I’ve built this circuit which is a really crude Geiger tube, i was wondering how the two trans

I thought maybe there was some current going through the voltmeter but then to me it doesn't make sense that there would be a difference in voltage across it.The basis of this Geiger tube is that the wire at the base of the first transistor is not touching the coffee can and so the only current going through is the current coming from the ions inside the coffee can created by ionizing radiation.I also don't know whether to call it a Darlington pair transistor as there is no supply voltage connected to the collectors of the transistors.Any and all help would be appreciated concerning the operation of these two transistors, I have built this circuit using my limited materials and I get a reading of around 1-5 volts on my voltmeter but I presume that's all mostly noise.

Your voltmeter probably has an input resistance of 10 megohms. This is serving as the collector load resistance of the transistors, so each volt of reading on the voltmeter corresponds to 0.1 microampere = 100 nanoamperes of collector current: 1 V = 100 nA, 5 V = 500 nA.
The base current into the first transistor is the sum of the transistor's base leakage current and the ion and electron currents in the coffee can. These currents will appear noise-like.A candle flame is full of ions, so your coffee can might respond to a nearby flame.

Thank you Dr. Anderson! this explanation really helped .