little ways down the hall. “This is the room where all the sightings have been reported, and we’re already getting a signal…”

Hermann stopped paying attention there, only minding not to move his head to keep the light on Newt as he looked over at the door, shifting a little more weight onto his cane. The green light kept blinking, steadily faster as Newt started walking closer to the door and motioned for Hermann to follow.

“Marshall Linden, our main guy, he had an alibi,” Newt said, “but it’s suspected that he paid off the house staff and probably some of the cops on the case if you know anything about anything, filthy rich bastard.”

Hermann had to try to stifle a snort to keep it from being evident that he was behind the camera.

“Now,” Newt said; he awkwardly shuffled one side of the backpack down his shoulder again to take out a small pouch that he opened to a lockpicking kit, wiggling it in front of the light from Hermann’s headlamp. “Do try this at home, but not anywhere else unless you can say you didn’t learn it from me.”

“Oh, honestly…” Hermann mumbled to himself.

Newt shot him a glare before waving him over to the door.

Hermann stood to the side so the light was still on Newt while he pulled out a couple thin pieces of metal.

“It’s creepy that it’s on the outside, right?” Newt said as he started poking around the lock, but it sounded more like he was asking Hermann than saying it for the video. “Like, it’s a fuckin’ bedroom…”

Hermann had to remind himself again not to turn his head as he glanced around; he couldn't help holding his breath, his heart thumping, faster with each soft click from Newt’s hands; there was really no way they would be able to pretend it was a photography project like Newt had said with such obvious intent to break in, and he huffed a quiet laugh to himself with the realization that Newt had already had everything with him, even just for what was supposed to be a date.

He still didn't hear anything except the wind whistling through the cracks in the boards over the windows, the clicks from the lock until Newt practically shouted, “There we go.”

“Would you be quiet—”

“It’s fine,” Newt said, but he still lowered his voice. “You ready for this?”

“As if there’s anything to be ready for.”

Newt grinned at him before putting the lockpicking kit back in his bag and bringing his hand to the doorknob dramatically slowly.

“Hold onto your socks, ‘cause I'm about to knock them right the fuck off.”

Hermann raised an eyebrow and held the camera a little higher; he was starting to be glad for the video proof of Newt being a fraud.

Newt mouthed counting up to three before twisting the knob and yanking the door open with a loud, heavy creak as the rusty hinges scraped together for what Hermann could only guess was the first time in years.

Nothing happened that was immediately obvious.

The dust in the air was even thicker than in the hallways, bristling in Hermann’s sinuses and enough to soften the outlines of the threadbare, moth-eaten sheets slung over all the furniture; there was a bed in one corner, what looked like a desk in the adjacent one, a wardrobe with one of the doors hanging open pushing the sheet out on the other side of the room.

The boards over the windows were more cracked and rotted than Hermann had noticed on the others.

“That right there is the window where the sightings have been,” Newt said, gesturing next for Hermann to circle the camera around to show more of the room. He tilted his headlamp down, pointing for Hermann to turn the camera towards the illuminated part of the floor. “You can still see where someone used too much bleach.”

Hermann could, now that Newt had mentioned it, and he suddenly felt like he was overstepping in more than just the trespassing, like it was inappropriate for him to be there rather than just illegal; he could feel the hair at the back of his neck stand on end again.

Hermann hadn't moved the camera away from the part of the floor where the boards were lighter as he kept looking around the room; his eyes fell on the wardrobe more than once, and he startled at the shrill buzzing coming from the EMP meter when Newt crouched down to hold it towards the floor.

“Hermann, bring it over—”

“I told you—”

“I’ll edit it out, chill.”

Hermann took a few reluctant steps closer to hold the camera down to shoot the EMP meter. He couldn't bend down like Newt had, but he could still see the green light holding steady, no longer blinking, a couple gauges pointing sharply to the right.

“The meter’s going nuts right here—”

“That could be anything,” Hermann hadn't meant to say out loud.

“It’s not anything, there aren't even any electrical wires under here. I checked the blueprints,” Newt said, before turning to point and face the camera, “and that’s why you do your research ahead of time.”

Hermann rolled his eyes as Newt rattled off a few numbers from the EMP meter, explaining their significance for any first-time viewers before he stood upright and waved Hermann over to follow him across the room.

“You can see the—you could see, if someone was pointing the—you can see the levels go down the farther you get from that bleach spot, right,” Newt said, holding the EMP meter away from the bleached floorboards and moving it closer again a couple times to emphasize his point before he started walking backwards towards the wardrobe. “But…”

The dull buzzing from the EMP meter became high-pitched and shrill again as Newt held it out in front of the wardrobe, the green light even brighter than when he had been holding it towards the floor.

Hermann bit the inside of his cheek; it was the noise, he thought, how long they had already been there that made his heart race, his skin tingling with the desperate feeling of needing to go.

They shouldn't be there.

“Hey,” Newt said, loud enough that it sounded like it hadn't been the first time, but Hermann had been too focused on the sheet over the wardrobe to notice.

Hermann nodded and took a step closer, but he didn't have time to do anything else—probably couldn't have anyway, with no hands free—before Newt yanked the sheet down with a thick plume of dust, still settling when Newt pushed the broken door the rest of the way open.

“Newton,” Hermann said, but it went unnoticed as Newt tilted his headlamp to the bottom of the wardrobe.

It was empty, but it only took a second for Hermann to see what Newt was looking for.

“Can’t really explain that one with spilling dinner,” Newt said.

There was a matching bleached spot on the bottom of the wardrobe, stretching almost all the way across from the side with the broken door.

“Newton,” Hermann said again, but Newt had already gotten down on his hands and knees to get a closer look, waving him off before scratching a fingernail over part of the wood.

“Hermann.”

“We really—”

“Look at this,” Newt said.

Hermann huffed and braced his hand more firmly on his cane before carefully bending his knees and leaning in.

He wanted to say that could be anything again, with a few decades between then and the bleach, but it didn't really feel true even just in his head.

“How the hell’s anyone gonna miss that?”

Hermann barely had time to step back before Newt abruptly stood up, reaching into a side pocket on his backpack for a small spray bottle and a black light.

“There's one thing—hold the camera up—one thing all those cop shows get right other than the disregard for due process,” Newt said, holding up the bottle and the light in front of the camera, “and that’s how you find blood stains.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work if this is from 1989,” Hermann said.

“Would you just…” Newt mumbled, but he shook his head to himself before crouching down again, holding the light between his teeth as he uncapped the bottle. He sprayed it a couple times over the dark specks at the corner of the wardrobe, another couple over the bleached spot. “Black lights work okay on their own, but luminol is where it’s at.”

“Where do you even—?”

“Internet.”

Newt pocketed the spray bottle again before switching on the black light.

Hermann was certain the specks shouldn't be so bright.

“That looks…” Newt said, frowning to himself before he shuffled a little closer on his knees. “I don’t think that’s from ‘89.”

“Newton,” Hermann said, his voice wavering slightly, “we need to—”

Hermann didn't get the chance to say go before he and Newt both whipped around at the sound of glass shattering behind them, just before the sound of the camera clattering to the floor from Hermann’s hand.

“Mirrors,” Hermann whispered. “You set up—when—?”

“Hermann,” Newt hissed, “shut up.”

He had never seen the people Newt had been talking about earlier, but there was still no mistaking who the slightly fuzzy figures were by the boarded up window. He could see their mouths moving, but whatever they were saying was dulled and muffled, like their voices were coming through water; he couldn't see whatever had shattered.

The young woman—Joan—was holding what looked like an old, chunky tape recorder, as dated as her hairstyle and the suit worn by the man standing a couple feet in front of her. Her body was tilted slightly towards the door as she continued speaking, holding the recorder a little closer to herself, laundering and crooked and evidence the only words Hermann could make out clearly enough to identify.

The man took a step forward, and Joan took a step back, putting the recorder into her coat pocket; there was something else in it, Hermann thought, as she tapped her pocket again without taking her eyes off of the man, but their silhouettes were still too blurred for Hermann to try to make out what it might be.

Newt had to scramble out of the way as she walked closer to the door, her back facing it so she was still facing the man. Newt’s eyes were wide, his face pale enough to see even with just the little light reaching his face from his headlamp; once Hermann noticed that, he noticed that the light was shining right through the man in front of them and across to the wall.

Joan was almost at the door, and the man stopped.

The last thing Hermann heard before she reached behind herself for the doorknob was away with this anymore, but he could see the look on her face.

It didn’t open

She wiggled it another couple times before turning to try to pull with both hands, and that was when the man moved again.

It looked like he was reaching for nothing—furniture that wasn't there anymore—until a large decanter appeared in his hand.

“Oh my god,” Newt said quietly, almost knocking himself with the EMP meter as he held his hands over his face. “Oh, my god, what the fuck—”

The man raised his arm just before Joan turned around, her hand almost at her pocket; she didn't have time to pull out whatever she was reaching for before he lunged the decanter down and they both disappeared.

“What the fuck?!” Newt shouted again, but he had only just gotten the words out when both figures appeared again.

They were fuzzier than before, blurred and difficult to see, almost like TV static as the man dropped the decanter. He stood there for a few seconds before bending down to pull Joan’s body to the wardrobe by her arms, unnervingly sure and steady as he let one of her arms drop so he could open the wardrobe; Newt barely managed to stand up and stumble out of the way before the man got to it.

It wasn't empty anymore, but the clothes and boxes were even less clear than Joan and the man were, and he haphazardly kicked them out of the way before crouching down next to Joan’s body.

Hermann couldn't bring himself to look away, but he could see Newt’s hands shaking out of the corner of his eyes, the EMP meter practically shrieking.

The man took the recorder out of Joan’s pocket first, popping out the tape and crushing it under his shoe before digging around again for a tube of pepper spray.

“Oh, no,” Hermann whispered without meaning to; Newt still hadn't said a word since the figures had reappeared.

The man put it in his own pocket before hoisting Joan’s body up by her underarms, kicking the last of the clutter away to haul her up into the wardrobe; he paused for a second, pressing two fingers to the side of her neck before Hermann had to step back, only stopping once his back was against the wall as the man went back for the decanter.

“Oh my god,” Newt finally repeated.

He had only just gotten his hand over his eyes before the man swung it down again, a sickening crunch that wasn't fully muffled by the sound of the decanter breaking; Hermann hadn't quite made it in time.

They disappeared again, the decanter and the clothes on the floor suddenly gone, the wardrobe door still open like Newt had left it before.

Newt and Hermann didn't move.

Hermann couldn’t get himself to take a breath.

They waited, each second passing by agonizingly slowly, but nothing reappeared.

Newt’s eyes were still glued on the wardrobe when Hermann finally managed to take a step away from the wall, but not much further.

His whole body felt shaky and not quite there, but Newt didn't seem to be faring any better; he somehow looked even paler than before, his breathing too short and quick, trembling and still not looking away from the wardrobe.

“Hermann,” Newt eventually said, his voice uncharacteristically small compared to all the talking before, almost fragile. “What the—”

“What the hell did you do?” Hermann blurted out, just as unsteady as Newt had sounded, but that was enough to snap Newt away from the wardrobe.

“What did I do?” he said, the volume finally coming back full force. “What did I—are you fucking joking—?”

He didn't have time to say anything else before he was interrupted by the sound of a door creaking; later, Hermann would be able to realize that they were in an old, partially burned-down house, full of rusty hinges and squeaky floorboards, and a sound like that really wasn't out of place, but not just yet.

Newt jumped, and there was only a split second of hesitation before he grabbed Hermann’s right sleeve to start pulling him out of the room.

“Newton,” Hermann tried to say, shaking him off after a couple wobbly steps with Newt holding onto the arm with his cane, but he might as well have not said anything.

Newt only let go to switch sides to grab Hermann’s other sleeve, looking over his shoulder a couple times as he kept pulling Hermann along down the hallway. Hermann could only just keep up, and the thought that it would come back to bite him later after the adrenaline wore off fell to the back of his mind through the frantic need to get out.

They didn't slow down until they reached the scorched part of the wall; Newt paused for a second, almost taking a step towards it, but he didn't stop for long before continuing to the door.

Hermann tried to tell himself that he didn't need to be so relieved to see that it was still as open as they had left it on their way in.

“Come on,” Newt said quietly, moving aside so Hermann could go out first before squeezing out after him.

Newt’s hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t get his backpack open; he gave up eventually, fumbling in his pocket for his car keys before chucking the backpack and EMP meter into the backseat.

Hermann hurriedly got in after him, and Newt closed the door, but he stopped with the key still unturned in the ignition.

“Newton—”

“Where’s the camera?”

Hermann swallowed.

“Hermann,” Newt said. “Where’s the—?”

“I dropped it.”

“Fuck,” Newt said quietly, before dropping his forehead against the steering wheel and shouting again, “Fuck! Shit, goddamn it, fucking…”

He was still swearing under his breath as he scrambled out of the car, only taking a few steps towards the house before he stopped, his fingers twitching at his sides.

“You aren't seriously—”

“I need that camera,” Newt said, but he still didn't keep walking; he turned around a couple seconds later, biting at his bottom lip before he said, “Are you coming or not?”

“No.”

“Hermann,” Newt pleaded, “if you get the camera you can prove me wrong and I’ll never make another video again, whatever, I need—”

“Fine,” Hermann snapped, roughly pushing the car door open to follow him. “If it will get you to drop this—this obsession, the sheer—”

“Yeah, yeah, you've made your point, I don’t really feel like get murdered or some shit by whatever the fuck that was, let’s just…”

Newt was anxiously bouncing on his heels until Hermann caught up with him.

Newt’s hands still looked unsteady as he dragged the door open another couple inches, pulling his jacket tighter around himself as he lead Hermann back down the halls to the bedroom; he didn't say a word until Hermann did, a few turns around a few corners later.

“Is this not what you were expecting to—”

“Not like that,” Newt said, his eyes still firmly forward.

Hermann didn't say anything else.

Newt slowed down slightly once they reached the room again, taking a deep breath before he continued forward and poked his head in the door. Hermann didn't see anything that shouldn't be there when he did the same, the sheet that had been over the wardrobe still on the floor, the camera not far from it.

Hermann couldn't think of much of a real reason to, but he still followed Newt in to keep his back from facing the hallway.

“Okay,” Newt said to himself; he clutched the camera to his chest, but instead of going back to the door, he hesitated for a second before darting over to the wardrobe.

“Newton—”

“I just gotta…” he said, zipping the camera into his jacket pocket as he crouched down in front of the wardrobe again. “The blood’s gone.”

“The—what?”

“There were those spots,” Newt said, waving Hermann back over. “It’s just the bleach now.”

“So you mistook some rot for blood, that’s really not—”

“I didn't mistake anything for anything, Hermann,” Newt said. “It showed up under the black light, it was right there.”

“It’s obviously not now—”

“No shit, now,” Newt said, “but it was.”

“Alright, wonderful, there isn't a mysterious bloodstain anymore, I really don’t think that’s a bad thing, now let’s go.”

“No, Hermann,” Newt said, switching on the other camera around his neck to snap a picture of the floor of the wardrobe. “Man, that flash really…this is incredible, do you have any idea what that means—”

“Nothing,” Hermann said. “It doesn't mean anything, none of this is—”

“How do you still think it was nothing when you just saw a fucking murder like five minutes ago?”

Hermann clenched his jaw; the whole ordeal had never seemed anything less than ridiculous, and while he could no longer explain away what he had seen by mirrors or projections, or any of the other ways videos like Newt’s had been debunked—not after they had moved across the room like that—his irritation at Newt’s insistence that it was real turned into something bigger.

“It’s one thing to try to fool your subscribers into thinking some dust on your camera lens is a ghost,” he said, “and it’s one thing to drag me out here to try to scare me into believing you, but whatever that was, whatever you did, to reenact a murder and lie about it for views, how could you possibly—the disrespect—”

“How the fuck do you think I did that?” Newt asked, standing up so quickly that his camera wobbled around his neck. “You seriously—why do you think I even do this?”

“I think that’s obvious.”

Newt bristled, his nose scrunching up. “This isn't for fun,” he said. “You think I wanted to see that?”

“You did pick this place knowing that woman had been murdered here,” Hermann said, “and then said that it was incredible—”

“Because that was the clearest apparition I have ever seen,” Newt said, “and then physical residue from the event, like, that’s the holy fucking grail, I know you heard that thing shatter before they even showed up.”

Hermann frowned and rolled his eyes.

“I know you heard it.”

“That seems like the easiest part of this to fake.”

“You would've seen if I tried to play some recording,” Newt said. “You were shooting the whole time.”

“Which was my mistake.” Hermann adjusted his headlamp; the unsettled feeling that had made his skin prickle before was overshadowed by any remaining patience disappearing. “I should never have let you goad me into this.”

He didn't wait to see if Newt followed him before turning on his heel and walking back out to the hallway.

He started walking a little faster when he heard Newt come out after him a few seconds later.

Hermann squeezed back out the front door, not stopping until he made it back to Newt’s car, awkwardly standing there until Newt came out and unlocked it.

Newt’s jaw was visibly clenched as he started the car.

The ride back felt longer than before without Newt chattering about his ghosts; he didn't say a word, and neither did Hermann, until the traffic started to grow thicker and Newt eventually asked, “Where are we going?”

Hermann was about to tell him to drop him back at the restaurant—he didn't exactly like the idea of some crackpot paranormal investigator knowing where he lived—but he had rationed his steps and standing for the restaurant, not a trek around a supposedly haunted house; the throbbing ache in his legs and his hips changed his mind to, “32 Whitehall.”

Newt nodded, and that was that.

Neither of them said anything else even by the time Newt stopped the car to let Hermann out.

Hermann had been impatient for a weekend that wouldn't end with an attempt at disproving a haunting.

He still hadn't changed out of his pajamas, his tea only just finished steeping, not quite to the kitchen table before there was a loud knock on his front door.

He blearily looked at the clock on the microwave—too early for any deliveries, even if he could remember ordering anything—and carefully stepped out of the way of the windows with a muttered, “Jehovah’s Witnesses, again, I told them…” but the pounding on the door didn't stop.

Hermann set his tea down, waiting a few seconds to see if whoever it was would leave, but it only got louder.

“Just one day,” he said to himself as he went to the door, “one day, one morning, is that too much to—”

“Hermann!”

Hermann’s shoulders sagged.

“I saw you in the window, you need to see this.”

He frowned at the door without taking another step further.

“Hermann,” Newt said again, before repeating in increasingly loud and annoying tones, “Hermann. Hermann. Hermann. Hermann, I know you’re—”

“What?” Hermann snapped, yanking the door open so roughly that the chain he had forgotten about clanged as it was pulled tight from the doorframe.

Newt’s hand was still raised halfway to another knock.

“Nice threads,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

“You gotta check this out.” Newt kept his foot in the door while he dug through his pockets for the GoPro, holding it out towards Hermann through the crack. “Just look at it.”

“I am looking at it.”

“Is it not—wait, hang on.” Newt pulled his hand back to switch on the camera, tapping through a couple times before he held it out again. “Just watch the next, like, thirty seconds.”

Newt kept wiggling the camera in front of him until Hermann eventually took it.

He had to squint to be able to see much of anything, holding the camera out of the light coming in through the door before he pressed play.

“I don’t think that’s from ‘89.”

“Newton,” his own voice came from the speakers, “We need to—”

The shot spun around to where the figures had first appeared, just before he had dropped the camera; there was nothing there as he heard Newt’s, “Hermann, shut up.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to see with the lens on the floor.”

“Just keep—turn the volume up.”

Once he did, holding the camera up by his ear, he could hear the same faint, muffled voices he had heard in that room, the few words clear enough to make out.

“So you did some editing,” he said, “that’s not really—”

“Bold of you to assume I know how to edit,” Newt said, wiggling his hand through the crack in the door again. “Rewind it, there's something else.”

Hermann looked down at his foot in the door. “Just come in,” he said. “You're going to let the cat out.”

“You have a cat—?”

“I need to close the door to unlatch the chain.”

“Okay,” Newt said, slowly pulling his foot back. “Just don’t lock me out and steal my camera, I can’t afford a new one right now.”

“I hardly have any use for it.” Hermann shut the door enough to drop the chain before opening it again for Newt to come in. “What is it?”

“Where’s your cat?”

“Sleeping, probably—it doesn't matter,” Hermann said. “What’s so important that you had to stalk me for it?”

“I don’t think this counts as stalking,” Newt said. “Gimme the camera.”

“I beg to differ.”

Hermann started walking back to the kitchen, and Newt didn't need any prompting to follow him, dragging the other chair around next to Hermann’s.

“Okay, so,” he said, rewinding to pause a few seconds before Hermann had dropped the camera. “You see that mirror in the wardrobe?”

Hermann had to lean in closer, too preoccupied to have noticed it while they were in the room; there was just enough light coming from both of their headlamps that he could see it if he looked closely, not facing it directly enough to cause a glare.

“You see it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Just keep watching there.”

Newt waited until Hermann nodded before pressing play.

“I don’t think that’s from ‘89,” Newt’s voice repeated, but despite all of Hermann’s expectations, there was no denying the reflection of both of the figures behind Hermann’s in the small mirror.

“Did you see that?” Newt asked excitedly, his leg bouncing enough to wobble even Hermann’s chair. “They didn't show up on the camera but they’re right there—”

“I did see that,” Hermann said slowly. “Play it again?”

Newt grinned and scooted his chair a little closer as he backed up the video; a few seconds later, and there they were in the mirror again.

“I told you.”

Hermann was having an increasingly hard time convincing himself that none of it meant anything.

“Play it again,” he repeated.

“How many times—”

“Does that zoom in?”

“Not really well,” Newt said. “I can if I can get it up on your computer.”

Hermann frowned, hesitating for a second before he pulled his laptop over. He hadn't even gotten it open before Newt whipped out a USB cord and plugged it in without saying anything.

“It’s my laptop, would you just let me—”

“Just give me a sec,” Newt interrupted. He slid the computer closer, drumming his fingers against the table as he waited for the video to load; he clicked to the same part he had already showed Hermann twice, opening it to full screen before zooming in on the mirror. “Ready?”

Hermann nodded.

It was, unfortunately, even easier to see the two fuzzy figures in the mirror that time.

“How do you want to explain that?” Newt asked, pausing on Joan holding up the tape recorder. “I did some digging—can I log out of your email?”

“Just open an incognito window.”

“Sexy,” Newt mumbled, swiping out to the browser. “This isn't the first time someone’s got a spectral body in a mirror that didn't show up on the recording.”

“I’m sure,” Hermann muttered, but Newt continued as if he hadn't said anything.

“It doesn't seem like it works with really old mirrors—you know the whole vampire thing, like, they don’t have a reflection—?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re trying to bring vampires into this now.”

“No,” Newt said. “But do you know why?”

Hermann shook his head.

“They used to be made with silver,” Newt said. “And there's the whole thing with vampires not liking silver, you know, but you get a lot of videos in old houses where nothing shows up on the mirrors ‘cause they’re equally old as shit—”

“If they didn't show up on this recording,” Hermann said, “are you going to admit that your videos where they did were fake?”

“No,” Newt said, “‘cause these guys weren't ghosts.”

Hermann took a slow breath to give Newt a chance to elaborate that he didn’t take. “You're making even less sense than you've already been making.”

“No—just—listen,” Newt said. “The guy—Marshall—he wouldn’t have shown up with that reporter, right, ‘cause she was the one that was murdered there.”

He stopped, raising his eyebrows, only continuing once Hermann said, “I suppose so.”

“So that wasn’t a ghost, exactly, they do show up on cameras a lot of the time, but she is kinda haunting the place,” he said, with a dramatic pause before he added, “She just doesn't know it.”

“Explain.”

“I don’t really know, like, how the whole mirror thing works exactly, with the silver, but if you watch…”

Newt clicked through a link in an email he had sent to himself—out of so many other links, Hermann noticed with a tinge of dread—that opened another tab to a video titled GHOST OF MARTIN DAVIS: WATCH THE MIRROR!!! from 2009.

“I don’t know if you heard about this case—these dudes are fuckin’ amateurs, but I’d kill for that recording equipment—anyway, guy was killed in 2005, but he was technically missing until almost 2007, ‘cause there wasn't a body, he was just last seen here.” Newt paused to point to a dusty mirror set into the wall of whatever building was being recorded. “You can see him and this other guy in the mirror there.”

He was right; Hermann could see two figures, clear enough to make out but still fuzzy around the edges, just like Newt’s video.

“Wouldn't they have just faked that if they’re such amateurs?”

“That’s what I thought when I first saw this, most of their shit’s fake,” Newt said. “But you know how there wasn’t a body?”

Hermann nodded.

“It was found in 2011 during some construction,” Newt said. “In the same building they shot this.”

Hermann couldn't get himself to look away from the mirror.

“And the thing is,” Newt continued, “they caught the guy.”

“The other man in the mirror.”

“Yeah, check this out,” Newt said, switching back to his email to click on the next link; it opened to a news article that he scrolled through before Hermann had time to read the headline, stopping on a mugshot before pulling the tab into a new window to set next to the one with the video. “It’s that same guy, no one had any idea it was him until after the investigation went public, so they couldn't have faked that part.”

Even with his face slightly blurred in the already dusty mirror, a haircut since the mugshot, his expression gnarled in anger in the mirror, there was no mistaking that it was the same man.

“There’d been sightings of our guy Martin all the way from late 2005 until 2011,” Newt said. “Like, a lot of them, and then they just stopped, the last documented one I could find was a few months before the trial.”

“And that’s when the body was found?”

“Probably, they never made that part public, but same thing happened here, too,” Newt said, opening the next two links; he kept opening them, one story after another with the same key details: sightings, recordings in mirrors, and nothing else after the body was discovered.

Hermann let out a slow breath.

“They never found that reporter’s body,” Newt said.

“You're not suggesting—”

“I’m definitely suggesting.”

“You don’t have any…” Hermann started to say, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There's no proof of any of this, you have a hypothesis at best—”

“Hermann,” Newt interrupted. “You saw that whole thing last week, it was fucked up, okay, I didn't exactly like watching a murder, but she probably likes being murdered over and over a whole lot less.”

“You can’t be sure that—”

“What else could be going on there?” Newt asked; Hermann didn't have an answer. “We can help her.”

Hermann thought of how much fuzzier both figures had become after she had first been hit with the decanter, not dead yet, how callously Marshal Linden had dragged her into the wardrobe. The tape recorder.

“And what would your plan be if we did find her?”

Newt shrugged. “Anonymous tip?”

“And if we don’t?”

Newt hesitated for a few seconds, and then he shrugged again. “Keep trying?”

His response was so simple, no nonsense, without the same excitement and confidence in what he did that mostly came across as just being insensitive; Hermann wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the moment he had gone from being dismissive to thinking Newt might really be onto something, despite lacking any of the logic and reason and facts he had built both a career and worldview out of, but there was no way around that he had.

“Alright,” he eventually said.

“Fuck yeah,” Newt nearly shouted; there it was again. “I got all my stuff in the car, you—”

“What—now?”

Newt blinked a couple times. “Why else would I have come over here?” He closed his incognito windows and slid the laptop back to Hermann as he stood up. “Where's that cat?”

“I don’t know, there's a box in the living room he likes to sleep in,” Hermann said, downing his lukewarm tea before reaching for his cane to push himself up from his chair. “I have to get dressed, please don’t touch anything.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Newt mumbled, tiptoeing out from the table towards the living room, and Hermann shook his head to himself before leaving to head to his bedroom.

He stopped for a second once his clothes were laid out on the bed.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, but he still sat down to strip out of his pajamas. “Just absurd…”

He didn't see Newt in the kitchen, not until he went around to the living room to find Newt stretched out on the floor, with a long scratch mark on the back of his hand and Hermann’s cat batting at one of the snaps on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Are you sure that’s not what you’re here for?”

“If I’d known you had a cat, yeah, that’s definitely what I’d be here for,” Newt said. “What’s, uh, what's their name?”

“Alan Purring,” Hermann said, pointedly holding his wrist up to look at his watch, but Newt didn't take the hint.

“Alan Purring?” he repeated, a grin slowly stretching across his face until his eyes started to crinkle at the corners. “That’s so nerdy.”

“Says the man who looks for ghosts in his spare time.”

“In my spare time,” Newt said. “I’ll have you know I'm doing this all the time.”

“That doesn't really help your case.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Newt said, scratching between Alan Purring’s ears before pushing himself up from the floor with a huff. “Ready to free some ghosts?”

“Doesn't seem like I have much say in the matter at this point.”

“Nope.”

Hermann started to wonder how much Newt had planned for this when he saw the second headlamp strapped around the headrest of the passenger seat in Newt’s car.

“Are we really going to need these now?” he asked. “Why not go at night, anyway?”

“Yes, ‘cause that place is super creepy,” Newt said. “And I put up a bunch of fake security cameras, no one else is gonna show up.”

“You're awfully confident about that.”

“I’ve only been caught, like, twice, a few years ago,” Newt said, “and it wasn't there.”

The drive took a little longer than the first time with the morning weekend traffic, but it thinned out again the farther they got from the city, less of Newt honking and shouting obscenities out the window about being cut off or someone not using a turn signal. The house looked less ominous in the light, more run down than creepy, as Newt had put it; Hermann still shivered when Newt drove the car around to face where part of the wall had burned down.

He had seen three fake security cameras on their way up the long driveway, another two on the outside walls.

“You got that headlamp?” Newt asked, almost bumping into Hermann as he reached around behind his seat for his backpack.

Hermann nodded and slung the strap around his neck.

“Okay…” Newt mumbled, digging through the back as he listed off, “Flashlights, EMP, DSLR, lockpick, snacks—”

“Snacks?”

“I don’t know, we might want them,” Newt said. “Bandaids, GoPro, mirror…”

“You're not filming this.”

“I’m not gonna film anything that’s gonna get us arrested or whatever,” Newt said. “It’s in case they show up again. And ‘cause I need a good conclusion video. But mostly if they show up again.”

“And that’s what the mirror is for?”

“Yep,” Newt said, slinging the backpack over his shoulders as he got out of the car. “We might have to Medusa this one, I don’t know, this is different.”

Hermann took a deep breath before following Newt out of the car.

Newt must have noticed the split second of hesitation when Hermann’s eyes fell on the door, nudging his elbow to Hermann’s arm and hurriedly adding, “I closed it when I was here to do the cameras.”

Hermann hadn't really been ready for how much more conspicuous he felt being there during the day; the hair at the back of his neck was already standing on end again, and the feeling wasn't helped much when Newt turned around for a second once they reached the door.

“Keep an eye out for a sec,” he said, tugging at Hermann’s sleeve to pull him a couple inches to the side so his body was mostly blocking Newt’s.

“I thought you said this would—”

“Never said we didn't need to be careful about it.”

It took a few seconds before Newt was able to open the door wide enough for them to squeeze through, before he wriggled his way in and waved Hermann after him.

Newt had been right about needing the headlamps, Hermann realized. There was some light coming in from the burned part of the wall, but it wasn't reaching very far, no other light coming in with the boarded-up windows; they only made it around the first corner before he had to switch his headlamp on and pull it up from around his neck.

Newt did the same a few seconds later after he had pulled out the EMP meter, the GoPro to hand over to Hermann.

“Do you really want to take the time to dig it out after we got ghosts showing up?” Newt asked before Hermann could protest. “You don’t have to start shooting yet.”

Hermann still kept his thumb over the power button.

Newt stopped for a second to bang the heel of his palm to the side of the EMP meter, adjusting a couple dials before he said, “We should start in that room again, the signal’s being weird.”

Hermann let out a short huff; even with the figures he had seen, their reflections in the mirror in the recording—even finding himself reluctantly starting to believe it—he couldn't quite get himself to take that little metal box seriously.

Not being able to take that part seriously still didn't help the prickly feeling itching over his skin.

Newt started walking a little faster the closer they got to the bedroom.

There were little cracks and pinpricks of light shining through a couple small holes in the boards over the windows, making all the dust show more clearly than Hermann would have liked to think about. The sheet that had been over the wardrobe was still on the floor, nothing touched or changed since the first time they had been there; Hermann felt a small spark of hope that Newt had been wrong until he looked over at the sound of the EMP meter’s quick beeping to see the little green light shining steadily.

“There we go,” Newt mumbled to himself, rushing across to the other side of the room; the beeping got louder as he got to where Hermann remembered seeing the figures appear, faster once he darted over to the wardrobe until it sounded less like beeping and more like one glaring note.

It didn't leave Hermann feeling particularly optimistic, but it only seemed to give Newt the opposite reaction.

“The blood isn't back,” Newt said. “And I checked the video, it was there that night, that’s—that’s amazing, the temporal, uh, whatever-the-fuck with hearing the glass breaking before they showed up was one thing, but with a physical manifestation, too, we got the jackpot.”

Hermann looked at the EMP meter and then back up to Newt.

“Wouldn't be surprised if they'll be here soon,” Newt said.

“We’ve already got that on tape, we shouldn't be here any longer than we need to be.”

Newt’s shoulders sagged with an exaggerated frown. “Really wanted another recording…”

“We came here to find a body—how the hell is that something I’m even saying—so let’s find a body and get out of here.”

“Yeah, okay,” Newt mumbled; he took out his phone to get a picture of the dials on the EMP meter before poking his head into the wardrobe one more time. “Let’s go get our reporter.”

Hermann was about to ask how Newt planned on doing that, but he got his answer when Newt started circling the room before walking out.

“I think we gotta go this way,” Newt shouted back to him.

He was facing the other end of the hallway from where they had come when Hermann followed him out.

“There’s more of a signal than in that direction,” he explained, gesturing over his shoulder.

Maybe it had been wishful thinking when Hermann hadn't expected to have to go any farther into the house.

Each turn down the hallway was disconcertingly identical, nothing to mark that they weren't walking in circles until Newt stopped so suddenly that Hermann almost walked into him.

“Hey,” he said, bumping his knuckles against Hermann’s arm before pointing to a row of paintings hung up on the wall; the frames were so thickly covered in dust and cobwebs that Hermann might have overlooked them if Newt hadn't pointed them out. “Look at that one.”

Hermann had to take a couple steps closer to see what he was talking about.

The first few paintings looked older, with sour-faced old men standing in what looked like an office—the same room in each one—until Hermann got to the last one on the right.

That man looked younger, a little more put together, but there was no way Hermann could have mistaken that face after the first time he had seen it, even as fuzzy and incorporeal as it had been then.

“Who the hell still got portraits done like that in…” Newt said, leaning in to squint at the small engraving at the bottom of the frame. “The seventies, what a dick.”

“Newton,” Hermann said, nodding towards the rest of the hallway. “We should really—”

“Just give it a sec…” Newt pulled out his phone again to get a picture of the paintings before they continued down the hall.

“Don’t you have that—?”

“The battery’s dead, I don’t actually use it that much.”

The EMP meter kept up its shrieking, the green light still solid. Hermann was starting to wonder if it was just leading them in circles, the hallways still almost indistinguishable after they had passed the paintings, until Newt stopped in his tracks with a quiet, “Oh, shit.”

Hermann didn't have to ask why as the EMP meter got impossibly louder when Newt held it up to a nondescript door.

“I think…” Newt said, turning around a couple times to look down each end of the hallway before facing the door again. “That should be the basement.”

Newt shrugged his backpack off to reach in for a small flashlight, holding it between his teeth before handing Hermann the EMP meter; he could feel the buzzing in his palm.

Newt tried the doorknob, but it didn't budge.

He wiped his hands over his jeans, gripping the doorknob with both hands as he unsuccessfully tried to yank it open, but he didn't look the slightest bit discouraged as he stepped back to dig around in his backpack again.

Hermann had almost forgotten about the lockpicking kit.

Newt had to crouch down so he could unroll the small case flat over his thighs, leaning up to get a better look at the lock before pulling out a couple picks.

A couple minutes of clicking went by before Hermann started to ask, “Do you know what you’re—?” but Newt clapped his hands together before he could even finish the question.

“Love that thing,” Newt said, muffled around the flashlight before he took it out of his mouth and rolled the case back up to put in his backpack. “I tried with a bobby-pin the first time, it did not go like it does on TV.”

“One of those times you got caught, I'm guessing?”

“You really gotta bring that up,” Newt said, shaking his head to himself before waggling his eyebrows at Hermann with his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s do this.”

It looked just as nondescript on the other side of the door.

Newt adjusted his headlamp, shining the flashlight down the wooden steps to the bottom.

“Are you gonna be good with this?”

“It seems like I’ll have to be.”

“You can stay up here if it’s—”

“I’ll manage it.”

“Oh, thank god,” Newt mumbled, leaning down to prop the door open with the dead camera from around his neck. “It looks so fucking creepy down there.”

It really didn't need saying.

Newt flipped a switch by the inside of the door, but neither of them had really expected it to turn on.

“Wait, hang on,” Newt said. “There’s another flashlight in—can you get in there?”

“Give me a moment.”

Newt had been serious about the snacks, Hermann realized, having to push through a large pile of crinkly plastic bags before he made it to the other flashlight and closed Newt’s backpack again.

Newt waited until Hermann nodded and turned on the flashlight before taking the first tentative step down. He kept his flashlight on the stairs as he slowly walked down while Hermann held his forward, sweeping across what he could see of the basement so far; it seemed to be mostly empty, a couple old paint cans against one wall, a few sheets over what he had to guess were a few pieces of furniture.

“Watch that step,” Newt said, bouncing his heel on one of the lower stairs; Hermann could hear the wood crackling under the sound of it creaking, and he waited until Newt was a couple steps down before carefully passing over it.

His skin was prickling even more than before by the time they got to the bottom, glancing over his shoulder to the basement door.

It felt disconcertingly far away.

“Holy shit,” Newt said quietly, snapping Hermann’s attention away from the door and how uncomfortable it was to have his back towards it, not much better anywhere else. Newt flicked at one of the dials on the EMP meter, hitting the heel of his palm against it again before nodding Hermann over. “I’ve never seen it that high before.”

The little needle on the meter was as far to the right as it could go.

“You think she's here?”

“I’d bet on it,” Newt said. He turned in a circle to shine the flashlight over the whole basement, revealing a few empty shelves, an old dressmaker’s dummy that made him jump with a muttered, “Shit, fucking horror show in here…”

The sound of the EMP meter shrieking away without pause felt unsettlingly conspicuous as Newt started circling the edge of the room. Hermann shined his flashlight over the wall until he found a patch that didn't look damp or stained, leaning his back against it to take some of the weight off of his legs—and no other reason, he told himself; even if Newt was right, a body was just a body, no one else there to worry about coming up behind him but Newt.

If Newt was right about anything else, too, about why they had seen two people that night instead of just the reporter, Marshall Linden shouldn’t be showing up at all.

Hermann hoped not, at least; seeing him after he had first hit her with the decanter, not yet dead as she was dragged into the wardrobe, had been bad enough without having to see him bring her to the basement.

He didn't realize that Newt had stopped pacing until the beam from his flashlight shifted as he put his hands on his hips.

“Does it seem smaller down here to you?”

Hermann shrugged before realizing it might be too dark for Newt to see, adding, “I really couldn't say.”

“Like, I could've sworn, it…”

Newt trailed off before he stood a little straighter, holding the flashlight between his teeth again so he could pull out his phone.

He stayed still for a minute, and Hermann was about to ask what he was looking for before Newt started pacing again.

“Did you find something?”

Newt said something Hermann couldn't make out through the flashlight in his mouth. He walked to the corner of the basement across from Hermann, his back to the wall before he started again, only stopping once he reached the corner to Hermann’s left.

He stopped, almost dropping the flashlight when he frowned before turning around to pace the wall again.

“Newton—”

Newt awkwardly held his phone between his thumb and his forefinger so he could take the flashlight from his mouth. “That wall’s not where it’s supposed to be.”

“The—what?”

“That wall,” Newt repeated, pointing to where Hermann was still leaning. “It’s supposed to be a few feet farther back.”

Newt rushed over, sticking the flashlight in his pocket so he could show Hermann his phone, open to a shot of what looked like blueprints.

“That’s the basement—”

“How did you find this?”

“Google,” Newt said. “So, look, that’s how long the floor should be across, right?” He held his thumb over the line marking the adjacent wall before switching out to a different screen, a step-counting app that seemed to measure distance, too. “And that’s how far it actually is.”

“It’s three feet shorter,” Hermann mumbled, mostly to himself, but Newt continued anyway.

“It is three feet shorter,” Newt repeated, taking the flashlight out so he could put his phone back in his pocket. “That’s not the original wall.”

Hermann wished he could have chalked up the chill that that set over him to the temperature.

Newt brought the flashlight back up to his mouth, rapping his knuckles against the wall before walking back to the adjacent one to do the same; Hermann could see him shudder before he did it again, his eyes wide as he came back over to tap along the wall until he made it back to Hermann.

“This is…” he said, muffled as he scratched his fingernail over the wall before taking the flashlight out of his mouth again. “I think they just painted drywall to look like the rest.”

Hermann took a quick couple steps away from it.

Whatever small hope he still had left that Newt really had just been full of it was quickly disappearing.

“Alright,” Hermann said, “can we just call that in—”

“No one’s gonna care about a wall.”

“You aren't—”

Hermann got his answer when Newt shrugged his backpack off to leave a few feet behind him with the EMP meter. He started tapping along the wall again, stopping a couple feet down from where Hermann had been standing.

“You might wanna move back,” he said.

“Oh, no,” Hermann said quietly, but Newt didn't show any signs of stopping; he moved back to stand with the backpack. “No, this is—this is too much—”

He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence before Newt slammed his shoulder against the wall.

Newt had been right.

The drywall cracked apart into a dent about the size of Newt’s shoulder, thick dust and bits of debris sprinkling down to the floor. Newt only stopped for a second to take a deep breath before doing it again, stumbling away with a wince as he rubbed at his shoulder, but Hermann stopped him before he could try a third time.

“Newton,” he said, pointedly waving his flashlight towards the hole in the drywall. “At least check if you can see anything before something gets dislocated.”

Newt frowned. “Yeah, okay.”

He pulled the sleeve of his jacket down over his hand, knocking another few chunks out of the way so he could stick his wrist in, but there still wasn't enough room to see through it.

“That’s not gonna work,” he said, pulling his arm back to take out his phone again, wriggling it back in through the hole with a muttered, “Please don’t fall, please don’t fall…”

He twisted his wrist a couple times, holding his breath as he carefully pulled his hand back again, but his shoulders sagged more in disappointment than relief when he started swiping through his phone.

“I can’t see shit.”

“There might just not—”

Hermann was cut off by Newt taking a couple steps back to give the wall a rough kick.

It wasn’t much more effective, but he was able to do it more times than he had with his shoulder, breaking enough away until he could stomp down the lower part of the drywall before crouching down in front of it.

“Should've brought dust masks or something,” he mumbled, holding his free hand over his nose as he held his flashlight into the new hole in the wall.

He didn't move for a few seconds.

“Newton—”

“There’s something there.”

Hermann forgot to breathe for a second.

Newt scrambled upright again, standing back with his eyes narrowed at the crumbling patch of drywall between the two holes he had busted in.

“I think that’s good.”

He only paused long enough to take another deep breath before barreling forward again.

Hermann heard the dull thunk of Newt hitting the real wall before Newt’s, “Ow, motherfucker,” blinded for a second by Newt’s headlamp facing him straight on as he tumbled sideways.

It was only that second before Newt turned his head, just enough light shining on him for Hermann to see his face blanch.

“Hermann,” he said, his hand shaking as he held it out towards Hermann, still not turning away from whatever was still blocked by the rest of the wall; Hermann didn't really want to think about it. “Hermann—”

Hermann jammed his flashlight in his pocket to get his left hand free to help Newt up, but Newt stumbled another few feet forward even after he was standing.

“There's,” he started to say, his voice just as shaky as his hand was, still gripping Hermann’s. “She’s there, she’s in there, oh my god, Hermann, that’s a real body.”

Maybe it was shock, or an irrationally hopeful sort of disbelief, but all Hermann could think to say was, “Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m fucking certain, I almost fell on top of her, oh my god…” Newt finally let go of Hermann’s hand to try to brush his hair back, more out of habit than anything else with the headlamp still on. “Okay…”

Newt adjusted his grip on his flashlight as he slowly stepped up to the wall again. Hermann could see his shoulders lift on a deep breath before he held his flashlight into the hole, leaning in as much as he could without getting any closer.

Hermann really hadn't been wanting to see a body, had mostly been hoping that there wasn't one at all, even if it meant making a fool of himself in the process; he still found himself walking forward to stop next to Newt.

Newt looked back at him, his expression questioning before he dipped his head in a small nod and stepped aside so Hermann could look in.

Hermann hesitated for a second, but he had come that far; he had to see for himself.

The hole wasn't very wide, leaving them close enough that Hermann’s shoulder was leaning against Newt’s as he peered inside.

He wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting.

Hermann’s experience with bodies only extended to prerequisite courses and textbooks, clinical pictures and diagrams, the one time he had gotten to sit in during a roommate’s lab where they had gotten a cadaver to practice an autopsy, but none of that could have begun to prepare him for what he saw in the wall.

He wouldn’t have been able to recognize her from that night in the bedroom if he hadn't known who to expect.

There was little more than a skeleton left in an unsettlingly unnatural position, moth-eaten clothes so faded and full of holes that it took him a minute to connect them to what he had seen the week before—even then, it was mostly just the coat he could make out—but there was no one else it could be.

Hermann felt frozen in place until Newt tugged at his sleeve, his eyes stuck on where the reporter’s had been.

“They definitely paid off the staff,” Newt said quietly. “Come on.”

Hermann walked backwards a few steps, only turning around when he almost tripped; he had to speed up to catch up with Newt, walking as fast as he could without it being a full-on run, but he still couldn't help looking over his shoulder a few times even once they got to the stairs.

“Don’t forget the—”

“I know,” Hermann said; the step that had crackled on their way down looked even more unsteady from below.

Newt didn't slow down once he picked up his camera from propping open the door, only stopping to check that it hadn't locked again before bolting down the hallway.

“Would you—” Hermann said, taking a deep breath before he sped up again, the aches starting to set in even through the adrenaline after going up and down the stairs. “Would you slow down?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Newt said a little breathlessly, his leg bouncing as he waited for Hermann to catch up again; once he did, Newt kept going, past the row of paintings, past the charred part of the outer wall and the front door.

“Newton, where are—we should go.”

“I gotta check something.” Newt stopped for a second, glancing down the hall before he turned another corner. “In the bedroom. You can wait here if you…”

He trailed off as Hermann passed him.

Hermann had seen enough to know it wouldn’t be worth trying to convince him not to bother, but with that dusty skull and empty eye sockets burned into his eyelids, he wasn't particularly feeling like waiting by himself, either.

“We already came here earlier,” Hermann said, standing a couple feet from the bedroom door; the prickly feeling crawling over his skin was even worse than before, with no question anymore of what had really happened in there. “I don’t know what you think you’ll—”

“I need to see if she’ll come back,” Newt said, brushing a patch of dust from the drywall off of his EMP meter, “so I can see if she doesn’t after—”

He was cut off by the same sound of glass shattering they had heard the week before, his eyes going wide in the fraction of a second before he spun around and darted into the room.

“Hermann!”

Hermann bit the inside of his cheek, glancing up and down the hall before following after him.

“Get the camera on,” Newt whispered, not looking away from the two figures near the center of the room as he waved Hermann over; they looked clearer, more solid, their voices a little less dulled. “And get the mirror.”

Hermann nodded, his fingers trembling slightly as he held up the GoPro.

“Hermann, the mirror.”

“I know, I know, I’m—sheisse,” he muttered, carefully stepping around where the reporter was holding up her tape recorder so he could get to an angle where he could see them in the mirror.

“You got that?” Newt asked, perfectly still, as if any wrong move would make them disappear again; he waited until Hermann nodded before slowly walking backwards towards the wardrobe and adding, “Come here, the blood’s back.”

The reporter started walking closer to the door; Hermann’s heart was pounding as he stepped around them again to get to the wardrobe, unable to take his eyes off of them as he held the camera down.

“Little to the left,” Newt whispered.

“Alright, is that…” Hermann looked down just long enough to see the splatter on the small screen. “I got your blood, now can we please—”

“Just give me a second,” Newt said, digging around in his pockets before swearing under his breath as he glanced behind him at Marshall Linden getting closer to the reporter, his hands shaking as he started looking through his bag. “I just gotta—”

“I really don’t need to see this a second time,” Hermann said. “Hurry up.”

“I know, I know,” Newt said; he finally found what he was looking for, a crumpled receipt that he pressed over the blood, rubbing his knuckles over it before scrambling upright and pulling Hermann towards the door by his sleeve again, as if he needed any more prompting to leave.

Newt yanked the door shut behind them just before they heard the first thud of the decanter.

He was still holding onto Hermann’s sleeve until Hermann shook him off as he started down the hallway as quickly as he could; the growing aches in his legs and his back were dulled just enough by the adrenaline pounding through him to get him to the charred outer wall before he had to slow down, the light stinging in his eyes after how dark it had been with the boarded-up windows.

Newt didn't pause at all; he shoved his shoulder against the door with a wince, nudging Hermann through it with his hand at Hermann’s back before following him out with one last look behind him.

His hands weren't shaking any less as he fumbled for his car keys, almost dropping the receipt before he finally got the door open.

“Holy shit,” he said quietly, barely seeming to notice when Hermann got in after him, the keys left forgotten on his lap as he stared at the receipt. “Holy shit, Hermann, the blood’s still...it’s still there, it’s actually corporeal, holy shit.”

There wasn't much when he held the receipt out for Hermann, but it was undeniable.

The blood had stayed on the paper.

“Can I see that?”

Newt nodded, but as soon as he handed over the receipt, he curled over himself with his head between his knees.

Hermann decided he would give it a few seconds.

He held the receipt up closer to his face, then up to the window, the brownish red smear still clear and solid even with the light shining through it.

Newt still hadn't gotten up by the time Hermann came to the conclusion that there wasn't much else it could be.

“Newton,” he said, bumping Newt’s shoulder when he didn't take the receipt back with a rushed apology when Newt flinched. “We really need to go.”

Newt nodded, but he didn't say anything until he pushed himself upright a few seconds later, his hair a mess and his face a little more pale than Hermann thought it should be by then.

“I think you gotta drive,” Newt said.

“I can’t.”

“Hermann, I just almost fell on top of a corpse, which we still have to call in, I’m kinda freaking the fuck out right now—”

“No, I mean I can’t drive,” Hermann said. “I don’t have a license.”

“Are you serious?” Newt blurted out, his voice jumping high and reedy. “How do you not have a license?”

“Public transportation—”

“Oh my god,” Newt groaned, dropping his head in his hands again. “There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner, we can’t stay here.”

“I really don’t think—”

“You're not gonna crash in the thirty seconds it’ll take to get there,” Newt said, finally pushing himself back up again; he didn't wait for Hermann to respond before getting back out of the car. “You won’t even have the morning traffic at this point.”

Hermann frowned, but Newt’s hands were still shaky, fingers tapping erratically against his thighs, and he let out a deep breath before getting out after him.

“I owe you, like, ten coffees for this,” Newt said, clapping his hand down on Hermann’s shoulder as they passed each other around the front of the car.

“You're going to have to remind me what to do,” Hermann said as he got in the driver’s seat, tentatively turning the key in the ignition; he remembered that much, at least. “I haven't had to try this in a long time.”

“Turn signal,” Newt said, pointing along as he continued, “the gearshift kinda sticks, gas pedal could stick a little more.”

“Wonderful,” Hermann muttered; he forgot to put the car in reverse first, only after Newt swatted at his hand when the car lurched forward. “This might be an even worse idea than coming here in the first place.”

“It’s fine, you're fine, I need coffee.”

Hermann kept the car crawling along down the long driveway, coming to a full stop to switch on the turn signal as he ignored Newt’s oh my god, Hermann, before carefully trying not to swerve too sharply into the road.

“It’s just a few buildings down,” Newt said, muffled slightly as he chewed at his thumbnail. “Right there—turn signal, dude, don’t be that guy.”

“Where—?”

“Right there.”

Hermann tried not to think too much about the honking behind him after he turned in to the parking lot.

“Okay, that one,” Newt said, pointing across to an empty spot to Hermann’s left. “You got enough room not to hit anyone.”

It was still a close call while both of them held their breath, waiting for the sound of metal screeching against metal with the side mirror a little too close for comfort to the next car over.

“You gotta put it in park,” Newt reminded him.

“I’m aware of that,” Hermann muttered, but Newt still let out a shaky breath that sounded a little like a laugh.

Newt’s leg was bouncing incessantly even standing up as he waited for Hermann to get out of the car and toss him the keys.

“Oh,” Newt breathed out, bouncing on his heels once they were inside, “fluorescent lights, I never thought I'd miss you. What are you getting?”

Hermann frowned at the menu before going to the refrigerator for a bottle of juice, but Newt took it from him before he could get in line.

“I told you I’d get it,” he said. “You grab a table.”

Hermann tried not to look too relieved at not having to stand any longer.

He hadn't realized his hands were shaking almost as much as Newt’s had been until he flicked a couple crumbs off of a table by the window.

Everything felt inexplicably off.

There were a couple people in line ahead of Newt debating donut flavors, most of the other tables filled by people chatting about work or awkward dates or television theories, an uneventful but expensive vet visit, without any knowledge of what had happened or of the body they had found so close by—still there, and she had been for so long, crammed into the drywall while everyone around that house went about their days without any idea, no clue that she was even there.

Except for Newt.

Hermann tightly folded his hands together in his lap.

“Yeah, triple shot—I know it’s extra, that’s fine,” he heard Newt say from the counter. “And, uh, you got a phone, or—? Mine’s dead, I gotta…”

Hermann didn't hear the rest of it as he turned to look out the window; he had to force himself to look away from the trees surrounding the house.

“Got some Munchkins, too,” Newt said when he came over a couple minutes later, wiggling the bag pinched between his thumb and Hermann’s juice. “There’s a payphone outside.”

Hermann took a deep breath before steadying his cane to push himself up.

“Do you think this is a 911 thing,” Newt started to ask, muffled around the straw from his coffee, “or a finding-the-local-cops-number thing?”

“I think 911 would be appropriate in this case,” Hermann said. “Would you—?”

“Yeah, one sec.” Newt dug his keys out of his pocket to unlock the car so Hermann could sit down before remembering to bring over his juice. “What do you even say, like…”

“Say you found a body in the basement at the Linden house and hang up.”

Newt frowned; his hands still didn't look very steady as he took out a Munchkin. “What if they think it’s a prank or something?”

“You said you’re on decent terms with the groundskeeper?”

Newt nodded.

“You can ask later, then.”

Newt nodded again. He dropped the paper bag into Hermann’s lap as he leaned over him to get a couple quarters from the cup holder, but he didn't straighten up just yet, almost bumping into Hermann to get into the glove compartment. “Fuck, you gotta be kidding me…”

“What is it?”

“Could've sworn,” Newt mumbled, finally leaning back to open the rear door so he could look through his backpack. “I had, like, half a pack left, come on…”

Hermann took a close-to-empty pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket to hold one out for Newt.

“You're a fucking godsend,” Newt said, closing the back door a little harder than necessary before pulling out his lighter. “Just give me a sec—you can smoke if you leave the door open.”

Hermann gladly took him up on it.

The payphone was a little ways down from the Dunkin’ Donuts entrance; Newt popped the quarters in, turning so his back was to Hermann, but he could see the hesitation before Newt’s arm raised to dial the number.

He wished he could have heard what Newt was saying, but it was probably for the best; they didn't need anyone else hearing.

Newt went stiff—they must have picked up just then—and it couldn't have been more than a minute before he slammed the phone back into the receiver and rushed back to the car.

“What did they say?”

“They’re gonna check it out,” Newt said, almost dropping his coffee as he put it in the cup holder and rolled down the window so he could finish his cigarette; he didn't ask Hermann to drive that time. “We better book it.”

Hermann had only just closed his door and hadn't quite gotten the seatbelt buckled before Newt swerved out of the parking spot.

Hermann had felt out of sync and out of place since that morning with the basement.

Newt had come in to use the bathroom and pet Hermann’s cat, hovering by the doorway for a few seconds until Hermann had offered to order lunch.

They didn't talk about it, and Newt left a while later, not wanting to get stuck in traffic.

As hard as he tried to go back to his usual routine, he couldn't stop thinking about the body, and he found himself clicking through local news sites in his spare time more than he had ever had reason to before.

Days went by, and then weeks, without any word from Newt or anything in the news about a body being found, and Hermann tried to push the entire ordeal from his mind; the figures felt less real the longer he went since seeing them, but he still couldn't get that skull out of his mind.

It had been three days since he had last checked for any new information when he came home from work to see Newt sitting on the hood of his car.

Hermann’s heartbeat spiked.

He didn't want to have to think about this.

He didn't really see any other option.

“You do know I have a phone,” he said.

Newt glanced back at him, almost slipping off of his car in his rush to get over to Hermann. “There’s been a development.”

Hermann slowly let out a deep breath and adjusted his bag over his shoulder. “Come inside.”

Newt was wringing his hands together as Hermann unlocked the door, black polish on his nails chipped and dull at the ends from biting.

Hermann had barely gotten the door closed by the time Newt blurted out, “I went to see the groundskeeper.”

“Did you,” Hermann said flatly, hanging up his bag and his jacket and leaving his shoes by the door before going to the kitchen.

“She hasn't seen anything else,” Newt said, following him to pull out a chair while Hermann filled up the kettle. “Usually she’d have to go check out some mysterious noises on, like, a weekly basis, but the whole place was swarmed like an hour after we were there, I think it’s still technically a crime scene now…”

He trailed off, not saying anything else until Hermann started the water and turned around.

“No thoughts on this?”

Hermann let out a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“What is there not to know?” Newt asked. “You saw all that shit with your own eyes—I still have the video—we found the body, the body’s gone, and nothing’s been happening since then, it worked.”

Hermann shrugged and turned back to the counter to scoop some tea into a strainer.

“Haven't seen any more bad reviews from a certain someone,” Newt pointed out.

Hermann hadn't been able to anymore; he had found a few of Newt’s videos while he had still been looking for news about the body, with Newt in an old hospital or another abandoned house or a decrepit factory, the same videos he had come across before but never bothered to watch. His earlier comments had been buried, and while they still made more sense than the videos, he had seen too much to really be able to believe his own words anymore.

He had almost considered ordering one of Newt’s books.

“Hermann,” Newt said. “You can’t seriously think it’s still bullshit after all that.”

“Unfortunately,” Hermann said, “I don’t think I can.”

Newt blinked like he hadn't really been expecting that answer before grinning almost as wide as his face.

“Do you know if they’ve found it’s him?” Hermann asked. “Marshall Linden?”

“I dunno yet,” Newt said. “Probably, though, he was the prime suspect the first time around, hiding a body in drywall in the basement is pretty incriminating.”

Hermann’s heartbeat hadn't slowed down much by the time he poured the water and pulled out the chair across from Newt.

“Dunno if you remember that bet,” Newt said, “but you still got some reviews to take down.”

Hermann dropped his head to his hands.

“None of this makes sense,” he said. “It can’t make sense, there’s no reason to it, it doesn't—it’s impossible, it should be impossible, but I can’t—” He trailed off, pulling in a deep breath before sitting up straight again; he couldn't bring himself to make eye contact as he added, “I can’t stop thinking about those…”

He grimaced, waving his hand around by his eyes, but Newt’s shoulders sagged, his grin slipping before Hermann would have had to continue.

“I haven't been able to sleep worth shit,” he said. “I can’t, uh...I can’t, either.”

Hermann huffed as close as he could get to a laugh. “Is that not part of the usual job description?”

“Fuck, no,” Newt said. “Ghosts, whatever, weird noises, creepy shit coming out of the walls, I’m all over it, not so much crashing into a body.”

“You only almost did,” Hermann pointed out. “And you were looking for her.”

“Yeah, ‘cause no one else was,” Newt said. “Never seen a body like that before.”

Hermann nodded and leaned his chin on his hand; Newt started fidgeting with a loose thread on the sleeve of his jacket.

Neither of them said anything until it had been long enough that Hermann had the excuse of his tea being done steeping to get up for it.

Newt almost resembled a lost puppy when he got back to the table.

“Do you think they’re going to make it public soon?” Hermann asked.

Newt frowned and jerked his shoulders in a quick shrug. “I hope so, if they don’t get that guy I'm gonna be pissed. Fucker.”

Hermann nodded again and took a sip of his tea.

Newt had started wringing his hands again, glancing between Hermann’s mug and the door. “I just wanted to tell you what was up,” he said, starting to push himself up from the chair. “I’ll—”

“I was going to order dinner soon,” Hermann interrupted; it felt impulsive, but he didn't regret saying it once he had, not with the memory of that dead reporter clanging around in his head with more clarity than he would like to be left alone with again. “There’s an Indian restaurant nearby that delivers.”

Newt slowly sat back down.

“You gonna get naan?”

“Obviously,” Hermann said.

“Okay.”

With their plastic containers of curry and rice spread out over the kitchen table with a double order of naan that Newt had insisted they needed, Alan Purring distracted away from it by extra wet food, Hermann was still picking at his bowl while Newt was already starting on his second.

“I think I owe you an apology,” Hermann said, intently scraping some rice onto his fork to avoid looking at Newt. “You were right.”

“Yeah, you said—”

“I meant about before.”

Hermann looked up when Newt still hadn't said anything a few seconds later.

“It’s cool,” Newt said eventually.

Hermann wasn't sure that it was.

He couldn't really blame himself for not believing Newt until he had seen it himself—and then a little while after that—without the solid certainty of hard evidence or studies, nothing but his word and questionable-at-best research from only amateurs and a handful of disgraced scientists; it had still been hanging over him that their correspondence years ago had ended so sourly, with Hermann refusing to take him seriously only to find out the hard way that Newt had been at least on the right track all along.

“I never meant for things to go that way.”

Newt’s eyes snapped up to meet his.

What things, Hermann wasn't quite sure he knew how to specify, but even after two moves and a landing himself fairly prestigious position, and even after so many times telling himself he would finally get around to it, he still hadn't gotten rid of their earlier letters.

Newt shrugged and went back to molding his rice into a pyramid. “I didn't even know what the hell I was talking about then, I probably would have said the same thing now.”

“I know,” Hermann said. “I still could have perhaps been less…”

“Not such a total dick about it?”

Hermann frowned at him over a forkful of curry.

“It’s cool,” Newt repeated.

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes, the silence only filled with Alan Purring’s bowl clinking against the floor until Hermann asked, “Do you think Tendo knew—?”

“Oh, god,” Newt said, rubbing the heel of his palm against his forehead. “Probably.”

Their eyes met when Newt looked back up at him; it looked like Newt opened his mouth to say something, covering for it a couple seconds too late with another bite of rice.

“We did…” Hermann started to say, his heart beginning to thump. “We did never really get to that restaurant.”

He risked a quick glance up at Newt, about to scramble for some sort of excuse about just wanting to try the food, but Newt beat him to it.

“Finding a dead body not your idea of a first date?”

“Hardly,” Hermann said, the relief coming through in his tone clearer than he had really meant for it to. “And that would have been the second one.”

“It looked overpriced anyway,” Newt said. “There's a—”

“I am not doing that again.”

“What I was gonna say,” Newt cut in, “is that there's this new coffee place with the best donuts they make right there that I’ve had in my entire life.”

Hermann’s heart was still thumping, though not for quite the same reason as before. “I should get out at four on Tuesday.”