Chapter Text
The mornings were always the most surreal, where he could wake up to see light pouring in from the curtains and for a moment, forgetting who he was and what had ever happened in his life. Sometimes he would see the pale light of the early day flood into his room and pause, laying there, Alice sandwiched in between one arm and his torso (drooling and snoring, her hair spread all over the damn place, as always) and Oz with his face burrowed in the crook of his neck, breath ghosting over his skin and tickling him delicately. He would wake up, take a moment to remember who he was and what was happening in his life, and then debate whether or not he should move.
Rarely did Gilbert wake them when he moved, but it was something he wanted to avoid doing anyways. Oz would stay up late pouring over his Psychology textbooks, illuminated by the desk lamplight next to a mug of coffee and chewing on the end of Gilbert's pen (he always did that, it was a bad habit, and he only did it to Gilbert's pens, of all things!), so when he did get sleep he looked so delicate and peaceful that Gilbert didn't want even the morning or the young man's responsibilities to wake him. And Alice, wild Alice could be so jumpy sometimes. She could go to sleep and then pop right back up in mere moments, she could hear a feather silently float onto carpet with those sharp ears of hers and hop right back up, a little drowsy but still functioning. It baffled him.
There were also moments where in the dead of night she woke up crying very softly, but he dared not speak of those. Her own pride wouldn't allow him to. All he could ever do was stroke her long, black hair and kiss her forehead until the storm passed. She would never share with him what this was about.
However endearing his partners were, though, he had to move in the morning. He had a life, a job, and responsibilities. He would gently peel his arm away from Alice, careful not to wake her slumber, and reluctantly move himself from Oz, helping his face find the pillow and watch him sigh, sleep undisturbed and breathing still regular. He'd sit up, watch the two for a brief moment, consider crawling back into bed with them before he entered the real, adult world and left the safe haven of their shared bed.
Shower, brush teeth, make breakfast. Go for a morning run, have a morning smoke, that was the plan. Share a cup of coffee with Oz, watch Alice eat her breakfast with a ferocity and wolfishness that would normally say that she didn't get enough food, but she does, she always did because he made her food every single day (but all of his complaints were hollow, because it was always flattering to hear her praises about his food, always made him feel worthwhile and wonderful). Go to work and deal with students that are either taking his class for an "easy pass" or genuinely there to learn something, which was becoming rarer and rarer. He would resist checking the group chat just barely, gritting his teeth whenever he saw the light go off on his desk while he gave lectures to too tired college students, thinking that Oz should stop sending messages while he was in his own classes and focus for once, but the days that Oz wasn't sending him stupid memes while he was teaching always felt a little bit colder, a little bit lonelier.
While in the shower, snapping out of his thoughts about the day ahead of him as he pushed a curtain of thick black waves out of his face, he was able to hear Alice mumbling something to herself, apparently awoken by the sound of the water in the attached bathroom. Gilbert always felt a little guilty when he woke her, especially since he took such delicate care not to. She either wouldn't get up right away- knowing that Gilbert would get started on her daily order of bacon later and what was the point of getting up when neither of your boyfriends were giving you food-, or she would bolt right up and gnaw at Oz until he woke up as well. Today seemed to be the former, though, because when Gilbert got out of the shower, fresh and smelling of spearmint (a gift from Vincent last Christmas; Gilbert wouldn't have used the shower gel normally but Oz said he liked the smell and Gilbert was unable to resist), and peaked into the bedroom with a toothbrush in his mouth Alice was on her iPhone, big eyes staring at the screen while her body was wrapped like a mummy in the sheets, hair everywhere. She had stolen the covers from Oz at some point since Gilbert left, but Oz was still sleeping peacefully.
"Mornin'," he mumbled to her, going back to brushing his teeth. She didn't respond to him, just crinkled her nose and kept looking whatever she was looking at on her phone. She wouldn't respond until she ate, he knew, and that was just fine.
When his teeth were taken care of he dressed and then took the time to remove any of Alice's long hairs from his clothing (she called it "marking her territory", Gilbert called it ridiculous and would insist that she let Sharon take care of her hair so it could stop shedding all over the damn place), exiting the bathroom and leaving it available to whoever wanted it next. Despite Alice being awake, Oz usually was the one to get ready after Gilbert, Alice always being dead last and eating in her pajamas. He peeked as he passed the bed; Alice was looking at old photos and deleting something that looked like a selfie of Break (he must of hijacked the phone, the fool) with a wrinkle of her nose. "Maybe you should put a lock on it," he mentioned as he passed. Alice grunted.
In the kitchen of his apartment he was able to hear them rustling around after he got started on bacon- it never failed to wake and rouse. Alice was saying something and Oz was responding in a much more quiet, sleepier tone, and Gilbert found himself smiling at the image of Oz's bed head and sleepy eyes as he leaned over and gave Alice a good morning kiss on the cheek. Gilbert took into account Oz's class schedule of the day as he looked at what was written on the shared whiteboard, being sure to accommodate him in terms of heartiness for the day and still make enough for their gluttonous girlfriend. Two sunny side up eggs for Alice, two over easy eggs for Oz. Four sausages for each of them, five pancakes they could divide amongst each other (if it got too rowdy, he could make some others). Twelve pieces of bacon, most he knew would go to Alice, made crispy and just the way she liked it. He got the coffee brewing when Oz waddled into the kitchen, carrying a blanket he must have wrestled away from Alice around his shoulders like a cloak.
"Morning," he greeted, and no matter how many times he heard it, his heart stopped, and the surreal, dream-like state of the mornings washed over Gilbert in awe as he stared at Oz. Beautiful, perfect, angelic, flawless Oz. All of his 5'5 glory in a single sock and Gilbert's Nirvana concert T-shirt, too big for him and covering up his faded green underwear, bathed in the pale light coming through the curtained windows. Yawning and covering his mouth politely, still a tiny bit of crust in one of his emerald eyes. His golden hairs sticking out with a bad case of bedhead, and Gilbert didn't know how in the world he could ever be so lucky.
It took a moment for him to find his words, as it always did. Eloquently, he let out a choked "good morning" to Oz as well, stuttering and stammering, and he wondered if this was how it would always be, if he would always swoon the moment Oz walked into the room. He loved Alice with so much of his heart, but Oz had a majesty about him that made his knees weak at the tiniest of things.
He was in love with both of them, but Oz would always be his first love.
He tore his eyes away and back to the sizzling bacon when he felt Oz press a small kiss to the back of his shirt. He knew that before Oz got ready every morning he liked to greet both him and Alice, but something about it still had his palms sweating and his face smiling like a fucking moron. He had figured he would have grown out of this by now, but he was still as silly as when Oz first leaned in and gave him a ghost of a kiss, after he had passed Gilbert's Home Economics class (and Gilbert knew, truly, Oz took that as a bullshit class), before skipping away as if nothing had ever happened and he hadn't made Gilbert's world implode in on itself.
The blond boy disappeared without a word to go take a shower so he could start his day, hearing him when he entered back the bedroom speak to Alice about what Gilbert was preparing, but he didn't see the girl until Gilbert had finished everything, setting them down on the table, debating on whether he should put some toast in the toaster to go with. She still had her damn phone in her hand but wasn't looking at it thankfully, "dressed" (if one could call it that) in a similar fashion to Oz, with a stolen band shirt of Gilbert's that was way too big on her, and her black panties underneath. Her hair was a disaster and Gilbert wished she would at least let him help her pin it up before bed, but he was pretty sure her hair was too strong for any sort of binding; it was black magic and powerful, ever-growing and monstrous. She hadn't properly washed her mascara off that night and it created a nasty shadow under her eyes. She had gone to bed barefoot and her feet made tiny sounds as she made her way to sit down (her red toenail polish was peeling off, he saw), not saying anything but her big eyes becoming more and more alert the closer she got to his food.
She's adorable, Gilbert thought to himself, imperfections and all.
"Who told you you could wear my shirt?" was what actually came out of his mouth, pressing a kiss to her forehead. There was no malice in his tone and she didn't even bother to find any, knowing that it was only an empty statement. Still, she graced him with an answer:
"I don't need permission."
That was true. From Gilbert or from Oz, she took their clothes and incorporated them into her own outfits, and neither of them were going to stop her from doing so. Gilbert wasn't going to stop bringing it up, though, and he would just add it to the list of things that he "nagged" her about. He snorted to give her some sort of response as he reached into the fridge and grabbed her one of those sweet protein milkshakes she drank in the mornings because she didn't like coffee at all and didn't care much for tea either, the weirdo.
She kicked her feet as she ate and Gilbert sipped at his black coffee, telling him about the weather report that she read on her phone so he would know before he went on his run. He knew that while he got that out of his system she would shower, singing loudly while she did so, and get herself ready, heading to her morning class afterwards. As part-time student, she didn't have as much of a hectic schedule as Oz did, really only taking classes for the sake of taking classes and spending the rest of her day helping Sharon out with odd jobs at the salon for payment. Gilbert used to nag her about getting a real job instead of sweeping up hair and keeping things organized, using her brains for something else, but he could never imagine what she would do. Her temper was too strong to deal with people, her patience too thin. He had stopped passive-aggressively sending her job opportunities online when Oz told him that there was no point and to leave her alone, and that made him think about his actions and apologize to her. She never said if she forgave him, but he knew that she did.
By the time Oz finished his shower Gilbert was on his second cup and Alice was nearly done with her plate. His hair was wet and freshly washed (Oz washed his hair every day and it still stayed perfect, Gilbert could never do that), and Gilbert could even smell the citrus and floral scents coming off of him that screamed morning. He also noticed a tiny bit of shimmer to his skin, a result of the last prank from Break where he had put glitter in all of Oz's shower gels since he preferred them over soap. Oz didn't even bother to get rid of it, so he stuck with looking even more radiant than ever. It wouldn't be long before Alice was using his shower gels to get the look, too.
Gilbert passed him his morning coffee- he took it with cream and sugar- and as Oz drank he made polite conversation. Day schedules, Oz's psychology professor and how much work he gave, if Gilbert was going to see Reim this week, politics, that one new makeup technique Alice had learned from Sharon, some viral video, how Oz still wanted a dog. Conversation was easy and and natural, and it felt dreamy to Gilbert, even with Alice's loud voice and Oz's rising energy (infectious from Alice).
He knew the day would be a normal one, where he would leave to go for his run, stand on the balcony of his apartment and smoke his cigarette, and see Alice off for her morning class. Oz would then leave shortly before he did, because he always got to campus early, and Gilbert would have to focus that day and act like he wasn't dating one of his former students and his girlfriend. He would look at the jokes that Oz would say in the group chat during his breaks in between classes, see the rants Alice would post about how much people piss her off. He might even get a cup of coffee with Reim and Break after work. He would listen to the voicemail that Vincent undoubtedly left for him when he reached his car and debate calling his brother back. He'd have another smoke. Then he'd go home, and go back to the surreal and dreamy, beautiful world that he lived at home, and know that he wouldn't give it up for anything.