Philip woke up to the smell of bacon and a cold empty bed. Looking at the digital clock on Vivian's desk revealed that it was still only 5:32 in the morning. Confused as to what woke him up and why Vivian seemed to also wake up so early, Philip quietly swung his legs to the floor and stood up.

Plodding across the plush carpet in his bare feet, Philip arrived and stopped at the open door. He could see Vivian in the kitchen with only the light above the stove providing light. It was like a scene from his dreams. Vivian stood by the stove wearing a simple lavender apron over his pajamas. His pitch black hair was pinned back with hair clips in the shape of lightning bolts, and he was quietly humming a tune from one of the musicals they watched the night before.

Since Philip couldn't see any other source of light from the rest of the house, he assumed Theo was still sleeping.

With nothing better to do at 5:30 in the morning, Philip ended up deciding to make Vivian aware of his state of awakeness. Walking up behind him, Philip realized two things. The first was that Vivian was extremely caught up and focused on preparing his eggs. The second was that Philip had never seen Vivian actually full out smile before. Philip immediately forgot about announcing himself and just stood gaping at the sight of Vivian smiling to himself. All the words in his mind turned to mush and he couldn't breathe. His princess really was a beautiful person. Even without smiling Vivian could entrance Philip, but protecting this new found beauty of Vivian's smiling face became Philip's new reason for life. Aside from acting of course.

Suddenly Vivian noticed Philip just standing behind him and jumped. Some egg flew off the spatula and landed perfectly on the tip of Philip's nose. "Geez, let me know when you're standing behind me. You scared me to death. You deserve that half cooked egg on your face." Vivian's face had seemed to immediately changed back to his typical practically emotionless face, much to Philip's disappointment.

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Vivian had sat in his recliner contemplating for about half a hour before realizing that he was a bit hungry. He browsed the freezer and pantry for something to eat, but couldn't find anything that stuck out as something to satisfy his cravings. He finally settled on just making himself a cliche breakfast. There was a reason why it was cliche after all. After making a whole package of bacon for himself he started to feel a little better mentally, probably due to having something to focus on. Using the grease from the bacon he started on the eggs.

Purposely making himself forget the scene of waking up, Vivian focused on remembering the night before. He couldn't remember the last time he had a friend over, especially since his mother started getting paranoid after the "issue" arouse. Vivian missed having friends that he could hang out with, and Philip reminded him of those days. Remembering each of the musicals again and watching them with Philip was amazing, especially with the debates and discussions about the behind the scenes of each one.

Vivian didn't even notice himself start to hum or even start smiling. If he had noticed he would have fainted out of surprise. The only times he even slightly smiled was during the rare times Theodore’s puns actually worked at digging out a smile. Even then, they were only bittersweet half smiles to show his step-dad that he appreciated his attempts to cheer Vivian up. He hadn’t let out a full smile in these past three years, let alone hum a tune. Yet here he was doing both, not noticing it though.

Suddenly Vivian noticed something had appeared in the back corner of his peripheral vision. He didn’t mean to get so startled by it, but next thing he knew he was turning around to see a glob of half cooked egg perfectly placed on the tip of Philip’s nose. After reprimanding Philip, Vivian quickly reached up and wiped the egg off the prince’s nose.

“If you want any of this breakfast, I’m willing to share. Just don’t stand behind me staring.” Vivian went back to stirring the scrambled eggs as he waited for Philip to confirm if that was the reason for just standing in the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I just woke up, so I was still out of it…” Philip vaguely answered before continuing on. “I would love some of your cooking if you have enough to spare.”

Vivian pointed to the still warm plate of bacon. “Does it look like I didn’t make enough for two people? It’s true that I could eat it all by myself, but it’s still plenty enough to share. If you grab us both plates and forks I’ll even give you half of this batch of eggs in a few minutes.” Vivian had an amazing metabolism so he could surprisingly eat a lot without it showing, but he wished he could put on more weight so he wouldn’t keep being mistaken for a girl.

Philip quickly grabbed plates from the cabinet Vivian had pointed out the night before when setting the table for dinner. After setting the plates down on the island, he then grabbed forks from the spinning silverware rack, and paper towels from the stand next to it. “Anything else Viv?”

Vivian was glad he was turned away from Philip as he blushed at the second use of his nickname from Philip. “Just cheese from the fridge for the eggs.” As Philip opened the fridge Vivian opened his mouth again, doing his best to act nonchalant. “Why do you sometimes call me Viv?”

Philip closed the fridge door, now holding shredded cheese, and apologized. “Oh, I’m sorry if it bothers you. I have a habit of shortening my friends names, or giving them nicknames randomly.” Philip looked slightly sheepish as he put the cheese down on the island.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just…” Vivian clammed up slightly before whispering the next part. “The only person that calls me that is Theo. Only when he is trying to calm me down though.” So when you called me that the other day it surprisingly soothed my nerves when I was suggesting ‘King Thrushbeard’. I wasn’t sure how to react to that though. Vivian couldn’t tell Philip how much of an effect he had on him. He was definitely warming up to Philip the night before, but the thought of his mother had pumped the brakes yet again.

“If it’s such a personal nickname, I can change what I call you. You can even give me a nickname. Nicknames can be essential to show off the bonds between two people. So deciding together what only we call each other shows that our bond has leveled up to something more than we had before.” Philip started to get excited for an unknown reason again. Vivian had been noticing that this was normal for Philip, and had started to get used to his energy bursts.

Vivian had no clue why exactly Philip was so set on having nicknames for each other, but if that is how people portrayed their friendships in this town, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. Turning towards Philip with the finished eggs, Vivian loaded up Philip’s plate before responding.

“I guess if your going to give me a nickname anyways, I would prefer if we discussed it beforehand to pick it out.” Vivian looked shyly before admitting something to Philip. “I’ve actually never had a friend give me a nickname before. Meaning I also have never picked out a nickname for anyone else, so I’m not sure if I’ll pick a good one.”

Philip didn’t laugh or make fun of Vivian like his inner demons told Vivian he would. Instead he was supportive and seemed excited that he was the first friend in Vivian’s life to get or even give a nickname. “It’s easy. You just pick something like a personality trait of mine or a name that can be linked to something we share, like an inside joke or hobby.”

Vivian sat down with his own plate before responding. “So something like how we were bonding over plays and the origins of many stories last night?”

“Exactly!” Philip pointed his fork at Vivian, accentuating his agreement. “We could even find fairytale characters that we think the other relates to!” Philip started to get even more excited as he waved his fork around.

Vivian shrugged. “I guess that works.”

They both sat in a comfortable silence as they thought about potential nicknames for each other and ate breakfast.

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Philip really was excited that he would be the first to give his princess a nickname. It seemed like such an honor and a huge opportunity to up his position in Vivian’s heart. Glancing over at Vivian as they ate, his princess reminded Philip of the opening line from a classic Brothers Grimm story.

“Once upon a time in midwinter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood. As she sewed she looked up at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle. Three drops of blood fell into the snow. The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought to herself, ‘If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.’ Soon afterward she had a little daughter who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood, and therefore they called her Little Snow-White.”

It would be the perfect character to compare with Vivian’s beauty. Philip held back from suggesting her though since he had started to notice that Vivian had a complex about how feminine he appeared. Philip nibbled the inside of his lip as he thought and debated on suggesting a nickname based on Snow White. He couldn’t get the thought out of his head as he stared at Vivian’s snow white porcelain skin contrasting with his his pitch black ebony hair, and crimson red blushing cheeks.

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Vivian felt himself blushing yet again as he noticed Philip staring at him. Either he wasn’t a morning person, or Philip had a staring problem. It was hard to tell. Or maybe…

Vivian shook his head slightly. He was getting distracted from his inner search for a good nickname. Vivian sighed. “I can’t think of anything good. I just keep remembering that everyone calls you Princey… I might as well just call you Charming or Charm for short…” Vivian seemed to just give up, but Philip actually seemed to perk up more.

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Philip could barely hold himself together after Vivian had pretty much called him Prince Charming. Philip knew that he shouldn’t look too far into it, but it still became a secret wish that Vivian did mean that Philip was his Prince Charming.

“I love it!” Philip exclaimed. Vivian looked shocked, but Philip continued. “I mean why wouldn’t I? You almost definitely realized by now that I’m obsessed with princes from fairy tales. Of course I would love being called Prince Charming.” Especially by you. “I’m slightly stuck with your nickname though. I have one, but I don’t want you to be offended by it…”

Vivian looked at Philip questioningly. “How so?”

“Well… I’ve noticed that you have a complex about looking slightly feminine… But you are the epitome of a gender reversed Snow White. So I want to try nicknaming you Snow. Would that be OK Viv?” Philip tried to give Vivian puppy dog eyes, having picked up that Vivian was soft on him about a lot of things. After a while of thinking Vivian gave his approval of the nickname with a face that sent Philip’s heart a flutter all over again.