Fingerprints

Five

Newt was wandering around the small house, searching for fingerprints. They were on another case together, but Newt was a little worried. Thomas had been acting off for days, ever since he'd said he felt dizzy. The american had avoided Newt, and not been making eye contact when they were forced to interact. Even as they were working on a case together, the man was on the other side of the room, searching in silence. Newt decided to push his confusion back for the moment, and focus on the case at hand.

They were trying to find a man, Nathan Pond, who was the police's main suspect in connection to a murder of a thirty year old woman. The two detectives were currently searching his house for anything that could link him to the murder. They hadn't found anything, and had been searching in uneasy silence for a few hours. Newt's foot was beginning to whine in discomfort, pushed in by his heavy doc martens, but he ignored it and ran a gloved hand through his hair.

He stumbled across an answer machine, light blinking up at him. He had a message.

"Hey Tommy, someone left Nathan a message." Thomas turned to him, meeting his gaze for a second before snapping his eyes to the ground. He came over, eyeing the answer machine as Newt pressed down on the button. A nasally voice spoke from the machine, taunting.

"Hi police fuckers. This is Nathan, and you're currently in my house, searching for any clues that I may have killed Mandy Brown. Jokes on you, I burned all the clues. Just like I'll burn you." The message ended and a furious beeping began screaming rom the machine. Newt's eyes widened and he turned to Thomas, who barely had time to mouth 'shuck' before Newt was pulling on his arm. The man got the message and jumped away from the machine, throwing himself to the ground, quickly followed suit by his partner.

There was a burst of heat that took Newt's breath away. His whole body felt like it was melting, the air leaving his lungs and immediately being filled with clammy, hot air. The burst made his closed eyes water as the noise defended his ears, leaving a high pitched ring in them. He felt the force push him forward, only slightly because of his position on the floor, but made his head slam into the wooden floor that had suddenly heated. The force subsided, but the heat didn't.

He rolled onto his back, sitting up with a groan and the clutch of his head, before he turned to Thomas. The man had his eyes squeezed shut, trying to rid his ears of he ringing. He hacked a cough, and slowly sat up.

"You good?" He asked, although Newt couldn't hear. He watched Thomas's lips as he repeated the question, the ringing slowly fading. Newt nodded, before mouthing back the same question that Thomas nodded too. It was slightly less awkward, but Newt figured that if two people almost die in an explosion, they're not going to be very awkward around each other the moment afterward.

The two slowly stood up, gripping each other for support and watching what was left of the room around them burn. Newt blinked back some tears the smoke was causing, before pulling Thomas, who had clearly got a lot of smoke in his lungs already, away from the room. His legs were weak, and his vision was blurred, but Newt felt slightly better once he regained his hearing. Thomas coughed out the smoke and sucked in clean air as he bent double.

"You good?" Newt repeated, assuming Thomas had his hearing back, as the blond did. Thomas straightened, finally meeting his partners eye for more than half a second.

"Yeah I'm ok. Are you?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, if that isn't rock hard evidence, then I don't know what is." He murmured, still trying to catch his breath.

"Good thing we have cameras then isn't it?" Newt laughed softly, falling short when he caught something in his peripheral. He whipped around on his good foot, catching a boot leave the front door. He pulled out his gun, catching Thomas's nod as he pulled out his own. "You got back alley." He murmured, quickly following the foot out of the front door.