MHA #6 Saturday Afternoon

[arboreal_priestess]

So, with the past week, Liam had had plenty of time to experience being around blanket forts, but Verity was pretty sure he'd still never had the fun of building one. So she'd sent him out to the store for some snacks, citing a long-overdue call with Sarah for why she couldn't accompany him and after said call (in which she harangued her cousin to at least talk to Artie, for god's sake, and also to come back to Baltimore), she stripped all the linens off their bed and grabbed everything from the closet and left it all in a giant pile on the floor for Liam to spot when he came home.

Shut up, this was totally for Liam's benefit and not at all because the past week had Verity feeling nostalgic or anything.

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

"Looking good," Verity said, vaulting over the table to the empty space on the other side. Look, she'd go in and out properly after the fort was finished. "I'm gonna work over here, get this spread out to the TV."

She crossed to the wall opposite of where Liam was working, grabbing the loose end of the sheet that had been tacked to the wall. She knotted the ends of that sheet with another and draped them over the side of a weapons rack mounted to the wall. That kept the 'ceiling' of the fort up high enough so they'd be able to watch TV unobstructed.

[firstofitskind]

It wasn’t long before Liam was finished, and he stepped back to survey their handiwork with a critical eye.

“Are we missing anything?” he checked. The TV was properly enclosed, they had a pile of pillows (and a blanket) awaiting proper arrangement inside, and of course the all-important snacks.

It was a good thing they had access to the front door from their fort, Liam mused to himself, as he had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t be making dinner tonight and they’d end up ordering takeout to round out those snacks.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Just about," Verity said, where she was precariously leaning over the top of some of the blankets, hanging down extra sheets between them. "Adds a bit of insulation, especially when the front door is open," she explained. "And lets us have different areas of the fort."

And it just felt more, well, fortier when you had to go through different sections of blanket. She didn't know why, it just did.

"You should go out one of the entrances and come back in," she said. "Really get the full experience."

Which included Verity's plan to plug in an LED version of the star projector she'd bought on Amazon a few days ago when she'd gotten this idea in the first place.

[firstofitskind]

“Okay,” Liam said, tone slightly dubious but still willing to go along with whatever she suggested. And so he did just that, slipping out and then circling around to crawl back inside via the first entrance they’d set up.

[arboreal_priestess]

And Verity turned the projector on and cued up some soft music on her phone, waiting for Liam to come back in. She lounged back against the couch and grabbed a bag of chips. Yeah, this idea was brilliant.

[firstofitskind]

“Honey, I’m ho- oh,” Liam’s voice went from playful to full of wonder in the space of that last syllable, as he looked around at the constellations projected onto the walls of their blanket fort.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Welcome to your blanket fort," Verity said, giving him another kiss, tasting of salt and chips.

So sue her, she liked kissing her husband.

[firstofitskind]

That would be sort of awkward to sue over, considering how much Liam enjoyed kissing his wife.

“It’s wonderful,” he said, not pulling away entirely just yet, leaning his forehead against hers.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I thought you'd like it," Verity said. "...Why didn't you go into any of the other ones around town?"

[firstofitskind]

Cast glances that one might categorize as ‘curious’ and possibly even ‘longing’ at those other blanket forts, yes, but go in? Absolutely not.

“I didn’t really feel like I was supposed to,” he admitted, after a beat of silence. Not because he was an adult, exactly, but because he didn’t have that nostalgic connection to them that so many others seemed to.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Why?" Verity asked, tilting her head. "They were there for everyone."

[firstofitskind]

“Yes, but,” he frowned. “When you saw them, how did they make you feel?”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Happy," Verity said immediately. "Comforted."

[firstofitskind]

“Why?” he pressed.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Because it brought back - ah," Verity said, understanding. "But still, I know you were curious." She'd seen it. Which was why tonight had happened.

[firstofitskind]

“Yeah,” he admitted, because denying it was pretty pointless. “It’s something that so many people had a connection to,” and across some of those cultural and species barriers, even! “I wanted to understand why.”

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity nodded. "But you didn't really ask me about it," she pointed out.

[firstofitskind]

"I didn't," he agreed. "I don't always know how."

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity leaned over to bump his shoulder, her hand sliding down his arm to clasp his hand. "With words," she said, a glib answer above but deep beneath. "You can ask me whatever you need to know. I'm always here to answer, even if we both have to grope our way towards finding the right words."

[firstofitskind]

“Sounds simple when you say it like that.” Affection, pure and steady, thrummed between the connection their hands had made. “I used to ask a lot of questions, when I was new,” he admitted. ‘Younger’ never seemed like the right term to use. “Didn’t get a lot of answers.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah, but all of those people were assholes," Verity said. There were maybe four exceptions to that. Maybe. "I'm your wife, remember?" Verity still glowed when she said that. "You get to ask me stuff. It's in the contract."

[firstofitskind]

Four was being pretty generous, honestly. “Next to the part about only making tall-person-friendly blanket forts?” he teased gently.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yeah, jury's still out on that one," Verity teased. "But that other stuff...always."

[firstofitskind]

“Hmph,” Liam pouted, but only for a second, because in the next moment he was pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Love you.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Love you, too," Verity said, snuggling into him. "This is...Everything about everything is better because you're with me."