“A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.”
- William Wordsworth
Austin wakes up to the heat of the sun spilling through the blinds and onto his face. The noise of construction right outside the window overlaps the sound of the shower running in the next room, nearly drowning it out, as Austin blinks up at the ceiling and lets his mind slowly buzz to life. Every few days he wakes up in a different room, with a different bed, and that makes it hard to remember where he is at first. But the bed underneath of him is more comfortable than a motel bed, the sheets softer and less scratchy. Austin lets his head sink into the pillows, rolling over towards the light. Somewhere in Colorado. Not Yuma, that was days ago. Something to do with deer? Antlers? Antlers. That’s it.
Austin sits up in bed and passes pale hands over his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, wincing as his fingers find a new zit threatening to form on his forehead. Soon after, the shower stops, and someone stumbles out of the bathroom. Someone Austin recognizes. Otter Redford. A good looking guy, by all accounts - tall and muscular, with brown skin and sun-bleached, unruly hair, a dusting of freckles all over his face and shoulders. And not just good looking, but generous. He and Austin met at a bar and hooked up a couple days after Austin rolled into town, and Otter had offered to put him up until he left town or found a place of his own. It was an offer Austin couldn’t refuse, not with how little money he had left.
And besides, he and Otter fit together, in a way neither of them had expected. Otter is the kind of person you could know for two days and feel like you’d known for years. He seems to like Austin, too, for whatever that’s worth. Austin had fully intended to sleep on the couch, after the first night, but Otter had been more than happy to share his bed the second night, and then the third. It’s nice - the intimacy, that is. Maybe a little too trusting on Otter’s account, but Austin isn’t used to seeing the same person (or the same place) for more than one night. Usually he blows through a town, hooks up with whoever he can hit it off with at the local bar (sometimes no one at all), and leaves the next afternoon.
“Hey,” Otter says, grinning at Austin as he towels off his hair. “You’re up early.”
Austin grunts and stretches, cracking his back before getting out of bed and hunting around on the floor for his clothes. “The construction woke me up.”
“Oh, yeah,” Otter says, glancing towards the window and grimacing. “You’ll get used to it.”
“You keep saying that,” Austin says, tugging on a pair of wrinkled jeans. His leg feels a little tingly, like he put his weight on it wrong while he was sleeping.
“It’ll keep being true. You just haven’t stayed here long enough.” Otter grins. “Can I interest you in breakfast? I think there’s a couple eggs in the fridge.”
“Sure,” Austin says, stopping to yawn with his shirt pulled halfway over his head. He yanks it down the rest of the way, and pushes his hair back into place, out of his eyes.
Otter starts to dress, pulling on a v-neck shirt that clings attractively to his bulky frame. He looks over at Austin, his eyebrows quirked up, and Austin has the sudden urge to skip breakfast entirely and drag Otter back to bed with him. He puts the thought on the backburner and focuses on finding his gray letterman jacket, all balled up in the corner where he last threw it.
By the time Austin is lacing up his boots, he can hear eggs frying in the kitchen. His heavy footsteps precede him as he drags himself down the hall, sliding past Otter at the stove and opening the fridge. Austin hunts around for orange juice for a few seconds, comes up empty, and settles for pouring himself half a glass of chocolate milk.
I could probably get used to this, he thinks, watching Otter push eggs around in the pan. He doesn’t like to stay in one town for too long. It increases the chances of getting caught and dragged back home. But he has to settle down somewhere for a while, to find a job to do before he runs out of money. It may as well be here, with a generous host like Otter, who knows the town well enough that he might even know what jobs are open.
“What’s your plan for today?” Otter asks, doling out an egg each onto two plates and reaching over to grab two slices of toast just as they pop out of the toaster. He stumbles a little on his way to the table and hisses ‘ow’ to himself, glancing around for what he tripped on before giving up and sitting down. Austin’s seen him do this before - he’s clumsy, and it’s cute.
“Job hunting, I think,” Austin grabs his plate, stacks his egg on top of his toast, and starts shoveling it into his mouth. “Know anyone who’s hiring?”
Otter cracks a grin. “Just about everywhere is hiring. You’ll find something.”
“Yeah, I’ll end up working at the fuckin’ Taco Bell. Think you could get me a job answering phones at the hospital?”
“I could check around and see what administrative stuff’s open.” Otter stands up and crosses over to the fridge, somehow procuring the bottle of orange juice Austin had given up on. He pours himself a glass while he talks. “No idea why you’d want to work there, though.”
“What, like I can’t handle seeing people with gallstones or broken legs? Please. I’ve seen worse.” Austin tips his chair backwards, leaning its weight on the two back legs. Otter’s apartment is well-furnished, though most of the furniture has clearly seen better days. The kitchen table and chairs look like they were made in the 70’s.
“It’s not just broken bones and sick people. It’s gotten worse lately. Especially with the construction.” Otter sits back down at the table. He takes a couple sips of juice before he continues, wiping the residue from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “A couple weeks ago, we had a worker in who got himself impaled on a piece of rebar. He’s lucky to be alive, honestly. Lost a lot of blood.”
Austin makes a face. He’s impressed by how calmly Otter can talk about these things, like they’re just facts of life. Then again, you work at a hospital, you see a lot of shit. Especially gruesome accidents.
“And then there’s the animal attacks,” Otter goes on.
Austin raises both eyebrows. “Animal attacks?”
“Yeah, some tourists have gotten bit lately, by some big animal that came out of the woods. We had to test them all for rabies.” Otter laughs, but there’s not a lot of amusement in it. “None of them had it, thank God, but nobody’s been able to find whatever bit them.”
“It didn’t kill any of them?” Austin asks, his interest piqued. With big animals, usually they bite and bite and won’t let go until their prey is dead. It’s not like one to just bite and run.
“Not that we know of. All the tourists say that whatever it was ran off as soon as someone came to their rescue.”
“Could be a werewolf,” Austin muses, mostly to lighten the mood. He’s seen a couple werewolves in his time, but not this far into the Southwest. They might be just an East Coast thing, for all he knows. Besides, Otter knows about - and seems to believe in - his medium stuff, but Otter doesn’t know that werewolves are real. Yet.
“It’s probably just a coyote or a wild dog or something,” Otter says, and finishes his toast, leaving the crusts on the plate. “I hope it’s not a whole pack that found their way into town. The last time something like that happened was before I was born, even.”
“How do you take care of something like that?” Austin’s genuinely curious, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. He’s never even seen a coyote, outside of programs on the Discovery Channel.
“Trap them or kill them. Or both. Oh, shit -”
Otter is up like a shot from the table, having glanced over to the clock and presumably found that it’s far past time for him to be out the door. He grabs his bag and keys from the rack next to the sink and gives the kitchen a quick once-over, grimacing a little.
“Do you mind cleaning up before you leave?”
“Of course,” Austin says obligingly. As long as he’s allowed to stay in the apartment, he might as well pull his weight. He looks up at Otter. “Have fun with your werewolves.”
“Right,” Otter says with a smirk. “Have fun applying at Taco Bell.”
The door is slamming shut before Austin can retort. He grins a little to himself and makes sure to eat as much as he can before starting to clean up, even munching on the bread crusts Otter left behind. It’s not often that he gets an actual home cooked meal, so he might as well enjoy it. It’s not until he’s washing dishes off in the sink with a sponge that’s seen better days that he hears the voice behind him.
“He seems nice.”
Austin snorts, scrubbing the tines of a fork with more force than necessary. “We’re not dating.”
“You could. You might be here a while,” Richard says pointedly. Austin snorts again.
“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”
“Well, one could say it’s yours, for not even writing to your brother. It’s been a whole year.”
“Like he really thinks cutting me off from the family bank account is going to make me send him a fucking postcard?” Austin pivots towards Richard, brandishing the half-washed fork like a weapon. “It’s a low blow, and you know it.”
“He’s probably lonely, Aust. Running the Department all by himself - if you would just call him -”
“No way.” Austin snorts.
The presidential position at the Department of Paranormal Research, a paranormal investigation agency funded by the U.S. government, is Jacob’s by birthright. They’ve always been kept within the Jones family, passed from eldest son to eldest son. Jacob has been trained to take over the role since he and Austin were teenagers, and Austin was trained to work under him, as a field agent. But Austin has never wanted anything to do with it. He’d rather not let someone behind a desk dictate when he’s allowed to use his powers and when he has to sit in a cubicle doing paperwork.
The light from the kitchen window makes Richard more translucent than usual, but it’s still obvious that he’s wearing a disappointed frown. “Jacob’s just worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m 21 years old. I can handle myself.” Austin tosses the fork into the sink and turns to watch it clatter against the stainless steel basin. Gritting his teeth, he grabs his letterman jacket off the back of the kitchen chair he sat in for breakfast and throws it on, stuffing his hands into the pockets. “I’m gonna go see if I can find somewhere I can make money. You stay here. And no snooping around in Otter’s stuff.”
Richard starts to protest, but Austin is out the door and down the stairs before he can hear any of it, flying out of the apartment complex into the smell of crisp, fall air. From what he can remember, the main road with all the shops and the town hall is just around the corner. It’s as good of a place to start as any.
my favorite part of this update is otter being in it. i love that guy. also antlers au where austin actually does get a job at taco bell instead of [spoilers]