Title: Like Honey
Fandom: Grishaverse (Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo)
Characters: Inej Ghafa & Nina Zenik
Rating: General Audiences
Word Count: 586
Additional Tags: Breakfast in Bed
Challenge: Written for no_true_pair's 2023 Eight-Character Challenge
Prompt: September Seven - Inej & Nina - "this is your idea of breakfast?"
Summary: Nina has Opinions about Inej's choice in breakfasts. Inej just wants to know why Nina is breaking into her room so early in the morning.
Notes: I'm not looking at the prompts ahead of time so here's Nina and waffles yet again lol.

Read on AO3.

“This is your idea of breakfast?” Nina asks, a frown wrinkling her brow.

Inej looks up from the book she has open on the table, taking in Nina’s expression, then glances back down at the breakfast in question. A half-drunk cup of black coffee sits beside an unfinished piece of toast, both items cold now after getting engrossed in her book.

“What would you have me eat? Waffles?”

“To start,” Nina says somewhat indignantly. “Bacon? Eggs? Kippers?”

“I never eat much in the mornings,” Inej points out. Feeling sluggish and full while she’s working would not end well for her.

“Tomorrow,” Nina says, a tone of finality in her voice. “I’ll show you tomorrow.”

Inej wonders if she should be worried, but she simply nods and goes back to her reading, not thinking anything of it. As such, when Inej awakens early the next morning to find Nina loudly pushing her way into her bedroom, she’s thoroughly confused and nearly grabs one of her knives for defense.

“Put that away, it’s only me,” Nina says, spying the way Inej’s hand has slipped under her pillow.

It takes a moment for Inej to get her bearings. “Nina? It’s early for you.”

“I had to make sure to get up before you ate anything abysmal this morning.” Nina nudges the door closed behind her and brings a large tray over to the bed.

Inej sits up, rubbing her hands over her face to wake herself up, and looks at the selection of items on the tray. There’s Ravkan blinis, some kind of fish and fried eggs, the much vaunted waffles. From the smell of it, there’s coffee in the pot as well.

“You can’t possibly expect me to eat all this,” Inej says, spying a plate of some sort of bite-sized honey cakes behind the pot of coffee.

“Of course not,” Nina replies, sitting down on the bed and adjusting her skirts. “I’m eating with you.”

Inej looks at the various dishes, sighing, and reaches for the pot to pour herself some coffee. “With all these heavy sweets, you’d have to go right back to bed afterwards.”

Nina, who has unsurprisingly started with a waffle, looks up at Inej and shrugs. “Is that so bad? You need to learn to enjoy yourself, Inej. Have cake for breakfast.”

Inej is silent, holding the hot mug between her hands. Steam wafts up from inside, and she rests her bottom lip against the rim of the mug but doesn’t try to sip from it yet. She watches Nina eat her waffle, a little envious of how Nina seems to be able to take joy from even the littlest things. How unrestrained she is in that joy.

“My mother used to make these…cake rusks,” Inej says softly, mug still held close. “They’re hard, sort of like a biscuit. You would dip them in milk tea to soften them.”

Nina smiles; looking at the brightness of her expression feels almost as overwhelming to Inej as the thought of eating honey cakes for breakfast. “Next time we’ll find some of those. I’m certain there’s something similar in Ketterdam.”

“Next time?”

“Of course. Don’t think I’m letting you go back to eating dry toast for breakfast. You didn’t even butter it, Inej. Toast with no butter!”

As Nina goes on about the various eateries they could visit together, Inej doesn’t argue. She hides her smile behind her mug of coffee, listening quietly to Nina’s suggestions, and finally reaches for one of the honey cakes.