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Part Sixteen

   When Sam woke up, light had yet to infiltrate the living room, and three quiet breezes rocked through the air from three different locations. The first that Sam noticed, and the most obvious, was from directly below him, pushing up and down as he swayed with a gentle rhythm and a comfortable warmth pulsing into his veins. The next being slightly to the right, soft and familiar, and Sam knew from the start that it was Leo. The last set of lungs came from his left, but they were different from the rest.

   It wasn't hard to make out Skip's heavy breaths, being they overwhelmed the other two with a strength Sam found himself frightened of. Though, as he listened closer, he noticed it to be a bit off in terms of pattern. This breathing was much more rugged than the rest, and contained intervals of irregular stops. It only occurred to Sam after a moment of listening that there might be a reason for this, and he found out the moment he opened his eyes.

   Skip had been watching Sam from the moment they all lay back and relaxed into a peaceful slumber. There was something so strange about seeing a good friend standing at barely three inches tall, snoozing away on the chest of another friend you met only a year or two before. It went without saying that the whole situation was strange, but now that everything had calmed down to a more approachable degree, Skip's rational thinking took him to figure out the most logical way of seeing things.

   His brain told him to focus on the violent tendencies, because knowing that Sam's parents were killed by a clueless little murderer didn't sit right with him.

   They told him to stop when he brought it up, but Skip refused to put a halt to his thoughts, especially when he was now given a name to go along with the murderer. Two people dead, and the kid wasn't even given a slap on the wrist as a result. Instead, the only consequence was brought in the form of trauma manifested in Sam, and Skip wanted nothing more than to see 'Jamie' behind bars for what he did. Nobody deserves to be punished for seeing their parents die in front of them, especially not someone as incredible as Sam.

   So even as Skip turned off the television and blocked out all background noise to help the others sleep, his eyes remained glued on the little 'evolved borrower' in front of him. He heard the stories, sure, but those were fictional. Small people didn't exist, and yet one was sprawled out on the chest of his best friend with undeniable proof in his being.

   But when Sam's tiny body stretched out, tail spreading to maximum length and a minuscule yawn escaping his lips, Skip figured the hard staring had bore into his back too hard and he was at fault for waking his small friend up. He felt especially guilty when Sam pried open his red eyes and bit back a screech at the sight of someone so big making eye contact when he should've been sleeping.

   When Sam first took notice of Skip's enormous face turned in his direction, he felt the same fear from before, and then some. But rather than continue to shake with paranoia of what would happen if he fell victim to his instincts, Sam made the bold decision to be the bigger man, and keep eye contact with the giant just as fiercely.

   As it turned out, Skip gave him a little smile as a reward. He must've known how scary it was to be woken like that, and took pity on the tiny borrower beneath him.

   Sam smiled back, pulling his muscles into a downward dog pose before finally coming to a stand and walking on shaky legs towards Skip, who wanted so badly to call him out for acting like a cat recently woken from a nap in the sun.

   Skip placed a gentle hand down to rest atop Elijah's stomach, forgetting he was there for a moment, and waited for Sam to crawl on as an invitation to speak to him. Considering Skip was stuck in place with Elijah's legs still sprawled out on his lap, the only area they could have a conversation was near Skip's face, and they would have to whisper.