You laugh. "Yeah. Nice try. You know, he slugged me real good in the face. Made my nose bleed everywhere."\n\n"Good," Jacob says flatly. You don't have a comeback for that one, so you wait for him to say something else.\n\n"I could reassign you," he says, eventually, "if you really aren't happy there. I could probably get you a position at Area 51, or bring you back to Havenwood to work with your squad again. They miss you."\n\nGoing back to work with Squad A is tempting. Your squadmates are among the few people at the Department who you can actually tolerate, but you still don't consider them friends. They're just people who you pal around with during work hours, and never see otherwise. It's hard to consider them missing you - you don't really miss them, not on any deep level.\n\n[["You don't get it," you tell Jacob.|get it]]

"You know I'd fire you if I could," Jacob is saying, when you tune back in. "But I'm seriously trying to help you out, here. You're as far away from the Department as I can put you, and all - literally all - I'm asking is that you check up on Austin a couple times a day, and make sure nothing bad is happening to him. I'm not sure why those directions are so unclear, and why you didn't seem to think they included you beating him up under the catagory of 'something bad'."\n\n"Hey, like I said, he started it," you say. "What else was I supposed to do?"\n\n[["Walk away, maybe?"|walk away]]

[["Really?" you ask, barely daring to believe that you're being left relatively on your own for the forseeable future.|future]]

[["Jesus," you say, suddenly pretty glad you're sitting down.|sitting down]]

Choose a character:\n\n[[Otter]]\n[[Walker]]

"Still," you say, "I feel like I'm going to be crashing into ghosts all the time, now that there are so mmany of them here."\n\n"I can tell them to stay out of your way," Austin offers. "I'm pretty sure that once they know you can actually, you know, hurt them, they aren't really going to want to get near you."\n\nYou frown at him. "I'm not going to hurt them!"\n\n"But you can still knock them over without meaning to, or step on their feet. And I don't think they'll like that." He scoots a little closer to you on the couch, leaning his head on your shoulder. "Ghosts aren't used to people knowing they're there. Most of them don't really like the idea of it. Anyway, you should be glad you can only touch them and not hear them."\n\n[["Why?"|why]]

"What don't I get?" Jacob asks. He has that twinge to his voice that says he's trying a little too hard to be patient with you, and what he really wants to do is slam the phone down and hang up.\n\n"I don't want you to transfer me anywhere," you tell him, slowly, like you're explaining it to a child. "I don't want to work for the fucking Department at all. I just want to live my life, preferably as far away from your paranormal research bullshit as possible."\n\n[["That's not an option," he says tersely.|not an option]]

"Really?" Jacob sounds taken aback - you can't help but grin at it. He's silent for a second, clearly considering what you've just told him, then speaks up again carefully. "There's a 'but', isn't there."\n\n"You know me so well." You grin a little wider. "I'll stay here, and I'll make up with Austin on two conditions."\n\n"Depends what those two conditions are."\n\n"One," you hold up a finger, even though he can't see it, "the Department pays for me to live in an actual apartment in town. I've been in this fucking motel room for three months, and I'm getting a little sick of it."\n\nJacob's exhale sounds like broken static over the phone line. "I'll see if it's in the budget. What's the [[other thing]]?"

Austin raises his other eyebrow at you.\n\n"You didn't know?" he asks.\n\nYou shake your head. Austin looks amused.\n\n"Well, that explains why you just sat down on top of Danton, at least."\n\nYou feel your face get hot. You recognize the name Danton - you're sure you've heard Austin, or maybe Landis, say it before, but you can't remember the context.\n\n"Who's Danton?" you ask. Austin looks a little taken aback, but you can see it slowly dawn on him that you've been out of the loop. Apparently a lot farther out of the loop than you thought.\n\n"One of Landis's bandmates," Austin says, hastily, [["who he killed."|killed]]

You don't know the ghosts are there. Not for another week, at least. Not until you sit down on the couch one Saturday morning to watch TV, and feel the unmistakable sensation of sitting down on top of someone else's leg. A leg that quickly gets jostled out from under you. A leg that (and here you check to see if you've accidentally sat down on Austin or Landis while one of them is taking a nap) seems to be, for all intents and purposes, [[invisible]].

Anyway, the point is, you were on a mission for the Department that went sideways, and you fought your brother in the street, and you tore out his eye. The point is, your brother was taking drugs to enhance his demonic abilities or whatever, and his claws left long scars down your chest, and he almost split your head open like an egg on the sidewalk. The point is, you haven't seen him since, and for all you know, he could be dead.\n\nThe point is, that was the last time you really, really lost your temper. And the way you felt while reporting it to your superiors back then is kind of the way you feel now, reporting to Jacob Jones over the phone that you sort of accidentally beat up his [[little brother]].

"Thanks." The word comes out of you mostly unintended, and you clear your throat to cover it up, hoping Jacob didn't hear. "Can I go to bed now? It's been kind of a long night, and I gotta go get my nose looked at in the morning, I guess. In case it's broken or whatever."\n\n"Get some rest, Walker," Jacob says, and you hear the gentle click that means he's hung up on you. He's too good at getting the [[last word]]. It's irritating.

"You never told me you could touch ghosts," he says.\n\n[["What," you say again, with feeling.|touch]]

"Didn't think so," you say, because it never is. But you keep asking, mostly to get under his skin, and to let him know how much you hate working for him. "Are we done here?"\n\n"No. I want you to apologize to Austin for fighting with him."\n\nYou groan.\n\n[["I'm serious, Walker."|serious]]

You and Austin have been sharing the room since he moved in. Since before that, even. Your apartment is small, and only has the one bedroom, and you were worried that things would be cramped with Landis coming to sleep on your couch. You were worried about a lot of things when Austin brought up the possibility of Landis coming to live with the two of you, especially the part where Landis was a convicted serial killer that Austin somehow got out of jail. You're a little out of the loop on how that happened. Something to do with the brother that Austin doesn't talk about. You don't want to ask about it, because maybe you're better off not knowing.\n\nThe thing you're sitting on - whatever it is - starts to get smaller, like it's receding into the couch.\n\n"What happened?" Austin asks, coming out into the hallway. [["You're making a weird face."|face]]

Oh yeah. Danton. You pick your head up and look around the room before sheepishly realizing that you wouldn't really be able to tell if he's still around. Not unless you crash into him again.\n\n"Is he okay, do you think?"\n\n"Oh, yeah," Austin reassures you, squeezing your hand in both of his. "You're probably lucky that it was him you ended up sitting on. Mal might have punched you as soon as he realized you'd feel it."\n\nIt dawns on you, suddenly, that you're sharing your apartment with [[a lot more people]] than you thought you were fifteen minutes ago.

He laughs. "They talk all the time while Landis and I are trying to sleep. It's annoying as hell, but we can't exactly stop it, you know. Sometimes Richard will tell them to keep it down for me."\n\n"Oh." You think about this for a moment. "Are they - are the ghosts mad at Landis? For what he did? Killing them, I mean?"\n\n"Yeah, some of them." Austin puts his face against your neck, and you feel your cheeks get hot again. "Mal and Wes, mostly. I think they're all kind of dealing with it [[their own way]], you know?"

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"You're right, he doesn't! And if I wanted a fucking babysitter, I would have sent one." Jacob sounds more exasperated than you've ever heard him, except for maybe when you took the night off and let Austin get stabbed. That was pretty much your bad, but you'd never admit that to him.\n\n"I just want to make sure he has someone there to help him out if things get really bad," Jacob goes on, "or if someone finds out where he is and tries to use him to get to me."\n\n"You don't think he can defend himself? He put up a pretty good fight for a kid with no real powers."\n\n"I know he can defend himself. But I'm afraid there's going to be a time he's not able to. And - I mean, I sent you because I know you hate working at the DPR. I know how badly you wanted to be out of the building, okay? So I thought, I don't know, I thought I was doing something nice for you."\n\n[[You snort into the reciever. "How charitable."|charitable]]

"This is going to get weird, isn't it?" you ask Austin. He cocks his head curiously at you like he's not sure what you mean.\n\n"What?"\n\n"I mean, with all the ghosts. Now that I know I can touch them and all. There's, what, five of them here, counting your dad? That means there's eight of us all together in the apartment. And you and Landis might not mind, but for me it's probably going to get a little cramped, you know?"\n\n"You're right." Austin frowns a little, pursing up his lips the way he does when he's trying to puzzle out something in his head. "I guess I didn't think about that. But Landis's bandmates aren't always all here at the same time - they usually only hang out in a big group at night, when you're working or asleep. And you and Richard have managed to avoid crashing into each other this far, so it shouldn't be as much of a [[problem]] as you think."

And for the record, you don't get why Jacob cares so much about Austin. If Evan had fucked off halfway across the States when the two of you were younger, you would have just let him go. Some people just need the time to figure themselves out. The distance, too. You know all about that, from the times that you, personally, have fucked off halfway across the States to avoid the Department. But they always [[find you]], in the end.

You lie back against your motel bed, staring up at the brown stains on the ceiling. Antlers isn't so bad. Maybe you'll even like it [[more]], once you're in an apartment.

small town moon

marn

END\n[[Play as Otter?|Otter]]

Three weeks ago, before the witches, Landis Holliday moves into your apartment. He brings his [[ghosts]] with him.

Austin shifts his weight uncomfortably, his gaze sliding from your face to the floor. You can tell it's not exactly something he wants to talk about, to you or to anyone else. You almost regret asking. You knew that Landis had killed people. Austin told you, the day he woke up in the hospital. But you didn't know then, or didn't want to understand, that the people Landis had killed were people he was close to. Maybe not all of them - you doubt he really intimately knew the girl he was arrested while trying to abduct. But his own bandmates?\n\n"Yeah," he says finally. "I told you before, it was because of the thing in the lake. Landis was feeding it so it wouldn't come out here and start killing people left and right."\n\n"So he fed it his own bandmates? Austin, that's fucked up. He couldn't have just killed more, I don't know, random people? Hitchhikers? Couldn't have put a For Sale sign in his yard and killed everyone who came by to look at the house?"\n\n"I think he did start picking people off randomly after he," Austin pauses, his voice getting a little quieter, "uh, [[killed his whole band]]."

You mull it over. Jacob did technically do you a favor, stationing you so far away from the DPR and all its various outposts. Staying here in Antlers, the only thing you have to worry about is Austin, who can pretty much take care of himself. You'll have to make nice with him, of course, but you see enough of yourself in him that you think you can worm your way back into his good graces. And you do feel a little bad about hurting him so much. You really shouldn't have lost your temper like that. But at least he left with both eyes intact.\n\n"Walker?" Jacob asks. "You still there?"\n\n"Yeah," you say. "Yeah, I want to [[stay|stay2]] in Antlers."

[["Yeah," you say uneasily. "I get it."|otterend]]

"I mean, he's not dead, if that's what you're asking."\n\n"That's not what I'm asking," Jacob snaps. His voice sounds tinny and tired on the other end of the phone. You're glad that the Department is covering the long-distance fees, or else you'd never take his calls. "Also, can I just say - is it so hard to understand that you're supposed to be protecting him? I'm not sure what your definition of 'protect' is, here, but so far he's been stabbed, and then you beat the shit out of him, apparently, so -"\n\n"Yeah, well, maybe you should have sent someone else," you snap back at him. "Or no one at all. Austin doesn't exactly need a [[babysitter]]."

Huh. You've got no way to tell if Austin is just bullshitting you or not, but it does sort of make sense. [[Why should the dead have to sleep?|sleep]]

You're the only one who's not sure if it really was. You were angry, and tired, and fed up - and sure you were scared that he was going to kill you, but it wasn't exactly the first thing on your mind. He was your [[brother]] for Christ's sake.

"What are you, my mother?"\n\n"No, but you are here to look after Austin, a job that doesn't include attacking him. Now that your cover's blown, the least you could do is tell him you're sorry." Jacob sighs. He sounds noticably more exhausted than he did a moment ago. "I really should reassign you. There's no point keeping you there in town now that Austin knows you work for the Department, right? I can't believe I didn't account for him figuring it out this fast, but he is a lot smarter than -"\n\n"Well, now, hold on," you butt in, not entirely sure of what you want to say until the words are already spilling out of your mouth. "If you send someone else, he'll figure it out just as fast. Especially if I'm suddenly just up and gone."\n\n[["So you want to stay?" Jacob asks, disbelievingly.|stay]]

Three years ago, before the whole deal with Austin Jones, you ripped out your little brother's left eye. According to the official reports, it was [[self defense]].

[[Well...do you?|do you]]

There's a lot to unpack, there. You let the sentence sink in for a moment as you try to word your questions as sensitively as possible. Austin obviously cares a great deal about Landis, even though the two barely know each other, and you don't want to imply anything that might offend either of them.\n\n"One of Landis's bandmates?" you ask cautiously, going for the more innocuous question first. "As in, there are more?"\n\n"There's four of them," Austin says. "Wes, Danton, Jeremy, and Mal."\n\n"Are they all here?"\n\nAustin looks around, frowning. "Not right now. I don't know where they go during the day. But they hang around at night, usually. And come and bug Landis when he's around."\n\nYou swallow, tasting your next question like bile on your tongue before you let it loose.\n\n"So Landis [[killed them|murderer]]?"

[[His condition being, of course, that he's half-demon.|leviathan]]

The abrupt change of subject catches you off guard. But Austin's right to assume you didn't know. Sure, you've always had a habit of tripping over nothing, or slamming into objects that didn't seem to even be close to you upon a second glance, but you and everyone else always wrote it off as you being naturally clumsy.\n\n"No," you say slowly, "I really didn't know. Did you?"\n\nAustin shrugs. "Not really. I mean, I've seen you bump into Richard before and kind of recoil, but most people tend to have a weird reaction about brushing into ghosts. It doesn't feel great. Kind of like dipping your hand in a bucket of ice water."\n\nYou curl your fingers against Austin's palms. "Well, this didn't feel like that. It just felt like I was sitting on top of a normal human being."\n\n"Yeah, I figured. [[Danton]] looked just as startled as you were."

END\n\n[[Play as Walker?|Walker]]

Austin laughs. "Well, I'm not."\n\n"I know you're not." You reach out to tousle his hair, but run your fingers through it instead, deciding at the last second to be nice. "But I think I'd just accept it if you were, at this point."\n\n"Nah, you don't want to date a werewolf." He takes your hand in both of his, gently removing it from his head. "They've got bad breath. And bad tempers."\n\nYou grin at him. "Well, now you're going to have to work even harder to convince me that you aren't one."\n\n"Damn." Austin grins back at you. "So you really didn't know you could [[touch ghosts]], huh?"

[["Did you hurt him?" Jacob is asking over the phone.|hurt]]

"What's up?" Austin asks you, poking his head out of your [[shared bedroom]].

[["Really," Jacob says.|really]]

You're not sure how you never noticed that Evan Rivers, your own goddamn brother, wasn't fully human. You never will be. You've always been a little mad that he didn't think to tell you about it, not even when you confided in him about your own powers, about the fact that things had started to fly around and smash against the walls when you were upset, and you didn't know what to do about it. About how you woke up one night, floating five feet above your bed, and wet yourself. All of that, and Evan didn't think he could tell you about his [[condition]].

[["What," you say.|what]]

"Something's wrong with the couch," you say carefully, not wanting to come off as crazy - but then again, what even passes for crazy in this house, anymore? You live with a ghost detective, a former rock star who only just stopped blood sacrificing people to a possessed lake, and you're pretty sure that Austin's dead dad is still kicking around the apartment now and again.\n\n"I sat down, and it was like I was sitting on top of someone," you go on, as Austin approaches the couch from behind. "But, like, nobody was there. Please don't tell me our couch is possessed, because I can't afford to buy a new one."\n\nAustin pauses, looking intently off in a different direction once you finish speaking. He has the look on his face that means he's seeing something you can't. Like he's listening to someone else. After a moment, he turns back to you, [[raising an eyebrow.|eyebrow]]

"Fuck off," Jacob says.\n\n"If you really wanted me gone, you could have fired me," you shoot back at him. \n\nTrying to get Jacob to fire you is just about the fastest way to get under his skin, because you know how badly he wants to do it, and you also know just how much he isn't allowed to. Everyone's worried that you're going to start killing people left and right one day, so you have to stay on with the Department and be their trained dog. Not that being under nearly constant observation by the government would stop you from killing anyone, if you decided to. But you've never used your powers to take a life before, and you've got no reason to start, not for the forseeable future.\n\nWell, unless you have to sit through any more of this [[phone lecture]], because it's starting to make you rethink your position on murder.

Or, you're pretty sure he is, anyway. You can't think of anything else that would make him turn into a seven foot tall lizard monster whenever he's upset. But it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that your mom had sex with a demon at some point behind your dad's back. You kind of wish you and Evan were still on speaking terms so you could [[talk about it.]]

"Second," you hold up another finger, "you let me do the job my way, without calling in reports every five minutes. I'll report at the end of every month or something, but I can't do this if you're on my ass all the time. Besides, Austin hates you, right? If I'm not constantly reporting back to you, there's probably a better chance he'll actually want me around."\n\nSilence on the other end of the line, again. You're sure Jacob is getting ready to give you a lecture on why that won't work, why your regular Department-mandated reports are important or vital or whatever. But when he speaks up again, he sounds worn down, almost defeated.\n\n"Yeah. Okay. The end of every month is [[fine]]."

"Yeah," Austin says.\n\n"That's pretty fucked up," you say.\n\n"I know."\n\n"And you're still okay with him living here?"\n\n"Yeah." Austin comes over to sit next to you on the couch. He looks up into your eyes very seriously, putting a hand on your thigh. "I trust him. I wouldn't have offered to let him live here otherwise, but I guess it was kind of presumptuous of me to think that you would be okay with it. And I should have told you the whole story before he moved in. But I didn't know if you would believe me."\n\nYou force a smile. "I just found out I can touch ghosts. I think I'd believe it if you told me you were a [[werewolf]] or something."

You think about how you might feel if someone killed you. If Austin killed you. You think about how Austin or Landis might feel if you killed one of them. It's not a pleasant thought.\n\nYou think about what it means to touch ghosts - could you kill a ghost, if they feel like physical beings to you? Could you wrap your hands around a ghost's throat and choke the air out of it? If ghosts don't have to sleep, do they have to [[breathe?]]

"Really? Because it seems like it's going to be a big problem. Also, do the ghosts - do they sleep here, or what?"\n\nAustin shrugs. "I don't actually think they sleep [[at all]]."

Maybe it'll keep you from thinking about everything from home you're trying to [[outrun]].

[["What the fuck," you say out loud.|loud]]