[SE] If you're in a coma, just wake up

Kaisel

Women come innately armed with a series of invisible traps that they can fling out at will. Some have better aim than others, and unfortunately for him, Flora might as well have a dexterity that rivals Ronin's. "I do like you!" he crows instantly, arms flung out on either side of him, palms skyward as though he intends to beseech divine aid in this matter, not about to let her slander his feelings even if in pretend. "ObbbbbvIously!" he scoffs. "I mean, I like like you girl," which, as everyone knows, is a tier above love. "I just also dislike nature, and both can be true at once, but I'm here and absolutely s'more-less at the moment, which I think speaks for itself." It's a grand, entirely unnecessary defense, but he's laid it out for the sake of understanding, certain if he let it pass by it'd come back to haunt him.

His utter disappointment in the record only being nine feet (an impressive and unwanted length in other matters) is made plain to the backpack as he frowns into it while performing his best magician's endless ribbon trick. "Lame," he announces, all dreams of his glow stone bedazzling gone out the window. Unlike some woodland wild child, he never carted the stones away from their resting place, doing as told, aside from the one he his friend ate. Take only memories and leave only footprints or some such Dragoon-scout-bullshit that'd been drilled into him.

Everything he's doing comes to a screeching halt as he catches a fucking stray for no reason. With the precision of machinery and the creep-factor of an old doll, Kaisel's head turns by degrees to level her with a flat stare. There's no real wound, but he holds her with the discomfort of it as long as he can manage, before sucking in a long, loud, slow breath, one that seems due to end at any moment before continuing. "If that were true, not that I'm saying it is, it would be because your highness is so damn fine. I mean, gyatt damn gurl, how do you make camping fit look so good?" Not that he hasn't been sneaking a look here and there, but he shamelessly gives her the once over now, humming with a satisfaction usually reserved for the first bite of a fantastic meal after being struck thoroughly by hunger.

Not only are women, especially Flora, experts with laying traps, but bitches can disarm them in a blink too. Caught red-handed in his friend of a friend of a sister's twice removed mother-in-law tale, he can't fight back the sheepish smile that blooms. "Hot tip, doesn't do shit."

Turning his backpack over and dangling out the rest of the contents, he finds the tent finally, the very last thing to come out, of course. "Alright, let's tag team this. Between the two of us, we're great at pitching a tent. You grab that end, I'll grab this end and we'll tug until it pops up." Not oblivious to his own words this time, his brows lift in expectation.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora tilts her head as Kaisel crows his defence, the movement sending her ponytail swinging with exaggerated doubt. For someone so immediately wounded by the suggestion that he might not like her, he’s certainly doing a lot of explaining, and she lets him do it with an expression that grows more skeptical by the second. Her gaze drops first to the engagement ring on her finger, then to the sparkly orange hair tie at her wrist, before she exhales a soft, deeply unconvinced sigh. "Oh, obviously," she murmurs, lifting her eyes back to him with sly amusement tucked into the corners. "So if there were no s’mores on this whole trip, you’d be fine with that?" Her brows rise, playful challenge brightening her face as if this is a far more serious test of devotion than the ring, the bond, or the whole being married thing could ever hope to be.

When his head turns toward her with all the slow, haunted precision of a doll left too long in an attic, Flora only raises her eyebrows with wide, innocent patience, as though she hasn’t just casually called his stamina into question while holding a pillow against her chest. The innocence lasts just long enough to become insulting. Then she folds her arms, not so subtly lifting her tits at the same time, her chin angling upward as she lets him take in the very compelling evidence of how unfairly difficult she makes his life. "Oh, you would try and blame that on me." Leaning forward until her cleavage is right at his eyeline, Flora lowers her voice into a whisper shaped entirely out of mischief. "Same way I do everything else, babe. I get my ass up in the morning and run."

Straightening with a smirk, she catches the sheepish little bloom of his smile and feels its answering flicker through the bond, which only makes her laugh outright. "Worse," she adds, glancing toward the glowstones with renewed horror and delight and thus affirming IC the reason I put what would happen if you ate things in the F&F section. "I bet it really hurt coming out."

By the time Kaisel turns the backpack over, Flora is more or less just watching him Mary Poppins their entire campsite onto the ground. There are pillows, supplies, bags and bags of gummy worms, and finally the tent itself, because of course the most important thing has waited until the end like it wants a dramatic entrance. His innuendo lands cleanly enough that she has to bite the inside of her cheek not to reward him too quickly, though the sparkle in her eyes gives her away.
She crouches to gather one of the poles, sliding her fingertips slowly and suggestively along its length. Her gaze flicks up to him from beneath her lashes, mouth curving. "And that’s your professional opinion, is it? That we both just tug until it’s up?"

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

His own suspicion deepens immediately in return, voice lowering into the careful volume and speed that a hostage negotiation requires. "Why? What have you done with them?" Or will do. He wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she pulled up a remote feed of her own memory of the chocolate being melted slowly by a candle, just close enough that the heat would take its time dismantling the integrity of the bar, the torture drawn out with an attention directed solely at him. She's conniving enough, but he holds her in the corner of his gaze with a scrutiny that means to discover if she's cruel enough.

His delve into his backpack has a new purpose besides setting up camp, fingertips searching for the goods. There might not have been much that would have delayed his search party for them, but when he turns with a willingness to stare her down until one of them yields, the tier of his priorities becomes clearer. He breaks first, which maybe isn't a good showing of the endurance he's defending, but between the wind-up of his breath and the honest flattery, he expects to come out on top. She gives him two very good reasons to stay down.

The bob of her chest as it cinches up over her arms draws his attention immediately. The motion also reveals more of her midriff as the crop top's full cover struggles to reach above and below with anything akin to equality. The urge to halt everything and chase the hem of her shirt higher nearly possesses him. Although the bra beneath would ruin the attempt as it is now, he'd like to see just how the fabric rolls beneath his palms, and how taut he needs to pull it over the swell of her tits before her nipples are at risk of exposure. He wouldn't let them escape. He'd wait until her own impatience eventually freed them, driven to release by the methodical teasing of every inch of her around them.

They loom closer in a test of restraint, and his smile melts into something hungry, teeth clicking as he bites at the air and lifts his eyes back to her championing features. She's never finer than when she's victorious. A low chuckle rolls free at the whisper, and he shakes his head as he resumes the work at hand. "Mm, and thank the gods for that. Give my best regards to all your miles."

As for his bowels, he shrugs a touch. "It was like the size of jellybean, wasn't so bad." I had to put it to use. Not that he's recommending it, especially given the lackluster shit show, but he's had some cooking attempts that've betrayed him worse. "Anyway, we won't be eating or moving any tonight. We're gonna paint with 'em." Maybe she's done it before, in her childhood, but it's been a while since he has and there's a magic to it he thinks will survive each attempt. The trick is not using the stones so much as the space around them, an art piece made of the negative with the intention of how the light can be used, or hidden.

All in good time though, as first they've the campsite to erect. Firmly gripping his pole, he meets the too-innocent gleam of her eyes over the limp canvas, a smirk cutting up the rest of his features in quick response to the suggestive sweep of her hand. "It might require a bit of, gentle shimmying," he clarifies. "Just be careful where it connects at the tip, that area's sensitive."

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky