Jarod let out a sigh as he walked down the aisle of a small Dollar General, a yellow basket in his left hand, his eyes squinted as he read the prices of each brand of granola bars, wanting to find the cheapest one.
After a moment of looking, he grabbed the one marked down to fifty cents and placed it in the basket along with three boxes of ninety-nine cent mac and cheese, two loaves of bread, and two large bottles filled with water that could be reused.
Jarod quickly calculated the total cost of his groceries and ended up being twelve dollars and forty-one cents, not including taxes. He felt the ten-dollar bill and the five-dollar bill in his pocket.
Waiting in line, Jarod tried his best to blend in like a normal customer and not stand out too much, but his starch-white hair and his grey eyes would work against him as several people in the store would give him weird glances as they passed him by.
He averted his gaze from the floor and to the bulletin board behind the cashier, who was finishing up someone's order, his eyes widening as he saw a picture of himself on the board with bolded capital letters spelled MISSING under his name.
It was a younger picture of him, but if anyone were to glance back at the photo and then look closely at him they would be able to spot the similarities and connect the dots. As he finally reached the cashier, he placed the basket on the counter and looked away.
"How are you today, sir?" The employee asked as she began scanning his groceries. She was a middle-aged woman with blonde hair that reached to her shoulder blades, her eyes a dull green.
"I'm fine, thank you," Jarod replied, never really being good at small talk in the first place, and especially not at this moment when his missing poster was right behind her. As she finished ringing up his order, he quickly handed her the money.
"Are you alright?" She asked him, causing his blood to freeze. "You're shaking." Jarod glanced down to his slightly trembling hand and cursed his own nervousness.
"Yeah I'm fine, it's just a little chilly outside." He lied. He didn't feel the cold. The woman nodded and handed him his change.
"Well, you get warm and enjoy the rest of your day!" Jarod stuffed the change in his pocket and thanked the woman before exiting the store, thankful she didn't turn back the entire time she was taking his order.
They were in a town somewhere in western Tennessee, having crossed the state border the other day and making admirable progress, only taking breaks when they needed and sleeping a couple of hours at night before starting back up again.
They couldn't risk going into the public too much and he had to convince Arlyn that it was alright for him to even go to the little store to even get food. She was worried he would be recognized and taken into custody by the police, or worse, by Demon Hunters.
He entered the treeline, making sure no one was watching him before quickly going deeper into the forest where their camp was located by a small relatively untouched pond.
He ducked under a branch, the dead leaves under his foot crackling as he trudged forward and saw Arlyn sitting at the bank of the pond, her eyes narrowed at the water. He rose an eyebrow and set the plastic bags of food onto the ground.
"What are you doing?" He asked her.
Not even glancing back, she spoke. "I'm dirty."
"We both are," Jarod replied. "It's been two weeks and a half since we've left Hell and we haven't showered. What's your point?" Arlyn glanced at him, annoyance in her eyes.
"We both stink," She said in a miffed tone. "I'm taking bath, the water seems clean enough." Jarod turned a bright red at her implication.
"You can't take a bath right now!" He shouted and looked away, not able to meet her eyes.
"And why not? I'm filthy and need to bathe myself."
"But you'll need to undress and you're a girl and I'm a-" He was cut off as her leather jacket and her white shirt hit him in the face. His eyes widened as they fell off, revealing Arlyn wearing a black bra and currently stripping off her pants.
He quickly spun around, his face a deep shade of red. "Go train or something, I'll come and get you when it's your turn." Jarod immediately turned around and walked away quickly.
As he walked past a tree, he stopped and turned to his left where Dark Jarod was leaning on a tree, a smirk on his face and his eyes closed. "Hello again," He said, opening his eyes, revealing his scarlet red eyes with sharp vertical pupils.
"You. . . " Jarod said breathlessly before he narrowed his eyes. "You." He said a bit darker.
"No, you, just the you that you won't accept," Dark Jarod laughed as he pushed himself off of the tree, his messy black hair moving in front of his eyes like a leaves hiding a branch. "You avoided looking at her breasts."
"Any self-respecting man wouldn't peep on a woman." Dark Jarod shrugged.
"Perhaps, but when I go look at the real things you're going to be wacking your sword against a tree or something," With that, he shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking over to the pond. Jarod's eyes widened and he immediately ran in front of his darker half, spreading his arms out as if to block any further viewing that may have occurred.
"I won't let you be a pervert!" Dark Jarod laughed.
"You won't let yourself succumb to your desires? Remember that I'm you, what I do is what you want to do. I'm your darkest self, and I want to go see some boobs so I'm going to go watch. Feel free to stay." With that, he passed right through Jarod as if he were not even there.
"She'll kill ME if she sees you!" Jarod tried reasoning with his darker half, whose smirk only increased in size at the dilemma of his lighter half.
"Nope, you're the only person who can see me. You're technically talking to yourself which is honestly a bit amusing. What I see you'll remember, so just wait here like a good little human and touch yourself later at the thought of your comrade's naked body."
Jarod turned bright red and chased Dark Jarod to the pond, only to stop when Dark Jarod stopped, his eyes trailing to the pond where he saw Arlyn's upper half clear as day with her lower half being submerged under water.
It was then that he realized how attractive Arlyn was. He knew she was beautiful before, there was no doubt in that, but now as he looked closer and watched as she bathed, he then knew she wasn't hot, not sexy, but rather beautiful and even drop-dead gorgeous.
"Perfect view," His darker half said, his red eyes scanning her up and down. Jarod, who was mesmerized by Arlyn's beauty up until that point, came to his senses and slapped himself with both hands.
"This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong!" He whispered over and over again until he noticed his darker half was now missing. He looked back at the pond and found Arlyn missing, no longer bathing along with her clothes that were sitting on the small shore of the said pond. "Shit."
He slowly creeped backward until he hit a small tree. He slowly stood up, trying to inch his way forward as not to alert Arlyn, wherever she was. He quickly spun around the tree and began running towards camp, only to stop when he saw Arlyn looking at him.
"Where were you?" She questioned him, her face serious, almost angry. Jarod blushed for what felt like the hundredth time that day and began stuttering and spitting out nonsense, causing Arlyn to walk up to him and grab him by the collar.
"Spit. It. Out." She said, shaking him lightly.
"N-Nothing!" He stammered. "I was just trying to hit five trees in one slash with my sword and I tripped and landed on my ass I didn't want you to see me sitting on my ass so I ran around and then boom you're here!" He said in under two seconds, causing Arlyn to raise an eyebrow.
"Okay," She said simply, releasing his collar and watching as he fell to his butt. "Now you go take a bath." He quickly nodded and ran towards the pond, leaving her at camp.
'What's got him all flustered?' She thought as she wrapped her belt around her waist as well as her sword. She then looked at the bag of groceries Jarod had gotten just moments before and sighed.
On one hand she could try cooking again, on the other hand the food that Jarod made was a lot better than whatever she could make. She weighed the decisions before choosing the other hand, knowing Jarod would be upset if she were to ruin the food they had bought with the little money they had.
She turned to the pond and waited another minute before releasing another sigh. What was taking him so long? She walked over to the pond and saw Jarod in the water, his hair matted down to his scalp as he rubbed water over his lightly defined muscles.
She observed his looks for a second and noted that he was cute, maybe even handsome. He had a six pack that was obviously visible with defined biceps that weren't overly large. He had a nice face and his white hair was unique and interesting along with his grey eyes that seemed to sparkle whenever the sun were to hit them at a certain angle.
Her eyes widened as she realized what she was thinking of as a light pink blush spread across her face. She immediately turned around, shaking her head.
What was she thinking? Was she attracted to the Prince of Hell? Prince of all demons? No, she couldn't be.
He was a weak idiot who was too nice for his own good. He was naive. But he also treated her as an equal and not as a servant. A small smile graced her lips.
"Jarod hurry up! You need to cook my dinner!" She shouted. The smile on her lips increased as she heard the hurried splashing as he quickly finished up.
She needed to stop this weird feeling in her stomach. She wasn't even close to the prince in ranking. 'He really is cute though,' She thought before berating herself in front of her head.
'No thoughts like that, bad.' She chastised.
She heard his footsteps and pointed at Jarod, who had a confused look on his face. "You said whatever you would buy would be good, make good on your promise!" He chuckled.
"Fine, don't rush perfection." He joked. Arlyn's eyes were trained on Jarod as he opened up the plastic bag. "What would you prefer?"
"Your world, not mine." She reminded him. He grumbled something unintelligible under his breath before pulling out the bread. He flashed her a quick grin.
"Let's use some of that deer meat now, okay?"