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Theo was asleep and was having a rather pleasant dream. Unfortunately for him, he had a stupid boy in his bed who was poking his cheek as if he was testing if he was real.
“Theoooo. Wake up,” Liam whispered, shouting at Theo while poking his cheek. “Theo.” Poke. “Theo.” Poke. “Theooooo.”
Theo grabbed Liam’s wrist before he could poke him again. With his eyes still closed, Theo slowly exhaled before saying, “Liam. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t break your wrist right now.” He spoke as calmly as possible. The suppressed anger made his voice sharp with venom.
“Because I’m your boyfriend,” Liam said with a dopey smile. Theo just knows it. Theo just increased his grip a bit. “Because I’m cute.” Increased a bit more. “Because you love me.” None of these sounded like good enough reasoning to Theo to be woken at an ungodly hour. “Ow.”
“Like I said. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t break all of your bones for waking me up at an ungodly hour.”
“Because then I’d be sad, and you don’t like seeing me sad?” With this, Theo opened his eyes and dropped his hand.
“Acceptable.” His glare was still evident, and the murder in his eyes was still radiating, but Liam felt safe. Theo then closed his eyes and took a deep breath to attempt to rid himself of those murderous thoughts. “Why are you acting weird?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Liam looked bashful, clearly lying about his mental state.
“Liam…I can smell it off you.” Theo kept that statement, expecting Liam to tell him what he already knew.
“I think your cute little nose is broken then,” Liam says as he pokes Theo’s nose.
“Your nose is about to be broken if you don’t tell me.”
“Fineeeee. I drank a little bit of wine that Mason wanted me to try. Just a wee bit.” Liam put his fingers together to emphasize his point.
“Why didn’t you tell me before you did that?”
“Because I am a big boy.”
“Your brain clearly isn’t big.”
“Why do you have to be so mean?” Liam is looking at Theo with those sad eyes. They affect Theo more than he would like to admit, but he didn’t let it show.
“Because someone,” Theo said as he poked Liam in the chest. “Woke me up at an ungodly hour. Would you like to tell me why now?”
Liam did the little UwU face as he shied away from looking at Theo. “I was lonely.”
Theo let out another long breath. “You woke me up at…” Theo looked at the clock. “4:39 AM because you were lonely?!”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes I wonder if I have gone crazy,” Theo was speaking more to the universe than to Liam. He continued to rub his hands over his face and sit up in bed. “Okay. Since I’m not going back to bed any time soon, tell me why you were so ‘lonely’ that you had to wake me up before the sun came out.”
“Hehe. The sun is gay.”
“Oh god,” Theo groaned at the bad joke. “Good thing you’re pretty. We wouldn’t be making it anywhere on your brains.”
“Why are you such a meanie?” Liam crossed his arms and pouted like a child.
“I grew up in the sewers. My only social interaction was with the rats. They didn’t really care what I said to them,” Theo deadpanned.
“Oh yeah. What were their names?”
“Do you really believe that I named the rats?”
“I would’ve.”
“Yes, Liam. I know you would.”
“I didn’t hear a ‘no.’ So what’d you name them?” Liam’s eyes were getting wide at the thought of hearing what little Theo would name his rat friends.
“There was Thomas and Jerry,” Theo looked deep into his past to try to remember some of their names. Liam started to giggle after hearing. “What is so funny?”
“Like Tom and Jerry? Like the show? With the cat and the mouse?” Liam was trying really hard to stifle his laugh. Theo just looked a bit at Liam as if he had gone crazy.
“What are you talking about?” Theo faked annoyance while he watched his boyfriend slowly break down into laughter.
Liam’s laughing fit continued as he started to cough. “My stomach hurts too much from laughing. I can’t stop,” the boy wheezed as he held his stomach.
“Once you are done laughing at my sad childhood, can you tell me why you were so lonely that you had to wake me up?”
A few more moments passed before Liam started to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I’m not judging.”
“Yeah. The last five minutes were a clear indicator of that.” Theo stares out the window to let his boyfriend calm down a bit. “Okay. Now that you are done judging my childhood, will you tell me why you were lonely?”
“Well…,” Liam dragged on the sentence for a few seconds too long. “Promise not to get mad at me?”
Theo let out a sigh. “Liam, why would I get mad at you?” Liam sat crisscrossed as he stared more directly at Theo.
“You promise not to get mad?” Theo could see the innocence in Liam’s eyes. They were so soft that he could mistake them for clouds. It made him feel calm inside. So he agreed not to get mad. “Pinky promise?” Liam held out his pinky for Theo to shake.
“Yes. I promise I won’t get mad,” Theo said as he locked his pinky with the other boy. “Happy? Now tell me why you were lonely.”
“Well. I woke up because I needed to pee. After I finished and got back into bed. I lay here for like ten whole minutes,” Liam showed ten of his fingers to emphasize his point. “Ten! So while I was lying here, I started getting bored.” Theo cut him off before he could continue.
“Are you saying you woke me up because you couldn’t go back to sleep?”
“Well. I was lonely being awake all alone.”
“You know, sometimes you are so cute I want to strangle you. Sometimes you are so annoying, I want to strangle you.”
“So I am cute?” Liam did a small cheer after hearing Theo call him ‘cute’.
“Is it too late to go back to killing? I need to find the little gremlin in your head that you call a brain and rip its annoying little heart out.”
“Leave me and my little gremlin alone. He doesn’t appreciate your rudeness.”
“Aight. That’s it,” Theo says as he starts to get out of bed.
“Wait. Where are you going?” Liam reached for Theo’s arm to stop him from completely leaving the bed.
“I am going to go drive myself off the closest cliff.” Theo reached for his keys at the nightstand as he continued to get up.
He was yanked back into the bed before he was able to make it a step away from the bed. Liam grabbed Theo’s keys from his hands and threw them across the room. “Don’t leave me. I’m cold. And I would be lonely. How am I supposed to get anywhere if you die?”
“Yes, Liam. Because the first thing you say after I say I’m going to kill myself is ‘How am I supposed to get anywhere’, not ‘You have so much to live for, Theo’ or ‘I need you in my life, Theo, and if you kill yourself, I would be very sad’.”
Liam’s only response was to pull Theo into his lap. He put Theo’s head against his chest and started to pet Theo softly. “I thought those were implied?” Theo slowly began to calm down in this new position.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you petting me?” Liam was just holding the chimera’s head with one hand and lightly petting him with the other.
“Because I read somewhere that when a baby is fussy, they just need to be held.” Theo was surprised and offended at the same time.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t know if I am more offended that you called me a baby or if I am more surprised that you read something informational.” Liam swatted at Theo in response.
“Well, that’s just rude. I read,” Liam tried defending himself.
“The last time that I have even seen you touch a book was your math textbook, and you were crying while flipping the pages.” Theo had a vivid memory of Liam going through the book, tears falling onto the pages out of frustration.
“I was having a bad day.”
“Clearly,” Theo snarked back at the boy. Theo continued to sit there being petted while Liam was having a crisis in his own head about that day. “You are so lucky you’re cute,” Theo whispered under his breath.
The petting stopped, which caused Theo to look at Liam. As Theo looked up, he could see Liam’s eyes turn into small globes. “You think I’m cute?”
“Yes, Liam. I think your face is adorable. It is the only reason that I am dating you. Are you happy?” Theo knew that he couldn’t take back the statement, so he might as well be mostly honest.
“Wait, so if I were a worm, you wouldn’t love me?” Liam genuinely looked like he was going to cry.
“What?!” Theo was just flabbergasted by the sudden change in topic. It was expected, but still weird.
“You said that you are only with me because I am cute? So if I weren’t cute, you wouldn’t love me.” The tears were slowly growing in the beta’s eyes.
Theo had to pause before speaking again, or he would lose it. “Liam. Why are you a worm?”
“I don’t know, but you wouldn’t love me if I were.”
“Liam. You are not a worm. You will never be a worm.” The patience was wearing thin in Theo’s voice because losing it on a drunk boy was not on his agenda.
“Well, if you were a worm, I would still love you. I would keep you in a small terrarium with nice soil, a small rock, and a lamp. And I would bird-proof the entire house so nothing can get to you.” Liam thought up a whole living situation if Theo were a worm. His tears disappeared as he sidetracked himself. Now, Theo wondered if Liam had thought about this before or if he should be impressed that his alcohol-idled brain was able to think that profoundly. “So you just hate me.” The tears that had disappeared suddenly started to swell in his eyes.
“Liam, I just said I loved you!” Theo made the statement in frustration, not realizing what he had said. His brain started to go into overdrive as he just realized everything he said and how Liam would react. As expected, the other boy was silent, but his grin was growing by the second.
“Did you just say…?”
“Yes. Liam.”
“You said…You love me?” After what felt like forever, Liam finally moved. His grin was so wide, and he was crushing Theo and nuzzling his face.
“Yes, Liam. I love you. Happy?” Theo sounded annoyed, but he was also smiling at seeing how such simple words could bring such happiness to this simple boy.
“I love you so much,” Liam said as he tried to transfer his love into Theo somehow and was annoyed that he wasn’t able to put more love into Theo. “I need to tell my mom.” Each sentence sounded as if Liam had just discovered world-changing information.
“Liam…” Theo tried to reason with Liam, but the boy jumped from the bed and called out to his mom despite the time.
“MOM! THEO SAID HE LOVES ME!” Liam stumbled halfway down the hall on his way to his parents’ room.
Theo already started to get up when he saw Liam bolting towards his parents’ room. By the time he got into the hall, he could see Liam’s mom coming out of her room. “That’s great, Liam, but did you have to yell that at 5 in the morning?” His mom was clearly used to and done with her son’s antics, but you couldn’t not love the boy on the floor. She looked up right at Theo and said, “Hi, Theo. He woke you up, too?” Theo just nodded in response. “Well, I am happy for you. I am going back to bed. He is your problem now.” Liam’s mom turns around and closes the door
“Mommmmmm,” Liam whined as his mom just ignored him. “Theooooo.”
Theo crouched down next to Liam. “You’re so dramatic. Let’s get you to bed.” Theo then picked Liam up, as he lay in the same position in which he had fallen.