MHA #6 Sunday Evening

[arboreal_priestess]

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)]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

One day she was going to come home to find Liam in a talking five-dimensional math with Sarah and hearing about the five generations of the Healy-Price family and then she'd just have to turn around and leave again.

"Oh Liam," she said, laughing. "You're only saying that because you've never met Antimony."

[firstofitskind]

Hey, she was the one who invited him into her home in the first place.

When they'd both been transformed into children, but not the point.

"Exactly," Liam said. "And if I ever do, I wanna have intel."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Smart," Verity said, giving him a wink and a fingergun. "A planner. Gotta admit, I like a man who knows the importance of intel."

[firstofitskind]

"My mother raised me right," Liam deadpanned. Even though Verity knew perfectly well his mother hadn't raised him at all.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I also like a man with the proper appreciation for intelligent women," Verity said. "We just get you to the point where you're packing silver bullets and rowan ash and you might just be perfect."

[firstofitskind]

"Silver bullets and rowan ash?" Liam echoed, eyebrow raised.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Silver bullets are for creatures infected with the lycanthropy-W virus," Verity explained. "Or, as popular culture knows them, werewolves. And rowan ash is just useful for a lot of things. I'd have to get you, like, a list as soon as Seanan decides on it."

[firstofitskind]

"Could you?" Liam asked. If this whole venturing out in to Verity's Baltimore thing was going to become a habit, he figured he ought to be prepared.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Sure," Verity said. "Better yet, I'll get the full thing from my mom, she'll know, like, fifteen more uses for it than I can come up with off the top of my head."

She shook her head. "We'll definitely have to get you more used to regular guns, though. Because if there is a lycanthropy-W virus outbreak anywhere around here, you're not getting anywhere near it without having silver handy."

Did Verity want to know how the virus interacted with Kimera biology? No, no she did not.

[firstofitskind]

Liam had, so far, proved immune to human disease (Taelon-created retrovirus notwithstanding), but who knew what would happen with one whose original vector hadn't been human?

"I'm used to them fine, I just prefer not to use them. Most of the time." He supposed he could make an exception if there was a werewolf problem.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Bullet guns or beam ones?" Verity checked. "Because unless you can beam silver, we're stuck with bullets."

She shook her head, looking chilled. "You've never seen them," she murmured. "We had to take down several horses infected with lycanthropy-W. They'd--they'd gotten into the house, there were kids--" She shook her head again, this time to dismiss the memory. "As far as we can tell, lycanthropy-W can infect all mammals. It started as therianthrope rabies, as far as we can tell, and crossed over. Humans, lilu, jinks, sylphs, bogeymen, ghouls...possibly hot aliens, too, and that would be, hands down, my absolute worst breakup. So no."

[firstofitskind]

“Both,” Liam shrugged. “Sandoval always preferred projectiles over energy weapons.” Chinese food forgotten for the moment, he moved to sling an arm around her shoulders and pull her in to a hug. “I’ve only ever gotten sick once, and that was with a bio-engineered retrovirus, but I promise I’ll take every precaution,” including carrying a weapon with actual bullets, ugh, “if need be.”

[arboreal_priestess]

This time, Verity leaned over to kiss him. "Thank you," she murmured, "for indulging your paranoid girlfriend."

[firstofitskind]

"It's not paranoia if they're actually out to get you," Liam pointed out.

[arboreal_priestess]

"You could be a Price with that kind of thinking," Verity teased. "You sure you don't want to return to my six-year-old plan of just getting adopted into the family? You could be another big brother."

[firstofitskind]

"Uhhh, I don't think so," Liam said, making a face at her. "I'm sure your family's great and all, but I'd rather date you than be your brother, thanks." And since neither of them was a VC Andrews character, 'both' wasn't an option.

[arboreal_priestess]

And Verity was from the wrong series to end up with her brother. That was for the zombie-chasers, thanks who are also on my short list, shut up.

Verity grinned at him, unrepentant. "Oh yeah?" she asked, hands on her hips. "Prove it."

Look, those had been some quality kisses at the door. Could you blame her for trying to tease him into another one?

[firstofitskind]

And of course, Liam was not the kind of person to back down from a challenge. He cupped Verity's face in his hands and leaned in towards her, kissing her soundly.

Hopefully she'd consider that a good start?

[arboreal_priestess]

From the way she sighed a little and wrapped her arms around him--yeah. Yeah that was a good start.

And while she couldn't be pressed up against a door again, being seated on the couch meant she could crawl into his lap, straddling his thighs and holding his face still while she kissed him right back.

[firstofitskind]

Liam's hands slid down until they rested on Verity's waist, where they made an attempt to pull her even closer. Unfortunately, that wasn't actually physically possible, hence the frustrated groan as he realized that.

[arboreal_priestess]

She shifted over his lap, trying for something similar, but her groan was entirely different. That grind over his lap felt nice. Which was why she did it again.

The Chinese food sat behind them, abandoned and forgotten.

[firstofitskind]

Liam's breath hitched in his throat, and that groan became more of a moan, really.

Know what'd help with getting closer? If there weren't so many layers of clothes between them.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity was having similar thoughts, her hands at his waist only long enough to slide her fingers under the hem of his shirt and up over the firm skin of his chest, her nails adding just a hint of sharp compared to the softness of her fingertips. She left his mouth behind, kissing down his jaw and to his neck, her lips seeking the sensitive skin of his throat.

[firstofitskind]

Liam arched in to that touch, tilting his head in order to give Verity better access to his neck.

His own hands, meanwhile, were moving again, tugging at the waistband of Verity's shorts in an effort to solve the problem that clothing was currently presenting.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I'm thinking..." Verity murmured in his ear seconds before her tongue flicked across the lobe, "that this might be a lot better if we were to move it to the bedroom instead of sticking around out here." Her thumb found the hard bead of his right nipple and was caressing it gently.