Work Text:
Day 04- Sunshine
Morning arrived quietly.
Roy surfaced from sleep slowly, the way he usually did– awareness returning in layers rather than all at once. The first thing he noticed was the warmth. When he cracked open a single eye, he saw sunlight spilling across his chest in a pale golden wash, slipping through the half-open curtains to his left and stretching lazily across the rumpled sheets.
The second thing he noticed was Edward.
Ed lay curled on his side next to him, still deeply asleep, one arm tucked beneath the pillow and the other draped loosely across Roy’s waist. His hair had come loose from its tie sometime during the night, strands of gold fanned across the pillow and spilling over his shoulder. The sunlight caught in it, turning the tips almost incandescent.
Roy stayed very still, letting himself linger in the quiet.
It wasn’t unusual– this, him waking before Edward. It happened nearly every morning, as predictable as the sunrise Edward so stubbornly refused to greet. Even now, the light creeping across the mattress had begun to reach his face, brushing softly over his jawline and the curve of his bottom lip.
He didn’t stir.
Roy had long since accepted that he would always be the first awake while Edward remained tangled in sleep often well into the afternoon. And yet… it never felt ordinary.
There was something about these moments– soft, unguarded, untouched by the day– that Roy couldn’t bring himself to take for granted. He watched Edward the same way he always did, like it might be the last time he was allowed to. Like it was something precious simply because it existed at all.
Familiar, yes. But never, not once, something he’d grow tired of.
Roy let his gaze wander, cataloging details the way he always seemed to appreciate more in moments like this: the faint scar that curved just above Edward’s browbone, the slight downward turn of his mouth that never entirely disappeared– even in sleep, the soft snores that punctuated the edge of every inhale when he slept in odd positions.
The sunlight didn’t stay where it was. What had rested warm and golden across both of their shoulders crept steadily upward, sharpening into something brighter, more insistent as it enveloped Edward’s face.
Roy watched it go with quiet resignation.
Morning, it seemed, had no regard for the delicacy of Edward’s beauty– or for letting him keep this perfect moment any longer.
There was a deep inhale as Edward made a faint sound of protest in the back of his throat and burrowed deeper into the pillow, a deep furrow in his brow marring the calm of his face.
Roy huffed a quiet laugh as he marveled how much Edward resembled the sunlight itself.
Not in the poetically soft and gentle way people liked to romanticize… Edward had never been anything so mild. He was more like the sharp brilliance of early morning– sudden and impossible to ignore. Bright enough to wake the world whether it was ready or not. Warm when you got close enough, but capable of burning you if you were foolish enough to take it for granted.
Powerful. Relentless. Unapologetically alive.
Roy brushed a loose strand of hair away from Edward’s face, careful not to wake him.
Edward’s frown lines immediately deepened.
“…stop that,” he muttered hoarsely, not opening his eyes.
Roy raised an eyebrow. “Ah… Sorry, love, I thought you were still asleep.”
Edward cracked one eye open just enough to glare at him through the sunlight, amber iris glimmering like a jewel.
“Sun’s too bright…” he grumbled.
Roy smirked and glanced over his shoulder at the offending curtain, peeled back just enough to apparently ruin Edward’s entire morning. “Is it?” He teased, “I hadn’t noticed.”
Edward propped himself up on his elbows slightly and glared at Roy with both eyes then. Or, he would have, had he not wound up with the brightest ray of the morning sun stabbing directly in his eyes at the change in position. With an affronted hiss, he collapsed back onto the mattress and dragged a pillow partially over his head. Roy chuckled.
“‘S the point of bein’ all big n’tall ‘f you can’t even block the damn sun with yr’body?” He groaned. Petulantly, he continued squirming around on the bed as he grumped, huffing and puffing as he tried to settle into a position where the sun couldn’t find him. Roy fondly watched him struggle for a moment before reaching behind him and tugging the curtain closed. The light softened instantly, dimming to a comfortable glow.
The squirming stilled.
A moment later, the pillow shifted just enough for Edward to peer up at Roy again, hair sticking up in several rebellious directions. Roy silently hoped Ed would let him brush it for him today.
“Better?” He asked.
“…’s better,” Ed admitted reluctantly.
Roy smiled before he could stop himself– soft, helpless, the kind that settled in his chest before it ever reached his lips.
Edward didn’t miss it.His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched him, suspicion creeping in even through the haze of sleep. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Roy asked, far too innocent.
“Like you’re thinking something stupid.”
Roy let the moment stretch, taking him in– sunlight tangled in his hair, sleep lines pressed into his arm and side of his face, eyes half-lidded in uncertainty and tiredness. Impossible to ignore, indeed. Then, unable to help himself, he leaned in and pressed a slow, lingering kiss into Edward’s sun-warmed hair.
“Good morning, my sunshine.”
Ed went completely rigid.
Then, he made a strangled, offended noise and shoved his face back into the pillow. “If you ever call me that again,” he muttered, voice muffled and deeply aggrieved, “I’m setting your gloves on fire.”
Roy only laughed, warm and quiet in the morning light.