SCOTT, Odysseus Rafferty

[odysseus rafferty scott]

ODYSSEUS RAFFERTY SCOTT

FULL NAME: Odysseus Rafferty Scott.
NICKNAMES: Odd, Ody (family only really for that one).
AGE: Thirty-two
GENDER: Male
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Runs the family Café with his sister (The Harbor Café).

HAIR: It’s that light brown/dark blonde shade. He keeps it short but kind of scruffy, but he blames that on the fact that he almost always has a beanie on.
EYES: Blue.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None really.
TATTOOS: He has a lot of them on his arms, hands and chest, even a few on his legs. They’re almost all simple line work with a doodle-esque quality to them. They all kind of blur together in a warped sort of landscape that he thinks perfectly replicates his mind.
PIERCINGS: None.
PLAY-BY: Dennis Klaffert!

LIKES: Beanie hats, cooking, making the delivery rounds, gardening, books – especially history books, hiking, starting his mornings with coffee, plain t-shirts, word puzzles, camping, foreign movies/shows, art, biro drawings, The X-Files, sweet potato fries, Christmas, candy apples, the sound of the waves, swimming.
DISLIKES: Being so shy, dramatic changes to his routine, hiccups, cough medicine, rainy days, driving for a long time, beer, chilled drinks (he prefers them at room temp unless it’s super hot out), having “me time” disturbed, bad manners, yoghurt, team sports, flies in his apartment (they sound so loud), crowded clubs, Stephen King novels (overrated), chunky peanut butter.
FEARS: Tentacles, being alone forever, large and tightly packed crowds.
SECRETS: He has a crush on a woman who works in one of the buildings he delivers to. He’s never asked her out, or spoke to her other than to give her a sandwich.
PERSONALITY: Odysseus is an extremely shy guy. He doesn’t talk much unless he’s spoken to, and then he prefers a one on one conversation to a big group listening in. He doesn’t particularly enjoy feeling alone, but he’d choose that over a crowded night out or a huge gathering. He tolerates it for the people he loves, but he’ll be out of the door at the first chance. Odysseus is a bookish man who can easily lose an entire night after a trip to the bookstore. He’s considerate of the people around him, even if he isn’t vocal about it or showing off. If he’s honest, Odysseus hates being the centre of attention, or having too much attention on him at all. He’s very modest and would rather do something and go (mostly) unnoticed for it. Odysseus doesn’t have a confrontational bone in his body. He’d rather sheepishly slink away from a fight than do anything bold. He’s a sweet guy, but that can be taken advantage of at times – definitely in the past – so he isn’t completely comfortable just letting people into his life. He’s not had the greatest luck at romance, which is a shame since he is such a caring guy. He would look after any woman in his life, and make sure she knew how much he cared through the little things. He’s not the type who can go out and meet someone easily, and he can’t say he’s completely comfortable on dates in bars or big venues. He appreciates the little things, the surprise gifts, and just showing someone he cares by listening to them and catering to their needs in the moment. All he wants is someone to share that with.

MOTHER: Louise May Scott, 59.
FATHER: Christopher Simon Scott, 63.
SIBLINGS: Cassandra Poppy Scott-Graves, 36.
OTHERS: Tyler Matthew Graves, 38, brother-in-law.
Melissa Rachel Scott-Graves, 9, niece.
Arthur Michael Scott-Graves, 5, nephew.
Lily Martell, He thinks she’s around thirty, the woman he’s crushing on.
PETS: Alfred, a Shiba inu rescue of 2.
HOMETOWN: Long Island, New York.
HISTORY: Louise had always dreamt of opening her own café. She worked as a line cook in a nice restaurant, but her heart wasn’t in fancy dishes and rich steaks. She liked to keep cooking simple and wanted to make food people could eat every day. Alas, she was young and paying off student loans so her dream seemed like a million miles away. Enter Christopher Scott. He was the son of an elderly couple who were retiring from the family business. As the only child it was going to pass right onto him, but Christopher knew nothing about bakeries or how to work them. Plus, in recent years he had seen the shop decline in both physical appearance and in its earnings. He promised to take it over, but only if his parents gave their blessing for him to take it in a new direction. He promised to run every idea by them, to let them still play a part in what he turned the waterside establishment into.

He met Louise on the subway. She was reading Verne and he had an odd love for his literature. They got to talking and realised that they both made the same ride on three days of the week. Christopher sought her out again, and again, and their romance became to bloom in a crowded car with the people around them oblivious to what was happening. Finally, they met up outside of the subway ride for drinks and food. They got to talking more about themselves and as soon as Louise mentioned running her own café, a bulb lit up in his head. A café would be perfect for the decaying bakery. It was near the harbour so the dock workers could have a place for lunch and breakfast, and there was plenty of foot traffic from those who walked to the water on their lunches to escape the office grind. It took some time, but Christopher planned it all out before presenting it to his keen parents. In that time he also asked Louise to marry him. It seemed crazy quick to some of their friends, but Christopher was fuelled by her energy and zest for life and he knew he never wanted to lose that.

After the wedding, they set to work on getting the Harbour Café running. It was freshly decorated, they replaced the furniture, and filled it with a bright nautical kind of vibe without it being too corny or in the faces of their potential customers. They just kept to crisp colours and old maritime pieces that they were given by the harbour workers or that they found in auction rooms and garage sales. On the day of the grand opening, Louise told the families that she was pregnant. Everyone was overjoyed and baby Cassandra was spoilt before she was even born.

A few years later they had Odysseus. As a baby he was bouncy and healthy, but as a toddler things began to change. Ody had a speech impediment that made him mispronounce words and then the more he was corrected the more he developed a stutter to accompany the already existing problem. Louise took him to a doctor for further help, but they wanted to see how he was at school age, just in case it rectified itself. It did not, and the other kids were often insensitive to the issues he had. He became shy and wouldn’t speak unless it was absolutely necessary. He did start attending speech therapy sessions, but the bullying from his peers made everything so much more worse for him. Louise was furious about not being able to take him when he had been younger, so that this bullying might have been avoided. His family tried to help him, to reassure him almost every day, but it was difficult when Odd’s classmates kept calling him out on his obscure behaviour. In fact, that was how Odysseus became known as Odd. Because the other kids thought he was strange.

The mispronunciation was easy to correct in his sessions, but the stutter was put down to anxiety. They helped him, but even if he managed a whole day using his breathing techniques and got through without stuttering too much, his classmates already had him in a box. He was the strange kid, the one who didn’t talk or fight back. Cassandra used to step in if she saw anything mean happening, but of course that sometimes made it worse because Odysseus needed his big sister to get him out of trouble.

School wasn’t exactly fun for Odd. He liked learning and teachers were often very fond and supportive of him, but he didn’t really have any friends. He was a stuttering kid who was on the chubby side throughout school. There were two boys who hung around with him sometimes and whose birthdays he attended, but even with them he wasn’t always so comfortable. They didn’t make fun of him, but he often found himself waiting for it to happen. Mostly he got through with books, and his developed ability to turn silly doodles into half-decent images eventually. It was a habit that turned into a talent, but it was something kept within the family since he was a very modest kid.

Odd got through school and went to NYU to study business. He figured with that to his name he could sit in an office and be left alone for most of his adult life. Which was sort of what happened. He was invisible to most of his classmates at college, and even when tattoos and art became his choice of expression he was still pretty much outside of every other clique. Instead he focused on his classes and took up swimming every morning once he realised he was putting more weight on being stuck at a desk for hours working on essays and doing further reading. Over time he slimmed out and developed muscle definition. He wasn’t all that worried about looking good; he was the kid who went to class in a beanie, a t-shirt one size too big because he liked them that way, and a worn pair of jeans.

After college, he did work in an office for a short time. He was part of the administration team in an accounting department. However, he hated it. He hated the laughing and banter that was often made at his expense. It wasn’t fun at all for him, and he loathed it entirely. When his parents told him and Cassandra that they wanted to step back from the café and spend more time with Cassie’s kids and travelling a little, there was a chance. If he worked at the café with Cassandra it would mean he could leave the dull office and be somewhere he was comfortable.

Cassandra had no problem with her brother being her business partner, but she pointed out that he would die working the front counter or dealing with difficult customers. Odd knew she was right. Instead, she suggested that he spend his time putting his business degree to use and make sure all the paperwork and orders went out on time. It was what he was good at, and he’d be alone to get on with things whilst Cassie spent her time in the kitchen and on the counter. Odd came out to help during the occasional lunch rush when they were down a waitress, but mostly he was in the back with receipts and order forms.

When they expanding into a delivery service for business clients, Odd became the delivery guy. He would go out once a day with a car full of sandwiches and salads, pastas and rice bowls, and drive to each skyscraper or office that paid them to bring food around. Not everyone would order from them, but soon Odd began to remember faces and their favourites. It brought him out of his shell a little, the familiarity, but he didn’t exactly get chatty with people. They had work to do and he had deliveries to make. He did, however, manage to say hello to some of them, maybe laugh at a joke they told.

This was how he came to know Lily. She was a worker on one of the floors he delivered to. Sometimes she took something from his box, but other times she didn’t even look up from her desk. Odd thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met, which was why he never actually spoke to her. He got nervous around her, and often stuttered his way through the contents of the box if she asked. He dreamt of sending her flowers, of maybe just inviting her out, but they were things he could never do outside of fantasy.

It’s been about a year of this schoolboy crush. He still hasn’t been able to make a move, and he’s still excited to see her even if she’s just at her desk. He’s noticed a lot of little things about her, but that’s still not been enough of a push to make him ask her out or share how he feels. Even he will admit it’s getting pathetic.

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