MHA #6, Valentine's Day Evening

[arboreal_priestess]

It was Valentine's Day and while it wasn't their first Valentine's Day together, the last one had still been early enough on that neither of them had really known what they were doing. As a couple. This time, however, 'I love you's' had been exchanged and so had keys, he'd met her family, he hadn't run screaming from her family, and he'd even rescued her from a snake cult. Those were a lot of relationship milestones right there, even if some were Price-exclusive.

So tonight she'd sent the mice off to gorge on cake and cheese in their closet in the spare room, turned the lights to dim, turned some slow music on, and started cooking dinner. The one flaw in her holiday plans so far was that she'd naively assumed that 'an ability to cook basic food' meant that she was fully qualified to cook elaborate romantic meals.

She was vastly learning that this was in error.

"What? Emulsify? I've got a spatula and a slotted spoon, how the hell am I supposed to do that?!"

[For the boyfriend!]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

Verity had been somewhat cagey when it came to Valentine's Day plans, not saying much other than that dinner would be 'taken care of' and he better not have anything else on his calendar for the evening.

Not that he would have, of course, because yeah, this was their first time really celebrating the holiday and like hell he was going to miss it.

So it was with no small amount of anticipation that he arrived home at Verity's that evening, grinning softly as he took in the mood lighting and the music playing.

Only... where was Verity, anyway?

"Very?" he called out. "It's me." As opposed to the myraid of other people who had keys to her apartment, obviously.

[arboreal_priestess]

There was a muffled "HAIL!" from behind the closed door, but it wasn't accompanied by the usual scamper of tiny feet to come greet him. Gods were great and all, but they had cake.

It did sound like they were making a full recovery from the trauma of The Days of Blankness.

"I'm in here--" Verity called out from her kitchen, sounding a little harried. "Wait no!"

A moment later, she strolled out from the kitchen, frilly apron obscuring an outfit that looked tight to say the least. Possibly even low-cut. "Well, hello gorgeous," she said, clearly trying this whole 'greeting' thing again. She leaned against the wall and smiled at him with ruby-red lips. "Good to see you."

[firstofitskind]

"Hello yourself," Liam replied, voice husky as he took in that outfit. And that apron. "You look like you've been busy."

Those ruby-red lips? Were absolutely getting kissed in greeting.

[arboreal_priestess]

It was even non-smear lipstick, so it would stay on her lips and not his! It stood up to dancing, chasing cryptids through the woods, and intense makeouts.

"Maybe I have been," she purred, batting her lashes up at him. "Hope you brought your appetite."

No, seriously though, she'd been busy. Cooking was hard. Well, everything that had to happen after she put down her knives had been anyways. Deboning, butterflying, chopping, that had all gone fine.

But, like, why was making a bechamel sauce so complicated?

[firstofitskind]

Of course, there was something to be said about the occasional lipstick mark being left behind, but that was neither here nor there right now.

"... Are you cooking?" Liam asked, putting together the outfit, her comments earlier, and now the mention of appetite.

It wasn't that he didn't think Verity could, it's just that normally she showed so little interest in doing so.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I can cook!" Verity protested.

Well, she could make food. It was subtly different, as she was discovering.

"C'mon, like my parents would ever let us out of the house without knowing we wouldn't starve to death on our own."

EATING CHINESE LEFTOVERS FAJITAS TECHNICALLY WASN'T STARVING

[firstofitskind]

"I know, I know," Liam assured her. "It just always struck me as the kind of thing you knew how to do because you had to, not because you liked to."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Okay, that's not wrong," Verity admitted. "But you're always cooking or we're eating out, so I figured tonight I'd cook something special, just for you."

[firstofitskind]

Putting Liam's cooking in front of eating out was being rather generous, as his own cooking skills were hardly anything to write home about (although he did, admittedly, enjoy making the few things he could make reliably.)

"Well, color me intrigued, then," Liam said with a grin. "What're you making?"

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity winked at him. "That's a surprise," she said. "All you need to know is that it's going to be delicious. Now then, why don't you pour us some wine while I check on how the first course is coming along?"

[firstofitskind]

“Ooh, mysterious,” Liam said. “But message received, I’ll stay out of the kitchen,” he promised. He tugged off the pair of fingerless gloves he’d been wearing and tossed them on the couch before going over to the dining room table to take care of that request for wine.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity winked at him, ducking into the kitchen to check on the first course. It was a salad with entirely too much bacon in it to be anything even approaching healthy, and all that would be fine except it she was also making a dressing out of the bacon grease and red wine vinegar.

The bacon grease had been allowed to cool a little too much and wasn't mixing well. Rather than heating it up again, Verity decided to just mix harder.

"Oh no! Shit."

[firstofitskind]

“...Everything okay?” Everything did not sound okay, for the record.

[arboreal_priestess]

Yeah, the clatter and resounding bong from the kitchen was...not the best noise?

"Okay," Verity said, looking slightly more frazzled and less sexy than the last time she'd stuck her head out of the door. "How much of a fan of salad are you?"

[firstofitskind]

“I could take it or leave it,” Liam admitted.

He was guessing they were going to be leaving it.

[arboreal_priestess]

Indeed they were.

"After all the fuss I went to finding shallots," Verity grumped, definitely coming over to get her glass of wine. "Ugh. Stupid emulsifying."

That wasn't--never mind.

[firstofitskind]

Liam wordlessly held out the glass of wine for her.

"No salad just means more room for dessert," he pointed out.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity took the wine and finished half the glass at once, then held it out for a refill. "That was only one course," she agreed. "We still have a few more to go."

Well, two.

Wait, did dessert count as a course? Dammit, she could recite four ways to take down a harpy in mid-air, but she had no idea how many courses their were.

[firstofitskind]

... Were they going to need more than one bottle of wine tonight? Possibly. Maybe the wine could count as a course.

"And you're sure you can't give me a hint?" he wheedled.

[arboreal_priestess]

Wine should absolutely count as a course.

"It's very fancy," Verity said, smiling at him. "Does that count as a clue?"

[firstofitskind]

"Mmmm," Liam hummed. "I think you're enjoying keeping me in suspense a bit too much."

[arboreal_priestess]

"And I haven't even told you what you get after dinner" Verity purred.

In an outfit like that, though, it wasn't really a surprise what she had planned.

[firstofitskind]

And frazzled or not, Liam would argue that she was still damned sexy.

"Almost makes me want to say we should just skip right to that part," he admitted. "... But then we'd be putting all your hard work to waste." And that would be tragic.

[arboreal_priestess]

"We are not skipping out on dinner," Verity agreed. "...But I am willing to give you a sneak peek of what I have planned if you want one."

[firstofitskind]

"'If I want one', she says, as if she has any doubt about the answer," Liam said to... no one, actually, because the mice were all busy with their cake.