Ford was careful not to watch Cash while he ate. It was the sort of thing that would make anyone self-conscious even at the best of times, and he didn't want Cash to feel overly observed. At the same time, it was hard to truly shift his attention away when his mind was still preoccupied with it. He spent the silence retracing the conversation so far tonight, turning over the things Cash had newly shared and fitting them into the tapestry of how he understood his friend. It was difficult not to steal glances, to see how his new mental image stacked up against the reality of Cash sitting in the bed next to him. Broken.

He exhaled when Cash broke the silence. His shoulders moved in a soft shrug, the sort of small gesture that could have been lost if there was anything else to focus on except each other. "Me, either," he said. He still hadn't looked at Cash, but now it was less a conscious decision and more the inertial of the habit he'd built up during the soup-consuming silence. Ford took a breath; wiggled his toes against the sheets and rubbed the edge of his thumb over the hard crust of the roll in his hand, which he'd made no pretense of eating. "But I'll stick around until we figure it out."

A statement with an unspoken reciprocity; a promise he made, and a reciprocal promise he extracted from Cash without awaiting his deliberation. I'll stick around if you do. Or: You decided to tell me; now you have to let me help.

"Are you sleeping?"

---