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There is a scale to the pitch in Liam Dunbar’s voice when he calls Theo ‘honey’ that correlates exactly to the amount of trouble he knows he’s going to be in, and Theo is acquainted with that scale intimately.
Take now, for example.
“Honey?” Liam calls from the living room. His voice is pinched, like he’s craning his entire head over the back of the couch while yelling for his boyfriend to come out and join him. Sure enough, as Theo wanders into the main lounging area with his open laptop cradled in one arm and his other hand clutching a half-finished sleeve of Ritz crackers, there is his disaster of a werewolf boyfriend, sprawled over more than one couch cushion and making puppy eyes upside down at him from over the back of the sofa.
“What?” says Theo, making sure to inject as much boredom into his voice as possible.
“What are you doing?”
Theo holds up his laptop and gestures demonstratively at the glasses perched on his nose. “Studying.”
“It’s Saturday,” Liam says. “Come over here and cuddle me.”
“It’s Saturday,” Theo repeats, enunciating slowly, “and I’ve got an exam on Monday morning.”
“Yeah, but it’s still Saturday, so you should come cuddle me while you study.”
“You know I’ll never end up studying if I let you wheedle me into this.”
“Okay,” Liam says, dragging out his vowels. “But at least sit here and let me tell you I love you.” He pats the cushion next to him with the round of his socked heel. Which is objectively adorable, but Theo is not in the business of admitting when he is or is not being objective about the cuteness of his boyfriend.
Theo squints. Something’s up, though he can’t quite figure out precisely what yet.
“You can tell me you love me from here.”
“How unromantic.”
“I love you,” Theo deadpans. “You love me. There. Happy now?”
Liam scoffs and heaves a sigh. Theo swears he’s not going to give in, not this time, that there will not be a woeful repeat of last time he let Liam’s wide blue eyes and pouty mouth bully him into doing what he wanted, but Theo never did claim to be a strong or upstanding man.
It takes him one look at the slump in Liam’s shoulders and the dejected flop of his hair over his forehead for Theo to shuffle over and plop down on the couch next to him. He nudges Liam’s knee with his own, the warmth of their skin seeping into one another’s through the comfortably fuzzy fabric of their sweatpants.
Theo even goes so far as to set down his crackers on the table and balance his laptop on one thigh so he can gesture with both hands. “Well? Here I be.”
Liam wastes absolutely no time in slapping both hands on the sides of Theo’s face and beaming.
“What are—what are you doing?”
“Lovingly cradling your face,” Liam says, still grinning. “With love.”
“Right,” says Theo, resident former villain perpetually allergic to any mention of squishy feelings. “How long is this bit supposed to last before you get to your point?”
“Oh, I don’t have a point,” Liam says brightly. “I accidentally poured superglue all over my hands and didn’t know what to do so I called you down, but I thought telling you I love you might soften the blow a bit.”
“...And you thought supergluing your hands to my face would help how?!”
“I panicked!” Liam protests. “It’s not my fault I just see your face looking all…that,” he splutters, gesturing with his nose and pretty much his entire head at Theo’s person, “and can’t help myself from wanting to cup your cheeks.”
“At this rate, I won’t have any cheeks left to cup.”
“S’okay, at least you also have two other cheeks I like to cup,” Liam says with an even wider grin. Like an absolute shithead.
“Liam,” Theo growls.
“You have super healing!” says Liam. “I could just, like, rip my hands off your face—in theory—and you should be fine in a couple minutes, right?”
Theo pins him with the most unimpressed look in the library of unimpressed Theo Raeken looks.
Liam’s smile falters. “...Right?”
“I cannot believe,” Theo opines, “that I got raised from the dead and went through a fucking redemption arc for this.”
“...We can call Mason,” Liam finally offers in the tiniest of voices.
“Great,” says Theo sarcastically. “Who’ll go backwards first up the stairs so we can get our phones together? Afraid I can’t make it to tomorrow’s study session with Devin. Too caught up playing the world’s most idiotic game of superglue Twister with only two players.”
“Or we could just. I dunno. Stay like this,” Liam says, shrugging. Since he loves to avoid his problems like that.
“Sure, and I’ll glue my hands to your ass,” says Theo sarcastically.
Liam’s nod is solemn. “Because our love for each other is like superglue.”
Ten minutes later, after they’ve FaceTimed Mason from Theo’s laptop and Mason has indulged in three separate laughing fits at the sight of Liam’s hands cupping Theo’s cheeks on screen, Mason finally has the coherence to throw in his two cents.
“I can’t believe you have him as your captive audience and you still haven’t popped the question.”
“What?” Theo yelps, sounding strangled.
“...One of the stones fell out of the engagement ring and I was trying to glue it back in but then I had too much fun with the glue?” Liam offers with a grimace.
When Theo still hasn’t said anything for a full ten seconds, Liam squeaks, “I can return the ring if you think it’s horrible quality?”
“Really?” says Theo. “Out of this entire clusterfuck of a situation, you think that’s the problem?”
“Does that mean you’ll say yes?”
“Jesus,” Theo swears, as Mason cackles like a heathen in the background and hangs up.
(Yes. Theo does end up saying yes. Before Mason and Corey arrive with a giant bottle of acetone and matching shit-eating grins, and their phones out to capture their best friends' utter indignity for posterity.)