“Orphie, I’m going into sleep mode…don’t stay up too late, you’ll ruin your sleep schedule. You already struggle with morning training…”

Orphie perked up from her side, her half lidded eyes flying open as she whipped her head to the other side of the bed as she sat up to look at her tail gun, and captain, Magus. Magus was already slumped on her side facing away from her, the LED lights dimming softly.

“Oh- uh- yes captain! And goodnight…”

Orphie sputtered out thinking she almost missed her chance to answer back to her captain, upon not getting a response she laid back on her side with her phone in hand with her back towards Magus assuming Magus had already entered sleep mode.

It wasn’t long before she was giggling softly at her phone again, Magus’ sleep mode doesn’t detect sound or physical feelings, so she wakes up when she wants to…and sleeps when she wants to.

Silently, Magus moved up and hovered her barrel of a head over Orphie’s shoulders. She was texting someone again…the name of the contact read…’Proxy!’ With an exclamation mark at the end.

She didn’t peek at whatever she was texting back and forth, it wasn’t her business. Her eyes fell to Orphie’s small smile as her eyes were glued to her phone, a look in her eyes that couldn’t mean anything platonic…couldn’t be. Oh to be young again…

Orphie let out another giggle after her green and red eyes read a message, her smile instinctively lighting up brighter, her phone screen being the only source of light in her dorm, the one exception being the moon shining its light through the slightly open blinds.

After she sent a message back she turned her phone off and stared at the empty ceiling as she sighed and waited for a response, when and whatever it may be. She let out another giggle, butterflies soaring in her stomach as she moved side to side on the bed letting out only a squeal, she doesn’t know what got into her, but this was nice, it was fun.

Surely it was a crush…do friends normally talk through the night like a late night stroll? She didn’t with Seed…not with Trigger, nor with Soldier 11…she didn’t feel overly happy when they texted her, not even when she finally found a spot to sneakily eat a bag of chips without Trigger or Seed finding out.

This was something, something she wanted to keep for as long as possible. It’s been like this for awhile…it felt so normal at the start. Chatting about each others day, about cats or other animals, the bad parts of each others day…what day your free on so she can plan a hangout somewhere…anywhere.

Usually she’s busy during the day but so are you as a proxy…some days you are at least. So during the night, the later the better, it’s free game to text and send each other funny TikTok’s and whatnot.

She closed her eyes and sighed again, scratching her exposed belly and adjusted the shoulder strap of her crop top pajamas, a yawn escaping her that was stopped halfway through by the sound of a notification from her phone.

She jumped and her eyes flew open as she scrambled for her phone and quickly clicked on the TikTok you shared with her. Another one of those AI videos of the dogs shooting high pressure water at old people…she was a sucker for those. The stupid type of TikTok’s…

She stifled a full on laugh as if someone was listening and monitoring her fun…if Magus saw she’d probably think it was real…maybe for a moment.

She checked the time on her phone: 12:49. Past her usual sleeping hours…just a bit longer she told herself as she went into her camera role after putting a laughing emoji on your message.

“Hey look at this photo I took of me feeding three baby chicks with Magus”

“They were really cute and fluffy!”

She sent the selfie of her with a peace sign and Magus clearly unaware of her phone as she eyed at the baby chicks almost threateningly, Orphie was smiling cutely.

Then she waited. If she doesn’t get a response, she’ll assume you’ve fallen asleep with your phone beside you and she’ll send a goodnight text about 15 minutes after silence. Such a sweetie…