Chapter Text
It’s early—far too early an hour to demand coherency of anyone, but his Ghost’s insistent nudges eventually succeeds in waking him up.
Grumbling all the while, Cayde briefly glances at the warm body still sleeping peacefully beneath the sheets and mouths a curse at Sundance, who simply replies with a snooty chirp before she flies out through the open door and into the kitchenette.
His bedpartner lets out a very disgruntled huff when he slips out from beneath the covers and Cayde barely conceals a grin before he toes his way out of the bedroom without making too much noise to the best of his abilities.
Out in the kitchen Sundance hovers by the coffee machine and wordlessly Cayde drags himself to the counter where he keeps the ground beans and the filters.
He’s an Exo, yeah, but brain’s still got some old habits and coffee first thing in the morning has apparently been one of them.
As soon as the infernal machine is busy at work making the blessedly caffeinated liquid he stumbles over to an armchair where a lacy bra, a matching set of panties and his own armored pants are lying haphazardly. He spends a few moments grinning whilst fondly remembering the night before, only to be brought out of the daydream when the coffee machine shrilly announces that his beverage is finished.
He grimaces when he hears a muffled curse coming from the bedroom and wordlessly hauls out an extra cup from the cupboard.
“Cayde, what are you doing?”
Now, usually Cayde is practically the king of smoothness when it comes to the dreaded ‘day after’, but this time… this time he is utterly taken by surprise by the sight that meets him when he turns to look at his partner.
His Guardian is small, almost freakishly so, and it is a fact that he has pointed out many a time to his lady love—possibly to the extend where he has been threatened with bodily harm if he should choose to continue, but who cares about the details, eh?—but seeing her stumble through the doorway to his bedroom, looking sleep-rumpled with her hair sticking in all directions and one hand desperately trying to cover up the mouth-splitting yawn that stretches from one corner of her lips to the other, all while dressed in nothing but the shirt he usually sleeps in when he’s home?
His optics short-circuit right then and there.
“Cayde?”
Traveler above, even her voice is all drowsy, as if he’s just hauled her away from the nicest of dreams, and if he’s being honest, then he probably did just that with the coffee maker and everything, but he can’t really find himself to mind since he’s been blessed with such a wonderful, actually outright adorable vision.
Click
His eyes shift from the woman in front of him to Sundance hovering just beside his head, focusing directly on the heavenly vision standing before him, and moments later there’s a small ping going off inside of his head as a picture of his still-sleepy Guardian is brought up before him.
Cayde cracks a grin and holds out a cup of coffee, “Could I interest you in a shot of the elixir of life?”
“You are a saint, Cayde,” she groans and immediately waddles over to wrap her dainty little hands around the cup and bring it up beneath her nose before inhaling, the action making the collar of the shirt slip down her shoulder and baring a tantalizing amount of skin, still slightly mottled with bruises and lovebites from the night before.
This would be where he politely averts his eyes and instead looks anywhere else. He has one fucking job right now and that is to not make this awkward.
But his shirt… oh, just thinking about her only wearing that shirt and nothing else does things to his inner systems. Things that no Vanguard probably ought to think about their direct subordinates, but since when has Cayde ever given a flying fuck about the rules of fraternization here in the Tower?
“That shirt,” he begins and swallows down a large gulp of coffee before daring to glance at her. “I, uh…”
To his utter astonishment her cheeks are bright red as she determinedly stares down at the coffee cup in her hands.
“I was just—it was the only thing I could find an—and I didn’t want to just wander out buck-ass naked, so I—”
“It—it’s fine,” he placates immediately with one hand held up for emphasis. “Trust me, it’s fine—you just… you look great.”
At this she peeks up from behind her coffee cup, a question dancing behind her eyes.
“Really?”
“Really,” he nods. “You look more than great.”
She blushes once more this time, but this time not out of mortification.
Yeah, she looks absolutely wonderful in that shirt.