"Clay! Did you see?"
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
Lindsay Lohan
I made it home guys
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge+
Pog
ChefNotFound
Pog
Dweam
Pog
How was the drive?
Lindsay Lohan
Good but it took so long
I'm sitting in my car the parking lot falling asleep
No energy to go inside
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge+
Bro go inside
Linsday Lohan
Bro im freaking tired
This car seat is feeling mad comfy rn
ChefNotFound
Car is temporary
Sleep is forever
Go sleep
Lindsay Lohan
Yes chef
ChefNotFound
?
Dweam
lmao
"Yeah, I saw!" Clay responded, snickering after a moment. He shook his head at his phone and then tossed it onto his bed, turning back to his desk.
Hundreds of miles away, Lilac had switched conversations and messaged Andi.
ARISTOCRACY
King of Clubs
I lived
Aristocracy
The monarch... she lives!!
King of Clubs
Yes indeed
Your king has returned from the far lands of Florida
Aristocracy
Are u safe? No tickets? No crashes?
King of Clubs
I am safe, not to worry
Just extremely tired
Are you safe?
Aristocracy
Yeah I'm big chillin
I'll be back tomorrow if everything goes to plan
King of Clubs
Roger that
How's the fam
Aristocracy
Pretty good
We're all alive and well, can't complain
My mom was asking about 'those boys that play the block game' because she couldn't remember whose names I mentioned when I told her who you were with
King of Clubs
Lol i love ur mom
Tell her I said hi
Aristocracy
I will
Now go to bed it's way past your bedtime
King of Clubs
Yes maam
It was true. She had left Sap and Clay's house at around 3, and a nine-hour run had brought her home a bit past 12. Lilac wasn't usually a caffeine person, but she had been living on Sprite to keep herself awake. She knew she was going to sugar-crash soon, but her neat-oriented brain would not settle if she didn't unpack before she went to bed. So, unwilling as she was, Lilac hauled herself out of the car. With tired and clumsy fingers, she unbuckled her precious strawberry from the backseat, dragged her bags out of the trunk, and slugged her way up the stairs and to her dorm.
"Honey, I'm sweet," Lilac mumbled tiredly as she shut the door behind her. Her brain tried to say 'honey I'm home' and 'home sweet home' at once, but she didn't even register that neither phrase had come out properly. It didn't matter, though. She'd also brought her Sprite bottle up with her, and she took a swig of it to give her one last burst of energy to put her clothes away.
For a few minutes, Lilac tried to stay focused and put her things away as she waited for the sugar in the soda to wake her up. She tried listening to music, but got frustrated when her brain told her it didn't want to listen to anything she put on. She tried silence, but her brain said that it wanted to listen to something. Eventually, she shuffled over to her bed and rested her head on it.
"What do you want from me, goblin brain," Lilac mumbled, finally feeling the Sprite begin to hit her bloodstream again. She raised her head after seeing her phone light up out of the corner of her eye. She saw a few messages roll by from the general chat in the SMP Discord, and in a stroke of pure luck, she saw George's name flash by a couple of times in the chat. Lilac chewed on her lip for a moment, weighing in her mind how weird it would be to call him and ask for company.
"Is that weird?" She asked herself aloud. "I don't know, my brain is off. I hope that's not weird." She tried her best not to be indecisive, but she sat and debated with herself for a few more minutes. In the end, she decided to text him first.
CHEFNOTFOUND
Sunflower
Hi george
ChefNotFound
Hey hyacinth
What's up
Sunflower
Ooh hyacinth, i like that
That's my favorite flower
I was wondering if you might
Hypothetically
Be able to call
ChefNotFound
In theory
I absolutely can
i'm only playing Minecraft
Sunflower
Tysm
I need to talk to someone while i unpack
or i might fall asleep in my suitcase
Hypothetically of course
George laughed, smiling at his screen in the dim lighting of his room. Before he called, he made one quick change to her contact.
ChefNotFound
Of course
Theoretically im calling u now
Hyacinth
That hypothetically sounds excellent
George took a deep breath. He was suddenly nervous, which was ridiculous. He'd spent the past week talking to Lilac at least once per waking hour, and now he was nervous.
No, he wasn't. He wasn't nervous. He was GeorgeNotFound, and GeorgeNotFound did not get nervous. He pressed the call button and then freaked out just a little bit.
"Hey." Lilac's tired voice flowed through his phone, and suddenly, George was okay again.
"Hi," He responded, already smiling.
At what? He thought to himself.
"How are you?" He asked, ignoring that thought altogether.
"I'm so tired," Lilac reported, "But talking to you should help to keep me awake until I'm done unpacking. That and the ridiculous ratio of Sprite to any other liquid in my body." George chuckled.
"You're unpacking? As soon as you get home? So responsible," George noted, and Lilac exhaled amusedly.
"Only because my brain won't let me leave my bags unpacked," She responded, and George remembered how adamant she was about unpacking when she'd first arrived at the boys' house.
"Plagued with neatness," George teased her, "What a travesty." He smiled, practically able to see her rolling her eyes at him.
"Shut up," Lilac said through a yawn. "It is a travesty when I should be in my bed."
"True," George responded, unable to argue with that. "Nothing's quite as good as sleep."
"Hard disagree," Lilac said, shaking her head on her end as she sorted her clothes for laundry tomorrow. She could think of a dozen better things she could be doing than sleeping. "Sleep is just a hindrance."
"Then why do you do it?" George asked, and Lilac snorted.
"George, what?" She asked, laughing. "And I thought I was tired. Get off the server and go to bed, your brain is fried." George started laughing, too.
"I meant why do you go to bed so early, smart one," He shot back. Lilac giggled.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Lilac professed. "I don't really enjoy sleeping, but I hate being tired in the middle of the day. The best way to not do that is- imagine this- to get eight hours of sleep every night." George hummed, supposing she was right.
"Also, 11 p.m. is not early," She added. He snorted this time.
"It's really early," George disagreed, "I'm never in bed before midnight. Maybe even one."
"He's on the grind," Lilac said, "Block game never stops." The block game did stop, but for her only. George had blocked himself into a box on the server and he hadn't looked at the screen since they started talking.
"Speaking of that," George said, swiveling back and forth in his chair as he thought of something. "How has your time been on the server?"
"It's been great," Lilac responded, and George heard her voice perk up a little bit. "All of my projects are coming along very nicely, and they are all still very much a secret, before you even ask."
"No, but I want you to tell me, though," George informed her, more interested than ever in what she was doing. "What can I do to get you to tell me the secrets?"
"Absolutely nothing," Lilac said, and he huffed.
"Can you be bribed?" He tried, but even though he couldn't see her, he could imagine the look on her face.
"I can't be bribed, bought, or coerced," She told him.
"But I wanna know," George said, and Lilac laughed.
"Oh, yeah, now I'll tell you for sure, since you wanna know," Lilac joked sarcastically. "Why are you so curious?"
"I want to know secrets, they're cool," George said simply. "Also, Clay has secretly been going insane trying to figure out what you're doing. I want to tell him that I know what you've been up to so I can hang it over his head." Lilac burst out laughing and George smiled along with her.
"Now there's a convincing reason," Lilac admitted. "What's he been doing to try and figure it out, if you don't mind my asking?"
"He's probably asked everyone online if they know what you're doing at least twice," George reported, only too happy to share. "He's trying to figure out if you're making alliances with anyone- he kind of overlooked your no-lore thing there. I wouldn't be surprised if he's torn up every block in the district looking for traps and things." Lilac chuckled, feeling a sense of pride well up at his words. Without even trying, she'd mentally uprooted the ringleader of the SMP. And even if it was just Clay, who she's now seen firsthand to be a goofy nerd just like herself, it still felt good.
"As expected," Lilac said, sliding into bed. She'd finished unpacking a while ago, and in the time they were talking, she'd changed into pajamas, too. "He's gone feral."
"Yeah, and can you imagine how fast he'd really lose if I told him I knew what you were doing?" George said, circling back around to his original plea.
"That would be hilarious," Lilac agreed. "He hates not knowing things. But I'm afraid I can't show you the secrets." George huffed in annoyance, trying to figure out what he could do to get her to share.
"What you can do that'll still get Clay's attention, though," Lilac thought aloud, a grin spreading across her face. "Tell him that my plans are coming along well. Tell him I've been under his nose this whole time. Say that word for word."
"What's that going to do?" George asked.
"You mentioned that he's looked all around the district for traps. If you tell him what I said, he's going to tear out every last block under the district looking for redstone that may or may not be there." George could hear the smile in her voice.
"You're sadistic," George said after considering her point, and Lilac chuckled.
"You sound proud," She noted, and he shrugged.
"Maybe I am." They shared a laugh, continuing to talk about the goings-on on the server. Neither of them noticed the time ticking away. The Sprite had long since lost its effect on Lilac, but she was kept awake by George's lovely voice. It both kept her awake and nearly lulled her to sleep, which was an odd dichotomy. His heavily accented speech was like a lullaby (when he wasn't screaming); he spoke with a certain rhythm that Lilac never noticed before. She was hanging onto his every word, staying awake only because she wanted to hear what he had to say.
George was thinking much the same thing. Even when she was tired, Lilac's voice did something to soothe him. Before he'd gotten on the phone with her, the thought of talking to her was oddly frightening, even though he'd just spent the week with her. It was as if, when given time to think about talking to her, the idea of it became scary for a reason that was beyond him. Talking to her now, though, felt just as natural as it had been earlier in the week. It was relaxing, a calming end to his night that he didn't know he needed.
"As much as I hate to say this, you should probably get some sleep," George suggested, hearing how tired and slow her voice had become.
"Oh, so now you're a proponent of sleep?" Lilac asked through a yawn.
"Always have been," George reminded her, "I just don't have a good sleep schedule."
"True," Lilac hummed. "You're right though. I can barely keep my eyes open. That's what I get for holding onto Kevin, doing that tells my brain that it's bedtime."
"Kevin?" George asked confusedly, and Lilac giggled.
"My strawberry," She filled him in. "Oh! I can't believe-- I never said it to you when we were all here, but thank you for telling Sap I needed a stuffed animal."
"Oh, sure," George said, trying to brush it off. He was waving his hand dismissively even though she couldn't see.
"No, seriously. That meant a lot, and I never said anything. Thank you," Lilac persisted, and George couldn't help but smile, feeling himself blush at her sincerity.
"Of course. I'm glad you like it."
"I love it," She said, snuggling it close. "He'll always remind me of this last week. And he fits in well here with my other stuffed animals. Even though he's a berry and not an animal."
"You've got more?" George inquired, leaning back in his chair. An enormous smile spread across his face when she hummed affirmatively.
"I only have two here- Ellie, my elephant, and an orange tabby cat named Paprika. She's so cute, they sewed her so she's always lying down," She explained.
"You said you only have two there," George repeated, "Do you have more at your house?"
"Yeah, I have a ton," Lilac yawned, but didn't elaborate.
"Tell me about them, please," George requested.
"How much do you want to know?"
"All of it." And George listened as Lilac listed all of her stuffed animals by name and explained where they came from. Some of them were gifts from when she was a kid, and some were toys that she had treasured and passed on to her younger brother and sister. Others used to belong to her parents or grandparents, and she treasured them so much that she didn't risk bringing them to college.
"That's amazing," George said after she finished talking. "They all have a story and a name, and I can't believe you remember all of them. That's... cute, that's so cute." He barely registered that the last sentence even slipped out of his mouth, but Lilac noticed. Her cheeks warmed against her pillow.
"Thanks for letting me talk about them," She said quietly. "I don't usually talk about it because I'm afraid people will think I'm weird."
"I already know you're weird, so you don't have to worry about that," George joked, making her laugh. "Seriously though, I don't think that's weird at all. It's pretty cool, actually."
"Thank you," She said with a yawn, and he smiled softly into the darkness at how small she sounded. Here he was, goading her on after he was the one who urged her to go to bed.
"Of course. Now, get some sleep for real this time. I can hear you falling asleep."
"I really am," She sniffled tiredly. "Goodnight, George. Sleep well, even if you aren't going to bed now, which you should be." He smiled.
"Goodnight, Lilac. I'll go to bed now, just for you." Serious, he logged out of the server altogether, putting his computer to sleep. "And... sweet dreams."
They both hung up rather reluctantly. George kept his promise and actually did get in bed, but he found his mind was far too full to even consider falling asleep. He stayed in bed, though, looking out the window at the surrounding buildings and simply contemplating. Across the sea, when Lilac glanced at the clock as she put her phone away, she did a double-take at the screen.
It was 1:48.