[Webster's Vinyl: Holly & Dietre]
Holly was a deadpan guy. He had perfected a low affect. He wasn't a guy that laughed or smiled a lot. He didn't frown a lot either. He was perpetually calm, at least on the outside, and only poor Noah was privy to the rollercoaster emotions that had become the norm since his life turned into some Twilight Zone marathon, one that ran 24/7 and without commercial intermissions. And he was starting to get the feeling that the weird stuff that happened when he lingered somewhere too long? Was maybe about him, and that was especially worrisome after the stuff that happened on Halloween.
But he was okay that afternoon. He'd gotten some sleep for the first time in days, and he was hanging around behind the counter, dressed typically ironic, and he had a really big mocha in his hand. The music in the store was classic, a favorite, but not Christmas-y. Holly went light on the Christmas music, since he knew it kinda drove people nuts.
He was sipping his coffee, laptop on the counter as he worked out stuff for his other job, and he looked up to see Dietre come in.
Now, Holly was really used to seeing other versions of people he knew now. He even knew people who were different genders than the people he knew, and he wasn't really surprised by anything anymore. He understood that, like, the tiniest thing could completely alter someone's life, and his expression didn't shift when the gloomy version of the guy he knew walked over and started leafing through record sleeves. He already knew this guy was different. The Dietre back home wasn't obsessed with glum poetry, and he didn't talk about how he was awful all the time.
Right, just another weird thing in a weird year. He rounded the counter, and he walked over and checked out what Dietre was looking at. He didn't say Dietre's name or anything, because that would come off as weird. "Hey. Want to listen to that?" he asked, and he crooked his head and walked over to the bank of turntables and headphones. "I'm Holly," he said as he walked, because he didn't think Dietre had known the version of Holly here.