Title: Morning Madness
Genre: Friendship
Summary: Ian is not a morning person. Unfortunately, Amy is.
Words: 386
Despite waking up at the same time for over a year now—bitter, brutal five-thirty—he groans when he throws aside his bedcovers (not Egyptian). He stumbles into the kitchen with his favorite maroon bathrobe and the ridiculous green snake slippers Amy got him for Christmas—they're comfortable, alright?
The kitchen is bright and warm and smells like chocolate pancakes. Amy, of course, is already up and humming a song that Ian recognizes after having heard it blast repeatedly from the radio—love, heartbreak, blah, blah, blah. When she hears his footsteps, she turns to him with that infectiously cheerful smile of hers, reaches across the kitchen countertop, and hands him a warm, steaming cup.
"Morning, Ian."
He simply grunts in reply—it's early and he wants nothing more but to crawl back into bed—but Amy just smiles and turns back to the stove, still humming that ridiculous song.
Ian stumbles into the dining room, clutching his cup like a lifesaver. On the table is a slightly crumpled, ransacked-looking copy of the Boston Globe.
He sighs as he takes a seat at the table. Clearly, someone has been to it before him.
He flips open the slit on the cup Amy handed him and takes a sip—and immediately spits it out, spewing out curses.
That was not his normal refreshing Earl Grey tea. That was—he shuddered—bitter, American, revolting coffee.
He hears a suppressed giggle and whirls around in his seat. Amy smirks at him, the nerve of that girl.
"That was payback for throwing away my coffee maker when I was out last week." She gives him another sweet smile before disappearing back into the kitchen. "You're going soft, Kabra."
Ian glares at the cup of coffee in front of him. She's right—a year ago, if someone had handed him a cup of unidentifiable liquid, he would've cautiously observed it for signs of being a poison, maybe sent it to the lab for testing. Eventually, would've thrown it away.
But now, he realizes, after a year of living with a crazy, wonderful girl, he has stopped suspecting. Has stopped thinking that every action has an ulterior motive, that every person is out to get him.
It's dangerous and once he had thought it would be impossible, but now, he feels safe.