It’s early. Vander’s trying to be quiet, but that’s not the easiest thing to do at his size, juggling a tray of fresh-baked pastries with a pot of coffee, a wrapped box, and a sealed letter all whilst trying to avoid the loudest of the creaky floorboards.
He manages to wrest the bedroom door open without dropping anything, and finds Silco still fast asleep. Vander slides the tray onto the foot of the bed, then leans back on his feet to admire the view. Silco’s hair is fanned around their face, soft feathery black against the pillow. Their thin fingers are curled just below their chin, and there’s a smudge of pen ink on the usual spot on one side of their hand.
Mornings like these are Vander’s favorites. Sil’s always been a night owl. It’s made it hard for Vander to work on her gift in secret, painstakingly polishing the rhodium pieces by hand and threading them onto the length of leather measured to wrap a few times around her wrist.
He pictures her scribbling away after the bar had closed, right into the early hours and exhaustion sent her crawling, yawning into bed, slipping in beside Vander and pressing her face into the cradle of his chest. She looks softer like this, younger, the dreamer Vander once met, laughing with Felicia over some minor act of rebellion. It makes his chest hurt.
Vander carefully sets out the gift and breakfast things on the nightstand. The pastries are filled with stonefruit—he’d had to call in a few favours from the dockworkers to smuggle a box down—and the coffee is bitter and strong, exactly the way Silco likes it.
“Morning, love,” Vander rumbles softly, easing down onto the bed. One of Silco’s thin feet is poking out, and Vander bends to kiss his arch before tucking it back under the rumpled covers. Then he ducks his own head under to follow, and kisses his ankle, the inside of his knee. Vander winds his fingers through Silco’s as the covers lift, and he grins up at him. “Want your breakfast first? Or can I have mine?”
