The State of Broken Things

I Sent For A Miracle

I Sent For A Miracle

"Time to wake up," a voice whispers gently into my ear.

And God, I swear I try to answer him with actual words but the only thing my brain is capable of forming right now is a nngh.

"Adrian, get up. You need to shower."

Whining in protest, I roll over, shoving my face under the pillow in the hopes of blocking Cas's voice out completely, because we were out until 2 last night at some random 24 hour bookstore in the middle of Seattle and I swear, I had just fallen asleep and now he's trying to wake me up.

"Adrian."

"Go 'way."

"Baby, we have to meet my mom in literally two hours. Get up."

He pulls the blanket off of me, and I bat his hand away.

"Sleeping."

"Not anymore. It's already 10."

That shocks me enough to where my eyes actually open, despite the bags of steel they've become.

"What?"

A smile is covering his face, and he nods. "I know. You slept for almost seven hours."

It takes a second for me to realize that's probably the longest I've slept in years, but the joy of that realization, it's a little overshadowed by the annoyance of being awake in the first place.

"Why does it feel like I only slept for five seconds, then?" I say, my voice still heavy with sleep, rolling over and rubbing my face. "I thought more sleep was supposed to make me less tired."

"Sleep debt, baby. It's a real thing."

Cas continues being the most annoying creature on this planet, forcing me up and out of bed and into the shower, like I'm some kind of literal child. An actual baby.

It's maybe a week after prom, and things between us have never been better, which is kind of funny to say because nothing between us has actually changed. He's still a neurotic, annoying little shit who fusses over everything and nothing, and I'm still a depressed mess of repressed emotion and lack of motivation, but something about it feels more settled. There's no urgency.

Is this what acceptance is?

Is this how it feels?

Once I get out of the shower, Cas decides that he needs one too, so I go down to the kitchen to make some coffee because I'm still fucking tired, despite having slept more last night than I usually sleep in days. Yawning, I take the creamer out of the fridge and my dad walks in. He nods awkwardly at me, moving to the fridge to get one of his apples out.

I wait for the irritation to start bubbling in my chest, for the anger to fester.

But I guess there's something good about today, and good about sleeping, because it doesn't come.

"Good morning," I say, before I can stop myself.

He looks up, surprise clear on his face, completely midbite. After he swallows his apple, he nods back at me.

"Good morning."

"Did you just wake up?" he asks, confused.

"Yeah, actually," I say. "I slept really well last night."

"Oh," Dad says. "That's- that's really good, Adrian."

We continue to move around each other in the kitchen, and it's so quiet I can hear the shower turn on from downstairs. Dad looks up, confused.