arboreal_priestess | MHA #6 Sunday Evening

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MHA #6 Sunday Evening

The high of taking down the ghouls who'd been murdering those girls had worn off sometime yesterday afternoon, leaving behind only the remaining guilt that she hadn't figured it out sooner and that she'd managed to have a great time with Liam and Sarah on Friday night, even with four dead girls hanging on her conscience. She'd gone to dance practice in a funk and James had ended up calling it half an hour early because her brain was clearly not in the music.

Which was even more depressing, because if there was one thing Verity had always been good at losing herself in, it was the dance.

Cries of exultation greeted Verity's key turning in the lock. She opened the front door to find the entire Aeslin congregation gathered on and around the tiny table where she kept the mail. Several of them were waving tiny banners made of tissue paper that had been meticulously painted with drops of blue, black, and red ink.

"Hail!" shouted the head priest, waving his banner with extra enthusiasm.

"HAIL!" agreed the congregation.

"Hail," Verity said tiredly, and shut the door, taking off Valerie Pryor's wig and tossing it onto her desk, since the mail table was in use. “What's the occasion?”

"Today is the Holy Feast of I Swear, Daddy, I'll Kiss the Next Man That Walks Through That Door," said the priest, sparking a second, more solemn declaration of "Hail" from the rest of the mice.

"Cool." Verity started for the living room. The mice scampered after her, still waving their banners wildly in all directions. Aeslin religious rituals were nothing if not enthusiastic. "Do I need to do anything?"

One of the novice priests looked at her like he wasn't sure whether or not she was joking. "Priestess…"

"Right, right. I have to kiss the next man who walks through the door, right?" Cheers from the mice, interspersed with more cries of "Hail." "Got it. At least I'm not expecting company." She had some quality brooding to get in.

Her stomach rumbled and she cursed herself for not stopping to grab food on the way. Time to order takeout--and specify that the driver needed to be a girl or non-binary. Thanks mice.

[For one, text taken and heavily adapted from Chapter 14 of Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon. Out of chronology but I just love this holiday so much. Up early because time zones are dumb (and also SP)]

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He leaned into Verity, and she strained to press herself more solidly against him. The cheers were tapering off, and her hormones were starting to go insane. Right. If she was going to explain the situation, this was the time to do it. Right now. Not in five minutes, despite the fascinating thing Liam was doing with his tongue. Right now.

Pulling back was harder than it should have been. Verity gasped, "You just walked in on the Holy Feast of I Swear, Daddy, I'll Kiss the Next Man That Walks Through That Door. It was the only way to make them stop."

Not that Verity wanted him to stop. She just wanted to make sure he was fully aware of what was going on first.

"Make them- oh, right, the mice," Liam shook his head in an attempt to clear it. "As Feasts go, that one was... I liked it. Though I'm glad it was me that walked through the door," barely, anyway, "and not, you know. Tony Stark."

"Whoever it was was gonna get kissed," Verity said with a sigh, slowly uncurling her toes on the floor. And her fingers from his hair. Huh. When did they even get there?

"Uhh, wanna come in?" she invited, the words incongruously normal with how heavily she was breathing. "The rites have been, uhh, satisfied--" there were more cheers for that "--so you should be able to make it to my couch, at least, without getting mauled."

"I wanna," Liam said, nodding. "There's food!" Which Verity knew, being the one who had ordered it in the first place.

"Umm, yeah," Verity said, her cheeks still a little flushed. "...We should probably move then."

He was still pinning her to the door. And while she was actually good with that--really, really good with that--it was going to impede them getting inside.

If for no other reason than the longer he kept her pinned, the higher the odds she was just gonna say 'Fuck it' and kiss him again.

"... Right," Liam said, blinking rapidly and taking a step back. "C'mon, couch," he said, nodding his head in the direction of the aforementioned furniture.

At least Verity was managing full sentences. Liam wasn't so much.

Verity managed to shut the door and lock it behind them on autopilot, then wandered over to the couch. The Chinese went on the table, where she realized that she'd brought a truly impressive amount of food in her depressive funk. More than enough to share.

"Hey," she said, settling down next to him on the couch. Apparently her ability to make sentences had extended to getting them inside and that was it.

His fault, for kissing her back so well.

He was so terribly sorry, really.

"Hi," Liam replied. "I wanted to see how you were doing, after the other night."

Look, now he had sentences back!

It was like they traded!

"Well," she said, a little weakly. "The club was fun? And I think we made a damn good team, taking down those ghouls."

She hadn't even considered there might be more than one and the girl would have had a hell of an edge if she'd gotten the jump on Verity.

"But I still feel guilty."

Hence why he had decided to stop by, yeah. Though this was just a general feeling and not, you know. A feeling.

"I get it," Liam said softly. Given the number of times she'd pointed out how unreasonable his expectations of himself were whenever his thoughts spiraled in that direction, well. He was more than willing to return the favor. "S'why I came by. To make sure you were doing okay."

"I will have you know, ordering way too much Chinese food and brooding while making out with random guys who knock on my door is how I spend every Sunday night," Verity told him with a small, tired smile.

"Does this Feast happen every Sunday, then, or is it just a hobby of yours that happened to co-incide with one of their holidays?" Liam asked lightly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Verity asked, waggling her eyebrows at him. Her laugh sounded rusty to her ears, like she'd gotten out of the habit in just forty-eight hours, but he'd managed to bring it back.

She opened a carton of lo mein and some chopsticks, and waved for him to help himself. "Girl's gotta have some secrets."

Liam hadn't actually realized how hungry he was until Verity had started unpacking the food.

"... I'm not sure which option I prefer," he admitted, going for a container of ginger beef. The answer was 'neither', of course.

"Well, either way, if you're all that worried about it, you should just make sure you show up at my door on Sundays," Verity pointed out, gesturing with her chopsticks.

"And now that you've extended that invitation, I fully intend to take you up on it," Liam pointed out.

Verity smiled at him. "Might need to show up early if you wanna be sure you're the first guy knocking at my door."

Like he hadn't noticed the delivery person had been a girl.

"Mm, thanks for the tip," Liam murmured, leaning over to give Verity a quick, ginger-sauce-flavored kiss.

This one didn't have her melting into the couch, but that was okay. For now anyway. There was dinner to finish scarfing down first.

Afterwards, well...the idea of kissing Liam for a few hours sounded a lot more rewarding than her original plans to brood into space all evening.

"I'm doing it for the mice," she murmured. "They get so sad when I don't fulfill the rites."

"They do give excellent sad-face," Liam had to admit.

It was the way their little whiskers twitched. Lethal.

And those sad little ink-drop eyes.

"I know they--" Wait. Pause.

Verity put down her chopsticks. "Liam, how many times have you been guilted into giving my mice cheese?"

Those little con artists.

"... A few."

It wasn't like he was unaware he was being manipulated. Which almost made it worse.

"Oh my god, they've got you wrapped more tightly around their little fists than I do."

Verity understood just how many 'a few' probably entailed.

"Shut up," Liam mumbled, with no real heat behind the words. "I give'm cheese, and they tell me stories."

Would they have done so without the bribe of cheese? Probably. Shh.

"They would do that without the cheese!" Verity protested. "Their religion is practically a pathology!"

Beat.

"Oh my god, you're asking about the catechism of the Arboreal Priestess, aren't you?"

Aeslin mice remembered everything. He could find out what order her baby teeth had erupted if he wanted to.

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