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It began with a text.



Otto had been avoiding talking with Jude. He'd been avoiding even being in the same room as him. However, after their brief run in during the last mission, Otto felt it was time to stop running.

Maebe was right. Otto was lucky. He had a legitimate blood related brother on the island. He should at least try to see him. He'd spent time with Jude years before just as acquaintances. Honestly he'd found the man to be beyond irritating. But that was also during a time when Otto had limited patience.

Or... less patience than he did have now. Which still wasn't a whole lot.

Otto sat on the couch, figeting with a loose thread on his shirt while he waited.

********. He was here. Otto had been hoping just seeing Jude come by would get the ball rolling automatically. He had no idea what exactly they were supposed to say to each other. Maebe had asked him to do this some time ago. He'd heard enough about the importance of family from Peyton.

But what exactly did family... do? Friends? Friends were a rarity, and never happened simply because he planned it. Life never worked like that. He accepted people into his life who seemed compatible in some way. Family, on the other hand, had a much more negative relation to Otto's experiences.

"Hey.. Siddown if you want." He murmured, waving to the couch opposite of him. "Um.. I guess I just got questions about.. stuff the papers didn't say about us."

"Right..." Otto shifted uncomfortably, too self aware and awkward to get any kind of comfortable with this situation. It was so much easier pretending Jude didn't exist.

"I guess you might not know, but I'll ask anyway." He paused, looking for the right words, without coming off as a whiny remnant left behind. His eyes drifted around the floor between the two of them. Searching for his words, and the courage to voice them.

"Why did... um.." He fumbled vocally, scratching his head with one hand and messing up his hair. "I mean, was it just you that was kept? Like... Would you know why they gave me up?"

A man who hated kids. He traded one hateful father for another. It was as if Otto was doomed to never have a male figure head that he could look up to, and be loved by in return. He'd gotten shafted for it a multitude of times. The only man he'd ever gotten to grow up with that actually cared to have him around was his grandpa.

Or... he supposed it wasn't his real grandpa anyway. But despite that, the man had taken time out of his day to make Otto feel loved and cherished for the small amount of time he had left in the world.

Otto let out a breath he'd been holding without realizing it. It wasn't a full answer, but it was all Jude knew. It was more than Otto knew. "I guess... life with your parents wasn't all that peachy then, huh?" a*****e dads were something of a familiar subject matter.

"What was um... your mom like?" Or he supposed his mother too....

So Jude had it easier, by Otto's terms. If only he could have been invisible to his father like Jude's was. His life would have been so much more bearable.

Jude spoke of their mother, and everything seemed to make sense. A warm sense of belonging seeped inside his heart. She loved music, something Otto had always enjoyed, whereas his parents never truly had the same passion. She seemed like she was warm, loving, soft and caring. A mother he'd have loved to have, rather than the stern and seldom attentive one he'd bee raised by. She was there, but never there enough for Otto.

It made him slightly embarrassed to know he had his mother's eyes, at first. Did he look like her? Did he take on some of his true parent's features? He wanted to see a picture of them. He wanted to know that he truly was brought into this world by two, very real people. His biological parents. He wanted to see himself in them, rather than the two strangers he'd been brought up to call Mom and Dad.

"You hear a lot about women who fall for assholes. It just happens... ********, guys fall for total bitches too. Sometimes people don't make a lick of sense." With that little tidbit of life out of the way, an urge he'd had came to be voiced.

"You don't got a picture of them , do you?"

Oto accepted the offer, and took a long few moments analyzing the photo. They really did look like him. He could almost put himself in with the three of them. It was only now that it seemed real. Beyond what had been stated on paper, seeing the faces of his birth parents set it in stone.

He felt something odd and almost suffocating as he stared. He wasn't sure what emotion it was. His mother looked so cheerful and wonderful. He wished he could have met her.

Otto gave back the photo. He didn't say a word.

"I couldn't take it." Otto murmured. "Maybe a copy but... the original is yours." He didn't understand why he wanted the photo. Maybe because he'd neglected to bring a photo of his adopted parents. He hated them, but they'd been his parents. They raised him, despite it all. They're faces were a blurred memory. Their angry yelling muted from his memory. Just the feeling, and knowledge that it had not been kind.

Jude's photo, whether or not Otto recalled ever knowing the people within it, rang something familiar inside his heart. Maybe he was making it up.

"Thanks... for coming out tonight. Sorry for buggin' you."