In Our Heads

Chapter 36

*****

Cassian groaned as he slid his hands over his face, trying to hide from the glare that shone directly into his eyes.

What was that? He parted his fingers slightly to peek past them but immediately sat up in surprise seeing how lit up the room was and turned to look at the clock. It was just before 8 AM. He had slept through his alarm.

That was a first. Luckily it was Sunday and he had only slept through about an hour of his morning exercising. He chuckled lightly thinking that maybe Zion was not the only one that had been exhausted by the previous day. He had not even taken any pills but slept fine apart from waking up for a few minutes as he turned over.

Climbing out of bed, he made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth before getting ready to go down to the gym anyway determined to at least get some of his usual exercise done. He would feel weird all day if he didn't do it.

Stopping at Zion's room to check on him, Cassian chuckled seeing the boy still asleep and cuddled up with a teddy bear that he did not recognise, he figured it was Zion's and shut the door lightly before heading downstairs without checking on Theodore because he was probably getting ready for work or had already left.

Once in the gym, Cassian headed over to the treadmill and opted to stare at the curtains in front of him instead of pushing them aside as he would usually do to watch the sun rise over the backyard. He was barely paying attention to the time or his surroundings and just zoned out while music played around him, not really thinking about anything important as his mind wondered over random stories and scenarios or memories.

He ran for about half an hour before switching over to some weight training and then returning to the treadmill again for another sprint.

"Cassian?"

He tapped the screen to slow it down while looking behind him to see Zion at the door, still in his pyjamas. Cassian wondered where he left the bear.

"Hey, Zion," he greeted watching Zion run over to him.

"Morning," Zion mumbled, distracted by the treadmill beside the one Cassian was on.

"Do you wanna run?" he asked.

"Okay."

He chuckled as he received a little shrug.

Cassian leaned over to help turn the machine on and watched Zion adjust to it before they jogged beside each other for a while, him mostly watching as the kid switched between speeds, his heart stopping every time Zion almost fell because he adjusted speed up too high while the kid thought it was hilarious.

When Zion got bored, they moved on to the punching bag. They had been playing around with it for a few minutes before deciding that fake-fighting was more fun, and they began to do that instead. Cassian purposefully let Zion knock him down a few times. They were mid-wrestle when they heard Rosa call out a greeting to them.

"Morning, Rosa!" their replies were mixed, their focus still on each other as Zion tried to tackle Cassian but instead got caught and thrown over his shoulder.

Cassian laughed hearing Zion let out a yell through giggles, trying to wiggle out of his grasp before he gave up and went limp.

"I've been defeated."

He laughed again hearing the muffled mumble from behind his back.

"I didn't hear you arrive," he told Rosa.

"I arrived over an hour ago. Looks like you both have been quite caught up though. Shouldn't you be getting ready for your lesson?"

"An hour?" Cassian furrowed his brows walking over to grab his phone from the treadmill. He was surprised to find that it was already almost 10 AM. What was with him and time today?