Tonight’s nightmares feature being buried alive, watching someone having their teeth pulled, and being on the other side of a wall of ice as spindly, shadowy hands reach towards him, outstretched, looking for help. It’s the last one that sends Austin jolting upright in bed next to Otter, doubled over in panic, his knuckles white with how hard he’s gripping the sheets.
He can’t catch his breath. His stomach flips over violently, and Austin takes it as a cue to get out of bed and as close to the bathroom as he can. He makes it most of the way before he drops to his hands and knees and vomits on the floor. Austin feels sicker than he can ever remember being, sicker than he’s ever gotten when drunk, or when he just plain had the flu. It’s like his body is trying to completely empty itself through his mouth - he keeps vomiting until there’s nothing left to throw up, and he’s left gagging on the ground. The retching must wake Otter up, because Austin hears the sound of someone stirring in the bed behind him.
“Austin?”
Otter’s voice is groggy and concerned. Austin desperately wants to warn against coming any closer, but the words get stuck in his throat, and instead he gets the small, selfish enjoyment of Otter kneeling next to him and rubbing his back. His throat feels raw, his Adam’s apple bobbing erratically as he tries to swallow past the taste of bile.
“I threw up on the floor,” he says apologetically. Otter makes an affirmative sound.
“It’ll come out. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s - I get sick when there’s danger around sometimes.” Austin coughs, and wipes his mouth, forcing himself to breathe more evenly. “Usually not this sick.”
“You don’t need to go to the ER or anything, right?” Otter asks. No doubt he would actually throw some clothes on and drive Austin there in an instant if he thought it was necessary, but Austin doubts a doctor would find anything wrong with him.
“No, I’m okay. I promise.” Austin straightens up, rocking back on his knees. He feels drenched in sweat, and wipes his hair back and away from his face. He does feel better now that he’s thrown up, though his stomach is still clenched unpleasantly.
“Well,” Otter says, carefully, “if you’re sure...”
“I’m sure. What time -” Austin starts, then catches sight of the bright red numbers of the alarm clock sitting on the dresser. 4:56 AM. He’s been asleep for longer than he assumed - almost five hours longer than he assumed. It doesn’t feel like he’s gotten that much rest. Or any rest at all, really.
The phone only rings once Otter helps Austin to his feet, like whoever is calling has been waiting patiently so that they won’t be a bother. The sound of it makes the hairs on the back of Austin’s neck stand straight up. No one, wrong number or otherwise, should be calling here at nearly five in the morning. He mis-manages his own weight, leaning heavily to one side and trying to use Otter as a crutch to help him out of the bedroom.
“Hey, woah,” Otter says, his voice still a little slurred from being woken up so abruptly. “Where we goin’?”
“Phone,” Austin says bluntly, nodding towards the bedroom door and the hall.
He makes it to the doorframe and uses it, instead of Otter’s body, to hold himself up. The phone hangs on the wall just inside the kitchen doorway, and it’s still ringing like nobody’s business. It seems like it should have stopped ringing by now. Austin has to try a couple times to get it off the hook, mostly because he misjudges where exactly it is in the dark, and ends up slapping his palm against the wallpaper.
“Hello?” he mumbles into the receiver. He balances the phone precariously between his ear and shoulder, sliding down to sit with his back against the wall. The tiled floor is ice cold against his bare legs.
“Hello? Is this Austin Jones?”
The voice isn’t one he recognizes at first, but he feels like he should know it, and the thought briefly crosses his mind - oh hell, are ghosts learning to use the phone now? But Austin thinks of how the voice on the other line might sound without the jagged edge of panic to it, how it might sound on a more calm and collected person, and something in his mind clicks suddenly into place.
“Sheriff Maxwell?” he asks hesitantly.
“Austin,” the sheriff says. She sounds out of breath, like she’s just run a very long way. “I apologize for calling so early - I found your address in Deputy Abrams’s notes, and you’re the only one I could think of who might be able to help. Are you sitting down?”
Are you sitting down is never a good thing. Austin presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and tries to breathe, still cradling the phone against his ear, knees pulled up to his chest. He nods, forgetting that Sheriff Maxwell can’t see him.
“Austin?” she asks again.
“I - yes, I’m sitting down.”
Sheriff Maxwell lets out a slow, shaky breath that crackles with static through the phone. “Deputy Abrams left for the motel earlier to check on a hunch she had, very abruptly. She hasn’t come back or checked in on the radio for six hours, which isn’t like her at all. ”
Austin’s gut clenches into a tight knot. “And?”
“I think something may have happened to her. That she was attacked or...well, I don’t know.” The sheriff pauses. She’s quiet for so long that Austin wonders whether he should say something, or if the connection is bad and they’ve been cut off without warning. But eventually, slowly, Monty goes on. “I want to go out there and check for myself, but I thought it might be prudent to bring you along with me. The deputy seemed very confident in your ability to take care of this...well, whatever it is, and she said you were able to find more information than any of us on what it could be.”
Austin feels his entire body freeze. Goosebumps raise on his arms, and he grinds his hands into his eyes, trying not to picture Mac lying pale and bloody in a ditch somewhere. Or worse, possessed, waiting in the dark to attack him and Monty against her own will. This is your fault, he thinks. She went on her own. She was probably possessed. She got too close. Stop it. Shut up. He smacks himself in the forehead with the palm of one hand. Focus. Focus.
“You want me to come out there now?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even.
“I would prefer it,” Sheriff Maxwell says. “If you can manage it, of course. If not, I can arrange a search party -”
“No, no,” Austin says, rubbing at his eyes. The less people who go into that forest, the better. Less casualties that way, anyway. “I’ll come. Give me fifteen minutes to get dressed and get on my bike. And don’t go into the woods without me, alright? Just - just wait for me in the parking lot.”
“I wasn’t planning on going in there alone,” the sheriff says, sounding surprised that Austin would even say such a thing.
“Good,” Austin says, and stands to hang up the phone. All the adrenaline in his system is making his legs shake, like he’s trying to hold his body up on a pair of matchsticks.
“Richard,” he hisses, hoping that Richard is close enough to hear even though he fucked off somewhere when Austin and Otter went to bed together. Sure enough - a freezing wind rolls through the room, ruffling Austin’s hair and stirring up the pages of the calendar stuck to the fridge.
“I’m going out to look for Mac. Keep an eye on Otter,” Austin says before Richard can get a chance to become more corporeal. “Something bad’s going on, and I don’t know if this is it or if -” he falters, lowering his voice as he approaches the bedroom doorway. “Or if something worse is going to happen.”
Otter should be sound asleep again - he almost definitely has to wake up for a shift at the hospital in three hours - but he’s on his knees scrubbing vomit out of the carpet when Austin walks back into the bedroom. He looks concerned. Concerned and shirtless, which means it must not be even half as cold in the apartment as Austin feels like it is.
“What’s going on?” Otter asks hesitantly, glancing over his shoulder to watch Austin dig through the pile of clothes on the floor.
“One of the deputies went missing. The same one I was with yesterday.” Austin’s surprised at how easily he can force the words out of his mouth. He finds a pair of what he thinks are his own jeans and starts putting them on. “I’m gonna go meet with the sheriff. See if we can find her in the woods.”
“And if you can’t?”
Austin pauses. “Dunno. Look for the spirit and see if it took her. Talk to it, maybe. Or fight it.”
“Austin, you can’t - you can’t fight that thing. It’ll kill you.” Otter’s voice is hushed, like he’s afraid of what might happen if he raises it.
“Fine,” Austin says, louder than he means to probably, because he sees Otter jump out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t care. I’ll take it down with me.”
Otter is quiet for a very long time while Austin hunts for the rest of his clothes. Finally, when Austin is bracing himself against the bed and lacing up his shoes, Otter clears his throat, standing up to put a gentle hand on Austin’s shoulder.
“Just...come home safe.”
Austin softens, and leans up to kiss him. “I’ll try.”
He’s slipping out the door before Otter can protest.
otter: austin. please do not die
austin: UGH i GUESS
this stupid little man...i love him