The GT July prompt today is "friendship" and Oh My Gosh how do I pick just one friendship to write about??? I ended up writing about Colfax and Adrian, my characters from the Trust Multiverse (co-created with @creatorofuniverses). This is set in the A Little More Trust AU, or really any AU where both of them are viri (tiny, for those of you who haven't read any of the Trust stories).
This one ended up being a little bit longer than most of my GT July shorts; not by too much, but just a heads up!
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Adrian traversed the walls without really thinking too hard about the route. He knew the way to different areas in the house by memory, down to how many steps he and the other viri had installed in various places to move from level to level among the support boards, pipes, and other bones of the house hidden behind paint and drywall. Much of it had been put in place by his family; mother, father, aunts, uncle. Adrian had added extra pulley systems farther away from their house near the pantry. Almost anywhere anyone wanted to go in the house, they could get there with ease and, in Adrian’s opinion, style.
The negative space within the walls of a human home provided a surprising amount of space to work with; viri could go far in there without once needing to venture into the actual house where they were at risk of being spotted by a human.
This house had enough such space that, less than half a year ago, a new family of viri had moved in and settled on the other side of the house. The Hammonds had needed to move from their previous home rather suddenly, and Adrian’s family, the Kennets, were happy to accept them in their midst. Two of the Hammond kids were even close to Adrian in age - sixteen to his fourteen - something he thought he’d never encounter growing up as the only kid around.
Adrian was on his way to visit them with a few things weighing down his bag, some gifts sent over by his mom. As he walked, he buzzed with nervous energy; the older two kids, a pair of twins, always carried themselves with a certain confidence and intensity. It was intimidating even just thinking about it. By contrast, their little sister was much cheerier and had happily taken to having even more people around her to give her attention.
At length, he reached where the Hammonds had chosen to build up their home. Most of the building was there, with a few spots that needed better sealing or more framing to be complete, but it was a working shelter that had distinct rooms and would become a home soon enough.
Adrian knocked on the door, a hinged metal lid, and it made a strange little clanging noise to announce his arrival. Someone inside told him to come in, and he peeked into the main room before entering.
“Adrian, it’s nice to see you.” The greeting came from Carla, the mother of the Hammond family. She sat at their table with little Brigid, only four years old, on her lap. Gwendolyn, one of the twins, sat opposite her, and she held up a hand in a casual wave. Sounds in one of the curtained-off side rooms suggested Mr. Hammond and Colfax, the other twin, were working on some building in there.
“Hi,” Adrian greeted, already opening his bag as he stepped over to the table. “Um. Sorry to interrupt anything. My mom wanted to send a few things over, and I thought I might come and, well, hang around, maybe help out if there’s something that needs to be put together.”
Brigid piped up before her mother or sister could get a word in. “That’s for me?” she asked, eyeing the bundles Adrian pulled from his bag.
With a grin, he set aside some of the wrapped parcels of sticky tack and insulation fluff for the house and offered a piece of folded cloth to the girl, who grabbed it eagerly. He glanced at the girl’s mom. “My mom made her a new jacket. I hope you don’t mind.”
As Brigid unfolded the jacket to observe the small, colorful patches sewn into the back, Carla smiled gratefully. “Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it dear? What do you tell Adrian for bringing that to you?”
Brigid beamed up at Adrian, clutching her new jacket close. “Thaaaaank you, Adriaaan,” she drawled, ending with a giggle. “It’s pretty!”
“That’s really nice,” Gwendolyn agreed. Then, she sent Adrian a small smile. “Did you really come out here to run the risk of being asked to help build something for us? You know dad will probably take you up on that offer.”
Adrian laughed lightly. “I don’t mind helping out. I kinda like building things, and I’ve never had a reason to help build a whole house before, so …” he tapered off into a shrug before he could ramble on too much.
Gwendolyn didn’t tease him like she sometimes teased her brother for whatever opportunity she could find. Instead, she looked through the building supplies Adrian had brought before putting the sticky tack (wrapped securely in wax paper) back in his hands. “If you insist, Adrian. I think they’ll want this in there; today we’re finally getting an actual ceiling on our room.”
“No more tent for us,” Brigid said, sounding like she was trying her best to have a grown-up conversation. Her pigtails and her seat on her mother’s lap offset the appearance a bit, but as a Hammond she could look about as serious as she pleased.
Adrian nodded. “That sounds great, I’ll go see if I can help.” With that, he went to the curtained off room to see what he could do.
The sight that greeted him gave him pause just past the doorway. It still surprised him, sometimes, seeing just how tall any of the Hammonds were. The women in the other room were both seated so the effect wasn’t as strong, but Colfax and his dad, Arthur, stood at the far corners of the room reaching up to place wide popsicle sticks atop the walls to act as a sturdier ceiling. Colfax was nearly six inches tall and his dad had cleared that height; to Adrian, who hadn’t cleared five inches tall yet (and whose family tended to stand on the short side), the Hammonds cut intimidating figures by stature alone, to say nothing of the intense set of their brows or their dark eyes.
Even so, he recovered as quickly as he could to cough politely. “Hey, Colfax, hey Arthur. I came by to see if you needed help with anything.”
They looked over their shoulders in unison, and Adrian waved cheerfully. Colfax didn’t say anything, but his dad grinned in greeting. “Hey, Adrian. We won’t say no to any help with this - what’cha got there?”
Adrian peeled back part of the wax paper to show off the light grey lump of sticky, rubbery clay. “Something to help keep those sticks in place better, I’d guess. Gwendolyn said you might want this. Brought it over with a few other things for the house. It’s starting to come together really nicely!”
“That’s perfect,” Arthur said, glancing at Colfax and nodding in Adrian’s direction. “Colfax, why don’t you help him divide some of that up into portions we need. I’ll get some more of these shingles in place.”
Colfax let go of the piece of the ceiling he was holding up, making sure his dad wouldn’t drop it, before beckoning Adrian over to take a seat on one of the beds in the room. He sat a respectful distance away on the bed and didn’t really meet Adrian’s gaze, but when Adrian settled to a seat Colfax finally said something in greeting. “Adrian. Hello.”
He always seemed so distant, and Adrian, used to friendlier personalities, felt like hitting a wall every time he started a conversation with the guy. Still, he didn’t want to let it stop him from making an effort; he could be friends with Colfax, same as with the other Hammonds. It might take a little bit of learning to get it right, but he’d do it, intimidation or not. “Hi, Colfax. Let me just -” he paused while trying to divide the lump of sticky tack into two. It was tougher than he’d thought. Once he had two pieces, he handed one off to Colfax. “How are you?”
Colfax hummed noncommittally as he set the tack on his lap and started pulling off smaller portions of it, rolling them into spheres ready to be put to use sealing up any holes in the new roof. “Tired. Didn’t sleep much.”
Adrian tilted his head, trying and mostly failing to catch Colfax’s eye. “That’s too bad,” he said, as gently as he could. They’d had similar conversations before in previous attempts at small talk. Colfax didn’t take well to someone feeling bad for him. “Wanna go on a walk later? After we get this stuff sorted out, maybe. Then you’ll probably be plenty tired and you’ll sleep like a rock.”
Colfax’s gaze flickered his way before returning to the task on his lap. “Where to?”
Adrian grinned. Coming from Colfax, that terse bit of curiosity might as well be a beaming endorsement of the idea. “Well, I know you guys have been sticking to the first floor for now, for the most part,” he mused. “We don’t go up there too often either, since the humans spend so much time in their rooms up there. But there’s some good spots to check out for stuff that gets dropped. And there’s a vent up there that I sometimes use to look at the backyard. You can see the park from there, and a bunch of neat stuff.”
Colfax was quiet for a time, and Adrian gave him the space to think about it. The two of them had a decent pile of sticky tack lumps between them before Colfax finally responded. “I’ll go. After this.”
Adrian smiled and nodded and did his best to school his expression and not look too excited over his progress towards friendship. “Sure. It’ll be fun.”
Featuring Colfax and Adrian a few months after the events of A Little More Trust! They've kept their skills sharp, for the most part, but, well, their luck is about as varied as it usually is.
For the original story with these versions of Colfax and Adrian, start with A Little More Trust Cpt. 1
For more stories with these characters in their various forms, check out A Reader's Guide to the Trust Multiverse , shared with the wonderful @creatorofuniverses
Colfax and Adrian are mine, and Charlie and Sawyer (mentioned) belong to my cowriter!
hello! happy new years - i was wondering, do viri usually celebrate new years or some such? if you’re up to it maybe a small drabble would be nice? no pressure. thanks and happy 2019!
Happy New Year!
New Years is probably a time of some stress for viri who live in a home that’s hosting its own New Year’s Party. There’s a lot of loud humans around, so they can’t go out on their normal supply runs looking for things they need. However, after the party is over ... there’s so many more pickings than a normal night. In that regard, I think it probably mostly balances out.
This ask, for whatever reason, inspired me (Neon) to write a little New Year thing featuring Viri!Adrian and Viri!Colfax, of the A Little More Trust AU.
Adrian traversed a path in the walls that he knew well. The dusty footprints back and forth marked what he knew from memory, years of living in the same walls and taking the same route nearly every day. It had become a comforting part of the routine ever since the Hammonds moved in, joining his mother and aunts living in the walls of the tidy human house.
Not much light reached within the dark, stale passages of the walls. Whatever cracks in wallpaper and drywall existed, they didn't rely on much.
The most Adrian could tell, slinking past one such sliver of light, was that it was late morning out in the house. The humans would be snoozing away after their raucous celebration the night before.
That celebration had kept every viri in the house subdued. New Year's was fun for humans, but for the viri who usually went about their business past the midnight hour, it was inconvenient. Especially this year, when their host humans had decided, for whatever reason, to host a party to celebrate the event. Adrian's ears were still ringing in the post-celebration silence afterward.
At least they could still venture out during the day. Some of the enormous owners of the house weren't off at work like normal, but they were assuredly asleep; Adrian's aunt had noted the man of the house snoring away without even leaving the walls.
Adrian was on his way to check on the other family that shared the secret life of the viri. The Hammonds, with their dark hair and eyes and tall statures, were a contrast to Adrian's family, all pale blond with powder blue eyes.
When they'd first moved in, he'd been intimidated by them, no matter that two members of the family were close to his age. He never would have imagined he would become easy friends with all of them.
He rounded a bend and the Hammond household came into dim view. They'd taken up their residence near one of the bathrooms in the house, to have easier access to water. Beyond the sturdy structure they'd put together out of wood scraps and found objects, a pipe loomed high in the wall, creaking slightly with the settling of the house.
Adrian knocked once, and then pushed aside the hinged lid of a metal tin that was their doorway. He'd been welcome in their home for a while, and they in his.
A tall woman with an intense bearing sat with a younger girl at a table made of stacked jar lids, on chairs converted from pincushions. Both of them smiled as Adrian entered, and he grinned back. Gwen and Brigid were like sisters of his own, and they didn't even begrudge his need to not be touched.
"Happy New Year, Adrian!" Brigid chirped.
"Did you celebrate?" Gwen asked, a smirk and a flicker of amusement in her dark eyes, as she glanced at Adrian's overstuffed shoulder bag.
"Mom and I checked the living room earlier," he explained as he opened the top flap of his bag. "The woman of the house apparently decided to leave cleaning for later."
On top of his supplies sat two large candies wrapped in shining foil, one gold and one green. Brigid's eyes widened almost comically large for such a small girl, and she leaned forward eagerly as Adrian hefted one candy and then the other out of his bag. "You got chocolates!" she exclaimed, awed by the sight.
"Mom and Dad went to the kitchen today," Gwen mused, unable to resist reaching out and brushing a hand over the bright foil wrapping; it crinkled faintly from her touch. "Something about a party tray left out."
"There's probably good findings all over," Adrian agreed. He untwisted one end of the candy wrapping as he spoke to reveal the chocolate within. The smell hit them all at once and they had to pause to appreciate the sweet aroma, a rarity in any viri household.
Gwen stood to retrieve one of the tools from their pantry, a shard of metal that could be used as a chisel. "You should probably see if Colfax is up," she remarked. Her smile was more subdued now. "He wasn't enjoying the noise earlier."
Adrian nodded. Gwen was usually the first to tease her twin and Adrian's best friend, but not usually about this. Colfax's fear of humans ran deep, beneath his cool facade. All the extra people in the household, and the loud noise they were making, would have been hell on even his nerves of steel.
"Some chocolate ought to help," Adrian determined. He let Brigid claim the first shard that Gwen carved off the huge chocolate, and then grabbed the next one.
He sidled past the girls with his offering in hand and went to a small doorway in the corner of the Hammond household. The bedroom for the three Hammond kids (now one kid and two young adults) was tidy on one side and messy on the other, and it was the latter that Adrian turned to.
Colfax was awake, to his surprise. He was sitting up on his bed with his arms resting on his knees. When Adrian entered, Colfax's gaze turned sharply to the motion in the door, and then relaxed. "Adrian," he greeted. His voice was as steady as ever, and Adrian grinned at him.
"Hey, Colfax," Adrian greeted, crossing the small room and taking a seat crosslegged on the other end of the bed. He held out the chocolate. "We hit the jackpot today."
Colfax's neutral mask became bemused, and he held out a hand to let Adrian place the chocolate onto it. "Just as cheerful in the morning as ever," he pointed out.
Adrian wasn't swayed. "Well, yeah! It's a new year and stuff. Who knows what it'll bring us?"
Colfax paused to stare at the piece of chocolate Adrian had brought him, then smirked. "Who knows," he echoed. "Happy New Year, Adrian."
Tried something a little different with this one. ;w; Poor Adrian doesn’t get a lot of attention, but he sure does deserve it! If only he could stand being hugged …
AU: A Little More Trust, set after the ending
The dream always goes the same way, when it comes. Tonight is no different.
Adrian ventures out of his cozy home in the walls, one he made himself. He wants to find more pictures to stick to the walls, images of landscapes and buildings and faraway places he’d never see if not for the invention of the camera. He wants to see it all, but he’s content with seeing it from a magazine.
He always makes it to his exit from the walls faster than he would in real life. That’s the perk of dreams. They get the mind right to the point of the matter.
For Adrian, the point is always waiting just beyond that exit.
Before he can realize that it’s the same nightmare and turn to run, a huge hand is sweeping towards him. With quick, terrifying motions, fingers stronger than his entire small body coil around him. In a jerking moment, the hand snatches him off the counter and lifts him up towards a giant, glaring face.
The sensation isn’t real, but Adrian’s panicking mind can’t make the distinction. He goes rigid and trembles, trembles like a leaf, all on its own on a long spindly branch. It almost hurts, he’s shaking so badly. The contact surrounds him, so much of him, and he can’t escape it. Can’t even make himself try.
The human’s face is blurred, out of focus. His imagination didn’t bother to make one up. It is focused on the remembered feeling of a hand surrounding him. The helplessness.
With a sudden spasm that twitches through his entire body, Adrian rolls over in his sleep and slips off of his bed. It’s little more than a neatly folded cloth, courtesy of Charlie’s careful arranging, but it’s just high enough that Adrian is jolted from sleep when he lands.
He sighs and lays there, wrapped tightly in his own blanket, and wills his heart to stop pounding.
It’s been a long time since he was taken away, but he can get better. Every time he wakes up and sees that he’s safe, a little more of it chips away. Even now, he sighs, knowing that he’s made progress if his dreams don’t bother to give his would-be captor a face anymore.
