Work Text:
(Daily routine: Get up at seven, bathroom until seven thirty, only meal of the day at eight, leave at eight-ten for training, return home and two-til-ten in the evening thoroughly exhausted, shower at ten and sleep immediately afterwards.
Or it used to be, until 'getting up at seven' turned into watching the sunlight creep across the ruffled white bedsheets until seven-thirty, feeling Ethan shift beside him and their legs sliding together in a tangled mess of blankets from nothing but a sleep's toss and turn. It used to be, until 'bathroom at seven-thirty' turned into fighting over toothpaste and counterspace, brushing hair and picking on the little parts staring back at them from the mirror together. It used to be, until 'only meal of the day at eight' turned into having breakfast with Ethan -- along with brunch, lunch, supper, and dinner, all of which are apparently very different meals of the day. The only thing that stays the same are his night-time showers; he's left well alone, with Ethan either working late at the lab or already asleep.)
He can tell it's early by the way his meganium flurries out his petals to just barely catch the morning's rays on the edge of them. Silver drags himself from the warm embrace of the blanket, or mostly does; there's an odd tightness on his wrist, and he tries to blink the world's blurred surface out of his eyes as he turns.
Ethan's slack mouth greets him, drooling lips dragged across most of the bed. His pillow, Silver notes, is kicked on the other side of the bed, and most of the blanket's been shoved aside during the night. No wonder he'd woken up feeling so trapped. Very quietly, he works the fingers off of his wrist. It's laughably easy compared to shedding their past, and Silver sets about finding clean clothes to change into. The shirt he's wearing tightens in the most uncomfortable places as he moves, showing its age, and the next one doesn't fare much better.
"Use one'a mine," Ethan's muffled sleepy voice orders him. Silver pauses, fingers ghosting over a partially opened drawer, then tugs it open the rest of the way. He picks through the shirts until he finds a relatively uncolorful, undecorated one and slips it on. It's only a little better, being short at his wrists and a little higher from his hips than he's used to, but he can breath when he bends over to snatch a pair of loose pants to pull on. At this point in his life, that's all he can ask for. He escapes down the hall and ducks into third door on the left before Ethan can rouse himself further.
The bathroom is extavagantly large for someone who'd been expecting to live on his own, much like the rest of the house. Silver splashes cold water on his face to get the last few minutes of sleep out of him, then feels his way down the counter to grab a towel. The door opens beside him without any warning and he feels arms wrap around his waist as the person - Ethan - swings to his other side.
He's greeted with a soft (and very audibly 'I'm not actually awake, I'm on auto-pilot' tone of voice) good morning greeting when he finishes drying his face and the tips of his hair. Silver frowns and folds the handtowel carefully, placing it right where he found it, before pulling himself out of Ethan's arms. There's a line of disappointment in his housemate's forehead, but Silver manages to shove a toothbrush in Ethan's mouth before he can say a word. They brush together in a quiet punctuated every so often by the cheerful noises of attempted talk - not on his end, of course, because he doesn't like having the potently-strong mint toothpaste sliding past his tongue and down his throat.
He forces his toothbrush beneath the warm running water, and taps it twice against the sink before he slides it back into its empty place. Ethan gives him a curious look, already looking much more awake than he had prior to brush time, but doesn't give chase when Silver heads out. Breakfast is -- as expected -- not out yet, and he tugs out ingredients for a simple pan of scrambled eggs to make it himself. He sets two plates out just in time for Ethan to come through the doorway, fingers valiantly reaching for the top of it. His housemate grins, and Silver sits down with his chin tucked close to his throat to hide the sudden feeling gripping at his skin and pricking it with fire.
"You better eat quicker than that or you're going to be late," he grumbles after the domestic scratching of silverware on paper plates starts to get to him and overrides his flustered reaction to a face split in gratitude. "Don't you have a meeting this morning?"
"Elm -- uh, Professor Elm, he won't mind if I'm a little late."Ethan scoops his eggs faster into his mouth, despite his assurances. Silver watches him, setting his chin on his wrist, and the other male waves his fork dismissively. "Really! It'll be all right. I can always take time to eat with you, Silver, you know that."
"You don't have to," he replies, chest seizing a little. He ignores it and picks at his food, knitting his eyebrows together when Ethan shakes his head and shakes his fork even harder.
"You don't eat when I'm around." Ethan finally stops his fork waving, pointing it at Silver. The frown isn't out of place on his face, but it's been a few months since he last saw it. Ethan sighs, leaning back in his chair and setting his fork down on the emptied plate. "Besides," a smile switches places with the frown effortlessly, "I like eating with you. It's really..."
Ethan pauses; the smile fades as his eyebrows draw closer, and Silver shakes his head. He busies himself with standing and dumping their plates, dropping their silverware into the sink. When he feels Ethan wrap his arms around his shoulders, every muscle in his body tenses at once.
"I don't care about what you were going to say," Silver says, breath halting at the end; Ethan's lips are on his throat, walking their way to the firm line of his jaw, and it's moderately distracting. He concentrates on the pale yellow tiles of their kitchen wall and raises his hands to the arms relaxed on his shoulders. They tense when he grabs them, and Ethan's grip tightens; his lips stop moving, and Silver presses his mouth into a thin line.
"It's nice," Ethan whispers. If they hadn't been so close, Silver doubts he would have heard it. He wishes he hadn't, because 'nice' isn't the word Ethan means and the word, so generalized, is littered with softer meanings that shouldn't exist. At least between them, or for him -- for someone else. Anyone else. Lyra comes to mind first and foremost, being his housemate's closest friend, but the world deserved that tone.
Not him.
"Get lost," he grumbles. Ethan laughs against his shoulder, light and warm. He lets Silver go without another word and doesn't stop to look back until he's got the lab's keychain looped twice around his fingers and he's standing at the front door. Silver stubbornly doesn't look when he hears Ethan leave, or when he taps the window three times to say goodbye.