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Otto had a lot of bad things that plagued his life. However, there was some balance. Kostya cooked his dinners, and Molly cleaned his room. She even cleaned his laundry too. However, even with his phantom mom taking care of him, sometimes Otto did have to do things on his own. Today's dilemma was a sudden lack of underwear. Socks, he could deal with. Sometimes he chose not to wear them out of laziness, but clean underwear was a must.

So why not give Molly a break, and do his own laundry for once? He was practically an adult now, right?

That is how Otto ended up laying across a table in the laundry room. The washer rumbled away, and Otto held a book over his head, reading to pass the time.

Otto turned to face where the noise had come. At first he assumed he was in someone's way who wanted to fold laundry. However, it was soon clear that wasn't the case at all.

Sasha was back. Otto set his book aside as he hoisted himself up into a seated position, still on the table top. "Sasha.." He murmured, watching her load a washer. "Uh.. long time no see. Where you been?" It came out incredulously. He'd assumed she'd died, as he tended to assume with anyone he never saw again. After months with nothing, well... one had to assume. It wasn't that she owed him any word. He didn't know her well. Not at all. However, her and the others... there was that sort of lingering bond that made him care what happened to them. If only a little. Very, very little. But it was there.

Otto scooted over to accommodate. Catching up was a great way to kill time. He liked being alone, usually. Lately though? It killed him. He'd read most of his books ten times over, and even stooped to reading Allen's manga instead. What scared him most was he was enjoying them.

Otto knit his brows as he looked at Sasha. How was he going to explain himself any better than she for herself? Five months was a long time, and he was sure neither of them had anything nice to say about it. There was no way to summarize all he'd been through. "I'm alive." He voiced with some thought. "Barely." He added. But that was most people, right? He was no more troubled, broken and scarred than anyone else, he figured. Nothing special. Why complain?

"Just got back from a mission with Gale. Insane asylum with nightmare pods and lost children and Peter Pan blob or whatever. Got out of it, but nearly went brain dead in the process. Lucky for us we woke up before they hauled our asses to the morgue." He'd seen that letter on the table from Caelius, affirming they be sent away, after just two days in a near coma. b*****d.

"....On a positive note, I think I'm gettin' taller. I'm eye level with Nevada, last I checked." It made him feel like a little kid boasting, but he couldn't lie that it made him a little excited to think about. Even if it wasn't important news, nothing groundbreaking. It was a growth spurt long over due, and one he thought he'd never get. His knees still hurt, so he was sure it wasn't over. He hoped.

"And... you?" He looked to want to keep attention off himself, embarrassed he even bragged about the growing.

He looked up a bit as she tugged on some hair, but there wasn't much fuss. Some people he might glare at, some he might even snap at. Others, like Sasha, were simply allowed these things. Or maybe he was getting softer as the years passed on.

He listened silently, never making any show that her story was odd. It was Deus, after all. However, he really did feel baffled to hear this body was not her own. That? That was new. "Definitly ******** up." He agreed, "Are you in any danger now? I mean.. if you ain't in your body, and all." It was the mind the weapon bonded with, he was sure. So maybe having the same body didn't mean anything.

"How'd that even happen?" It all sounded complicated. So he tried to keep it simple, as far as his curious questions were concerned.

"We attract trouble. But that's the point I guess, right?" He sighed a bit, joining Sasha's action of lightly swinging his feet under the table. "I feel like our lives are one of those thousand piece puzzles, but every single piece is a solid colour." Which meant there was hardly any way to tell what went where, or how close they were to seeing the big picture.

"Seven keys, and Jerry has one of them. Of all people..." The man was a walking time bomb of disaster. Plus he was a total creep. The whole air duct fiasco ran through his mind again and it made him physically shudder. "That Idiot."

Otto solemnly nodded, his eyes un-focusing as she spoke. He often thought those things. One too many times he caught himself wishing to be home, even though home wasn't much better. Otto didn't even know what normal was supposed to be. It was a luxery he wasn't allowed to have. "It'd be nice.... but I guess other than days off, we'll never know." He still hadn't taken a day off yet since the portals were back up. He knew he should, but it had been so long it still felt like a foreign and far away possibility.

"Well, if you say so." Otto didn't have any faith in that man. He creeped him out, was prone to giving in to temptation, and he was downright creepy. He wasn't the worst man on the island, but he wasn't one of the best. Not as far as Otto knew. But he trusted Sasha's judgement. She seemed level headed, from all he'd seen of her. At least more stable and down to earth than a lot of other hunters he knew.

Rather than dwell, he decided to share information. "There was something me n' Gale saw before we got let out of that dream world on the mission. Something with a red hand trapped in a cage. It said it couldn't be contained for long." His brows knit tightly, trying to separate what he'd actually seen with what his dreams and nightmares put together. "Maybe it was nothing, but it just kinda stuck with me." Maybe it was important. It beat keeping it to himself.

He was glad he wasn't the only one who thought that. Something bad always happened, but at least he had clues to go by. Some kind of warning. If only those warnings made sense. They were vague clues without solid evidence. Nothing he could use to prevent or fight it.

"I think.. we're all lost in this." He grumbled lowly, "My guess is they don't tell us anything to keep information leaks minimal, but then the rest of us are left without a clue." An unsolvable puzzle, as always. No one to help fill the pieces. Nothing he could do. No matter how much he rose in rank, he was no closer to an answer.

"I wish I had more control over this. I don't wanna sit on my hands and wait for this disaster to just spring up on us." He knew he had more power and leeway than lesser trainees, but he had no information to light his way.

"Asking my own lead is admitting I'm not doing my own job." But even she knew that. Asking a lead for anything was always counter productive. Any information they wanted was through mission reports. Otto didn't consider himself sneaky or even all that good at snooping around. He was just good at slipping off or running away. Great survival tactic, not so great for anything else.

"Can't say I have. That weird vision was the only kind of warning I've really noticed." He'd not heard anybody else talk about things like this. Whenever he talked with someone, it was idle chit chat or island drama. No one seemed to talk about work.

There had to be something. One solid clue or tidbit to point them in the right direction. He felt himself develop a headache just trying to make his brain do more than just worry, self depreciate or put songs on repeat. He wanted to be useful, wanted to solve this puzzle. He wanted more than anything to contribute. He wasn't useless, and one day he'd prove it.

He let out a breath suddenly, seemingly given up on trying to recall anything useful. "I'll ask around later, I guess." What he'd ask and who he'd ask was uncertain. He only had minimal keywords to use.

Red arms, a cage, something escaping a failed labyrinth. And then Sasha and the keys. Nothing fit or made sense.