that's his argument, always. they're all gonna die anyways, so what's the point? what's the point in walking the easy road, observing from afar? he doesn't want to see life. he wants to splash in it. he wants to drown in it. by the time he's gasping for air, he wants to be so sick of it that it's finally time. sometimes, when he's at his peak, he feels close to that precipice.

arms itch. his kit's at home, but the bag's another sort of ride. and the boy next to him is his friend now, so he pulls it out with a wink and licks his finger.

he dips it back in the bag and puts the snow to his gums. they tingle and he exhales, eyes narrowing. he scrunches his nose--phantom pain--and shakes his head as the ice starts to crawl back around him. the grass presses against his arms and the stars shine just a bit brighter. he holds the ziploc out to this boy, and his voice is sing-song as he says, "easy. i live every day like it's my last."

samuel carter

☉

the rummaging into the bag doesn't affect sam. neither does the use of what's inside. he cares not, because to each their own. he remains around the dead and works himself to a state of unconsciousness, are their addictions really so different? neither are particularly healthy.

sam doesn't cast judgement either way. so long as it doesn't cause problems specifically for sam he typically doesn't ever pitch a fit.

"i live every day with the mindset that i don't want to regret the day, looking back... i've been as successful as i have been unsuccessful."

the trick to it? not really caring about anybody but himself. but this one... this one might change his mind. his eyes drift back to the starry sky above, hand stroking the small imp's body on his stomach. something between a chitter and a purr rattles the ghost and dark type's ribs.

knox prescott

he doesn't say anything, but he doesn't take up on knox's offer. that's fine, really. he just takes another smidgeon for himself, this time pulling it by his nose, and then pockets it again. energy thrums through him, but he can't stop staring at the stars; they wink in and out as the fog rolls over the two boys.

"so much pressure with that mindset," knox says. he sighs. "i'd be okay if it happened--right now."

at least he wouldn't be lonely.

he looks to the side and nearly sneezes as a dandelion tickles his nose. the sableye is a pokemon flung out of someone's nightmare, and although the ghost is still a tad unsettling, there's something comical about its catlike perch on its trainer. knox chuckles. "never been around many ghost tamers. my sis hates 'em." understandable, given her type specialty.

samuel carter

☉

"they've come to be the norm for me. anything else doesn't fit well... i bury the dead, it seemed fitting i tame the spirits left behind too."

though that was more myth and lore surrounding the ghost types as a whole. would a sandygast really suck a soul from a child? perhaps, but it wasn't what formed the pokémon. that's what eggs were for. most myths had been created to scare children into obedience.

but the idea that sam's way of life has a great deal of pressure to it makes him wonder... does it? it's just been how he lived. was it too much pressure? his mother always told him to take the weight of the world off his shoulders, that he was his own biggest critic. and perhaps that's the problem. his standards have always been too high and nobody's ever met them.

which was why he put little faith in anybody but himself. even his pokémon had low standards because he never expected anybody to. meet his own.

"being okay with death isn't a fault." he just felt he needed to share that. "i feel... most people aren't, like they're expecting life to deem them worthy of getting better. when, usually, it takes getting to a low to realize life was better when they thought it should exceed more."

knox prescott

he wouldn't be left behind if he were to die tonight. he wouldn't become that thing on sam's chest. that's how ghost stories work, right? you only stay if you missed something, if you still have something to accomplish. the best person to ask that is right there, but he doesn't. because he doesn't need to. because it wouldn't happen anyway.

he bites his lip.

"you speak from tragedy." the words come unbidden from his lips, but he doesn't try to take them back. the bubbly, over-the-top demeanor dies, for a brief moment, and there is a sadness that wells up inside of him. there is the realization, staring him in the face, its haunted, ugly guise rearing to strike. his lips curl and he runs a hand through his hair. shake it out. put the shell back on.

"or you could just keep going up, up, up, 'til that last moment, when you gotta come down." he chuckles.

samuel carter

☉

"i would rather make my way up slowly, strategically, with a means that would keep me up, so that i won't come crashing back down."

it was simply that he lived less in the present and more in the future. a future he didn't know and couldn't predict. because of this, he overestimated and worked his ass off covering every base he could find.

"it makes me a 'lonely' individual, at times. not may share that view. even fewer are those who want to help me in my tedius and precise climb."

even this new friend... whose name has escaped him. no, he never asked, or introduced.

"i'm sam carter, by the way. the caretaker of mt. pyre."

knox prescott

knox blows air between his lips in a pshhh sound. it's like they're on different sides of a pond. their reflections are nigh identical, but just a little bit bent. but the knox charm is to drag someone into his party, to give them a new set of eyes, if only for a few hours. he's escape and he's nirvana and the coke is making him feel like he wants to dive.

so why shouldn't he? he rolls to his side and he looks at the man, and he watches the way he watches the stars above him, and the whirlwind inside of him is calmed. for a brief respite, it's calmed.

he tucks the name away. for another time. because somewhere out there, off this mountain, they will meet each other again, and he will cut away the chains this man - sam - has wrapped around himself.

he's good at that, at making people feel free.

"knox fletcher," he says. he's usually quite forthcoming with his name, despite the family's infamy (another stick it to the man shtick, he supposes), but he doesn't want to sully that trust. he'll need that trust, to give sam what he needs in return.

"sounds like you're waiting to slip and fall. i learned that about life real quick - it'll shit all over you if it gets the chance. no preparin' for that."

samuel carter

☉

"that was the most politically correct way anybody has ever called me boring in my life."

sam's words bubble out in a laugh. knox fletcher has him pegged, it seemed. and he's not far off. sam knows it. he needs to, what do they say? live a little?

"i have fun in my own ways. even battling is a step outside of my usual comfort zone... but i have to admit, this is nice."

slowly, his eyes focus on knox' own. the way his pupils are reacting to the narcotic aren't lost on sam. he sort of enjoys watching it thought. the chemical reactions.

"i don't feel like a robot when i'm around you, knox. that's quite a feat."

knox prescott

he laughs. "look, i just call 'em like i see 'em." but he wouldn't go so far as to say the boy beside him is boring. just...frightful. tentative. those aren't inherently bad things. they are, however, things that knox tends to rip away from someone, given enough time. he may be icarus, but he won't fly to the sun alone.

very rarely does he find himself in a spot where he's in a one-on-one battle. his pokemon are utility, tools (though he would never refer to them as such), and scurry about him while he cooks up elaborate shams, distractions so he can sneak into his targets' pockets.

he blinks, albeit slowly. is he the only one who sees the electricity popping between their eyes? a living, breathing thing. "i aim to please," he says with a wink.

samuel carter

☉

aims to please? that seemed unlikely; if of course aiming to please meant aiming to please the masses.

"you aim to please yourself, you mean?"

sam's jest is clear in his tone, which is playful. something about knox made him uncharacteristically calm and relaxed. enough to just be himself. he didn't have to mirror knox to get knox to stick around or feel comfortable.

so either he doesn't care if knox sticks around, or knox was the type of person sam could just be around. being himself was a feat. as he considers himself an odd one, used to masking it with social formalities and politeness.

perhaps with this one, he can jest.

knox prescott

he snorts. "making assumptions already? boy, you better take me out to dinner first." his tone is a joking one. that electricity still sizzles and pops and his addled brain says, are you falling in love?

he breaks his own heart that way - it's been shattered my strangers' smiles, minute kisses, one time flings, a few scant moments of connection. he falls in love with everyone he meets. it's chemical/transcendal. one should consider it a miracle that he hasn't tried to close the distance between them yet.

it's the stars humming above him, because he loves them too, loves them more, right now. they shine so much more brilliantly than this wisp of a boy beside him - all smoke and mirrors. he doesn't know him well enough to appreciate the way sam is solidifying, at peace in his flesh.

"i used to know the constellations," he says wistfully and then, hopefully, "do you know any?"

samuel carter

☉

take him... to dinner first?

yes it is only then that the bonehead of a sexton realizes that he's been flirted with. a lot. over the course of all the time they've been talking.

knox was flirting with him.

what did he do with that information? he didn't refute it.

there is something in the way that knox flirts that sam finds flattering. is it the boy's gaze? is it the fact that sam can excuse it as shallow because it's flirtation given during a high?

those trains of thought are derailed and obliterated by a question about the stars. sam focuses his eyes forward then, away from the head of white hair and striking blue eyes across from him. he takes in the stars and considers the question.

"i know all of them."

whether knox knows this or not, he's dabbled in astrology a bit. he likes the stars, they make him feel grounded.

"they're the only constant and trustworthy thing in the world besides death. so i made a point to commit them to memory."

knox prescott

the only constant. but there have been times when he's looked up to the stars for guidance, for some sort of poetic epiphany, and all he'd seen were dark clouds of gray. a child with some grasp of object permanence could tell him they're still there, even when he can't see them, but for knox, seeing is believing. he is action - unstoppable force, kinetic. 

and the brilliant lights, that wavering white, on the edge of his vision is fading again, but he's thoroughly distracted, still drinking in the idea of lazing next to this boy while he rattles off the stars.

"we're closer to them, up here. i wonder if the others realize that." he speaks of the mourners, the lost, the people come searching for answers atop this sad, lonely mountain. have they ever looked up?

samuel carter

☉