[Otto's POV]
"Of course, Yahya had to come," Alex complained from the crook of her neck, his arms around her shoulders, hugging her from behind.
Last night, when she'd snuggled close to Alex in bed, he'd hugged her close to his chest, sighed as if a great injustice had been straightened out and instantly fell into a deep sleep. When Eva-the-alarm-clock had started blaring in their room the next morning, Alex hadn't been fully rested yet, resulting in a very bad morning temper.
"Your grumpy cat is showing," Otto chuckled as she ruffled Alex's hair and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. "And stop calling him Yahya. He goes by Jack now."
"Hmm, I'll try. But I'm not making promises," he grumbled, but straightened up and detached himself from her.
"Good morning!" a very shipper Jack greeted them, resulting in a few barely audible curses from Alex as he strolled away from the hyper-activeness. Jack raised an eyebrow at her and pointed a thumb towards Alex.
"Don't mind him. His nap time got interrupted," she explained, making Jack chuckle. "Good morning to you too, Jack."
"Good morning indeed," he said. "What are you all up to? Here I was expecting you and Alex to run back to the living world at the first chance you got, but if I'm not mistaken, those are the canoes from the shed."
"Yes!" Otto chirped happily. "Alex decided yesterday that we have time for a few vacation days, so we're having a boat ride today to the flower fields down stream."
"Oe~! That's a fabulous idea!" Jack replied just as excited. "I'll ride a horse and cart over there already so the trip up stream won't be as tedious."
"Thank you, Jack. You're a dear," Otto said, as she patted him on the shoulder.
Coincidentally, Eva chose that moment to come rushing by, but when she saw Jack next to "her mommy" instead of Alex, she froze in her tracks and frowned.
"Mommy, I think you're mistaken. That's Jack you're talking to. Daddy's over there," she said gravely. Jack blinked in surprise and Otto flushed bright red.
"That's my girl!" she heard Alex laugh from a distance, making Eva beam with pride and ran over to Alex's side who welcomed her with wide open arms and a bright smile.
Otto felt a strange pang in her chest when she watched Alex scoop little Eva up in his arms and twirl her around, making her cackle with joy and Alex's smile widen.
"Ha," Otto smiled at the heart warming sight. Looked like that was all that was needed to lift his terrible mood.
"Care to explain?" Jack asked.
"I wouldn't be able to if I wanted to," Otto said seriously, startled by the speed things had been developing at. Jack shrugged and didn't ask any further.
A little while later, the whole group had been divided into four canoes: one adult per canoe and three little girls per adult. Otto wasn't sure who'd started it, but someone had yelled "Last one at the fields are snails!" and the next thing she knew, their relaxing boat trip had changed into a true and proper canoe-race.
Well, the canoes with the boys were racing, since Annabelle couldn't seem to be bothered to hurry along, and Otto felt bad for the little kids in her canoe, so she'd stuck with them at the rear.
At one point she'd heard Jack yell; "Haha! You went passed it! You totally went past it!" followed by Eva actually jumping out of the canoe, doing a very extreme attempt to reach the shore before the others.
Alex snatched her from the air, clearly judging that she wouldn't have made it to the shore and scolded her with the words: "I don't care if we're snails or not! Hypothermia is a very real thing!"
Annabelle laughed wholeheartedly at the scene, which was a first for Otto.
"Came in second, huh?" Otto asked Alex once he helped her dock her canoe.
"Psh! Only because he had the homecoming advantage," Alex snarled. Otto chuckled. She'd never seen Alex like this before. He looked like he was truly enjoying himself.
But seeing him compete with Jack like that, made her realise he must have been awfully bored back in the living world, with nobody to challenge him.
Wouldn't it be awesome if Jack could come back with them to the world of the living?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Alex's POV]
"Come on," Alex said once Annabelle was sunbathing on the picnic cloth and the kids (including Jack) were exploring.
"Where are we going?" Otto asked.
"Anywhere," Alex said with a big grin and she happily let him pull her along. They ended up climbing a nearby slope and climbed all the way to the top.
"Wow!" Otto exclaimed mesmerised as she took in the view once they were standing at the top. "What a beautiful view!"
"It is, isn't it," Alex said, first taking in her happy expression before looking at the rest of the view.
"Let's take a selfie together," he said next as he took the smartphone from his pocket and started looking for the camera-app.
Otto abruptly frowned and looked at him in confusion.
"You are asking me to take a selfie together?"
"I am," Alex said, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
"I thought you didn't care for having your picture taken?" she asked, confusion written all over her face.
"Yeah, ... I used to not care about taking pictures," Alex answered reluctantly, still looking for the camera-app. Yet he knew that Otto would just keep asking questions until he told her what was bothering him, so he decided it was better to just tell her. "It's because of the attention we stirred up online. If it hadn't been for Lindsey stalking us, there wouldn't have been any pictures of us together at all. It made me feel fake. You know? Like those female and male models that don't know each other at all, but everybody thinks are a couple because they look good in a picture together."
Otto chuckled as she took the phone from Alex, spotted the camera app immediately and held the device up to take a selfie.
"My arms are to short, we can barely see anything of the scenery," she concluded once she'd taken a picture and was examining it.
"I'll hold it, my arms are longer," Alex said. "Now, which button did you press? This one?"
"You look so grumpy when you're trying to focus," Otto chuckled and turned her head to kiss him on the cheek. "Smile, you dummy!"
"That's the one," Alex chuckled. "Do you want to see?"
As by a miracle, Alex did find the gallery immediately and they watched their pictures together.
There were four in total: one where the picture was zoomed in way to close, one where Alex was frowning deeply, one where Otto's smile could light up a town, with Alex still frowning, and the last one where Otto was kissing him on the cheek and Alex's smile could light up a whole town.
They both stared at the picture for a moment in silence before Otto doubled over laughing.
"Oh, come on... They aren't that bad! Be kind, I'm not used to having my picture taken! Well, consciously at least," Alex complained, but to no avail. Otto was laughing so hard, that she was staggering on her legs, threatening to keel over.
Alex pushed her off balance in an act to lick his wounded pride, but Otto simply tumbled to her side in the long grass, unharmed and still clutching her sides from laughing too hard.
"Enough pictures. I like the real thing better," Alex concluded in thought, dropped down into the grass next to her and looked at the clouds drifting passed until Otto was finished laughing.
"I love you," she said as she snuggled closer to him and pressed a little kiss to his cheek.
"You have no idea," Alex mumbled as he turned to embrace her and they kissed a little longer. They stayed like that until Alex noticed that Otto felt cold to the touch and that the sun had started setting.
"Are you feeling cold?" he asked.
"A little, yes," she admitted. Alex promptly magicked a large, warm, wool scarf into existence and wrapped it around her shoulders.
"Come on," he said as he stood and offered her a hand to help her up. "It's time to go home."