Stress Relief

New Emotions

Clara was curious why he was getting home late, but once he excitedly explained he had been talking with a friend, she pulled him into a big bear hug. Saying how proud she was of him for coming out of his shell.

Despite the pride and excitement however, he still fell like a rag doll onto his bed that night, knocking out instantly after they watched Twisters.

And he would've stayed knocked out, if his phone hadn't started to ring.

Blinking awake, his vision focused enough to see the glowing of his screen lighting up the room. Looking at the clock that hung just above his bedroom door, he let out an annoyed huff. Who in their right mind would be calling him at the ungodly hour of 1:30 AM? Falling back against his bed, he dragged his phone off the night stand, and swiped his thumb across the screen. "Hello?"

"Hey Eli, random question but I need a list of some of your favorite things."

He sat there, silent, staring at his phone like it had just magically gained consciousness and decided to speak gibberish as its first language. "Chase...what?"

"Please."

It took roughly five minutes for Elijah to realize he wasn't going to clarify, and tiredly, he began to list off a bunch of things that slowly came to mind. "Okay...I find flowers calming, and nature walks." He rubbed his eyes, staring at the ceiling. "And...I like D&D, and dragons."

"Okay, what else?" He asked, wanting more for some reason.

"What is this for exactly?" He grumbled, looking out his window at the pitch black sky and the glow of streetlights in the distance. "It's literally one in the morning."

"You'll see, just give me like...two more things." Whatever it was Chase was cooking up, he was sure doing it eagerly. He didn't even sound tired.

"Fine," he sighed. "You're gonna hate yourself in the morning for staying up this late though."

"Worth it."

Elijah snorted, although he really should emphasize the importance of proper sleep, that would make him a hypocrite and he refused to be a hypocrite. "Okay," sighing, he continued the list. "I once had an interest in national parks for about a year, my favorite was Zion National Park because of the sandstone formations, my favorite birds are crows and I fed a flock of them when I was six, and I really, really, really like sleeping."

Chase's hearty chuckle came through the phone, and Elijah smiled at the warmth of his apology. "Sorry. Thanks for the list, I'll let you sleep."

"Welcome." Elijah mumbled, getting comfortable under his blankets and setting his phone back on his night stand. "Night Chase."

"Night Eli." Then he hung up, and passed out.

Morning came with a promise of nice weather later in the day, as he began lazily checking his phone for missed messages while he ate his breakfast.

Deleting stuff he didn't really care about from social media, he noticed Chase had sent him something around the time he had woken up.

Curious, he opened his dm with him and the first thing that he saw was a video Chase took, showing him and the other guys posing outside in the school parking lot with paint cans, all surrounding a single painted spot. It looked like it was added next to theirs.

"What the..." he mumbled, confused why he would send him this, until his question from last night popped into his head. "No fucking way..." frantically he began to type.

[Chase, you didn't]

His gray bubbles bobbed as he typed, and soon Elijah was met with his answer.