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]

"Aren't blanket forts?" Verity asked, raising an eyebrow.

[firstofitskind]

"Well, sure, but..." it was different! Somehow!

[arboreal_priestess]

This seemed like it was one of those times where the best plan was to sit with that eyebrow still raised and wait for Liam to stumble himself out. "Go on," she invited.

[firstofitskind]

"I wouldn't have built a blanket fort on my own," he reminded her. Hell, he wouldn't have gone into an already constructed blanket fort on his own.

[arboreal_priestess]

"And you wouldn't have bought a stuffy on your own," Verity agreed. "And?"

[firstofitskind]

"We built the fort because you wanted to show me what it was like," Liam said. "And- I wanted to see," he admitted. It was easier to admit he wanted to experience those little bits of 'childish' things when it was someone else's suggestion, absolutely. "This," he nodded down at the stuffy, "is just here."

Liam had plenty of weapons, a good number of clothes, and lots of books. What he didn't really have were things.

[arboreal_priestess]

"And?" Verity said again. "Do you like it?"

That was a valid reason to have something, Liam.

[firstofitskind]

“It’s soft,” Liam admitted. “Feels nice.”

So... yes.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Liam...ignoring your own needs, especially emotional ones, is a problem that you run into face-first on a semi-regular basis," Verity said softly, shaking her head. "It's okay to have a stuffy just because you like it."

[firstofitskind]

“Even if it’s supposed to be for kids?” Liam asked, still sounding a little dubious.

[arboreal_priestess]

"If you're really all that worried about it, think of it as being for the child you never got to be," Verity pointed out gently. "But...either way...why does it matter?"

[firstofitskind]

“I guess it... doesn’t?” Liam said carefully, hesitantly.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity nodded. "If something made me happy, would you give a fuck if it was originally meant for kids, or guys, or boogeymen or whatever?"

[firstofitskind]

“No, of course not,” Liam said, shaking his head.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity just gave him that face, the one that said, And now follow that through to the conclusion we both know you're avoiding.

It was a very eloquent expression.

[firstofitskind]

Between her and his therapist, Liam saw that expression kind of a lot.

“If it’s okay for you, then it’s okay for me too,” Liam said slowly.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity nodded and repeated it. "If it's okay for me, then it's okay for you, too." And then, a moment later, pressed him for more. "And why is that?"

Sorry Liam. But you had to practice saying and believing it until it stuck.

[firstofitskind]

“Because I’m a person who’s allowed to just... want things. Or like things. They don’t need to have a purpose.” He didn’t need to have that purpose.

[arboreal_priestess]

"The whole idea that everyone needs to have a purpose, to have use and value...that's the basis of a lot of eugenics talk and stuff," Verity said, voice thoughtful. "The idea that a person's worth is based on what services they're providing instead of something intrinsic within themselves. All that comes pretty close to what the Covenant believes, too."

[firstofitskind]

And where Liam’s posture had been loose and relaxed, at her words he stiffened, grip on the stuffy white-knuckled with tension.

“No,” he tried to protest, through the pins-and-needles sensation currently crowding out his thoughts. “That’s not. I don’t believe in that stuff.”

[arboreal_priestess]

"Of course you don't," Verity said, poking him in the side, more as a surprising tactic than to actually try to hurt him. "I married you, I think I know how you believe. But I am saying that that's the same philosophical grounding, for the next time you need to remind yourself that that thinking is wrong. Because it is and and it's antithetical to everything that you are."

[firstofitskind]

It definitely worked, startling him out of that spiral his thoughts had started to go down.

(The catastrophizing was another thing they were working on in those sessions.)

Some of the tension seeped back out of him and he slumped backwards, taking in a deep breath of air.

"I see what you're getting at," he said after a moment.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Stopped panicking that I was going to haul off and accuse you of genocidal tendencies?" Verity asked wryly.

[firstofitskind]

"Maybe," Liam admitted grudgingly, feeling more than a little foolish in this particular moment.

Not foolish enough to let go of that stuffed jackalope, though.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity wasn't going to argue with the foolish. It had been a very silly assumption to leap to.

She was, however, going to let it go. "Look what a learning experience this fort has been," she said, shaking her head with a chuckle.