well, it confuses him too. but that's not exactly easy to put into words. because summer sucks. summer fuuuucking sucks. but she's also the one who threw him in the hospital when shit got bad. she's the one who clocks him topside the head and tells him to cut his stupid bullshit. 

and she leaves him well enough alone, and calls him useless, when really he knows it's because she knows it kills him to get his hands dirty. 

"no," he says honestly. 

he'd had problems with it before. y'know, the whole killing part, but most of those people were the worst of the worst. evil at its finest. there was no redemption there. and then, it got easier. 

got easier looking at sam and thinking you've killed five people now, six, seven, eight...and now he doesn't know the number. he stopped keeping track somewhere in the double digits. 

he reaches over, pocketing his phone, and lifts sam's hand to kiss his knuckles. 

"why? do you?"

samuel carter

☉

knox thinks about that as he grinds his hips. as the lights wash over him. how far he's come, how far back he's fallen. still reaching out, brushing fingers against jayden's shirt, reminding himself in a hundred and one different thoughts that this is the future/present. he is inhaling his past and sticking it on his gums, but he is a changed man. 

owned. loved. finally.

this is what he's always wanted. 

knox whirls. "i didn't wanna fuck anyone else?" for the first time ever. but his jesting smile melts, tongue running over teeth, thinking about sam's eyes and his body and underneath those delicious tattoos, the muscle and sinew. the bones. all the chemicals that make sam who he is. 

and in there, somewhere, knox knows there's a galaxy.

"he's home. i just didn't know i was at sea so long to miss it. we were covered in glitter, soaking wet, kissing, and i tasted it in him. soulfire, bright, on mine." his eyes are hazy. are his words making sense? does this make sense?

"have you tasted their soul?"

jayden cross

☉

she really won't implode, he swears. knox can get behind this, especially when the adorable little thing falls over into the sand. he too likes being dramatic for attention. the haunting threat, though, does make knox curious. how far do her buttons need to be pushed before the Beast is Unleashed? 

nio seems to want to find out because when she flops, he mimics her. and nearly squishes her with his flabby body in the process. his mouth slowly crawls open with delight as he rolls over to look at the psyduck, and then at knox. 

"get up, you oaf," knox says as he tosses his sunglasses to the ground and squints. his light eyes aren't made to be in the sun like this. the psyduck is in his arms now. he hefts her to his hip like a baby and watches lam consider the proposal. 

then he whoops and takes off running. nio takes a full three seconds to comprehend, digest, and then act. he follows on all fours, blubber rippling every time paws meet sand. knox hauls ass and when they get close enough to the water, he throws the psyduck into the surf. 

and dives immediately after. 

lam logan

☉

"i'm honored," knox says affectionately, but he still looks quite terrified. he's not entirely convinced that the psyduck won't spontaneously combust at a moment's notice. wouldn't be the worst way to go, he supposes. all at once, not feeling anything at all. not sick to your stomach after swallowing half a pint of paint. 

"he's a big dumb doofus, but he's my big dumb doofus. helluva swimmer, though." knox hoists the psyduck - arceus almighty, the thing ain't exactly light - up into his arms and grins wildly at lam's question. 

"uh yeah, what's special is it's a coolass rock and you gotta swim to get to it. leggoooooo."

lam logan

☉

there is a dancefloor now where there wasn't before. or maybe he's just misremembering. were the lights always blue? he thought they were green. but anyway, they're purple now and his eyes are glittering. still on the up and up and up and things aren't so bad anymore. 

not with jayden's hands near him and the familiarity it brings. 

"y'ever think in another universe, we were meant for each other?" and then, suddenly, "no, no, 'cause in all universeseses i'm meant for sam, but maybe if sam's not there, it's you, y'know?"

jayden cross

☉

oh, well there goes all his knowledge of psyduck out the window. to be fair, knox isn't well-versed in most pokemon, even his own. he's good at reading captain and cry. that's pretty much it. (but cry's easy. he just whines all the time.)

"who's a useless little baby?" knox coos to the psyduck, thinking very much of himself as he says it. 

nio blinks down at the cat. that blubby paw stays where it is in the air even after she ducks out from under it. by the time she's wiggled her rump and pounced on his tail, he's only just lifting the paw to see she's not there. he turns, slowly, lifting an arm to see her over his bulk. 

a trickle of muddy water dribbles out of his mouth and he claps exuberantly. 

"she's just like nio," knox says and raps on the quagsire's head, "absolutely nothing going on up there. the morpeko running around in that wheel died a loooooooooong time ago."

knox points out into the water. "y'ever swam out there to that rock?"

lam logan
bond bridge

☉

knox pushes the sunglasses back up to the bridge of his nose. nio struggles to his feet with a huff and waddles slowly over to the sprigatito, small beady eyes fixated intently. knox pays him no mind and chuckles instead at the psyduck in the man's arms. 

"psyduck always seemed so stressful to train. won't they, like, explode if they get too anxious? i mean, same, but that sounds horrifying."

nio, unblinking, reaches with one blobby paw to gently place it on the cat's head. 

lam logan
bond bridge

☉

it's so hot and knox is dying. okay, so he's not quite dying, but he's melting. soon, he'll be nothing but a puddle of a pale boy with cotton candy hair and he'll sink into the sand and it will get all gross and clumpy and then the sea will take him away and that will be that, except by then he won't be sweating his balls off. 

mostly he's in a bad mood because sam is busy. sam isn't as busy as he was a few months ago, but he's still busy and it means knox has to find something to do with himself. 

turns out when your only hobbies were peacocking for other men for most of your life, you don't really know what to do with yourself when your monogamous partner is off making the bacon. 

his water-types love the beach. knox loves the beach. so he's here on the beach, sitting with his ass in the sand, letting the foamy waves peter out and swirl around him. nio sits beside him, blinking on and off in that way he does - one eye after the other. 

blissfully unaware of the heat. 

he'd rent jet skiis or do something fun or something, but summer's throwing a bitch fit and went and cancelled all his cards again. 

:cryge:

nio's big tail slaps on the wet sand and he shifts back and forth, looking excitedly down the stretch of beach. knox noses his sunglasses down and gets a look at the man striding by. 

"cute cat."

lam logan
bond bridge

☉

they're out of the hallway and the lights aren't bright enough here, not with the floor as slippery as it is, but he's a pro when it comes to navigating this territory. his nose is still half-frozen, all clogged up, and he's swiping at it while he keeps an iron grip on jayden. 

he's got him hook, line, and sinker, he knows, but knox is sentimental. and lonely. and he likes touching and being touched. 

he misses sam.

"i'unno. there's some room out back. fuck, we dance in the street for all i care, jay."

jayden cross

☉

"i don't think they carry that stuff at the grocery store," knox says with a chuckle, but then his eyes light up devilishly as he whips out his phone and pulls up his notes. he titles it sexy shopping list and starts putting nonsense like:

• whipped cream
• caramel drizzle
• canned cranberry sauce
• La cantaloupe
• hand lotion (he's low and his skin gets dry without it)
• unicorn balloon

he follows sam with his nose still in his phone. a twig is sticking out of his hair, but he hasn't realized it yet. 

"summer's been a cunt since you left by the way. i'm sure she'll be so glad you're back because i'm, quote, 'useless.'"

samuel carter

☉

"i know," knox says. seven whole days together. and it's different this time around. there's no outside pressure forcing them to stick together. no tyrannical father hell-bent on destroying him. no sudden sicknesses to whisk sam away from him. nothing there to keep them together, save the strings tied around their souls. 

he'd worried about it, these last couple of weeks. of course he did. sam built this house for him, has done everything for him to make sure knox doesn't run away again, and knox had spent sleepless nights telling himself it was enough. 

not trusting himself not to run. 

so it's such a relief to feel sam in his arms and to think i wouldn't want to be anywhere else. 

"staycation sounds ridiculously good to me. i can't wait to do unspeakable things to you for seven days straight. but first, the store. there's nothing to eat in the house."

because he's helpless without sam and has done nothing but order takeout nonstop without him.

samuel carter

☉

even though he's a little sweaty, knox doesn't mind. knox is terrible about doing the laundry, but he'll do it this time. sam's no doubt exhausted after traveling and, well, it's the least he can do. though sam will probably end up folding all of it. knox's folding technique leaves much to be desired, apparently. 

"i kept working myself up and thinking if that bubble came back up while you were gone, i would literally die."

he blinks over at him and snorts. "what? sam, you have my whole week. and i have you. summer can suck my ass 'cause she's not getting you either. you're mine for at least seven days."

samuel carter

☉