Work Text:
Garrett’s never been one for morning routines. Even if he hasn’t been up all night gaming— a less frequent but still admittedly prominent occurrence— he still prefers to spend his morning in bed until the time comes that he needs to start the day.
But Dina is a force— he’s known that since day one. He’d never understood ‘fast-paced’ as a personality trait until he’d met her. She’s sharp, and quick, and loud, and the first few months had generally involved him ignoring her as she attempted to wake him a good three times every day, because everything she does she does with every inch of her soul and she does mornings.
“I get antsy,” she told him once. “If I’m not up and doing something. I don’t know how you can just lay there.”
“I need my beauty rest,” he’d joked. “All this doesn’t happen on its own.”
“Well, some of us are natural beauties,” she’d responded, leaving him with the five more minutes he’d requested to finish waking up.
It’s nice though, when he finally gets up, to be able to wake to the smell of coffee and breakfast already being made; to the door left open and the sound of her talking to the birds. It’s nice to have something to draw him out of bed. He’d been a bit more of an early riser when he’d lived with Jonah too, but the plus sides had been weighed down just a bit by the dulcet tones of NPR smacking him in the face as soon as he’d left his room; he rambles even more in the morning, too. It’s a bit much.
Dina, he can navigate the mornings with quietly, at least.
When he does make his way out into the kitchen, she doesn’t typically provide him any verbal greeting, but he notices that if he takes a minute to greet the birds, she’ll grin. Usually, though, he’ll wordlessly take his place at the table as she finishes cooking, and connect to his speaker to play some music aloud.
She gave him a look the first time, almost confused, but surprisingly, didn’t say anything. He’s not sure when or how, but some of her songs started popping up on his playlist as well.
Garrett’s never been one for morning routines, and Dina takes hers way too seriously. But slowly, they’ve started to carve something out together.
So she cooks, and he sits, plays music, and scrolls, occasionally reading things out to her-- headlines, Twitter posts, texts from their friends. And they eat. She talks about work, and he learns to like vegan bacon, and the birds chirp their early-morning remarks, and every day they settle a little more into tune with something they never thought would work. And he loves her.
Sometimes he’s even brave enough to say it.
Even the first few months after their first ‘I love you’s, the morning had still felt a bit too vulnerable; too intimate for those words to not seem daunting.
Now, though, it feels hard not to. Morning feels a bit too synonymous with love these days.