A Little More Trust Cpt. 10

They finished the second movie without any more spats, though there was the occasional banter whenever one of them commented on a scene, and by the time they were done it was already time for dinner. “God, I’m starving,” Sawyer said, standing up and stretching. “I should text Charlie too, I meant to do that earlier.” He turned around and automatically reached for Colfax, before actually thinking things through and hesitating. Colfax’s words about him controlling where the little guy went came back to him and immediately caused some confusion. “Uh,” he started, sounding very unsure of himself. “Do you… do you want a ride to the kitchen, or do you want to get there on your own?”

When Sawyer's hand came his way once again, Colfax braced himself to be grabbed up. His hands even went to the strap of his bag, ready to hold it in place when he was lifted off the couch. He looked to the human's face when the approaching hand hesitated. Colfax didn't outwardly show it, but he was quite pleased that Sawyer thought to ask him this time. "It makes more sense to get a ride there," he replied. As much as he would love to walk there on his own, Sawyer's strides were far too wide to keep up with, and Colfax was hungry too. He might as well take advantage of a quicker route. It was enough that Sawyer recognized that Colfax could do it on his own.

“Alright,” Sawyer said, relaxing a bit with the answer. More cautiously now he scooped Colfax up off the couch, making sure not to trap the little guy in his grip but rather leave him cupped in his hands as he walked into the kitchen. Once there, he deposited Colfax carefully on the kitchen table before going and turning on the lights in the room. Evening had grown into dusk, and the sky outside the windows was quickly darkening.

Colfax pursed his lips as Sawyer scooped him up, holding back any complaints about the quick action. Sure, the human had been careful, but it was still quite abrupt and he wasn't certain he'd ever get used to it. But, he had volunteered, so he didn't have much room to call Sawyer out on his handling. Once back on solid ground, he adjusted his bag and watched Sawyer bustle around the room.

Remembering what he was supposed to be doing Sawyer got his phone and sent a quick text off to Charlie, which basically consisted of "feeling better – thanks for coming over". Once that was done he began opening and closing doors around the kitchen, searching for a suitable dinner option. He didn’t usually put that much effort into meals, and was okay with that, but he still felt a little embarrassed as he asked Colfax, “Is microwave rice okay with you?” Colfax wasn’t exactly a guest he supposed, but he was enough of one that Sawyer couldn’t help but wonder if he should actually make something.

"Microwave rice, huh?" he asked, tilting his head. He missed Sawyer's sheepishness as he thought about it. Back when he lived in a human household with his parents, they had made rice all the time. But warm foods like that always got packed up and stored in the fridge, making them quite off-limits to a viri. And he certainly never saw it in the university building. "I'll try it," he answered with a nod. He had heard it was quite filling, and he was interested in finding out whether that was true.

“Sweet,” Sawyer said, nodding once. Taking a package of ready rice out of the pantry, he tore open the top and stuck it in the microwave, shutting the door and letting it spin around as the older machine groaned loudly about it. He went to get a glass for water and realized that he didn’t have anything to put water in for Colfax. Turning to look at the smaller man he pointed to the bag slung across his shoulders and asked, “Do you have a cup your size somewhere in there?” If Colfax didn’t, then they were just going to have to improvise. Sawyer was already thinking about getting the little guy a saucer or something for the rice, though even that would probably be laughably big next to Colfax. They would have to make do, however, because Sawyer didn’t think he had anything better on hand.

"Hmm," Colfax intoned by way of responding. He opened up his bag and rummaged through it, moving things aside carefully. At the bottom, in the corner, he found what he was looking for and fished it out. It almost looked like it was made to be a mug for someone his size, minus the handle. It was the plastic cap from the foot of a tripod, and one of his better finds in the university building. Somewhere there was a tripod stand that wobbled a little, but Colfax had a container that worked as a cup, even if the plastic was a little thick.

It wasn't lost on him that something like this, this piece of plastic he never went anywhere without, would be tossed in the garbage without a second thought if a human found it. His motion was a bit hesitant as he held it out for Sawyer to take, and he expected to be teased for carrying such strange things around with him. "Don't lose it," he warned preemptively, thinking of how the thing would all but disappear if Sawyer took it between two fingers.

“I won’t,” Sawyer promised, giving Colfax a strange look. The little guy seemed so nervous, as if he was giving the thing away rather than just handing it over. Sawyer took it carefully and looked it over- it was just a small piece of black plastic, probably meant to be a cap or cover for something. “Huh,” he muttered to himself, moving towards the sink. “Neat.” Holding the little cup carefully he filled it with water, holding it balanced rather precariously between two fingers and trying not to spill it as he walked the couple steps back to the table. He set it down near Colfax just as the microwave dinged and stopped making such a ruckus.

Turning that way, Sawyer removed the packet of rice, now steaming and hot, from the microwave. He tore the top off fully and a cloud of steam rose from the bag, dissipating into the air about half a foot up. Rummaging around in the drawers for a bit he emerged with a small saucer (where he had acquired such a thing he couldn’t remember- maybe Charlie had brought it over once and left it here?) and a fork. Doling out a small portion of the hot rice onto the saucer he set the makeshift plate near Colfax, next to whom it appeared to be more like a table. “Sorry, I don’t think I have any utensils your size,” he apologized, sticking the fork in his mouth and carrying the bag of rice back to the table. He sat down and started eating, not bothering to transfer the rice to any kind of plate for himself.

Colfax smirked at the pile of rice that Sawyer had portioned aside for him. It was quite a lot, though he supposed it would be more of a challenge than it was worth for Sawyer to divide out a serving that would make more sense. Colfax sat cross-legged and pulled the saucer towards himself. He held a hand over the rice, feeling the heat still wafting off of the warm food. Warm food. It was a nice thought.

Colfax didn't have a small fork of his own, either. Even doll's forks didn't work very efficiently for viri unless they were very finely crafted. That was simply too tough to come by. "I don't have any either," he said in reply a few seconds later. But, he retrieved his knife, the dull broken razor that he'd used to cut the grape earlier, from his bag. He poked the end into one grain of rice and began to eat, rather intrigued by the very simple flavor. After a few grains of rice he took a drink of his water. "I've seen many students come in with boxes of rice from the Chinese restaurant near the campus. They never leave it unattended long enough to take any."

“It must be hard to find food unattended around there,” Sawyer commented, his brow slightly furrowed as he thought about it. He knew that college students weren’t one to waste whatever food they had with them in class, or leave it alone for very long- usually out of apprehension that somebody else would eat it. It would suck to have to rely on such fickle sources just to get food. Sawyer struggled to even get up the motivation to go to the grocery store. “I mean,” he continued, rather concerned now that he was thinking through it all, “aren’t there times when you just don’t find any? What do you do then?” Colfax could obviously subside off of very little food, in comparison to humans especially, but all the same. When there was nothing around, there was nothing around; and though the university building wasn’t the cleanest, Sawyer knew they did clean it.

Colfax shrugged. "If I can't find anything, I wait until everyone is gone for the day and then I get something from the vending machine," he answered nonchalantly. It was a relatively normal practice for him, and considering it was the only stationary food source, he was quite good at the whole process. The only part that was difficult at all was getting the door open from the inside. Even that was fairly routine.

"I take from the back so they don't notice for a while," he clarified, glancing up. He was admittedly a little curious about what Sawyer would think of it.

Sawyer just grinned. “That’s great,” he said, thoroughly in approval of the idea. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about that, it makes total sense. I mean, they’re right there and nobody really cares.” The more he thought about it, the better it seemed. Not to mention hilarious, thinking about all the students that probably got blamed as a group for stuff going missing when really it was just Colfax. But who would suspect a little person in the walls to be stealing food? Nobody. Nobody at all. The plan was practically foolproof. “Dude, you’re a little thief!” Sawyer all but exclaimed, bumping Colfax’s shoulder with his finger (and a wide smile). “That’s so legit.”

Colfax was about to protest, to point out that it could hardly be considered stealing to take things that no one missed anyway. He swayed as Sawyer nudged him, and looked up to gripe about it; but Sawyer's smile stopped him in his tracks. It was a look that was less aimed at making fun of him, and more out of actual approval for his methods. "I guess so," he admitted. "But no one misses anything anyway. What's a bag of chips now and then?" More accurately, every few nights. But he didn't need to clarify that. "I just wish they had a little more variety," he mused. Most of the options couldn't exactly be called healthy. And the ones that were healthy always ran out first because of the health-minded students.

“Yeah, you mostly live on junk food, huh?” Sawyer made a face at that. He liked snacks as much as the next guy, but only being able to eat potato chips for a week had to suck. No wonder Colfax was being picky about the snacks earlier, they were basically all he had anyways. “Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” he mumbled around a mouthful of rice. He didn’t meet Colfax’s eyes as he said, “I mean, if you stay. My food’s all yours, whatever you want.” He didn’t have the greatest selection himself, and he couldn’t cook worth a damn, but it had to be better than vending machine snacks and leftover crumbs from students. Just about anything would be better than that.

Colfax raised his eyebrows. The offer wasn't exactly unexpected. After all, Sawyer had been planning on keeping him there anyway. But it still felt pretty generous to allow someone you barely knew into your home so freely. "I'll think about it," he answered. Just the thought of having a better lineup of food was appealing. However, Colfax had gotten by on his own for so long. It wasn't beyond imagination to live in a human apartment rather than a class building- but to have the human resident also know about him because he was the one that invited him in was hard to wrap his head around. He covered his silence by eating a few more bites of rice. "You don't mind inviting a 'thief' into your home?" he asked with a smirk after a pause.

At that Sawyer scoffed, all but snorting into his bag of rice. “You couldn’t carry anything I actually care about, much less steal it,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. Needless to say, he wasn’t worried. Especially since, if events earlier that day had proven anything, it was that Sawyer had a lot of power where Colfax was concerned. He was being good and not using it, of course, but he still couldn’t see thieving as being much of an issue. “Besides,” Sawyer said, “I think it might be fun to have a roommate. I haven’t done that since Charlie and I roomed together last year, it’s been weird living on my own. Thief or not you could still be good company.” He grinned at Colfax. “And you don’t take up much space either.”

Colfax actually looked a little startled at mention of the word "roommate", dropped so casually into the conversation. Aside from being a viri code word for humans, it carried some heavy implications. He was definitely getting into some pretty deep infractions against the Code, becoming this familiar with a human that had captured him. Sure, he mostly had his autonomy back, but if he stuck around, it would only take one slip to cause a disaster. Someone else could come in and see Colfax, or Colfax could slip up and reveal that there were more of his kind out there.

"Maybe." He couldn't believe the word that came out of his mouth despite his roiling thoughts. "I'm used to living alone," he added uncertainly, a little thrown by how casually generous Sawyer was being. The fact remained that Colfax just didn't get along with others very well, regardless of what was normal for viri.

“Right,” Sawyer said quickly. He could tell that the little guy was a bit taken aback by his casual enthusiasm, like most people were. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate Colfax even more, however, so he made an attempt to tone it back a little. “Obviously it’s your choice, and I completely understand if you don’t want to, uh, stick around.” They both understood that a little too plainly. “Just, y’know, if you do…” He shrugged, the universal signal for "it’s really not a big deal". “The door’s always open. Though, I guess that doesn’t matter so much for you, does it? Not that I meant it literally in the first place. Anyways, whatever the saying is supposed to mean still stands.” Sawyer shook his head, a bit confused by his own sentence formations. “Uh, yeah. Whatever. You can do whatever you want is the point I’m trying to make, I guess.”

Colfax paused, catching up with Sawyer's runaway rambling. He understood, and nodded once to show he got it. Then, after a slight pause, he gave the human an amused look. "Easy for you to say," he teased. He idly brushed off his knife to clean it before stowing it away once more. After drinking back the last of his water, he put away his cup, too. The things he'd heard about rice being very filling were true; he'd only had a few grains of it and he didn't need anymore. After leaning back to prop himself up on his hands, he added, "Good thing you're sitting down or you might have tripped over yourself just now."

Sawyer made a face at him. “Oh, shut up,” he retorted, and poked Colfax in retaliation. Sometimes sentences ran away from him a bit, but he always made sense in the end; or so he thought. “It is easy for me to say. I just said it, didn’t I?” With that, he finished his rice and stood up, putting the empty bag in the trash and tossing his fork in the sink. After making sure Colfax was done he picked up the little guy’s saucer, setting it down in the sink as well. He stared at the dirty dishes for a while (of which there were decidedly more than just those two) before deciding to do nothing about it. “Ready for the third movie?” he asked Colfax eagerly, grinning at the prospect.

Colfax sighed and rolled his eyes as he recovered from getting poked yet again. At least he was seated, so he didn't stumble. He watched patiently as Sawyer regarded his rather impressive stack of dirty dishes, wondering if the human was going to give in and clean them up. After all the terror and excitement, combined with having two full meals in a single day, Colfax felt fairly relaxed. So when Sawyer turned and suggested yet another movie, Colfax was jolted out of his idle thoughts a little.

"Just how many of these movies are there? Isn't he going to run out of ridiculous stunts?" he asked. Even so, he stood up, waiting for Sawyer to transition them into the living room once more. Despite his comments on the movies, they weren't so bad.

“Nope!” Sawyer said cheerfully, giving Colfax a winning smile. “Never.” With that he picked up Colfax and returned to the living room, setting the little guy down on the couch before going to get the movie started. “All stunts aside though, there aren’t all that many movies. Four, technically, but the first three are still the only ones that exist in my mind so that’s all we’re watching.” He gave Colfax a smile and returned to carefully sit down next to him on the couch. Sawyer had never sat so gently on furniture before- usually he would just flop into his seat, but if he did that with Colfax there he might send the little guy two feet up in the air by accident. Still grinning a little bit at that particular thought, Sawyer turned to Colfax and added, “This is one of the better movies, it might be my favorite. I think you’re going to like it.”

Colfax gave Sawyer an odd look, trying to work out what he meant about the fourth movie. But, the point was apparently moot, since Sawyer didn't have it anyway. After the human sat down, Colfax glanced at his feet, glad that the slight motion of the cushion hadn't knocked him down. "I'll take your word for it," he answered absently while he moved toward the back of the couch. He settled down so that he was sitting up against it with his legs stretched out in front of him. It was probably the most comfortable place he'd ever been.

He watched the movie as critically as he'd watched the other two. "I see reckless behavior runs in the family," he pointed out. But, admittedly, Sawyer was right. Colfax enjoyed this one more than the others. Colfax watched so intently that he actually relaxed some, despite the fact that a human loomed so near. All of the exertion from the day finally caught up to him, and despite his instincts wanting to stay alert, Colfax fell asleep sitting there against the back of the couch. His head tilted slightly to the side and the tension lingering in his body language fell away.

About three quarters of the way through the movie Sawyer realized that Colfax hadn’t made a single snarky comment recently. He glanced over at him, his expression of confusion melting to something softer as he saw that the little guy had fallen asleep. Sawyer stared at him and smiled, amazed that Colfax had actually let his guard down enough to do so. The little guy looked so peaceful there; Sawyer hadn’t realized just how tense Colfax had been the whole time until seeing him like this, all of his features softened as he remained oblivious to the world. Honestly, it was adorable.

Sawyer left him there for the rest of the movie, if only to give himself some time to think. If Colfax woke up then he could ask the little guy what he wanted to do, but he didn’t want to wake him up if he didn’t have to. That meant Colfax was staying the night, and Sawyer had to find some place to put him. Eventually the movie ended and, moving as quietly and carefully as he could, Sawyer stood up and turned everything off. In the silence that followed he padded around the house, turning off the light in the kitchen and disappearing into his bedroom for a bit. In there he took an extra pillow from his bed, more than large enough for Colfax to lie on, and set it on his nightstand. He felt like the floor would be too dangerous for the little guy, and the pillow was indented enough in the middle that Colfax wouldn’t have a chance of falling off. That done, he returned to the living room and scooped up Colfax as gently as he could, hoping he wouldn’t wake him up.

He shouldn’t have worried. The little guy was passed out, all but dead to the world. It was odd for Sawyer to hold him in his hands without Colfax being all tense and worried about it; he liked it. Walking back into the bedroom, Sawyer carefully deposited Colfax onto the pillow, before fetching a soft, clean shirt from his closet and laying it over him as a kind of blanket. With one last glance at the adorable sight of a tiny person sleeping under his shirt, Sawyer got ready for bed himself and slid under his own blankets. He fell asleep thinking about how absolutely incredible the day had turned out to be.