Isle of Ikea, Sunday Evening

[arboreal_priestess]

"So we're not leaving without getting a bed and some meatballs. Everything else is optional, but definitely those two things."

Verity had been threatening to drag Liam to Ikea ever since the giant snowstorm and she'd seen the empty expanse he called a bedroom. Honestly, Liam? A chair? If their physical relationship ever moved past the whole 'glowing cloud of purple light' thing, Verity figured they'd sometimes want a place to retreat to where they didn't have to negotiate with mice for a bit of privacy.

Which they couldn't do with just a chair.

"Also, considering the size of the store, maybe we should have brought along a couple of guide ropes and maybe a GPS," she added as the doors opened and she took in the sheer size of the store. Though maybe having the entire island being named for it should have given her a clue. "Uhhh...excelsior?"

[For the guy!]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity laughed again, sinking down onto what could literally be a lovenest and debated answering honestly versus stringing him along a little more. "No not really," she said, just because his confused face was adorable. "I'm just teasing you, I promise."

[firstofitskind]

"Oh, well, in that case," Liam flopped down to join her. At least until the grumpy Ikea employee tracked them down again to frown at them. But he figured they had a minute or two at least. "This is comfortable," he admitted. "But a bit too big for my space." It'd take up nearly the whole room.

[arboreal_priestess]

"And do you really want anything suggesting you're a bird where Magnus can see it?" Verity asked, snuggling close to him. "But it is surprisingly comfy."

[firstofitskind]

"I dunno, maybe he'd like me more if he thought I was a duck?" Liam pondered.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Too bad your chair needs all that personal space," Verity teased, lacing their fingers together. "It's interfering with your ability to really connect with your roommate."

[firstofitskind]

"Oh well," Liam said. "He's not the one I want to really connect with, anyway."

And speaking of connection... he glanced down at their twined fingers and smiled softly, before channeling a gentle pulse of affection and warmth through that physical connection.

[arboreal_priestess]

That warmth made Verity's heart squeeze in her chest, a little uncomfortable and yet somehow almost as good as dancing her heart out on the stage. "You're so lucky I can't do that," she told him. "You'd never be safe."

[firstofitskind]

"I like to think I'd survive. Somehow," and that soft smile became a full-on grin.

[arboreal_priestess]

"You just say that because you don't have to worry about being in public and suddenly getting a little bit of that--followed up by something a whole lot less wholesome."

[firstofitskind]

"No," Liam admitted. "But it absolutely doesn't surprise me that that's what you'd send in a Sharing," he added.

[arboreal_priestess]

"The word you're looking for is 'incorrigible,'" she informed him.

Incorrigibly.

[firstofitskind]

“You’re right, you are adorable,” Liam said with a nod.

Liam, that was not the word she had used.

[arboreal_priestess]

Still made her smile. "You know, if your plan was to get us kicked out of Ikea without a bed for making out in a nest, it's working," she told him.

[firstofitskind]

"You know, it wasn't? But that's looking better and better right about now."

... No, Liam. You needed a bed. Because future narratives implied you had furniture now. No getting kicked out.

[arboreal_priestess]

"On the other hand," Verity said, hooking a finger around his collar and pulling him in, "we get you a bed, we could go home and make out there and no one can kick us out at all."

[firstofitskind]

"Gorgeous and you're a genius. No wonder I'm crazy about you," Liam said with a grin. He was still gonna lean in for a kiss right now though.

[arboreal_priestess]

And she was going to take him up on that kiss, for as long as it took to get an annoyed throat clearing from that obnoxious Ikea employee. On the other hand, with the island right there, he probably had to deal with this kind of thing a lot.

"Just wait till you've seen me kick ass in heels," she murmured, still just a breath away from him. "Might just end up head over heels."

[firstofitskind]

He was... pretty much there already, metaphorically at least. "I hope that's sooner rather than later," he admitted. "Because now you've got that image in my head."

[arboreal_priestess]

So miiiiiiiiight have been Verity, but she wasn't really running towards declarations just yet. For reasons, most of them revolving around 'my life is complicated.'

"You like ladies who can kick ass?" she asked with a wink, hopping up out of the nest and offering a hand. Because they were going to find him a bed, dammit.

[firstofitskind]

"One in particular, anyway," Liam said, taking that offered hand and hauling himself up after her.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I dunno," Verity said, giving him a thorough once over. "You look like the kind of guy who just like competence and kick assery in general." She grinned at him. "But I'm okay with you liking me best."

[firstofitskind]

"That's true, I suppose," Liam had to admit. "Given that the other women in my life are more like siblings than anything else, though, there's still no competition."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Poor them," Verity said, not bothering to hide how much she was preening at that. "And lucky me."

[firstofitskind]

"Funny, 'lucky me' is pretty much how I feel about the fact that I get to date you," Liam said, slinging an arm around her shoulder.

[arboreal_priestess]

"And if that feeling's lasted past my attempts to cook, I must be doing something right," Verity said.

Then, lowering her voice like she was afraid she might scare something off, she added, "Don't look now, but we might have made our way into the area of normal people beds."

This bed was still pretty weird, but it was explicably weird in that someone-has-a-hard-on-for-modernist-furniture kind of way.