Cas didn’t get as much rest as he’d been hoping for when he’d laid his head down on the pillow. For about two hours, he tossed and turned in the king sized bed, dipping in and out of shallow sleep that left him feeling even more tired than he had been when he’d first started trying to relax. The mattress was too big. Like the bedroom he’d moved into, it just reminded him of how alone he was now that he’d been crowned the new ruler of Aspiria. His immediate family were all either dead or banished, and his friends, while supportive, couldn’t understand what he was going through. They lived the life he wished he could have: one in which their biggest responsibilities were deciding which parties they wanted to attend on the weekends.

Already, he missed the freedom he’d taken for granted when he’d only been a prince. Just a week ago, he’d felt constricted by his duty to his father, but compared to what was coming, the tasks that had daunted him before were like a teenager’s household chore list. He wasn’t ready to lead an entire country by himself, and he’d never felt more alone than he did buried under the covers in his parents’ old bed. Thoughts and worries about all the new ways he could fail swirled around inside his head, and sleep eluded him no matter how hard he tried to give in to his exhaustion.

Above all else, he found himself missing Iris like a limb. Even though he knew she wouldn’t be able to understand his struggle much more than Jay or Miles, she had a way of comforting him that he needed at that moment. He craved her warmth and her touch and her smile and her constant reassurances that he would be a good king. Pining for her presence, he rolled over and curled his fingers wistfully against the bedsheets, wishing she were there beside him. Even though they hadn’t been doing long distance for more than a couple days, he was already feeling the strain of it twisting his heart. It wasn’t easy to wait for a single, short phone call once a night after he’d gotten used to having her with him to hold in his arms.

The clock on the wall seemed to tick slower than ever as he continued to grapple with sleep and bide his time until the little hand struck ten. At long last though, his patience paid off when his phone vibrated on the nightstand in a siren song that he’d been looking forward to all day. He rolled back over on the bed and sat upright, the sheets sliding down into a heap at his hips as he reached for the device and smiled at the increasingly familiar number on the screen.

[color=#b97703]“Hey, Iris,”[/color] he said softly, bringing it to his ear in eager anticipation of hearing her voice again. Twenty-four hours felt like a small eternity to wait between conversations with her. However, when she called him ‘your majesty’ over the other end of the line, he wrinkled his nose in distaste. Out of everyone, he didn’t want her to call him by the stuffy title he’d inherited from his father. [color=#b97703]“Well, you’re not wrong,”[/color] he conceded. [color=#b97703]“But I always have and always will prefer ‘Cas.’”[/color]

Laying back down on the bed, he folded his free arm over his chest and fixed his brown eyes on the ceiling. [color=#b97703]“How have you been today? Did you watch the ceremony?”[/color] he asked, starting down the list of questions he’d been waiting for far too long to voice to her. Another one, even more important than the first two, popped into his head, so he tacked it on as an afterthought: [color=#b97703]“Have you eaten since yesterday?”[/color]