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.

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[arboreal_priestess]

Verity kissed him, good and long, nearly forgetting what they were doing in the magic of Liam's mouth.

But, no. She had a plan and they were sticking to it, at least until the fort went up. Building memories together, one at a time. It was its own kind of disaster preparedness.

"C'mon," she said, pulling away with a sloe-eyed, happy smile, and crawling back out. "Let's move this table."

[firstofitskind]

Liam loved that smile; loved being the one responsible for said smile.

He scooted out from underneath the table and stood, fingers gripping one edge. "Can I seduce you after we've built the blanket fort?" he couldn't help but ask.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Depends on how sturdy the blanket fort is," Verity decided, lifting up the other side to maneuver to the living room. "I have too much self-respect to be seduced in a substandard fort that could fall down around our ears."

Sometimes their exploits got a little...athletic.

[firstofitskind]

"I'm a little offended that you think I'd be party to the construction of a substandard blanket fort," Liam scoffed.

Sure, this was his first blanket fort, but Verity knew how invested he was in Doing It Right.

[arboreal_priestess]

Sure, but Doing It Right didn't necessarily mean 'making sure it was zoned for acrobatic sex.'

Technically.

Well, okay, at six and seven it hadn't, at least for Verity.

"Consider it an incentive from the construction foreman," she suggested brightly.

[firstofitskind]

At seven it absolutely did for Liam.

"Well, we've got a good wall," he nodded to the back of the couch as they shimmied the table up next to it, "and a solid ceiling so far. I think we're on the right track?"

[arboreal_priestess]

"Absolutely," Verity assured him. "How big do you want this fort to be? Just a few blankets or cover the whole living room?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam bit his lip, thinking about that. "Cozy," he decided finally. "But not crowded. Like, I want..." his expression turned suddenly shy. "I want it like the whole world is just us, for a little while."

[arboreal_priestess]

"I like it," Verity said, shifting the table over a little bit, moving it over to arm instead. "In that case, I think this will make a great entryway," Verity decided. "Since we already attached the other sheet to the ceiling. We can grab another one, put it over the table and the couch..."

She had Liam lay a second sheet over the table, so it brushed the floor in front of it and lifted the side up and over the arm of the couch. "Now there's a definite entrance, see?" she said. "Gotta go under the table if you wanna come into the living room."

[firstofitskind]

"And a much smaller chance of me ending up with an unintentional haircut," Liam snickered. Because yes, he'd fit under the table, but just barely, and there were a lot of sharp objects secured to its underside.

[arboreal_priestess]

"We can add things here to mostly have this side be another wall," Verity said, walking in a straight line down the rest of their living room. "With another opening here so we can get to the doorway."

[firstofitskind]

Liam nodded. "If we used the chairs, maybe some books to keep the blankets from sliding off?" he mused.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity nodded. "Smart," she said. "I'll bring chairs in from the kitchen and hand them over the table for you to place?"

[firstofitskind]

"It's a plan," he agreed, heading over to the bookshelves and selecting a few of the heavier reference volumes to use as weights.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity skipped - not literally but close - back to the kitchen, carrying their chairs in one by one. Carefully because they all had weapons attached to the underside of each of them, too. "With this, you settle the dimensions of the fort," she intoned, mimicking the mice, though with fewer capitals. "Choose wisely, O God of Distant Stars."

[firstofitskind]

"Oh, sure, no pressure or anything," Liam muttered under his breath as she passed him the chairs, arranging them at a right-angle to the other couch arm (with, yes, a gap so they'd be able to get to the doorway).

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity laughed and kissed him over the table with the return of the second-to-last chair. "The only thing at stake is how many blankets we're going to end up using," she assured him.

[firstofitskind]

"And whether you'll have sex with me inside it once we're done," Liam reminded her.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Then maybe making sure we keep at least one blanket to put on the floor isn't the worst idea," Verity said, chuckling as she went off to get that last chair.

[firstofitskind]

"Noted," Liam said, frowning thoughtfully and adjusting the spacing until it was Just So, awaiting that final chair. "We've also got a veritable nest of pillows," he pointed out.

[arboreal_priestess]

"And a blanket tucked around the pillows makes them a little less inclined to drift," Verity pointed out, lugging the last chair in. "...Though I think that makes the last blanket a little more optional."

[firstofitskind]

"You're the expert, so I'll concede to your experienced wisdom here," Liam said with a grin, taking that last chair and beginning the process of draping and weighting down blankets.

[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.