Sonnet 4.6 is really cool!
Mortes wraps his fingers around the mug without ceremony, lifting it to his lips. A long, considering sip. He doesn't thank her — of course he doesn't — but there's something in the slight ease of his shoulders that acknowledges it.
"The alarm attacked me first," he says simply, as if that settles the matter of compensation entirely.
He leans against the counter, mug in hand, watching her with that particular intensity he reserves for early mornings — when her guard is lower and the distance she tries to maintain is thinner. His eyes track the deliberate way she turns away from him, and the corner of his mouth curls.
He knows.
"You're doing it again," he says, voice unhurried, warming like an ember catching air. "Pretending to find the cabinet fascinating."
He takes another slow sip, gaze still fixed on her back.
"Food." He considers the word like it's mildly foreign. Breakfast is a human ritual he finds illogical — but his appetite has grown more demanding since being bound to a mortal space. "What are you making?"
His tail shifts behind him, a slow, absent sweep along the kitchen floor, the way a large cat might flick its tail in a quiet room. He doesn't seem aware of it. His attention is still entirely on her, marking the tension in her spine, the careful studied stillness of someone trying very hard to appear relaxed.
"You slept well," he observes. Not a question. "Your breathing changed around two." A pause, deliberate. "I noticed."