“- heard he was possessed -”
“ - killed people?”
“Maybe we should ask him -”
The three customers at the diner’s corner booth are murmuring with their heads pressed close in together, and Landis knows they’re talking about him. They look like college students, or maybe a little older, and they always come in around this time for coffee and cake. All three of them are dressed almost entirely in black. Usually, Landis is fortunate enough to just be leaving work when they came in, but he’s picked up a shift from a sick coworker today without entertaining the possibility that he’d have to interact with these particular regulars. Or listen to them gossip about him.
He steels himself, and approaches the booth with a coffee pot in hand to ask if any of them need a refill. The three of them are still crammed in close together, two on one side of the booth, and one on the other, their cake plates empty of everything but crumbs. The two sharing a side of the table are inverses of one another - one short and chubby with blond curls that spill haphazardly around her face, the other tall and skinny with dark, silvery hair pulled back into a messy bun. The one sitting by themself has a curiously lopsided hairstyle, face-framing and black in the front, buzzed and dyed red in the back. They’re the only one who seems to notice Landis approaching, and interrupt him before he can even open his mouth.
“Are you Landis Holliday?”
Can’t they read a nametag? Landis puts the coffee pot down on the table and forces himself to keep smiling. “Yes.”
“I told you,” the one who asked hisses at the others, then straightens up and returns Landis’s smile. “I looked up some pictures of you and your band, but I wasn’t sure - your hair was different -”
“Yeah,” Landis says, self-consciously running a hand through his hair, cut short and dyed sandy brown with Austin’s help. It was supposed to keep people from recognizing him, but clearly it wasn’t enough of a change. He wishes the floor would open up and swallow him. “Um, do any of you want a refill, or -”
“Is it true that you killed the rest of your band?” the blond one asks. Her eyebrows are quirked up curiously, like she’s hoping for juicy gossip instead of a description of murder. Landis glances around the diner to make sure no one heard her, but the place is just about empty. Not many people in Antlers tend to come here for their lunch breaks - the diner only gets busy around dinner time.
“Aster,” The one next to Blondie says scathingly, and elbows her in the side. “You can’t just ask him that.”
“But I wanted to know -”
“Tara’s right. It’s rude,” the one on the other end of the table butts in. And then all three start talking at once again, either arguing or trying to be heard over each other.
“I did kill them,” Landis says, which shuts up the whole table. “Do any of you want a refill?”
“Me, please,” the tall, thin one - Tara - says. She sounds a little sheepish, and can’t look at Landis, her eyes darting down towards the tabletop. She picks at her paper tablecloth with her nails while he reaches over and pours more coffee into her cup, tearing little squares out of it, tearing those squares into smaller squares.
Aster, the blond one, leans closer to Landis. “Is it true that you were possessed?”
“God, no.” It takes most of Landis’s self control not to roll his eyes. Where did they hear that? Am I an urban legend already? It’s only been a month.
“But you weren’t just killing them for fun,” Aster presses him. “It was because of something out at the lake, right? Some evil spirit in the woods out there or something? They were blood sacrifices, not random murders. Right?”
Landis can’t stop himself any more - he glares at her. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious,” Aster mutters. She slumps down in the booth, folding her arms over her chest and looking a little put out.
“We’re part of a local witch coven,” the one sitting alone, whose name Landis has yet to catch, explains. “We thought that because of your...experiences, you might like to be around some like-minded people.”
Witches? Landis barks out a laugh. Well, if ghosts and...whatever was in the lake exist, then sure, why not witches too. Unless they’re just goth kids who like the idea of magic, and have no idea that any of it is real.
“I’ll think about it,” he says out loud, only because his job requires him to keep a positive attitude with the customers. He regrets it, because Aster is already pulling out a pen and writing an address down on her chocolate-frosting-stained napkin.
“We meet here every weeknight,” she says, shoving the napkin at him. Landis sticks it in his pocket without reading it. He’s only just started living in the actual town of Antlers, so it can’t be an address he’ll recognize.
“Okay,” Landis says. He can feel the will to keep being polite fleeing his body the longer he stands here in front of this booth. Luckily, the bell at the front door announces the arrival of another customer, and he can see them taking a seat at a table in his section out of the corner of his eye. Perfect.
“Grab me when you’re ready for the check,” he tells the witches, and scurries off to deal with the newcomer before any of them can object. The newcomer who, strangely, looks more familiar now that Landis isn’t looking at them out of the corner of his eye. The newcomer who looks a lot like - oh.
“Landis,” Otter says. His cheeks are pink, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s from embarrassment or the cold outside. “I didn’t know you were working now.”
“I’m filling in for someone else,” Landis says, gesturing vaguely with the coffee pot. His hands feel sweaty. He and Otter don’t interact often without Austin being present as a buffer.
“That’s...nice,” Otter offers.
“Yeah.”
They stare at each other for a long time before Otter breaks the silence again.
“So who’s that at the other table? Friends of yours?”
“Oh my god,” Landis breathes. He checks to make sure none of his superiors are watching, and slides into the seat across from Otter at the table. “They said they’re a witch coven, but I think they’re serial killer groupies or something,” he says in a hushed tone. “They kept asking me about the lake, and they told me to come to one of their meetings tonight.”
Otter’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you going to go?”
“I don’t know.” Landis fishes the napkin Aster wrote on back out of his pocket and puts it on the table, smoothing it out. “Do you know where this is? It’s where they go for meetings, apparently.”
Otter picks up the napkin, studies it, and snorts with repressed laughter. Landis gives him a look.
“What?”
“This is the address of the community park,” Otter says, grinning as he passes the napkin back across to Landis. “I bet they sneak in after dark to smoke weed in the woods.”
“Or do blood sacrifices,” Landis adds under his breath.
“I’ll go with you if you want to check it out,” Otter offers. “I’ve got the night off, and I could use a little excitement in my life.”
Landis blinks at him. “Really?”
“Sure.” Otter shrugs good-naturedly. “Austin just called home and said he’s going to be working some ghost stakeout thing at the library all night, so I’ve got nowhere to be. And we might as well stop dancing around the fact that you sleep on my couch, and start doing stuff together.”
Landis swallows. He doesn’t know how to reply to that - it’s true that he’s been sort of avoiding any interaction with Otter aside from when their paths just so happen to cross. He’s been operating mostly under the idea that Austin’s good graces are the only reason he’s been allowed to stay in the apartment. Maybe getting to know Otter could be a good thing, even if they are almost certainly going to go and hang out with some stoners in a forest.
“Now,” Otter says, “will you take my order already? I could really use a cup of coffee.”
everyone’s going on a date this week