Work Text:
Oliver Otto doesn’t cry.
He gets irritated. Frustrated. Annoyed. Exasperated. Miffed. He hisses, sneers, laughs, rolls his eyes. Nothing ever really gets to him enough to make him cry these days. There’s a certain kind of demeanor you have to wear in Westport: competitive, driven, hard. Crying doesn’t really lend itself to that.
Plus, by now he’s used to people talking shit about him. His own mother talks shit about him. She probably talks the most shit about him, actually, at least to his face. There’s nothing anyone can say about him that she hasn’t already said to him, for the most part.
For… the most part.
His mom rarely ever comments on his dating life past the occasional “you and Cooper are boyfriends” comment. He’s almost 100% sure it’s because she fully believes that the two of them are dating, even though Oliver regularly goes on dates with girls, and his parents are aware of this. But, well, not his circus, not his monkeys. The less involved they are in his love life, the better. He never wants to get them as invested as they are in Taylor and Trip.
Anyway, his mom never says shit about the people he dates. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that other people share the same sentiment.
His relationship with Gina blew up in his face. His relationship with Brie blew up in his (and Cooper’s, to be fair) face. Any first dates he’s had in the past few months never ring him up for a second. Because he’s an asshole, because he’s inconsiderate, because he doesn’t have enough money to pay the bill at fancy restaurants, because he’s a blazing faggot in denial. He’s poor, dickish, and a complete fuck-up.
He hears it in the hallways. He tastes it on unenthusiastic kisses. He sees it in the mirror every morning.
He’s unlovable.
What shakes his body isn’t a sob, it’s… the feeling of righteous anger coursing through his veins. He’s gripping his blanket so hard because he’s furious. His face is wet because he’s sweating.
It gets hot in the basement sometimes. It does.
It’s not even like he really cares, anyway. He’s focusing on getting into Harvard, not on what some girls from his high school think about his dating skills. So what if the rest of his social life also lends itself to the same conclusion? It doesn’t have to mean anything. He’s only a teenager.
But his parents don’t love him, either. He’s their least favorite child. Nothing he ever does, short of changing his whole personality, will get them to like him anymore. He thinks sometimes that if he were able to build a time machine, the first thing that they’d do is visit their past selves, before they moved to Westport. That’s what mom’s always talking about anyway, about how Westport fucked Oliver up and that she’d do anything to bring back the Oliver from before. She thinks it’s the greatest joke she’s ever told. It makes Oliver livid.
And his sisters don’t like him, either. Taylor completely agrees with their parents. She thinks he’s a stuck up brat who thinks he’s better than her (because he is!). And Anna-Kat doesn’t know any better than to agree with her parents. She’s so attached to Taylor, but she doesn’t ever even try to bond with Oliver. Taylor and Anna-Kat are close, they have that magical sister bond or whatever, and it leaves Oliver the odd one out.
And he knows he’s just Cooper’s charity case. His parents hadn’t even known about him until a year ago, just a month before they’d tried to take him to Florida. He goes to a million parties, and everyone loves him, and he loves everyone back. He’s Westport’s golden boy, and he has so many other friends he could hang out with. Oliver has practically no one. He’s Oliver’s best friend, he really is, but Oliver knows that he’s not Cooper’s. He’s just someone to stand next to, to make yourself look better. Hell, Oliver would’ve befriended himself too, if he were Cooper. The nice rich boy gets somehow nicer, taking it upon himself to hang out with the poor new kid who’s– well– poor.
Oliver sleeps with a throw pillow, one to hold when he feels like shit. Right now, his face is buried in it, trying to muffle any sound. He’s not crying though, his chest is just heaving, his breath stuttering.
He hears the door open, and there’s a sliver of light cast on the floor, though he feels it more than sees it on account of his head being smushed into a pillow. There’s a bit of shuffling and quiet groaning, and Oliver knows that Cooper’s come back downstairs. He’d been watching something with his dad upstairs, and either they somehow finished the documentary, or his dad’s asleep.
Oliver tries to be quiet, he really does. He’s not crying, but he knows Cooper will think he is, so he holds his breath as long as he can, not even moving a finger, until he hears the other bed creak under the other boy’s weight as he situates himself. Then, involuntarily, he shudders, and he sniffs, and it’s loud, because there’s snot in his nose.
The creaking stops, and the room is dead silent. Fuck, he thinks, his heart momentarily stopped.
“Oliver?” Cooper says, voice quiet but not quite a whisper. Oliver doesn’t trust his voice, but he can’t clear his throat, that’d be too obvious. But Cooper obviously knows he’s awake, so he’s at a standstill.
Cooper knows it too, because there’s another creak of the bed and then there’s soft, padded footsteps, and then there’s a weight next to him.
Oliver doesn’t let go of the pillow.
“You alright, ese?” he asks. He puts his hand on Oliver’s head, but he doesn’t do anything, doesn’t try to turn it towards him or pet his head or anything. Just… lets it rest there for a bit. Oliver sniffs again. He hates it when his mom gets too tactile with him, but the light feeling of something other than his own self-inflicted headache is… nice.
“‘M fine,” he whispers, chest heavy. “Go to bed.”
“You sure?” Cooper asks, and Oliver can imagine the sweet furrow in his brow. “You don’t seem too fine.”
“I swear I’m fine, Coop,” he says, still almost too quiet to hear. “We have school tomorrow. Go to sleep.”
Cooper hums in assent, but he doesn’t move his hand. Oliver might get irritated for real now, because all he wants is to be left alone, until Cooper shifts himself downward, moves his hand closer to Oliver’s stomach, and just… lies down next to him.
Cooper must sense the question forming on Oliver’s lips, because he beats Oliver to the punch. “I’m going to sleep, Oliver.”
Oliver does clear his throat now, still shaking just a bit. “I– I don’t–”
“I’ll go back to my own bed, if you want,” Cooper says. “But, uh, if you don’t mind me saying, I don’t really believe that you’re all good, muchacho. Just making sure you don’t go to sleep on a bad note, y’know? That’s never healthy. Believe me, I know.”
He says the last part with a small laugh, and Oliver laughs, too. It’s a small, quick thing, wet and shaky, and it just bursts out of his chest, but he does.
“Thanks,” he sniffs. “You can stay, I guess. It’s nice.”
He feels Cooper smile into his hair from behind him, and his grip on him tightens just a bit. Cooper pulls him ever so slightly closer, and Oliver doesn’t mind. The pressure is nice. It distracts him from everything else.
His… tear tracks start to dry, and he’s still sniffling a bit, but mostly, he’s calmed down. Not that there was much of anything to calm down from in the first place, but he’s calmer than he was before.
“I love you, Oliver,” Cooper murmurs from behind him. “Y’know that, right? You’re my best friend.”
He’s rubbing circles into Oliver’s elbow, and his leg is inching over him. Just enough to hold him to the ground without being too much.
“Yeah, I know,” Oliver says, voice hoarse. “I love you too.”