Secret Slasha – The Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel Slash Fanfiction Secret Santa Project
Secret Slasha – The Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel Slash Fanfiction Secret Santa Project

Ten Minutes Every Morning
By Colleen
For Doyle

Dawn wakes up every morning at 7, and takes a shower. She wakes Tara by 7:30 and makes breakfast for the two of them. Every morning after breakfast, Tara watches Dawn dress, curled up under mounds of blankets, a smile quirking the side of her lip. Dawn has started her second semester of her second year at Pepperdine, and works from 8:30 to 3 at a small restaurant near their tiny house in suburbia. Tara works 9 to 5 at her own little Wiccan shop. A simple life for two people with such complicated pasts.

Every morning, Dawn kisses her goodbye. A goodbye kiss can last ten minutes, with Dawn grabbing her bag, her jacket, her keys in between kisses. Sometimes she forgets half of that so she can come back and get yet another one. Sometimes she is late for work, but it doesn't really matter.

On days off, they stay in bed till noon, wrapped around one another and dozing off in between kisses and caresses.

Every Sunday morning, they read the funnies across from each other in the kitchen, feet on each other's laps and coffee in hand.

It's so simple it should hurt--someone should be getting bored with it by now, surely. But neither one of them is...neither one of them will.

Every morning, Tara thanks whoever is up there- God or Gods or Goddesses- that she gets at least ten minutes of goodbye kisses and hours of newspaper comics, or sleeping in and making love. Dawn memorizes the smell of the sheets every morning- Rain Fresh, Tara's favorite- and the taste of pancakes in funny shapes.