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It was the middle of the night when Gordon got the text.
“hey, do you think an ice cream cake is still good if it’s frozen?” (3:38 AM)
“like, if it hasn’t melted yet. will it still be good?" (3:40 AM)
“time sensitive question please respond” (3:45 AM)
47 Image Attachments (3:48)
Gordon glanced down groggily at the words on his phone, rubbing his sore eyes as the light from the small screen nearly blinded him. He couldn’t believe that he had really woken up for this. His sleep-addled brain spent about thirty seconds constructing a reply, before the rest of his body made the executive decision that he was Too Tired to Deal With This Shit and pulled the metaphorical plug. He groaned in annoyance as the collapsed back on to the bed and prayed to god that, whatever was going on, he wouldn’t regret not addressing it immediately in the morning.
Come morning and he had completely forgotten about the…whatever it was he had received last night. He had successfully banished all remnants of the one-sided conversation from his mind, though the blissful ignorance was soon shattered when he checked his phone and saw a text that had arrived while he’d been sleeping, sent nearly an hour after the previous spam.
“so now i feel bad about judging that one methhead at dairy queen gor getting food out of the trash you can find some impressive shit in there.” (4:25 AM)
“*for” (6:23 AM)
Gordon prayed to god that he wouldn’t walk into the kitchen and find it on fire. It seemed unlikely, given the content of the texts, but you never knew with Benrey.
Thankfully he was only met with the rather mundane sight of his roommate collapsed on the couch playing Minecraft with the most vacant expression on his face. It was clear that he had been there for several hours. He almost seemed to disappear into his oversized hoodie that he had stolen from Gordon and his chullo had sunk so low on his face that it nearly covered his eyes. He pressed the buttons on the old controller in a rhythmic pace as his in-game character dashed around the polygonal world with more energy than the alien on the couch ever seemed to show.
It seemed like Benrey was building an automatic sugarcane farm. Or, at least, he had been. Whatever was currently happening onscreen could not be described in any way other than “absolute chaos”. There was some kind of redstone contraption set up to rain eggs down from the sky, occasionally hatching into a very distressed chicken that was quickly torn to pieces by Benrey’s army of wolves. There were no less than six visible skeletons engaged in a bow duel, though the bone rattling sfx around Steve suggested that there were more offscreen. Nearly everything that could be set on fire was, and the situation was made worse by the pillars of lava raining down from some kind of cobblestone structure in the sky. In the distance, the wither was attacking a village.
“So, uh…” Gordon began cautiously, trying and failing to fully take in the sight in front of him, “What’cha doing there?”
“mined craft.” Was the only reply he got. He fought back the urge to sigh and he strolled over to the couch and placed his arms on the back of the cushions.
“…Jesus Christ, are you in Survival Mode!?”
“mhm.”
They stood in silence for a few more moments before Gordon worked up the energy to speak again.
“So, about that text from last night…” He began, unsure of how to go about asking this. Fortunately, Benrey seemed to take his trailing off as the end of the sentence and answered for him.
“what? oh, yeah. i told you it was urgent, but you didn’t respond. why didn’t you say anything?”
Gordon opened his mouth to explain that it had been 3 in the goddamn morning and most humans did this thing called sleeping, but he was cut off again before he could even get a word out.
“it’s cool though, it all turned out fine. it's insane what some people will just throw away. like, who just leaves a perfectly good ice cream cake in the trash for the raccoons to eat? people are weird.”
Gordon raised a hand to his temple to combat the headache he could already feel coming on. He knew that he would regret inquiring further, but he just had to know how this story ended.
“So, you found a whole-ass ice cream cake in the trash.”
“yep.”
“And you ate it?”
“The edges were gross. scraped those right off.”
“the whole thing?”
“gone.”
Gordon stifled the beginnings of a laugh as he sat down on the couch to get a better view of the chaos unfolding in the game. Benrey folded his legs up to his chest to make room for him, but didn’t take his eyes off the screen. Only one of the skeletons was still alive, and Benrey had trapped it in a cobblestone fence and used a name tag to christen it “the skeleton king”. Both it and the fence were then immediately blown up by a shot from the wither.
“Why were you looking through the trash in the first place?” Gordon asked, leaning back against the soft cushions in an attempt to get more comfortable.
“for food.”
Gordon couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore, nearly doubling over and falling off the couch and prompting Benrey to tear his eyes away from the screen in surprise. It was, in the end, not that funny, and far from the craziest thing Benrey had done since he moved in, but the combination of exhaustion, surprise, and the perfectly nonchalant way in which Benrey had said it made it the funniest thing in the world at that moment. The mental image of his roommate clawing his way through trash cans like a feral opossum was one that Gordon would cherish for years to come. Said roommate was currently staring at him like he was insane, and, to be fair, he was pretty out of it at the moment.
“uh…you okay?” The alien asked, genuine confusion lacing his voice.
“Y-yeah. I’m fine,” Gordon fought back the last of his laughter and wiped the tears forming at the sides of his eyes, “you want to get some actual food though? Immortal or not, that can’t be good for you.” He stood up and walked away from the couch and towards the kitchen, reaching over to adjust Benrey’s hat as he did so.
“uh…i want maccy cheese.” Came the delayed reply from the couch as Benrey’s mind seemed to catch up to what Gordon had said.
“Dude, it’s like, 8 in the morning.”
“maccy cheese.” Benrey asserted. Gordon let out another chuckle at this.
“Okay, dude, we’ll get you some maccy cheese.”
“nice.” Came the response, softer this time. Once Gordon was gone from the living room and Benrey was sure that he wouldn’t be seen, he allowed himself to smile slightly and sink deeper into his borrowed hoodie. In the game, he began setting up the arena for the second annual Skeleton Hunger Games, though this time his attention was drawn away from the game and focused mostly on the sounds of his roommate in the kitchen.