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Michael's up in Heaven, and Adam's head is killing him.
It's odd. He hasn't felt anything like this since...before the first time he died. Back when he was normal. But now, there's a vice grip around his brain, reverberating dull throbs of pain from the sides of his head to his eyeballs, and he's so taken aback by it that it makes him dizzy; lightheaded.
Adam sets his can of soda on the counter and braces his hands on the edge. He probably looks strange, swaying slightly in his own kitchen while unfamiliar sensations have their way with him, but he hasn't cared about what was thought of him in a long time and besides—there's no one else here. He can sense that much.
He didn't have aspirin in the apartment. He never needed to, when Michael was so quick to try and fix everything with a single look. And he didn't get headaches with an archangel inside him, so it wasn't like he ever needed it before. Still, some part of him feels like chastising himself for such an oversight. On the rare occasions that Michael left for Heaven to help whip it back into shape for a few days, Adam turns more human. Bodily functions have a resurgence. He should've prepared better.
The vice grip intensifies. Adam gets the feeling he should probably lie down, at the very least. So he shuffles his way to his bedroom, soda forgotten, bangs his shoulder into the door frame on the way in and very nearly trips as he practically face-plants onto the bed, closing his suddenly-heavy eyes to rest them as his head pounds at the abrupt change in height.
He hadn't even felt it coming on. He wonders what that says about his observational skills.
Pain up here was different than it was in the Cage. The pain of the Cage, of Hell, was something raw, something meant to inflict deep under it tore through his skin down to his very soul. The early years, before Michael had even given him thought and Adam had been subjected to the crippling atmosphere of the place, had been years filled with nothing but burning and burning and burning. And the burning had been cold; worse than any Minnesotan winter he'd experienced before.
He'd gotten used to it. Eventually. But the memory of it had never left him, even once Michael had shielded him from it.
Up here, pain was somehow so small and so deep all at once. His body reacts as a body does, but his soul is unimpressed—entirely unaffected, the damn thing is.
Is that all you got? I've been through worse, Adam thinks it might be taunting, which is ridiculous. His soul is him. So maybe it's him taunting himself?
He's well beyond the point of trying to figure out whether or not he makes sense.
He wonders what Michael might be up to. Apparently, trying to work with so few desperate angels is a major pain in the ass, and he always comes back looking a little surly before his gaze lands on Adam and his face softens into a smile that makes Adam's stomach do flip-flops.
Michael always carries a quiet sort of bitter nostalgia with him when he comes back, too. He tries not to let it show too much, but Adam can tell; can always tell. Heaven is his home—was his home? some part of his mind murmurs, and Adam blocks it out—and to see it so ruined, so debauched from its once-grand state, left a lasting impression on the archangel. It reminded Adam of his feelings about Lucifer, of all things—Michael still loved him, yes, but there was a certain detachment from him that had formed as a result of...everything, that had only widened from their constant fighting in the Cage.
He loved Heaven, but Adam could always sense the gap that had formed between him and it. From who he used to be and who he was now.
He reaches up to rub at the sides of the top of his head with his hands, trying to alleviate some of the pressure to no avail. He can feel it in his teeth, and he's abruptly reminded to loosen his jaw. He hadn't realized that it had been clenched.
Adam isn't sure when it happens, but sleep overtakes him like a black wave.
Unfortunately, the pounding ache follows him down.
He's drifting in and out.
Sometimes, he sinks all the way to the bottom. Other times, the discomfort drags him back to wakefulness, and Adam's dimly aware that he's frowning from whatever dreamless twilight he's floating in.
In the end, it's nothing big that announces the presence. It's like he can tell that Adam's asleep, even without being connected to him, and even Adam's unconscious mind can register the feeling of Michael's grace gently filtering through his body, entering quickly and quietly and bringing with him a sense of comfort that Adam had long since attributed with him, ever since the days of the Cage. It sets him at ease, even when he starts to stir awake, reluctantly prying his heavy eyes open to meet matching blue ones above him in the darkness.
Michael had settled himself on top of the bed next to Adam, staring down at him with an inquisitive eye.
"You didn't even get under the covers," the archangel remarks, voice near-silent in the darkness of the night, and Adam gives a soft grunt as he pushes himself up on his hands, head protesting all the while.
"Hello to you too," he murmurs back. His own hand is cool from being exposed to the air, and he reaches up to press it against his forehead for a brief moment as he musters up the energy for a small smile. Michael's grace nudges up against his soul but his power doesn't energize him like it normally would; a neat little thing that allows Adam to sleep whenever he wants without having to rely on Michael to put him to sleep every time.
Sadly, it meant his headache was ever-present in his head, thudding away at the inside of his mind like metal chipping away at rock.
"How was Heaven?" Adam tries, but Michael's gaze had latched on to the movement of Adam's hand and, in an instant, Adam can feel himself being scrutinized from the inside out. It's not a weird feeling—it had grown out of being weird centuries ago—but it does make him cock an eyebrow in wry amusement.
Then, a hand is reaching for him, and Adam thinks it's ridiculous how much he deflates with a soft breath of relief as Michael's fingers bring instantaneous alleviation. The headache is gone so swiftly, washed out by a tender wave of soothing power, and Adam revels in the sudden peacefulness that overtakes him as a result of it.
He sinks readily into Michael's palm, eyes already falling closed, and the low rumble of Michael's voice as he starts to speak is enough to begin lulling him back into sleep without any further notice.
"The same as usual," he states with a sigh, the same bitter nostalgia as ever flickering briefly through his grace as he begins to idly comb through Adam's blond locks. Adam cracks his eyelids enough to peer at him; he doesn't think he possesses the capability to open them any further, right now. "I never thought I'd be...relieved, I suppose, to leave it."
"Not pretty to look at, I'm guessing."
"Not anymore. It was, once. It was—" there's a lighter huff of breath, the ghost of a chuckle. "Heavenly."
His lips curl up into a smile despite his efforts to suppress it. "Proud of yourself for that one, are you?"
"I got it from you."
"Hm. Right," Adam says, and he shifts back downwards to rest his head on the pillow when he realizes he's about to tip over and probably land in Michael's lap.
"Tell me about it?" he requests, voice just above a whisper as Michael's hand finds itself in his hair once more. "How it used to be, I mean."
Michael's told him stories of the old Heaven a thousand times over, but Adam would hear them a thousand times more if it meant that Michael would speak more; let his words be cast out into the open between the two of them, each syllable hiding layers of interwoven secrets even during simple conversation.
And Michael needs the old stories too, sometimes. Just as a reminder that they're real, and not just something that God shoved in his head.
So Michael starts to talk, steady and wistful, and Adam listens and latches on to the archangel's gentle ministrations until he feels himself drifting away from reality and into the true lull of dreams in his mind.
It isn't long before Michael joins him there, too, and Adam hangs on to his every word as they sit in the illusion of the local park in the town they live in.
His mind is clear.