This is his favorite way to wake. Sheet and blankets tangled 'round him in the comfort of his own bed.
His cat content and purring at his back. The small black thing's rumbles reverberating through the much larger man's body, but who is he to begrudge the cat's untroubled exhaustion. Hell he'd be purring too if he were physically capable of the action.
And the girl nestled before him, blue hair exquisitely mussed by sleep and the night's previous activities, and he can't help but feel proud of having some hand in the process that leaves her looking like the creature she really is. Some kind of mix between angel and feral child, for all her tenacity and spunk and kindness and love that marks her as a Fairy Tail mage.
A strand of hair hangs in her face, and he knows it's only a matter of time before it wakes her, and then no one will be sleeping. So he lifts his hand from where its rested most of the night on the curve of her hip and brushes the errant lock away, expertly weaving it in with the rest so that hopefully it stays for a bit longer to give her more time to sleep.
As he brings his hand down, he takes the time to cup her cheek in his palm and she unconsciously leans into the touch with a sigh. And he's left to wonder- marvel really- at the intrinsic trust of the tiny mage before him, the one whose delicate face is dwarfed by callused hands. The pad of his thumb glides across her cheek, a soft gesture for a man with such a rough exterior and reputation, but what does he care; there's no one here to tease him about it.
She opens bleary sleep-filled eyes and smiles as she exhales deeply. He'll be damned if that smile doesn't cause his heart to stop for a second. With all it's joy and trust and love shinning at him from across the pillows, and he knows without a second's hesitation that she's never smiled like that at anyone else before. He'll treasure that feeling, hoard it down in the cold recesses of his metal heart and save it for those nights when he's away on a job, and missing her terribly, enough to admit it to the Exceed behind him, even if the damn cat will rub it in his face later.
She doesn't ask it of him, but he'd give her the world, regardless of what it would cost him, for that smile. And no demon, or dragon, or apocalyptic cult would stand in his way. There's none of that now, nothing to actually worry about, the three of them snug in bed, besides what to eat for breakfast when they finally do all wake.
He leans across the pillows to place a soft kiss onto her forehead and somehow that smile of hers deepens until he worries that her face will crack if it spreads any wider. But the thought is lost as she wraps her arms around his back and pulls herself closer until she closes the gap between the two of them, until there's no space left, and her legs are tangled with his and he can't figure out where she ends and he begins.
And as he buries his nose into her hair and breathes in her scent- paper and ink and just the slightest undertones of metal from being with him- he decides, yes, this is most decidedly his favorite way to wake.