"Hhyeup."

James watched Harry heft himself up onto the counter. The older man crossed his ankles and wedged the bottle between his knees so he could wriggle his jacket off. It was draped unceremoniously over an empty rack beside him, flashlight fetched and clipped into his sweater. "Alright. Let's do this."

"You realize we could just smash the bottle and get the key, right?"

Harry slowly lifted his eyes. He stared into the store, then took his blank look to the conduit. James squinted back at him with a smirk. "Oh, shit," Harry said. "You're right."

"Well, that was an easy puzzle. Next."

Harry stared dumbly down at the bottle. He shook it gently, feeling as idiotic as he looked. "Hm." Quiet filled the space while he thought it over. "Hm," he reiterated. "I.. yeah, you're right."

James slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and waited. The veteran perched there on the counter appeared truly mystified by an answer so obvious. It forced him to bite back his smile.

"Uh.. yeah.. we could do that. I mean.." The author's posture slumped. In stark contrast to his bemoaning a minute ago, he now seemed deflated. "Wow. Talk about a brain fart."

"You could give it a try anyway. We're stuck here for a while. If you can't figure it out by dawn, we'll smash it."

Still, Harry was disappointed. "Yeah. I guess." Another pause stood between them. He sat up straight, raised his arm high, and chucked the bottle to the tile floor. James jumped instinctively back, anticipating shattering glass; but there was none. The bottle bounced like a baseball and rolled under a display. Both stared after it, stupefied. Harry pursed his lips. "Hm. Okay. Sure. So an anti-logical thinking measure was taken. Well played."

James fetched the bottle and inspected it. "Yeah, I guess. It's not even cracked. The glass isn't that thick, either."

"Now we both look like morons," he said, accepting the puzzle back. "How's that for a plot twist?"

Green shoulders shrugged, and maroon ones dropped. "Okay. I'll get on this," Harry grumbled. "You do whatever it is you wanna do."

"I think I'll do a little shopping."

"Great idea. Hope you didn't forget your coupons."

He clicked his tongue. "Ah, left them on the table."

"You always do. What do I keep telling you, James? Put them in your wallet or in your coat and you won't end up forgetting them."

"Eh, next time."

Harry chuckled softly, already tinkering with the piece. "Yeah, sure. Dumb blond."

James shot him a look and began to stroll away. "Real mature."

"I like to live up to expectations when I can."

Shaking his head, James turned down an aisle. Time-weathered labels, from pancake mix to powder detergent, tried to entice the curious, but this customer wasn't interested in either. The clinking and soft muttering served as the background noise, which was soon shut out when James went into the back.

As he cruised the alleys behind the once-cold fridges, he thought about the way they bantered. Every now and then James could play a successful round of word ping pong against Harry's artful maneuvers. He spotted his charge through the dusty glass and empty shelves. Harry was as he left him, hard at work with the puzzle, his frustrated face illuminated from the bottom by his flashlight. James paused to watch. The lighting made him think of spooky campfire stories; children gathered around a fire, wide-eyed and clutching onto every word. Being a writer, Harry must be a hell of a verbal storyteller, too. He'd already demonstrated that he was rather verbose. James softly frowned.

A memory of a Boy Scout trip into the local campground cropped up. James had enjoyed it. It'd been a nice getaway from the bland, dreary home life he led. The event was fuzzy. All he got were distant emotions about it rather than any visuals, but the fact he remembered it at all was troubling. More and more often he was remembering . He'd had nary a spit of things from his life before since Silent Hill had him crawling out of the lake. Too many problems, too much time to ruminate, and too many of them connected right back to Harry.

James wove his way out of the maze. He distracted himself by poking his nose into other people's business, not that it mattered, anyway; the tenants were long gone. Employment applications and shipping invoices were spread on a desk in a tiny little office beside an even tinier space that looked like a break room. James jostled the drawers and half-heartedly moved the contents around, looking for something and nothing. In the break corner - not a room, just a crammed corner bearing one metal chair and a milk crate - the space was mostly taken up by a mini-fridge. As though he didn't experience enough horrors, he pulled open the door and expected a sentient science experiment to leap out at him.

To his grateful surprise, there were no creepy crawly leftovers or even blood splatters. Right in the middle of the rack sat a bottle of chocolate milk. If that wasn't strange enough, James discovered that the fridge was a little cold. He stuck his hand in there and felt the bottle. It was cool. Making a face, he closed the door and checked for a plug. There was a plug and there was an outlet, but they weren't intimate. He stepped away and frowned down at the compartment. Weird. Very weird.

And even weirder, it felt familiar.

James sighed and slowly spun in place. There was nothing of real interest here, but once again, he didn't know what he was looking for. He never knew what he was looking for. The first runaround in his first days was a blind wild goose chase - much like the same kind that Harry had dealt with. He idly wondered how far Harry got around in this neighborhood; what buildings were closed to him, what others beckoned. The cafe was a real interest. If only the sigil hadn't been there, perhaps he could've gotten some information that would have answered some of his—

His posture straightened. He did have answers: they were right there, waiting for him, on his back. James's odd heart quivered with excitement. This was the perfect time to start in that heavy reading. Harry encouraged him to pin up his dirty laundry, and by god he'll do it with enthusiasm.

The claustrophobic office became his reading room. By the light tucked into his front pocket, he started to unravel the mysteries of the Masons. Thank god Harry's cursive was legible; he couldn't imagine having to sit next to him needing him to read back his own handwriting and perhaps not being able to discern it himself, or worse, lie about it. James wouldn't have been able to soak it in like that. Harry would have too much control. So thank fuck that even though the man was left handed, he cared enough about his penmanship that he made sure it was coherent to the average Joe. It was a pleasure to read.

Yes, he offhandedly acknowledged for the second time: Harry's handwriting was handsome.

It suited him.

James was so engrossed in this little history lesson that he didn't hear Harry calling for him until the door to the back room loudly pushed open. He shot up in his seat and flailed with the notepad like an office worker caught reading a porno magazine at his desk, covering it with both hands just in time for Harry to lean in the doorway.

He must've looked like a deer in the headlights because Harry grinned and popped himself out of his sight. "Oop. Sorry. I should've knocked."

Harry rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. James's startled embarrassment dropped to a flat scowl.

"Knock knock. Hey boss, you decent? I gotta question."

If Silent Hill didn't outright kill this man, James would be happy to pick up the slack, one way or another. He wondered how Heather put up with her father. Who the fuck says 'knock knock'? "What."

"I mean, if you've got a minute. If you're really busy, I can come back later, but uh.. it's kind of time sensitive, so.." Harry could feel the eye roll on the other side of the wall. His grin widened.

"What do you want, Harry."

"Well, uh, I've got a little problem. But I don't want to bother you too much with it; I mean, I probably could work it out myself, but I've been at this for awhile and it's starting to make me look and feel real stupid, and it's just doing a number on my self-confidence and my ego, here, and I dunno if you noticed, but I'm really attached to my ego.."

James stared hard at the ceiling. Frank Sunderland had had his embarrassing dad moments, and maybe would have appreciated some of this nonsense, but James reckoned that before long even he would feel awkward around Harry. Heather sure must be a trooper. "Stop beating around the bush, what is it?"

Harry peeked into the room. "Are you gonna write me up?"

"No." The conduit leveled a stale glare. "I'll fire you."

He whined. "Aw, c'mon. I really need this job."

Even though he was still rightfully annoyed, these asinine little roleplays could be kinda fun. Harry's pleading face could win an award. This was all stupid, and James was a little disappointed that he enjoyed it. That aside, none of his feelings about it reflected on his face. "Not my problem."

"Help me out here, just this one thing. I promise. It won't take too long, then you can get back to whatever you're reading." Harry glanced at James's hands hiding the pad. "That looks like something you probably shouldn't be looking at on the clock..." He smiled, shrugging. "Just saying."

An exasperated sigh later, James beckoned him in and pushed the notes to the side. "Shut up. What is it?"

"What's the matter? You don't take well to a little friendly blackmail?" Harry set the unsolved bottle puzzle on the desk. James eyeballed it. "You wanna give this a shot?" he asked. "I think my brain is too fried to keep chipping at it."

James took the puzzle and turned in his hands. Harry gauged the space between the other side of the desk and the wall, and the crummy folding chair wedged between them. There was no way he'd fit in there. That was too bad. He looked down at his guardian fussing experimentally with the riddle.

"Well?"

"Yeah, I'll play with it," James muttered. "It looks more complicated than it is."

Harry shrugged. "I put my faith in you."

He earned a grunt. Since he dropped that chore onto the younger man, he made it his turn to go perusing the store. James heard him open the mini fridge and scoff. "Hey, there's a bottle of chocolate milk in here."

"Wouldn't advise opening it," came the reply.

"No shit? I'm afraid of even touching it. It might talk to me." There was a pause. "This thing's still cold."

James sighed irritably. "And unplugged. Don't worry about it, Harry."

"Oh, the charms of Silent Hill," the author muttered. The fridge door dully closed, and moments later, so did the entryway back into the store.

When James was alone again, futzing with an actual physical puzzle, he idly (and frustratedly) pondered the riddle of the keys. There were so goddamn many of them. It was getting to a point where it felt tedious. On top of that, these trails felt disappointingly plain, as though the town forgot how to craft a proper runaround. Instead, it was resorting to half-assed clues and all their quests were handed to them like a to-do list. Take this, go here; it was easy. Too easy. It veered far from what James hates to call 'normal' and left him suspicious and frustrated. Overall it was annoying, but not as annoying as this godforsaken bottle.

In the midst of his work, whispers rippled through his head. His hands slowed. James listened; his work went on mechanically. The town tittered until it faded away, characteristically coinciding with his solving the puzzle and Harry's return.

Harry leaned in just as James fetched the key. He scoffed, setting his forearm on the door jam and leaning into it. "Are you kidding me?"

James held up the new addition to the collection by its ring. "Tada."

"You clever son of a bitch. Good job."

Harry palmed the offered key, then picked the paper off. He sighed. "Post office. I'm about to go postal. You starting to feel like this is getting droll? It's like they're not even trying anymore. That, and the clues are so blatant it's like we're being called stupid, or being treated like toddlers. Hell, they're not even clues! They're more like, I dunno.. scavenger hunts, except we pretty much have the answer list."

James glanced at him. It was getting disquietingly eerie that they were on the same page more and more often. "Yeah. I'm not a fan."

The aging man shuffled the two steps in and perched himself on the edge of the desk. "Me neither. It bugs me." Harry turned the paper over. "'B.C.. Neat. I guess we'll be looking for a B.C. when we get there."

James observed Harry maneuver the key onto a ring now bearing all the others that they'd picked up so far. His eyes slightly narrowed; Harry'd decided to not only keep, but use one of the ones from the lodge for the keys' safe keeping. The Lake View Hotel tag read 312. Regardless of whether or not he meant to keep that one in particular, enough anger simmered in James that it warranted a spoiled mood he'd have to keep deep and hidden from Harry for now.

Asshole.

"I see you're getting started on my notes, there," Harry said. "How far are you?"

James looked at the pad. "You arrived at the school."

"Mm." Harry picked up the bottle and rod, looking them over. "Did you know that you don't truly solve puzzles like these until you put them back together?" He threw a glance over his shoulder. "It's true. You should see some of those guys on YouTube. They get these wild puzzle boxes, take 'em apart, and put 'em back together. It's even harder that way. Totally nuts. It takes them a good few hours to get it all back together. I love that shit. It's a great rabbit hole to go down. Especially when you're procrastinating."

His stoic, grumpy cohort silently pulled the reading material back over. Harry studied him, then got to his feet, suggesting they move back to the front. James agreed, so they did. Once there, Harry hoisted himself up onto the counter again, crossing his ankles while James got comfortable on the floor. "Let me know if you have any questions," he quietly offered. James grunted, and got back to reading while the wayward father tinkered with the bottle until black gave way to grey.