It was a strange sort of balancing act of holding both Were and human conventions in his thoughts, his preference for the former countermanded by the inkling here and there of fitting in along the humans who remained the majority of the world. Mating, as a Were, was a state beyond permanence, beyond concrete and as irrefutable as the laws of gravity. He had taken Iona as a mate and in most every way that meant that the matter was finished. By his kind's standards that was it. He carried the scent of her on his skin even a day away from her, just as she carried the scent of him on hers with both warning off any potential competition as it being a futile idea, trying to encroach.
But then there were the human standards of courtship, although they hardly called it that any more. The idea of marriage - it had been taken up by the majority of Weres, to his knowledge, although whether it was more out of the desire to be recognized by outsiders as a permanent couple or out of some more defensive reasoning against the dark things that had gone on for centuries, he could not say. His own parents had married, his sister had, his father had even presided over that marriage as he had over so many other Were marriages and made certain every I was dotted and every T was crossed.
And if Torque had thought for even a moment that she wasn't who he wanted for the rest of his life (if that hadn't already been a done deal with their mating)...seeing her lit up and cheering as she managed to get a shot at him and make his vest call out an alarm, that had sealed it for him. It showed him as clear as anything that he wasn't giving up his life to be with her, would not be expected to trade in his bike for a minivan or give up his love of climbing and flipping off heights. He was getting her. Getting someone to share all that with.
He leant his head into her fingers and smiled at her, oh so easily. Every breath brought in the scent of sex and sweat and the sweet smell of her beneath it all and that, as much as her touch and her smile, made him smile at her. As if he needed a reason. "I've got one thing left for your birthday." His grin widened a moment before he tilted his head and amended, "More than one once you're more awake, but one important one first."