the reminder of why he's so tired as sam feeling a bit more weighted. namely, his eyelids. but knox approaches and leans on the counter and sam leans back a bit to keep eye level with knox.

then, he smiles. defeated, and with his eyes, he agrees to knox' demands. because in his own way, knox had asked nicely.

"you're getting the counter messy."

knox prescott

sam watched as knox cleaned. he was thankful. he showed as much with a fond smile, but eventually his eyes landed to his phone. he had it out and was rescheduling everything for the day. he sent the news article of what had happened that was already published by people who really don't ever sleep and then knox was finished and looking at him with scolding eyes.

"alright," his hands raised in surrender. "yes, i will sleep."

scooting off of the chair, he stood, every inch of him was sore. he winced, rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to try and stretch. it hurt, his body hurt, it was beginning to dry oddly.

"i'm going to soak in the bath first... so my skin doesn't dry out." then he'd likely apply some burn relief from the first aid kits he had. "and i'll have to go to the store and get some burn relief. then i'll sleep."

sounded reasonable to his dense self.

knox prescott

sam watches as knox seems to pitch some kind of fit about having to go out and do something because sam can't do it himself.

no, perhaps the fit is more that sam was going to go do it and didn't ask knox to do it for him. it felt... wrong asking somebody to run errands for him. he was the one always running errands for others!

the world was upside down and sam was realizing it wasn't just because he thought the boy across from him was pretty. it was because he'd had a hell of a time with groudon and he hadn't properly categorized the event in his thick skull.

reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a bit of money and handed it to knox. he had no idea the implication of what he was doing. he didn't know knox well enough.

"there is a premier ball in my office, top drawer of the desk. it holds my secondary gardevoir. she can teleport you to the store, and back when you're finished."

knox prescott

the hands on his shoulder had been a comfort. even more the flirtatious parting words of knox. once he was out of sight, sam's smile falls.

he is alone in the silence of the mountain. that used to feel like home. but suddenly he notices, it's empty; void.

where is the laughter? where is the smile? why does he miss them?

with great effort he heads to the bathroom. he gets his absol to help him. she helps him to get the water started and to be used as support as he lowers himself in. his houndooms are back from their morning control, entering through the doors that nyx can open by herself and hades has yet to understand.

cerberus, the mightyena, stumbles on her own two feet but manages to get inside as well.

they all find sam and are immediately worried. he's relaxing in the tub, allowing his skin to soak in the remedies of his body. cerberus grows bored and goes back out to the mountain, hades follows her and nips at her heels. but hecate his absol and nyx remain. absol lays with her head resting on sam's hand, the houndoom perks up at the sound of somebody else.

a low growl, but sam snaps his fingers, then winces. it hurt, his hands are sore. or soft? how long had he dozed off in the tub?

he grunts, getting out and letting the water drain. he takes a quick shower to rinse off.

it is nyx who prances out first to get an eye on the boy who entered. knox is not familiar to her, but he smells of sam, and of the gardevoir, which means he's to be trust-- well, to an extent. she sits at the bathroom door, which is open, with the shower steaming through the open door.

"i'll be out in a second. i lost track of time."

his absol, hecate, stays within the bathroom. she holds a towel in her mouth for sam, who thanks her and takes it, quickly drying most of himself off and wrapping it around his waist. his legs aren't burnt, mostly just his neck and arms. his face had managed to keep shaded by his infernape.

he makes his way out, a bit red, a bit raw, and tender. a pet to nyx' head calms her and he smiles when he sees knox. he doesn't realize the weight of his smile, the relief in his shoulders.

"this is nyx," he gives the houndoom a pet. "and hecate."

the absol coos at her introduction before moving toward sam's bedroom, opening the door with the small pull he'd installed for her. she's insistent he rest.

knox prescott

hecate gives the fist extended a rub, with her whole body. which is more of a feline move than a canine move, but she gives it none the less. then she's tapping her talons on the floor before pouncing up on the bed and laying on her portion, which has its own specific blanket.

nyx, however, regards him for a moment before her tail starts to thump on the floor.

"no licking." sam had taken the bag and looked through the contents.

nyx does not lick. instead, she moves forward with excitement and whines, flipping onto her stomach and begging for pets.

hecate straight eye rolls, cause this bitch.

"last thing we need is for you to need burn relief for the rest of your life." sam mentions to knox. "thank you, for getting these."

knox prescott

sam takes the lotion from the bag and sets it out, rotating it so the label and the tabel he's set it on are aligned properly. then the burn relief, he makes sure it sits perfectly as well.

then he looks to knox and begins folding the bag like a psychopath. he sets it down, also properly lined.

"you've done more than enough." nyx stands and shakes her coat, brushing past the two to catch up with cerberus and hades. "i'm not sure how to thank you..."

tipping him felt strange, so he decided against offering that.

"you can stay for as long as you like, on the mountain. i'm going to have hecate lock the place up for me after i get all of this applied."

he motions toward the lotion and burn relief.

knox prescott

he feels guilty that knox whats to help him again. he feels guilty but also... relieved. more relieved than guilty. it's selfish, he knows, but he agrees.

"i'd like that."

what the fuck just came out of his mouth?! to show he's not panicking at his own words, he turns his open back toward knox. the tattoos have lest blistering, being scar tissue more than the rest of his flesh, but it's still evident. the burns are just severe sunburns, only the tops of his arms and the very top of the back of his neck, just below his hairline, are blistering.

"i am definitely going to make it to the party for you after today."

he isn't stupid, he knows there's something between them. something unspoken, something that's causing the hair on his arms to stand straight up when he thinks about knox rubbing burn relief on his burns.

perhaps he's focusing on that instead of how it will hurt to have the burns touched. perhaps that's too rationalized and really he just likes knox and he's not sure what to do about it.

his eyes are open, staring at the bed, looking at his red hands gripping the towel on his lap.

knox prescott