[Alex's POV]
On his two minutes and thirty-two seconds walk home, Alex thought about his conversation with Otto earlier. She had looked so relieved when he'd told her that he would protect her. It was a strange feeling, to have someone depend on you.
Alex had learned to be independent from a young age. Not because his dad didn't want to be a dependable parent, but because there simply weren't enough hours in a day for him to be one.
Now, Otto trusted him to have her back. It made him feel warm and jittery inside. She usually attracted a lot of trouble. He was curious to see what staying close to her would bring him. Was it strange that he wanted to live up to her expectations? Friends challenged each other, right?
With that thought, a mischievous grin appeared on his face. He quickly fished his phone from his pocket and typed the message; "I made it home. Nearly died a few times and lost an arm, but nothing too serious." and sent it to Otto.
He waited for a few minutes, but no immediate answer came. He could only guess that she was busy. Perhaps she was spending time with her family? As she should. Alex hated the trend of people being glued to their phone all the time.
He couldn't help but feel a little jealous as the front door of his own home came into view. The lights were out, and the house was quiet. That certainly dampened his mood.
"Dad?! I'm home!" Alex called-out as he went inside, even though he knew no-one was home. Only the quiet room answered. He sighed as he shrugged off his coat and backpack in the hallway, this scenario all too familiar. He really hated being home alone.
"Hey Alex, how was your day at school today?" he asked himself as he went to the kitchen, grabbed some ingredients from the fridge and started throwing a meal together. "Why, I'm fine. Thank you so much for asking. Guess what! Otto faced her bully today. She was really brave about it too. I'm so proud of her."
As he said so, the memory replayed vividly inside his mind and he could feel a gentle smile tug at his lips.
After twenty minutes Alex had made himself a meal and was placing a second plate in the fridge. He took his plate and walked to the large sofa in front of the big home-cinema system. He turned on one of the many streaming services, and settled on a streamer who was reviewing a new game.
He'd barely put a spoon full of food into his mouth, when his phone chimed. It was a text-message from Jasper saying "I'm bored, what are you doing?"
"I'm watching GoGam's review of that new adventure game that came out last week," Alex send a text back and included the link to the video.
"Ah yes! I watched it yesterday," Jasper answered.
"Damn, now I have a craving to play Go Go Adventure." A second message arrived soon after the first.
"But that's no fun on my own." And a third.
"Will you join me?" And a fourth.
"Jasper sends messages in the same way he talks; Fast and many," Alex thought to himself.
"Sure, after I'm done eating. In the meantime, you better make sure you finish your tardy homework, like you promised the math teacher earlier in class," Alex send back.
"Oh, crap. I forgot... You're such a killjoy!" Alex chuckled as he read Jasper's last message before the chat went quiet. If Jasper did schoolwork as fast as he talked or send messages his scores would be the top of the class.
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Much later that night, Alex was still sitting at his computer with his headphone and microphone on. He had pulled up one leg into his luxurious and extremely comfortable office chair, was leaning on that knee of said leg with an elbow and was sipping leisurely from a big drink with a straw while he could see Jasper's character on screen walk around.
"Jasper, seriously. For the millionth time, we should be going to bed," Alex sighed, sounding annoyed even to his own ears. He himself had stopped gaming half an hour ago, after he'd deliberately let his character start a task that would take until morning to complete.
He'd even said; "Well, that's all for me tonight. Time for bed." But Jasper had guilt-tripped him into "giving him advice on how to advance" even though it was clear that Jasper knew the game front-to-back and back-to-front.
"Yes, yes. I hear you. Just five more minutes. I'll grab all the rare herbs in this field real quick," Jasper brushed off Alex's attempt to leave and chattered away happily, without waiting for a reply or asking for his advice.
Alex would have started to suspect that Jasper had completely forgotten that he was still there at all, if he hadn't brushed off Alex's each and every attempts to leave so efficiently.
The chime of his phone next to the keyboard drew his attention away from the computer screen. It was a message from Otto.
"You have no idea how much your message startled me, given that I was expecting a message to cancel walking to school together tomorrow and had mostly forgotten our conversation from earlier."
Alex involuntary snorted, followed by a chuckle. He hadn't meant to scare her. It was meant as a light-hearted joke, but he could see how her delayed reply had accidentally caused a startle effect.
"Wait, why are you laughing? Did I miss something?" Jasper asked as he swivelled the in-game-character's viewpoint around wildly to try and spot what he'd missed.
"I got a message," Alex said distractedly as he typed a reply to Otto.
"That's what you get when you leave a great joke hanging," he added a mischievous smiley. "Honestly I'm a little surprised you answered at all. It's ten thirty. I'd given up on receiving a reply for the day."
"From who?" Jasper asked.
"Otto," Alex said as he pressed send.
"What did it say?" Jasper asked, sounding overly interested. But Alex was more interested in the three jumping dots at the bottom of Otto's chat window.
"It was a reply to a joke I made earlier today," Alex said as a new message from Otto popped up.
"Yeah, I saw your message as I was setting my alarm for tomorrow morning," it said.
"What joke? And what did she reply?" Jasper asked as the three dots below Otto's chat window started jumping again.
"Uhm, ..." Alex thought out loud. He didn't feel like explaining anything since his friend had been practically ignoring him for the past half hour. "You kind of had to be there to understand why it was funny."
"Normally I don't check messages right before I go to sleep, but I did check yours in case a streak of wisdom had struck you and you had messaged me to tell me we couldn't walk to school together tomorrow because you'd realised it was too dangerous," her message said, no emoticons.
"Now I regret looking at all," a next message followed up quickly. And another: "I only realised you were joking when I saw the stupid little emoticon."
And another: "Damn it, now I'm wide awake again. You really startled me!"
"That's a lot of messages for one joke," Jasper said. He sounded more than a little curious. His sudden attentiveness struck a nerve.
"Since it appears you've finally regained the ability to hear me, I'll tell you once again what I've been telling you for the past half hour: Good night, Jasper! I'm going to sleep," he said and ended the call without waiting for Jasper's reply.
"Wait Alex- !" he heard Jasper say, but that's where he got cut off.
Alex quickly turned his attention back to his conversation with Otto. He started typing a message, but then deleted it again. He finally decided that a text-message fell short for the situation at hand and pressed the call button.
"Hello?" a surprised sounding Otto answered the call.
"Hey," Alex said. "I'm sorry for startling you. I really didn't mean to."
The line was silent for a few heartbeats before Otto chuckled. Hearing her laugh so close to his ear sent a shiver down his spine.
"That's ok, I guess I'm sorry for startling you too," she said, a smile audible in her voice, and then added in a startled tone of voice: "I didn't wake you, did I? Dear God, I'm sorry! I'm just so used to Jasper always being up late that the thought didn't even cross my mind that you might be sleeping already."
This time it was Alex's turn to chuckle.
"I wasn't asleep yet. Actually, it's funny that you'd mention Jasper. I've been trying to escape his clutches for the past half hour, but the guy is truly relentless. I'm glad I finally got an excuse to just end the call," Alex said. "And just for the record, I am completely fine, no scratches or bruises and all limbs attached!"
"Uhu," Otto said with a smile to her voice. "And I'm just supposed to take your word for it? For all I know, your calling me with an arm or leg wrapped into a cast."
"You're such a doom-thinker," Alex said in mock-horror, earning himself a chuckle from Otto. "Even if that were the case, you'd just have to doodle your name on the cast tomorrow."
"Alex!" she said in a scolding way. It made his heart skip a beat.
"Otto?" he mimicked the way she'd said his name.
"Don't you act innocent with me. That type of jokes seriously isn't funny. Every time you reassure me, you go and say something to make me doubt again," she sounded really annoyed.
"Sorry! Sorry!" he chuckled. "Here! I'll make it up to you!"
He promptly took a picture of his legs and one of his arms each, and send them to Otto.
"Now you have proof that all my limbs are attached," he said chipper. He heard soft tapping noises as she checked what he'd send her.
"Nice pyjamas," she giggled.
"Pyjamas?" Alex asked as he looked down at what he was wearing. It was a flannel pyjama with dark blue pants and a grey shirt with stars and planets adorning them. "O! Right?! You haven't seen half of it! The stars light up in the dark."
"Damn, I kinda wanna see that," she mumbled more to herself than to him. He laughed again. She hadn't exactly asked him to show her, and he doubted she would either. But he didn't want the conversation to end yet.
"Would you mind turning on the camera? I'll show it to you," he said as he pressed the button to video call instead of audio call.
"Oh! Uhm, sure...?" she spluttered, but accepted the call. Alex stared at the screen as he waited for the image to load. Once it did he saw Otto's face an arm-length away, lying on top of her bed, a mane of her golden hair scattered around her head wildly.
"Oh! I forgot you'd be able to see me too. Please don't mind my appearance," she said as she sat up slightly and gathered her hair over her shoulder.
"I won't," Alex said and set his phone up straight on the desk. "Can you still see me?"
"Yeah, I can," she said.
"This is normal," he said as he spread his arms wide for Otto to see. Then he walked over to the lights switch and turned the overhead light off, instantly shrouding the room in darkness and making the stars on his pyjamas light up to a dull poisonous green. "Does the camera pick up the stars?"
"It does! It does!" Otto laughed. "You're like one of those scary creepy skeletons videos you see all over the internet these days."
"Like this?" Alex asked and tried his best to imitate the little dance.
He was rewarded with her laughter echoing through his phone's speakers.
"Bravo!" she said, all smiles.
"Thank you," Alex said as he picked up his phone, walked over to his bed, turned on the light on his nightstand and flopped down on the bed. "Anyway, since we were both heading to bed, I'm not gonna keep you. I take it that your nerves have settled?"
"Yeah," Otto said with a yawn. She looked really comfortable on her bed. "Good night!"
"Good night."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That night Alex had a dream.
He was walking towards a white curtain, warm golden sunlight shining on it. Curious to see what was on the other side, he carefully moved it aside.
To his surprise, he was met with an upside down face with familiar eyes.
"Otto?" he wondered in thought. His surprise must have been apparent on his face, because she gave him an apologetic smile and showed her bound hands in a shrug.
"I'm really sorry," she said. "I was curious to see what they were up to. I never thought they would use me as bait."
She had barely finished speaking before two small bodies jumped onto his back with matching war-cries. The impact was so strong that it caused him to stumble forward.
Alex recognised the two little boys tackling him instantly. And he knew that he should have been angry at them for tying their mother up, but he couldn't help the proud grin spreading on his face.
"Why, you little scoundrels!!" he yelled his own war-cry as he easily overpowered the two boys and started tickling them until they were cackling with laughter.
"Be gentle," Otto said with a smile of her own as she was getting up, the fact that her wrists and ankles were tied tightly making movement difficult. "Rather, come and help me with these ropes."
"Coming," Alex said as he stopped tickling the boys, helped her to sit on a nearby stool and looked around for something to cut the ropes with. His gaze fell on the blanket camp he'd found Otto in and notice that the sticks holding the blanket up were hunting spears. That would do nicely. So he took one of the spears, watched the whole construction crumble briefly and returned to Otto to cut her ropes.
"Ah! Much better. Thank you Darling," she said as she rubbed her wrists for an instant and kissed him gently on the cheek.
The dream carried on for a while longer, and even though Alex would forget it once he woke up, anyone who entered his room that night would find him smiling in his sleep.