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]

"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.

[firstofitskind]

Silly considering the person he was talking to, yes, but also not entirely without precedent in the larger scheme of things.

"And here I thought our afternoon was going to be a lazy one," he said, lips quirking up in a hint of a smile.

[arboreal_priestess]

That person being his wife.

"We've still got time to rescue the evening," Verity said. "The building is all done, all that's left is to eat snacks, watch TV, and eventually order takeout."

[firstofitskind]

Who had never once not been on his side; not about anything that mattered, anyway.

"What did you wanna watch?" he asked.

[arboreal_priestess]

"We can finish watching November Cabal," Verity suggested. "We only have a few more episodes left."

Which would not lead to chill. Anything but.

[firstofitskind]

“Do you think our fort is sturdy enough to withstand that?” Liam asked, arching an eyebrow.

It had been built with potential sexcapades in mind so... probably?

[arboreal_priestess]

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Verity lied declared. "We're just watching TV, how crazy could that get?"

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah, the bruise on my arm says otherwise," Liam scoffed, making to roll up one sleeve.

As if she wouldn't have already seen it, given how they lived together and all.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Don't be such a big baby," Verity said, something she would never say for a real injury. 'Real' as in 'not caused by her getting mad at a TV show.' "You could have gotten that anywhere."

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah, no, I definitely got it when my wife, whom I love and adore more than anyone else in this world or any other," why yes he was purposefully laying it on a bit thick, true as that was, "got offended by the way a fictional character talked about cryptids."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Because he was wrong!" Verity huffed.

Welp. There went her attempts at playing innocent.