suddenly the texted had stopped. he'd found his way out of the low sensory room with relative ease. the noise of the party wasn't awful, not with the prospect of finding the boy he'd come to the party for.

gauging how much time knox would need 'by himself' was a bit more complicated that sam thought it would be. he thought knox would be on his way relatively soon, so why hadn't he been?

now he was off searching for him. off looking. if people noticed him he'd say hello, but eventually he found the head of white hair and the bright costume...but what he saw confused him. he'd have to get closer to inspect.

"knox?" sam spoke above the sea of voices, trying to move knox' shoulders a bit to get his attention once there wasn't a response. "knox?? hey...you okay?"

the physical signs were all there...and sam felt a twinge of something he was going to ignore.

super healthy, but there would be no point in feeling it while he was trying to see knox. or perhaps he just didn't want to ruin the time he might not have a lot of with knox by complicating it with emotions.

knox prescott

it's chaos and color and it's exactly what he wanted. he is nothing in this expanse, just another blip on the map. not even that. he is the in-between space, the void that stretches for eons - no signs of life detected. but then he's rocked and it's hand on hips, someone's breath on his ear. he wants to turn and whisper and the words are halfway out of his mouth when someone grabs his shoulders.

the love-drug-struck person once in his arms is pulled away by the turn of the dance, and knox is left adrift. 

so he reaches out for his buoy and he holds onto sam's outstretched arm, swaying, eyes glassy. "sam. you found me!" 

he blinks and the song shifts and he grins, not letting go of that arm - instead pulling the boy into him, grin wide, laugh skittering. "were you hiding from me?" he says with a laugh. everyone's hiding from me.

samuel carter

☉

"um-- okay."

suddenly he's being danced with. while sam understand the practice in theory he's not very good at it in execution. not because of doubt, but because of a lack of practice. but knox seems to be enjoying himself, so he just allows the movement and tries to be the support knox needs.

"no, i was looking for you, not hiding. i sent you quite a few texts, and tried to call."

knox prescott

"mm, i threw my phone into the pool," he says, almost matter-of-factly. it had made sense at the time. what had he been doing? oh, yes - texting with sam. and knox couldn't find him, but he wanted him to see the way the pool glittered, the way the lights flashed over it. 

maybe sam will go swimming with him. 

he comes down from the clouds to ask sam just that, but a moment of clarity shows the boy's discomfort. and knox sees, in a brief flash, the room through his eyes - loud and booming and oppressive. he stops his dancing and he drops his arm, lacing their fingers together, and tugs him through the crowd.

he slips around them like an eel, and helps sam do the same, until he trips his way against a locked door. hands fumble for the keys in his pocket and then it opens.

he tugs sam through and snicks it locked again before the horny can turn senior prescott's private library into another romping ground.

"it's quiet," he says, hugging himself. that's the trade-off - give sam his comfort and he loses all of his. 

samuel carter

☉

it's all so fast, it's all so much. all knox had to do was look at him and see that he was uncomfortable. they're through the wave of people in moments. they're in a room, the door locked, and alone. it's a very lavish room, one that offers many comforts...but as he sees knox, in the silence of the room, he knows no comfort is brought to knox.

he can brave a party for knox. he'd known it when he was first asked to go. so he moved over and puts his hands on knox' biceps, moving down to his elbow on one arm, thumb caressing the other's bicep.

"we didn't have to leave the party...i'll get used to it, i adapt well."

there were a million questions he wanted to ask-- but could he? or would it force knox to withdraw from him again?

knox prescott

the guilt is a speck a thousand stories below him. and if he could see it, if he could pick it up and place it on his shoulder, he would be able to look past his own vulnerabilities and do right by sam, but he's too high up. he's in the clouds and the air is thin and he can't think straight. 

he wants his next high - the feeling he gets when he's around sam. those anxious butterflies in his stomach, the nervousness with the newness of it all. the electricity from his nearness. 

i could bring him with me. i can bring him up here. yes, make a stairway. put down the bricks, order the lift. 

his father's shadow stands behind his desk. 

knox shivers against sam's touch, looks at the way his hands curve over his arms. he steps forward and his arm snakes around his waist, pulling him closer. but he turns his head and nestles his chin against sam's shoulder, sighs, and says, "a compromise. no dancing. i've a private table set for us on the lanai.

"let me show you."

samuel carter

☉

the moment is intimate, not invasive. knox curls close and sam's eyes slip closed. he smells of so many things, but amidst them, he can find the one scent that is just knox. and sam finds he likes it... a lot.

which perhaps is why he responds, without a microsecond of hesitation.

"lead the way."

he knows it's a bad decision. he's sure it will be an experience. he'll be able to tell whether he enjoys it or loathes it. but he wants to enjoy it. with knox. for knox.

he didn't need any of the extras, but knox did. for that, he compromises. his hand moves to knox' waist, an invitation to stay close if he wants; but his hold is lax, permission to back away if desired. though the small curl of his fingernails shows he'd rather knox stay.

but he's willing to compromise.

knox prescott

they are traipsing through the mansion then, and knox is walking through the footsteps of his adolescence. they have to push back through the crowd to get to the covered outdoor area, but the music is lighter and the air is breathable. 

their table is set up on a dais because he's full of himself. he waves the attendants away - the ones who'd procured it and protected it for him while he'd been indisposed - and pushes a waiting drink towards sam. 

it's purple and it swirls with pearl dust. "is this better?" he says quickly, eyes softening, grounding that he's somewhat in his element, that there are enough distractions to keep him focused (does that make sense?).

samuel carter

☉

their table takes sam by surprise. knox had really gone out of his way for them. he'd centered the theme around their first night together. he'd gotten them a room. he'd invited him... what had happened between then, and now? when he's so high even sam can barely hold on-- and not for lack of trying.

"just being with you is better." sam admits, the truth finding its way out despite the distractions around them. because sam is hyperfocused on the only reason he came to the party. the boy with eyes so blue they rivaled the sky for beauty. "we could still be dancing in the other room and i'd be happy, knox."

he takes the drink in hand, because it was offered to him and habit has him grabbing it more than desire to drink the galactic liquid within.

"i'm here for you. in whatever capacity you need. a companion to dance, company while you greet others, a hand to hold, a friend to talk to... anything."

dangerous words, but he means them. he shows as much by how he let's his thumb rub over knox' knuckles lightly and keeps dangerously steady, unafraid, non-judgmental, eye contact.

knox prescott

there are those truths again, dripping out of his mouth like honey. he bets sam would taste much the same - golden and sweet. and his mind is half a mile up the road away from him, past the touch of sam's caress, careening into the future of their selves in his bedroom, knocking heels with the world a million miles away from them. 

and then the dawn comes and the world comes back and he's back in that chair with a sense of dread that's driving him wild. because the boy only knows how to careen headfirst into heartbreak.

"must've had magic hands," he says, grinning, looking down where sam teases his own. "don't know what i did to make your burns feel better, but guess it was enough to get the prettiest boy in the room all over me."

he taps sam's nose, chuckles, and exhales. "i'm already tip top, thanks to you. now, c'mon. drink. we'll go explore the stars together."

samuel carter

☉

much like a canine would, sam's face scrunches when his nose is poked. specifically the sides of his nose and his upper lip. but he smiles anyway, because knox seems to be enjoying himself.

the cup in his hand finds his lips and he downs it. he's not entirely sure what his constitution would have to say about this, but if the bar experience a bit ago has any tell to it, he's sort of a lightweight compared to most.

he doesn't drink regularly and the only thing he's got going for him is body mass. not even his height, really.

after the drink is finished he sets it down and licks his lips. his cheeks are a little pink and he looks between knox' eyes, eager to learn, tempted to do things he normally doesn't even think about.

"it's not your hands that hold magic, knox. it's your eyes." the hand still holding knox' brushes the knuckles tenderly again. "there's an emptiness in your eyes that i relate to in a way i cannot explain."

apparently he's a poetic drunk.

"now c'mon white rabbit, show me the way to wonderland."

sort of. he still nicknames people when he's drunk so at least he's consistent.

knox prescott

he doesn't dare take away his hand from sam. no, sam can hold him hostage like that for however long he wants (which is a testament to sam's pervasiveness over him). so with his free hand, he lifts it up, cinches his fingers together to make a circle, and watches sam drink through his self-made telescope. 

in a perfect, wavering circle there is only sam. because knox closes his other eye and sways, just watching him, pretending that there's just that one world in front of him. and he's thinking about how all that dust is inside sam now and he worries, only briefly, because the universe is ever-expanding, so why wouldn't his? but sam can contain it because sam can contain multitudes. 

his words are color, sing-song like twittering birds. well, there's the acid. when lsd hits him, it's always birds - cawing and chirping and whistling. 

it's hard to hear past them, but he does. it only makes him lean closer, lean in. his pupils threaten to swallow his ice blue eyes now, but sam's irises are glowing. 

when he talks, knox hears several things at once: this bitch empty. YEET. and that's the depression. and why does that make sense? 

"wonderland awaits," he says, waving a cocktail waitress over. he grins like a fool now because there's color in sam's cheeks and a light to his eyes that wasn't there before. they're getting closer - no longer star systems away, but planets. 

samuel carter

☉

little thought is put into meeting knox where he floats. there's a distance between them only created because knox wanted to leave the mortal real and achieve something higher. sam wonders if he can meet knox there. if the noise will stop. if the loneliness will no longer find him.

he wants, and he yearns, to know what it means to soar.

it was a side of himself he didn't often show, he often ignored. likely out of guilt. his mother always told him that he should face his problems and his fears, but that he should also learn how to become his own man.

his own man.

so with purpose he follows. a purpose to keep this one next to him, for as long as possible, in an effort not to let go unless asked or demanded. because this one makes him feel alive, without outside influence.

knox makes him feel alive just by breathing in the same air as him.

knox prescott