Newt ran his finger along the last paragraph of page 45 of A History of Chemistry, Volume 2 for the third time, before shoving the book aside with a frustrated groan. He'd been at this for three hours and still didn't feel any closer to being able to summarize how Priestley's work with oxygen had laid the foundations for Lavoisier's.
Another groan broke the silence - a shiver ran up Newt's back when he realized it hadn't come from him. Meanwhile, the door to the stacks creaked ominously, inch by inch, then slammed shut all at once. Had it been this cold in here a minute ago?
He ran through the possibilities with was left of his brain: a) another student - unlikely. At three in the morning on a Thursday; even the most fervent studiers had departed hours ago (probably when the library officially closed).
This left him with b) malicious intruder - again, unlikely. What valuable volumes there were in the library certainly wouldn't be found in the chemical sciences reference section. If the intruder was too stupid or drunk to know that, the chances that he'd made it to the fourth floor were remote.
Which left him, unfortunately, terrifyingly, with c) GHOST. The university was three centuries old and one of the most prestigious in the country. The chances that someone had died in this very library, possibly in this very chair? Pretty damn high, by his calculations.
"Hello?" he called out, voice shaking. "Anybody there?" The only response was an ominous rattling in the distance - the elevator! Newt looked down frantically for something, anything to use as a weapon. "Calculator, Erlenmeyer flask, back-up calculator - useless, useless, useless! Gonna have to go classic - hit it with a book."
He brushed a reverent hand over the cover of History of Chemistry, Volume 2, before picking it up and creeping toward the door. "Apologies, Joseph Priestley. It's all in a good cause. Hey, for all you know, I'll be responsible for the next oxygen!"
As he waited behind the door, the seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly, and he had time to think. His first thought? "I'm sorry, Dr. Priestley - that sounded arrogant before. I don't really have that kind of confidence in my research, it's the adrenaline talking. And, you know, the fear." Deep breath, Newton, keep it together.
"Maybe it's not a ghost..." Newt told...himself? Priestley? "After all, you've never seen one. Just because the electromagnetic composition of the human body makes them far more likely occurrences than most people suppose -"
He was cut off by a loud thumping noise echoing down the hallway. Newt huddled the book close to his chest and listened. To his horror, the sound coming his way was unmistakably ghostly. Thunk. Draaaag. Thunk. Draaaag. Thunk. Draaaaag.
"Hot damn, he's got chains! Or a body!" Newt squeaked, as quietly as he could. "I was hoping for a nice, quiet academic ghost I could bribe with knowledge!"
As he stood there hyperventilating, the unthinkable happened: the door began to creak open, inch by inch by inch until - Wham! He brought the book squarely down on the head of the specter, which crumpled to the floor.
Newt had approximately two seconds of congratulating himself - and one of congratulating Dr. Priestley - before the "ghost" emitted a string of German curses that sounded a) suspiciously human and b) unfortunately familiar. Oh no. Tell me I didn't. Please, please, tell me I didn't.
"Ummmm...Hermann? That you down there, buddy?" Newt returned the book to the table as casually as he could manage. If only Joseph Priestley could help him now. Who was the appropriate scientist to invoke for concussing your (illogically attractive) lab partner with a book?
"Newton?!" Hermann's voice was full of pain and rage in equal measures. "Gott in Himmel, you? Thought I was being robbed!"
"Robbed?" Newton laughed, but one look at the pain on Hermann's face had him sinking to his knees. "Come on, who would be lurking in the library at three in the morning, waiting to rob you?"
"You thought I was some sort of criminal!" Hermann retorted. He groaned as Newt positioned him against the nearest bookcase. "Or was this just one of your...charming American customs?"
"Of course not!" Newt exclaimed. He didn't like the slur in Hermann's voice one bit. "But I wasn't silly enough to think you were a robber. No, man - I thought you were a ghost!"
"A ghost?" Hermann demanded. He winced, and Newt rolled his eyes in frustration. "Even for you, Newton -"
"Would you keep your voice down?" Newt hissed. "You're aggravating your injury. And yes, I know that it's my fault, and I'm sorry, okay?"
Hermann said nothing, no clever retort or cutting remark. Newt, worried, cupped Hermann's face in his hands. "Hey...I am sorry. Really sorry. But you have to talk to me, man. Where does it hurt?"
The moonlight filtering through the tiny window at the top of the room slashed a stream of blue across Hermann's face. As a result, Newt was treated to a perfect view of the dreamy look on his face as he smiled a lopsided smile and murmured, "Right here."
Hermann's lips grazing his nearly had Newt toppling over onto him in surprise. His fingers grasped desperately for the bookcase, knuckles scraping against worn cloth and leather. The angle was bad, awkward as hell, all bony elbows and scraped knees and yet...
The adrenaline in his blood was screaming, "More! More!" He swung his leg over Hermann's (Carefully! Carefully!) and arched against him. His fingers raked through close-cropped hair, fingernails grazing against his scalp, until -
"Fuck!" Newt exclaimed, pulling back sharply. "Shit! Sorry, um, again! Did I hurt you...again?"
Hermann was still smiling that dreamy smile - under the circumstances, Newt found it very worrying. "Nein, Schatzi, nein," were the only words he got out before his head slumped against Newt's torso.
"Hermann!" Newt shook him gently, then harder, to no avail - his lab partner was out cold. About to scream for help, Newt realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that the library was dark, closed, and deserted. "I could use a helpful ghost right about now."
Guess it's up to me now. Joseph Priestley help us both. He pried Hermann's hands off his waist and stumbled to his feet. Hermann's head lolled against the bookcase, and to Newt's utter surprise, he began to hum softly to himself.
"Well, at least he's alive," Newt muttered. "Come on, buddy, up you go!" He put it down to the collective power of dead students and scientists past that he managed to maneuver a humming Hermann to his feet.
Hermann's cane in one hand, his waist supported by the other - the man himself slumped completely against Newt's side - Newt dragged them both slowly out of the room. His delusions of getting them both out of the building dissipated quickly, and he settled for situating Hermann in a chair by the elevator while he phoned for assistance.
"Campus Security?" How the hell am I supposed to explain this? "Listen, long story, but I'm going to need an ambulance at the library, stretcher for the fourth floor lounge. My lab partner and I had a bit of an accident..."
"Of course, we're not drunk! I wish! Don't you think I'd rather have been curled up with a bottle of tequila than The History of Chemistry, Volume 2?" No offense, Joseph. And okay, it's a lie, but they don't need to know that.
"Look, you are wasting time. While you're interrogating me about my lifestyle habits, Hermann Gottlieb, potentially the brightest up and coming physicist of his generation, is sitting here with a head injury threatening his brilliant brain! So get out here and do something about it!"
Thrusting his cell back in his pocket, Newt jumped a foot when a hand reached out and took his. "Brightest of my generation?" Hermann's grin was half smug, half delirious. "Brilliant brain? You say such nice things when you think I'm unconscious."
"Well, you're going to be more than unconscious when I get through with you!" Newt threatened - emptily, they both knew. "You scared the hell out of me! Don't tell me you were faking the whole time!"
"Give me a little credit." Hermann looked impressively complacent for a man who'd just been hauled around like a sack of flour. "I came to somewhere around you curling up with a bottle of tequila. Besides, you must admit, it serves you right."
Newt knelt in front of him and laughed, a little tearfully. "Maybe it does. But I thought I'd killed you! Okay, maybe not killed, but what if you had brain damage? What if-"
Hermann grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in for a swift kiss. "Oh, I certainly have brain damage, Newton. Snogging you, middle of the library, middle of the night, when we both have a chemistry test we're going to fail tomorrow."
"Well, if it's chemistry tests you're worried about..." Now it was Newt who sounded delirious. "You've definitely earned an A on this one." Sending a little psychic thanks to good old Joseph for a result this phenomenal, Newt preempted Hermann's groan with another kiss.