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Considering that Liam Dunbar is your average tumble-into-the-day-and-wing-it teenager who tosses his sweater of the day into the little army of forgotten laundry composting in the corner of his room and yells “five second rule!” before diving for a stray Cheeto on the floor of Theo’s truck, Theo Raeken would contend that his boyfriend has princess levels of sensitivity in his goddamn nose.
He’s been wheeling up and down the same single aisle of facial tissues and paper products for the last half hour. He has an exact impression of the color, size, and design of the near-empty tissue box that is nestled behind a stack of books on Liam’s nightstand, but he cannot for the life of him remember the brand or where on earth Liam’s mother got it from. All he remembers is Liam’s snot-nosed and nasal explanation that it’s the only brand that doesn’t cause him further irritation to his nasal passages when he’s sick.
Which he is at the moment. Inconveniently so. Sick, that is, by some classic Dunbar miracle, probably the byproduct of a ridiculous modern high schooler’s extracurricular schedule and extra-extracurricular hikes through the preserve for patrol and oh, that’s right, not sleeping.
Theo growls to himself for the fourth time during this trip as he gives one more pass down the aisle. Go to Target, Mason had said. They have the good shit, he’d said.
No, go to Walmart, Corey had said. They have all the shit, he’d said.
Well, they were both fucking wrong.
Theo grabs the sixth option he’s manhandled from the shelf and inspects it. It doesn’t have the same design of corgi puppies tumbling about against a pine green background, the pattern he’d memorized while draping an arm over Liam’s belly and drifting lazily to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. It seems to be about the same weight—and it’s a cube, so that seems to be a plus—but Theo just can’t be sure.
The strong scent of chemicals from the plastic seal beneath the cardboard makes him wrinkle his nose. The smells in this aisle in particular have been accosting his senses all day.
That thought gives him pause. Wait—maybe—
Without further hesitation, Theo glances down at the hoodie he’s donned. It’s one of Liam’s larger lacrosse ones, one of the ones Jenna had bought him, sizing up in the vain hope that her son would fill it out by senior year. (Not that she’s been complaining. She and Theo have made it their uproariously funny pastime to think of different pet names for Liam that directly reference his height, or lack thereof.) The hoodie, frayed at the cuffs and sporting a singular stylish hole along the neckline, still smells strongly of the young werewolf himself. Of course, Theo’s own scent may have mixed with it by now, considering it’s his favorite stolen acquisition from Liam’s wardrobe, but it’ll do.
Theo grips the box of tissues and rubs it vigorously up and down over the material of the hoodie covering his chest. When he’s satisfied, he brings the box up to his nose and sniffs.
Close, but not quite like the scent of the box of tissues on Liam’s table.
Theo chucks the rejected box of tissues back onto the shelf and sets about sweeping at least four or five other options into the child seat of his cart. He grabs two boxes at a time for maximum efficiency and swipes them simultaneously down the front of his hoodie for fifteen seconds before testing them with his nose as well.
The very last box, he hits bingo.
He also, incidentally, has seized the attention of a haggard-looking stocker at the opposite end of the aisle. The kid seems to have shaken himself partly awake from his soporific endeavors and frozen in place with his price scanner in hand. The kid’s mouth belatedly slips open in disbelief.
Theo waves at him, tissue box still in hand, and offers a helpless shrug. “Old Jewish superstition. Grams won’t take the tissues unless I do this. You understand.”
The kid, by his silence and his jaded sigh of resignation, clearly does not understand. He turns back to the items he’s tagging for clearance and proceeds to studiously ignore the weirdo with a cart full of tissues.
Theo blows out a breath through his teeth. “You better thank me for this with amazing head by the time you get better, you little shit,” he hisses at an imaginary Liam Dunbar that he would like so very much to throttle right now.
Well. On to the special flavors of lozenges he goes, now. Honest to G-d, the things he does for this boy.
(So what if Liam cracks open an eye the moment Theo pads into his room later that evening, and juts out his bottom lip in a pout and wiggles his outstretched hands toward his boyfriend for a hug?
Fuck Liam and fuck his sensitive-ass wolfy olfactory system. And definitely fuck his fucking lemon-mint-eucalyptus-whatever specialty cough drops.)
(If Theo rushes into his arms and buries his face in the crook of Liam’s warm neck, no one needs to know.)