Charles' shoe was tapping, fidgeting manically on Erik's hip, and he grabbed the appendage and squeezed it hard to get it to stop. Still, the man was too distracted to so much as glance at him, twisted in his perch on the dining room table so that he could try and see what Hank and Darwin were doing lurking over the dual video cameras that were pointing straight at Erik like the barrels of two guns.
Why did I agree to this? he wondered, feeling aching and uneasy.
Charles seemed to be wondering the same thing.
"No, Darwin, the green button—Settings through the green button!"
"You want to come do it?" Darwin growled because this was not the first time Charles had started back-seat-setting-up-the-infrared.
"Yes," Charles sulked, but retreated from the temptation: turned back around, hugging his knees, realizing Erik was still holding his foot. The brunet rubbed his hand for too short a moment before pushing it off him.
Erik hoped Darwin and Hank were too distracted to catch his pout on tape.
"We need to get this on film," Darwin had struggled to explain when they finally quit the bathroom, before Erik had even really noticed Sean lugging in film equipment from the van. This was only the second thing he'd struggled with since their re-arrival; Darwin's first instinct had been to apologize like a madman. Erik had cut him off immediately with a cold shoulder and a stony face. He did not want to be apologized to, because as soon as accepted an apology it would be ungentlemanly to loathe Darwin as much as his bitter sense of vendetta demanded. Darwin didn't fight him over the right to be forgiven, seemed to escape their awkward stalemate by fleeing back to his relationship with Charles, namely: work. "None of this is worth anything if we can't document it."
"What?" Erik had growled immediately, yanking Charles' arm away where Darwin had grasped it in his eagerness. "You don't believe me?"
Charles had stopped him before he could get any more antagonistic than that, putting a staying hand on Darwin's shoulder as well, saying, "It's not about belief, Erik. It's about proof. And I happen to agree. If we can capture these manifestations on visible format, it could be a real breakthrough. We've got to at least try."
Darwin nodded, apparently content to ignore Erik since he couldn't make up with him. "I've got Hank setting up some floodlights in the stairwell so we can get a camera set up there. We've already got the GoPros up in the living room and library—"
"Library? Did something happen in the library?"
"Not exactly," Darwin had hedged. "But Hank says there's a really promising heat flux there."
"I need another set up in the master bedroom, too. Maybe Sean can do it when he's finished carrying…" Charles said, an edge of glumness sinking into his voice. Erik had had the urge to rub his back, or ruffle his hair, and was halfway to doing so when Charles shifted away slightly, giving him a warning glance. Right. Professional. Can't have the team seeing you be a real human being. He dropped back and tried to ignore Darwin's nit-picking gaze.
"Why can't you do it yourself?" the man asked slowly.
Charles didn't answer him.
"Let's set up at the table so we can still get some work done while it's recording. Erik, sit here, please? Sean darling? Can you be a dear and set up a GoPro upstairs in the main bedroom? Just above the bed facing the bathroom—make sure the door's open. And can you please grab my laptop? And Erik's satchel, also."
Everything seemed to move too quickly from there. It seemed hardly a moment before Erik was sitting there as in front of the firing squad, Hank suddenly beaming with pride.
"Okay," the lanky man beamed, enjoying this blow too much. "I think we've got it. I'm going to start recording."
Charles got down off the table and moved away, cattycorner to him, close but out of the way of the cameras. Erik tried to ignore the heavy weight this left in his stomach, tried not to start fidgeting, shivering.
Don't, he wanted to cry out, like when he was a child realizing he had not quite steeled himself for a vaccination as well as he'd initially thought. Like when he'd broken his leg and the doctor had said, Okay, I'm going to count to three and then you're going to feel a little pain, and it had sounded so doable at 1 but when they got to 2 he'd changed his mind and demanded they start over. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready.
Sean seemed equally on edge about the little experiment, even though it had nothing at all to do with him. "I'm not so sure this is a good idea," he squeaked suddenly, wringing his hands, cowering behind Hank. "I mean, what if it comes back?"
"This might come as a surprise to you," Charles hummed, turning on his computer, eager to return to his first love: work. "But, as paranormal investigators, we do actually want it to come back."
I don't, Erik thought, whole-heartedly. He looked down at his hands—they had started to shake.
Don't press record yet, he looked up to say, but the dual red lights were already glaring at him like two eyes, and behind them were Darwin and Hank, both watching, waiting, for something to happen. Erik pressed his hands under the table against his thighs and tried to breathe around the aching in his chest.
"Friends," Charles sing-songed, smiling at the hypnotized men, breaking them from their staring match with Erik. "Don't you think we'd be better off getting some work done while this records? It could take a while, after all."
And take a while it did.
At first Erik couldn't get himself down from his anticipatory high despite the inaction—Sean had gone off to read a comic, Hank was comparing temperature data with Charles, Darwin was analyzing the MADS sensors and keeping an eye on the stairwell, and still there was nothing Erik could do but stare at the red, piercing dots on the camcorders and wait, wait for it. Still, it was better than where his eye wanted to land, where it insisted on probing with the entirety of his peripheral vision: the gaping hole of the stairwell door and its illuminated depths, like floodlights in a coffin.
He jerked out of it finally only when Charles reached over under the table and gripped his knee, looking at him with eyes like two calm seas and smiling his full-lipped, troublesome smile, saying, "Oi. Get some work done, slacker."
Choking on a laugh, Erik had done just that, willing his limbs into movement, his brain into action.
Sean had brought down his satchel and Erik grabbed it, slid it in front of him on the table, took out his H2 from the side pocket and was surprised to find his cell phone there as well. He was momentarily sidetracked with the thought of plugging himself in and watching the couple episodes of Band of Brothers he had stashed on the thing, but it had gone dead, so he let the pipe dream fall away and resigned himself to work.
Inside the satchel was his waistcoat and belt from last night, which he managed to keep from blushing over, he hoped. He slid Charles the tidy ziplock bag of clear buttons he found, and the man wasn't so lucky, cheeks going fire-engine red in no time flat, making him chuckle anew.
He'd never written an article by hand before, wasn't sure where to start it, and so messed about, getting his headphones and plugging himself into his H2 to go over his interviews with Charles again.
They took his mind off things, if only because he got to relive how incredibly awful he'd been to the man on first meeting him. What kind of masochist was Charles that he'd thought the douchebag on that tape was a good investment of a passionate night? He wasn't sure how he'd pulled last night, or, rather, that morning, off, but he certainly hoped it had been in spite of his shitty first impression rather than a propensity of Charles towards shitty people.
Darwin was certainly shitty enough, and Charles certainly did seem to get along with him.
Frowning, doodling circles on his legal pad, Erik couldn't help but let his mind wander down that well. Charles said they were just friends, and he had said he wasn't dating anyone, Erik was sure he'd said that. But still…there seemed to be too much going on there for friendship to be the end all be all of that relationship. Darwin was too interested in Charles, and Charles was too careful of Darwin for that to be the case. If they were just friends right now, if Charles wasn't dating anyone right now, was that the way they both wanted it? Was that the way they both planned it? Was that the way it had always been?
Erik's heart tightened painfully in his chest.
He'd fallen into Charles' life all of yesterday. Was it not the open field he'd first imagined—was it instead full of early birds, prior engagements, pre-promises? Were there parts of the man already carved up for people who had been at the table long before Erik had even thought to place his bid?
No. Erik decided, forcing himself to calm down, tearing off his paper full of anxious scribblings and shoving it in his satchel.
Maybe Charles wasn't straight off the manufacturer's table like Erik had stupidly pretended, maybe he came with a past, but so did Erik, so did anyone who wasn't sixteen and fresh to the fight. Charles was straightforward, he was honest, he wasn't afraid of saying whatever he wanted to say. If he said there was nothing between him and Darwin besides friendship then that's all there was to it. It was up to Erik to take it past that. Up to him to be equally honest, equally forthright. He wanted to be with Charles, he knew that fully, completely. What use did he think it was to keep the idea to himself?
Charles had shown his strength, his courage—it was Erik's turn now. Charles might have rescued him from a couple of ghosts, but Erik was going to do the more enjoyable thing. Erik was going to take the real plunge; was going to ask that damned ghost hunter to date him.
"We prefer paranormal researcher," the man's voice said in his ears. "Or investigator if you must."
"Of course," his own voice sneered back, before getting cut off and in that moment Erik promised to pay the brunet back a thousand-fold for how awful their first meeting had been.
In the next moment he was too distressed to think much of anything.
With a click and a fumble the first interview was over, and Erik was surrounded by the noisy silence only an empty tape could give, the soft sound of wind in a tunnel, steady waves on a far-off beach; then slowly, layering up, there was the shuffle of movement, the clack of something hitting metal, the schluff of a body hitting the ground, the grunt of his own breath as his ribs had readjusted to the wooden flooring. The soft, quiet whispering of the people in the vent.
Even holding his breath, Erik couldn't make out what was being said, no matter the automatic straining of his ears, his mind, it made no sense, just the whispering, whispering, of people, how many people? milling about, talking secrets amongst themselves. Fragile sounds made their way above the gentle sea of noise: a low, pained moan, a soft, breathless almost cough, a woman weeping.
Erik's heart, or something close by his heart, twisted so wrathfully in his chest that he jerked in his seat, would have cried out if he'd been able to even breathe around the pain of it.
But in a moment, before Charles or any of the others could fully form their surprised yelps of concern, the pain had dissipated, disappeared, leaving an ache no worse than when he first sat down. He was left sitting there just as shocked as everyone else at his antics, at his sudden violent flinching.
"I'm all right," he growled, blushing, pushing his headphones off and stopping his tape. "I'm all right, it was just fucking heartburn or something! Calm down!"
Darwin had come around from the kitchen counter, whether to check on him or the cameras, Erik wasn't sure. Either way, the man just frowned at his demanding barking and glanced at Charles, who was already out of his seat and refusing to be bossed around.
"What was it? What happened?" Charles demanded, rubbing his chest where Erik was palpitating. "You're warm again." The man moved his hand up to Erik's forehead and Erik almost laughed, it was such a motherly, playing-doctor thing to do. He caught the man's hand and rubbed his stubbly cheek against it; he was sure to let go before Charles could pull away.
"I'm fine," he assured. "I'm just not as used to pure sugar for breakfast as you are."
"Darwin?" Charles asked, looking over his shoulder.
The black man just shook his head, scowling at the camera screens.
Charles sighed, having the gall to sound a bit frustrated that it turned out to be nothing, and collapsed back petulantly in his chair beside Hank.
"We need to figure out what is triggering these violent reactions, otherwise how on earth are we supposed to instigate it? We need to think."
"Well," Darwin nodded seriously, "Let's think then. What situations brought about the manifestations before? Could we recreate those parameters?"
"No!" Erik balked.
"I'm only talking hypothetically," Darwin assured.
Erik refused to be assured.
"Well stop talking about it at all. This shit isn't happening to you. You don't give a fuck what instigating it means, what it feels like."
"Erik please calm down," Charles demanded. "No one's talking about locking you in the basement again so please don't pretend as such."
"It seems to be focused on Mr. Lensherr," Hank pointed out needlessly. "Maybe we should explore what exactly it is about him that's drawing a reaction. It might turn out to be something we can recreate with a willing participant, if need be."
"Maybe it's his sunny personality," Darwin muttered, but not quietly enough. Charles ignored him completely in any case.
"Great idea, Hank! Maybe we could recreate our Colorado experiment? No, no, too messy…"
"What about Hesselius' experiment in England?"
Erik hit the table, louder than he was wanting but still, it shut everyone up.
"I. Am not. A fucking labrat."
"Oh, Erik," Charles laughed good-naturedly, patting his shoulder. "Of course you're not a labrat! Anyway, it's not the sort of experiment you're thinking of—Hesselius' test was simply sort of… an interview. You're not afraid of a little interview, are you?"
"How the hell is an interview supposed to help you?" he grumbled, not enjoying getting laughed at, even if it was just Charles.
"Well," Hank jumped to explain, pushing his glasses up excitedly. "The tactic he used is, you ask a series of questions and basically…well…wait to see which one the site responds to, and then you refocus your questions to that, and so on and so forth until…well…"
"Until what? What happened at the end of Hesselinny or whoever's experiment?"
Erik was sure he didn't want to know because everyone was suddenly blushing and picking at their nails, but Sean answered regardless, in his own way.
"Is that the one with the guy who died or the guy who went crazy?"
Charles turned in his seat to glare at him, thus unable to stop Hank from saying, 'helpfully', "Both, technically."
"That is completely irrelevant," Charles growled to shut them both up, turning to Erik and patting his hand. "There were extenuating circumstances. It's not indicative of the stratagem. The chances of you going crazy or dying are negligible, I promise."
Erik was less than relieved.