#gottbleed week

Hermann slowly shut his eyes. “Newton, I assure you, the attraction is quite scary enough without your... additions.”

He tried to return to his book, but Newt was more than a little distracting, making pitiful whining noises and peering through the peephole installed in their closet. They were stationed at the very end of the haunted hospital, charged with flipping a recording of eerie voices and setting off a series of pulleys. That would cause a group of ‘ghost patients’ to soar through the air, all of which was supposedly horrifying enough to scare the participants through the back door and out into freedom.

Newt didn’t think so.

“We gotta add something, dude,” he grumbled. “This haunting sucks.”

“We’re not here to judge its merits.” Hermann slowly turned a page, even though it was really too dark for him to read. “I assume that you, like me, are merely here for some extra cash?”

“Well yeah.”

“Humanities debts?” He asked, peering upwards. There was only the slightest hint of scorn in his voice.

Newt grinned though. “Bio PhD, actually. You’re the one with the book.”

“Maths,” Hermann drawled. “Though I am also working on my doctorate. At least now we know where us grads go to pay off our loans...” he snorted at his own words.

“Grads...” Newt said slowly.

“Yes? What about us?”

Newt turned and though it was dark - though Hermann had only known the fool a few nights - he’d begun to recognized that look. Something like fear made its way down his spine.

“What, Newton?”

“Most of the guys out here,” Newt jerked his thumb at the peephole. “They’re undergrads.”

“Yes. So?”

“So we’re adults.”

“And?” Hermann was beginning to lose patience. He slammed his book shut, then immediately wished he had something to hide behind as Newt turned a fearsome grin his way.

“Sooooo, what do kiddies like that fear more than anything else? Huh? Huh? The idea of two adults getting it on, that’s what!”

Hermann gapped at the man thrusting his hips obscenely.

“You don’t mean you want to--?”

“Do something other than sit in this cramped space all night? Hell yeah I do. C’mon, Herms!”

Thus that was - oddly enough - how one Hermann Gottlieb ended up making out in a supposedly haunted hospital, exhibiting more of an exhibitionist streak than he’d have ever assumed he had. It was how he tumbled off a bed with a partner for the first time (“It’s too damn dark in here!”), managed to cut himself on the rusty headboard (“Want me to kiss it better?” “Gods no! I probably need a tetanus shot, for the love of-”), and got to smack his first partner for daring to cop a feel (“We agreed kissing only!” “Okay, okay, shit, now I’m bleeding!”). The whole debacle lasted a week, leaving plenty of time for practice...

That was also the year ticket prices for the University’s haunting attraction increased tenfold.

Beneficial he supposed. Every penny counts.

Though in truth, Hermann walked away from that experience with far more than a check in his pocket.