we live through scars || hotto
School breaks had never suited Otto well; he would throw himself into whatever work he could get, keep his hands and his mind busy at home with any little projects he could find for himself, and at the end of it all, he would still wind up feeling feeling restless. Anxious. Useless. Now, after graduation, the summer stretched out endless before him, something like dread was starting to settle deep in his chest. It wasn’t like him– it wasn’t like what he knew of himself to be anything less than decisive. It was even less like him, though, to do anything without thinking deeply and thoroughly about it beforehand. Suddenly, there were too many factors, too many things to think about– not possible, he would’ve insisted a year ago– that it somehow felt better to try not to think about them at all.
Otto still didn’t know what he expected from Hudson (much less what he wanted), but there was something…. normal, maybe? There was something normal and pleasant and somehow comforting about Hudson’s presence in his life. He didn’t think it only had to do with the shared experience of having their most painful secrets broadcast rudely and abruptly to the rest of the world– though, yeah, there was something not-quite-nice about being able to commiserate. Or at least knowing that they both understood something that not a lot of other people could. Really, it was probably just Hudson himself– warm, awkward, sort of brilliant?– that made all the buzzing in Otto’s head go a little quieter.
Coffee also did that, though. He didn’t have the shame to feel guilty, half-smiling as Hudson slid into the seat across from him at the Best Coffee Shop ™ in Harwich. “I was hoping I could finish this off,” Otto said, “and then when you got here I could pretend like I was just getting my first cup.” He took a pause to take another sip. “Hi, though, anyway.”
He reached over to shake Otto’s cup slightly, just enough to gauge how much coffee he had left. “Seems like you were nearly there.” It might have felt a bit forward with someone else, but Hudson felt a lot less nervous around Otto than was usually his nature. He didn’t have any concerns that Otto was judging him and it had already been established that they were close enough friends for him to know that they understood one another, in ways that weren’t entirely good. When it came to their secrets, Hudson still found it hard to understand how Otto or anyone else could accept what Hudson had done but at least they were in similar boats.
“Hi,” he returned after a beat, smiling as he stood up. “I’ll go get you another one.” Hudson walked up to the barista at the register, trying to shake off the anxious feeling he got whenever he talked to anyone around Harwich. If they hadn’t gone to school with him -- and maybe even then -- it’s not like they would know who he was. Ruby hadn’t made posters with his face on them, proclaiming who exactly Hudson Davies was. But logic didn’t do much to relieve his fears of being recognised for his fictionalised self. Ignoring all of this, he ordered coffee for himself and Otto and waited for them by the bar, resisting the temptation to glance back at where Otto was seated.
When the drinks came, Hudson took one in each hand and walked back to the table, depositing the one in his left hand beside Otto’s first coffee. “Did you get much sleep last night?” It was a question he asked regularly, always hoping for a better answer than the one he typically got.
