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Whether you trust someone is not a straight forward question. There are more variables than Chuck used to know he had to think about. It was actually kind of funny. There had been a time when he trusted easily. Lots of people probably thought that was weird, given his particular childhood, but he'd always been a trusting kid. He'd trusted his big sister to be his whole world, to take care of him, to make everything okay. He'd trusted Morgan with a purity reserved for childhood best friends.
When he'd gone to college, Chuck still hadn't lost that ability for easy trust. He'd trusted Bryce, instinctively, from the moment they met. He knew that Bryce was a friend, someone who wouldn't hurt him, someone who would stand by him. He'd trusted Bryce enough to try things that he'd only thought about in the darkest hours of the night in high school. Later he had trusted Jill almost as fiercely. She would maybe not understand him as well as Bryce, or even Morgan, but he could trust her with his heart.
All of that changed, and pretty abruptly. With one action, Chuck learned that trust wasn't easy or simple.
He'd gone home. He'd still trusted Ellie, trusted her to love him, to be there for him. He did not trust her to tell him the truth about his life. He didn't trust her not to sugar coat. He trusted her new boyfriend too. Trusted him to be around when he was needed and not be too perceptive. He thought he could trust Awesome not to hurt Ellie, but he couldn't quite be certain of that.
He'd trusted Morgan not to push too hard. He'd trusted him to believe in the evilness of Bryce Larkin without explanation. He did not trust Morgan with the secrets of his time with Bryce. He didn't trust Morgan to understand that, to forgive it.
He'd held everybody else at arms length, letting nobody get the least little bit close to him. Then a massive computer program was downloaded into his head, and he was supposed to trust two new people in his life. The weird thing was, that despite the fact that they had pretty much been trying to kill him in the beginning, Chuck did trust them, more than he trusted most people anyway.
He trusted Sarah to keep him safe. He trusted her with his life. He trusted her to do what was necessary and never flinch. He even trusted her to force the same out of him. He did not trust her to be honest with him. He did not trust her to be honest with herself. Chuck thought that Sarah probably knew about his real relationship with Bryce, but neither of them trusted the other enough to broach the topic.
Casey was the puzzle. He trusted Casey with his life, but more than that he trusted Casey with his death. He couldn't be sure that if it were really necessary, Sarah would be able to pull the trigger. Chuck might not actually be a super-computer, but he was a genius. It wasn't an accident that he'd ended up almost being recruited for the same program that Bryce had been. He knew that life was the easy thing. Someday, it might come down to his life or Ellie & Awesome's. Some day it might come down to his life, or San Francisco's or the West Coast's. On his bleaker days he thought it might come down to his life or the world's. Casey would do it. He would pull the trigger. Chuck trusted Casey with his death.
He trusted Casey with his secrets. No matter how close they'd gotten there were parts of himself that Chuck held back from Sarah. Not just Bryce, but other things too. He never held back anything with Casey, and while Casey complained and grumbled about it, he never told Chuck to stop, and he never betrayed that trust.
What Chuck didn't know was whether he could trust Casey with his heart. Could he trust Casey not to break him. Could he trust Casey not to walk away. He'd like to think so, but the last person he'd extended that kind of trust to had slept with his girlfriend, gotten him thrown out of Stanford for academic dishonesty, and then had sent him the world's worst surprise e-mail. Casey and Bryce were nothing alike, but did that mean that he was more trustworthy.
Chuck wasn't certain, so he did what he always did when he had a problem he didn't understand. He studied. He wasn't a mathematician, but most days the skills he'd needed for programming were close enough to get the theories. So when he heard about a theory that one of the foremost mathematicians in the world had developed on trust and friendship, he sought it out. He studied it to within an inch of it's life.
In the end, it boiled down to one thing, past predicts future. There's no magic formula to tell us who is trusthworthy and who isn't. We already know the important stuff, the math just washes away some of the mess.
Casey was awake. Chuck knew he would be, despite the fact that it was after 3:00 AM. After all, he trusted him to keep an eye on him, and Chuck had been moving around, making enough noise to keep his surveillance active. So Chuck was not surprised when Casey opened the door before he even raised his fist to knock.
"I hope this is important, Chuck."
Chuck looked at him for a minute. Casey's expression was gruff, but there was concern and something that Chuck thought was probably affection underneath the irritation. Chuck smiled and leaned in closer. "It is." He slipped a hand around the back of Casey's head and tugged him down, trusting Casey to follow his lead. The kiss is gentle, and he'd trusted in that too. When he pulls away, Casey is looking at him with wide dark eyes, searching for something. "I trust you."
What the theory actually taught Chuck was that sometimes, you had to trust yourself before you could trust other people.