Austin tears into the rest of his vending machine meal once he’s safely back in his room, washing it down with a cup of sink water before finally lying back on his bed in a carb-induced stupor. Exhaustion is washing over him again, sinking deep into his bones, but he has too much to do tonight to be sleeping on the job. Starting with, he realizes suddenly, explaining to Otter what’s going on.
It’s only when Austin picks up the phone, fingers hovering over the number pad, that he remembers he doesn’t quite know Otter’s phone number. But he does have an idea of Otter’s address - he knows the street name and the apartment number, at least - so he can get 411 to connect him. Sure enough, the operator puts him through. The phone rings so many times that Austin thinks maybe Otter is out of the house, or asleep, but finally there’s the tell-tale click of someone picking up on the other end.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Austin says, smiling in spite of himself at the sound of Otter’s voice. You’re already in too deep with this one, he thinks in the back of his head, trying to wrestle the eagerness out of his voice. “It’s me. Austin.”
“Where are you?” Otter sounds confused, but not pissed off, which is as good a sign as any. Then again, he doesn’t seem like the type to get pissed off very easily.
“Still in town. At the motel.” Austin props the phone between his chin and shoulder and grabs for his cup of water, taking a long sip before he continues. “I’ll probably be back tomorrow, I’m just here for tonight.”
“Is this about the thing with the cops?”
Austin drains his cup of water, wondering idly how much he’s allowed to tell Otter, and if Monty or Mac will care if he says more than he’s supposed to. Probably not, he decides. “Yeah.”
“Is it about the people who died on the road this morning?”
“Yeah,” Austin says again, then pauses. “How did you-”
“I work in the hospital, remember?” Otter sounds a little smug, like he’s pleased to have surprised Austin with how much he knows. It’s pretty cute. “And nothing big ever happens in Antlers. Word gets around. So, did you talk to the dead people?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess that’s why the sheriff’s keeping you around.”
“Well, I’m not exactly working for them. Kind of...adjacent to them.” Austin flops back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and tracing the stains and patterns there with his eyes. “Hey, what do you know about her? The sheriff, I mean.”
“The sheriff? Not too much. I’ve never really met her in person, just some of the deputies that have been at the hospital for whatever reason. She’s supposed to be good at her job, though. And I don’t think she’s from around here,” Otter says. There’s silence from his end after that - probably he’s trying to think of what else he’s heard about Sheriff Maxwell.
“She seems alright,” Austin says eventually, to fill the dead air. “For a cop, I mean.”
Otter laughs. “Yeah, fair enough.”
“So, hey, I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?” Austin asks. “In time for dinner?”
“Oh - yeah. That sounds good.” The sudden smile in Otter’s voice is audible. Cute, Austin thinks again, confirming that he is in way too deep. “Be careful, okay? I don’t know what they’ve got you doing out there at the motel, but I don’t want you getting bitten up by a rabid dog or whatever’s been attacking people. Don’t go walking around by yourself in the dark.”
Austin thinks about telling Otter that he was already attacked in the woods earlier - actually, that he was stalked through the woods by a human in the morning, then attacked by a buck in the afternoon. He decides against it. That’s a story he can tell in person tomorrow. No sense in worrying Otter now, when he might do something rash like drive over to the motel and put himself in danger.
“No wandering around in the dark without a knife. Got it,” Austin jokes instead, trying to lighten the tension he’s feeling.
“I’m serious,” Otter says. He does sound pretty serious, and Austin can’t help but smile about it.
“You do care.”
“Of course I care,” Otter says, with a huff. “Really, Austin. Be careful.”
“I will.” Austin’s smile grows wider. It’s almost a novelty, having someone besides Richard who cares this much about his well-being. It makes his chest feel warm - even if he’s definitely not going to heed any of Otter’s advice. “I promise.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.” Otter sounds reluctant, like there’s something else he wants to say. Austin waits to see if there’s anything else to the conversation, almost hoping there will be. There isn’t. Otter hangs up after a couple of seconds.
Austin puts the phone down in its cradle and hauls himself up off the bed and into the bathroom to take a piss that he’s been holding in for hours. As he’s washing his hands, he looks up at the mirror out of the corner of his eye, catching movement where there was none before. There’s something behind him - a vaguely defined, shadowy form lurking in the bathroom doorway. Austin’s heart pounds like it’s about to burst through his chest as he pretends to calmly dry his hands off with his back to the figure in the mirror. How did it get in the room? Possible explanations, snippets of escape plans race through his mind too fast for him to seize onto any one of them. The room temperature feels like it’s plummeted to ice cold.
“Playing detective, huh?” the figure behind him asks. Austin lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.
“God damn it Richard! You could warn a guy!”
Richard clasps a hand over his mouth, barely disguising the fact that he’s trying his best not to laugh. “Sorry - sorry. I was at Otter’s and heard you over the phone. Thought I’d come see what you were up to.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Austin grumbles. He sidesteps Richard - walking through ghosts doesn’t feel particularly good - and flops down on the bed again, kicking his boots off into a corner.
“Sorry, Aust,” Richard says again, a little more sincerely. He drifts over to the bed. “I can keep an eye on things around here, if you want to sleep for a bit. You look exhausted.”
He’s not wrong - every bone in Austin’s body is begging for rest. The offer is much too tempting to resist, especially coming from one of the only people Austin trusts implicitly. Richard is the one who ran a department exclusively devoted to researching anything and everything paranormal for eight years, so he’s practically overqualified for keeping watch. Plus, Austin knows better than anyone that Richard can never resist the chance to jump in on a good mystery. He’ll probably become intolerable if Austin doesn’t let him help.
“Okay,” Austin says, shifting to get comfortable on top of the bedsheets. “But anything out of the ordinary and you wake me up, got it? Especially if you see the guy in 105 try any weird shit. I met him earlier, and I don’t trust him.”
“Sure thing,” Richard says, with a mock-salute, drifting over towards the window. “I can poke my head in there to keep an eye on him, if you want.”
“That seems kind of...invasive,” Austin says, making a face, then breaking it with a yawn. He doesn’t have any concrete evidence against Walker, and he doesn’t want to make Richard spy on someone who could turn out to be deeply weird, but ultimately harmless. “Just let me know if he leaves his room. And if you see anything else lurking around outside. Especially around the construction site.”
“Right, right. I’ll let you know,” Richard agrees. “Now go to sleep.”
Austin sighs and settles against the pillows, watching the ceiling for a few long minutes before exhaustion weighs his eyes shut. He wants to worry about what might happen while he’s out, but he’s unconscious before he knows it, drifting towards a hopefully dreamless sleep.
“deeply weird, but ultimately harmless” is SUCH a funny way to think about walker. also extra points to this update for otter being Present. love that guy