He passed Anemone who sat on another blanket in the grass outside, who watched intently as her new boyfriend passed by. Off in the distance she could see Dominic crouch down to the ruptured tire of the twin-car motorbike nearby. It only took a few discrete moments for Dominic to jump back to his feet, cursing. Anemone shuffled over as Dominic slumped down on the blanket, burying his chin in his folded arms. "...how's it look?"
"...I got the wrong size." Dominic said flatly. "At least the map said this is a populated road, I'm sure if we stay here tonight then-"
"I already looked at the map, that populated road is an hour's walk from here."
Dominic ground a palm into his forehead. "...well, that's what we got supplies for, I guess... still, it'd help if you'd decide where we should go."
"Not a clue." Anemone said cheerfully.
"I already had to impersonate military personnel with my now defunct ID to help restock Gekko State, AND supply ourselves until we can get far enough away from UF territory to settle down, at least temporarily... weakened Trapar and trade routes in chaos because of the earlier Coralian attacks didn't make bartering for this stuff any easier." Dominic's head rose out of his fortress. "I was looking through the food we have at the moment but I didn't happen to see-" Dominic was interrupted by a loud slurping. His eyes rolled over to see Anemone licking her fingers and plunging it again into a jar of raspberry jam. "...that."
"Well, YOU won't eat it unless you get something to spread it on. You're fickle." Anemone stirred the red sludge around. "Look here, expiry date two days from now. I'm making the most of it."
"We still had crackers."
"Crackers. Ha." Anemone snorted.
Dominic sighed, slumping back forward and letting his head rest on his palm. "I hope you get table manners at some point, but just for now, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, although I'm not entirely sure why." Dominic waited for a reply, but only got a shrug from Anemone. "And you're not going to listen to me either."
"Nah, I'll just let you ogle me in peace." Anemone turned the jar upside down, slapping the bottom with her palm.
"Yeah. Yeah." Dominic sighed, and found himself staring. First a complying giggle from Anemone, then her grabbing another glob of jam, followed by the motion of her ramming it into her face to which her eyes twitched as she realized she hadn't actually been that accurate in doing so, which was corrected by her tongue flitting about trying to swat away rogue stains of raspberry on her face, and-
WAKE UP! Dominic mentally nagged himself, as he realized his face was lit up and burning like a klaxon. He slowly stood up, moving back towards the tent.
"Hey, why don't YOU get something to eat if yo-" Anemone's statement was cut in half by a cough as something cold and flimsy pressed into the back of her throat. She slammed the container down on the ground and spun around to find Dominic presenting her with a plastic spoon. As soon as he realized their eyes had met, Dominic quickly stared away again. "...just sit down." Anemone gingerly took the spoon and quickly jammed it into the jar, waiting for Dominic to return to his usual spot. Anemone glared at him, boredom and curiosity shining, as Dominic continued to try to calm himself.
"...sorry, it's just that... looking at you doing that makes me... I dunno..." Dominic's flushed face quickly pivoted back to face Anemone's, though he didn't anticipate what would happen next. "Hor-"
Dominic found himself with a mouthful of raspberry jam, yet again guided by two of Anemone's fingers. Anemone slowly drew them out, leaving Dominic with the topping dripping down - his face stayed frozen, albeit even a deeper shade of crimson than the jam that bled out of his mouth.
"Mmm, right," Anemone smirked. "I suppose that's too sweet for you." Her arm jabbed over, grabbing Dominic's hand and dunking it into the jar and scooping out what was remaining. She wrapped her lips around his fingers, noisily slurping off whatever was remaining. "...not bad I guess."
Dominic stared with wide eyes. "...B-buhhhhhh..."
Anemone shook the jar. "Ahhhh, is that all we had?... what else do we have here, I'm still kinda hungry..." she rose to her feet, dusting herself off and hastily skipping over to the nearby tent. Dominic's eyes trailed her, himself still unable to piece together words to describe what had just happened... at least temporarily. "...what am I supposed to say... she likes playing with her food... in more ways than one."
A box of plastic cutlery would remain gathering dust at the bottom of the supply crate.
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