the sleepless elite

ix

Notes 1: I'm not dead, just incredibly lazy. But Jezmaiya has dragged me everywhere in town so I must fend her off by being a hermit and giving her the excuse that I must sit in front of the laptop for hours and hours on end to soothe my aching feet.

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the sleepless elite

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chapter nine

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One day you were smiling,
I could tell by how you sounded on the phone,
Yes, I'm coming home, babe

– Vance Joy, Call If You Need Me

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"Will you settle down?" Chase Redford asks without taking his eyes off his book, body lain down on his couch with his too long legs sticking out.

Darling Charming doesn't stop pacing, silver heels constantly making those clicking sounds. However, she does spin around, making her hair cascade down shoulders. She pulls a face at him – all pouty lips and squeezed eyebrows. Though, it doesn't last long because soon she's filled with giddy excitement again.

"No." Is the one word response she gives him before she does a small jump that tells Chase she's bouncing with energy.

"At least sit down for a bit and drink the hot chocolate I made you," Chase says, still not lifting his face away from his book.

Darling responses, "I can't."

"Can't what? Sit down or drink?" Chase questions, it's a legit question.

Chase thinks, Darling's wasting a lot of energy walking to and fro. It's Winter and everything is starting to feel lethargic. The best thing the young Charming can do is conserve all that budding energy and drink something that would warm her up.

"Both," Darling answers. "You know that feeling before a test when you feels sick, like you can't stomach anything but also wants to get said test over with? I feel like that." She clicks her heels some more then looks at Chase as if to challenge him to entertain her and do something.

He doesn't even need to look at her to know what she wants. Darling's giving off too strong of that vibe.

If Chase had reading glasses on, he would have taken them off and given Darling a well-meaning look. But he doesn't own any reading glasses so, instead, he just rolls his eyes. This girl will be the death of him someday.

"Why aren't you waiting at home, anyway?" Chase asks as he tucks his bookmark between his pages. With Darling being here, he's never going to finish his book, it would be likely he'll read the same paragraph again and again.

"Because Father and Mother will get annoyed." Darling reasons.

Chase answers like he knows her parents when he hasn't even met them. "No, they won't."

"You're getting annoyed that I'm here." Darling speaks the truth.

"Only a little." He says truthfully too.

She then hops on his legs just to prove a point that she is. Also because there's no space on the couch for her to sit. And in return, Chase makes a small grunt at her weight. Darling's not crushing him with her weight but she is sitting on his legs.

He tells her, "If I were you, I'd just wait at home. Your brothers are coming back after being months away and I'd expect you'd be the first face they'd want to see. At least, with the way you're talking about them, it seems like you miss them a lot and the feeling's mutual." – It's finally Christmas break, meaning Darling gets to see her brothers come back from their respective colleges. Both Daring and Dexter had agreed to come back on today's date.