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]

"Surprisingly not positive," Verity said, looking at that one and shuddering. "That's the kind of bed they used when they locked a married couple in the haunted sanitarium or something."

"How about that one?" she suggested. "Continuing the wood theme from earlier but without the West Virginia Woodchipper Murderfest vibe and wrought iron without all that terrifying evil asylum feel!"

[firstofitskind]

"Would I have to get a bird?" Liam wondered, glancing up at the top of the bedposts. "I mean, since it comes with a bed for one as well."

[arboreal_priestess]

"I'm sure I could find a harpy fledgling instead," Verity said sweetly.

[firstofitskind]

"Pass," Liam said immediately, swatting at Verity's shoulder.

[arboreal_priestess]

"You are just no fun," Verity informed him, her nose in the air. "No cool futuristic space beds for you, then."

[firstofitskind]

"Really?" Liam said. "Because I kind of like that one, actually." He wasn't even kidding! It matched the chair!

[arboreal_priestess]

Of course he did. It was a futuristic space bed.

"It needs pillows," Verity said, actually considering it, rather than just using it as the butt of a joke. "And real blankets. And if it comes with more buttons than my TV remote and a users' manual, we're putting it back."

[firstofitskind]

"... Why would it have buttons?" Liam tilted his head quizzically at Verity.

Look, everything in his reality was touchscreens and gesture-controls. Buttons? Pfft.

[arboreal_priestess]

"To make it vibrate and heat and whatever else it probably does?" Verity suggested. "I'm sure has a hundred gizmos--that's not exactly the question you were asking, was it?"

[firstofitskind]

"Not quite," Liam admitted, looking a little sheepish. "I'm used to things being more..." he made a vague hand-waving motion. The kind that would turn things on or off were he someplace with electronics that behaved the way he was used to.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Handwavy?" Verity asked because I think I am hilarious.

[firstofitskind]

"I mean, yes? I guess that's as good a word as any?" Liam said, innocently unaware of any connotations that particular term had.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Is this related to how you pretty much drove your ship with a couple of gestures?" Verity asked, slowly putting the pieces together.

[firstofitskind]

Liam opened his mouth to protest that it was more than a couple, it was a system- and then stopped himself.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Gesture-based controls."

[arboreal_priestess]

Uh-huh. Sure friend. Verity was pretty sure he'd given the controls a thumb's up and an arpeggio on an air-piano.

"Well, we poor souls from the early twenty-first century have to make due with buttons," she said, with a sigh to let him know how truly wretched it was.

[firstofitskind]

Truly, so terrible!

Except...

"Um," Liam said slowly. "I'm not... from the future or anything." It was the same year here as it was back in his reality!

It's just that his canon had late-90s ideas of what 20 years in the future would be like, okay.

[arboreal_priestess]

Bet they hadn't guessed there'd be so many Nazis!

"Really?" Verity asked, frowning. "Huh. I...don't think I knew that." Or if she had, she'd completely forgotten because of the whole 'working ship that teleported through space when you high-fived the controls.'

[firstofitskind]

"Oh," Liam said sheepishly. "Well, uh. Yeah. The Taelons 'officially' arrived in 2008, and that's probably really the major diverging point between my reality's history and what you'd be familiar with."

Yes, ten years ago was 'history'. Shh.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Huh," Verity said thoughtfully, shaking her head. "I always just assumed yout were from, like, 2299 or something with all that tech."

Well, now she felt sheepish.

[I never saw this! I'm sorry!]

[firstofitskind]

Liam shrugged. "The Taelons were pretty quick to get together with human scientists and engineers to work on integrating himan and Taelon technology. At least, in areas where they figured it'd be beneficial to them."

[no worries omg!]

[arboreal_priestess]

"What better way to show their good intentions--and make sure humanity was exactly where they wanted them," Verity mused quietly. "Hmmm. Diabolically clever."

[firstofitskind]

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Liam said, rubbing at one palm with the thumb of his other hand.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity noted the gesture, a worried quirk to her eyebrows. "Should I drop it?" she asked softly.

[firstofitskind]

It was a nervous habit, one he wasn't always really aware of.

"No, it's fine," he said, giving her a tight smile. "Humanity was in the midst of a war when they arrived, with their message of 'peace'. It wasn't until years later that we found out they'd already been observing Earth for some time at that point."

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity would keep an eye out for it, though.

"Aren't we always, though?" she asked. "Hell, America alone has been at war for almost as long as I can remember."

Which was depressing as hell to think about.