he can't breathe.

as asked, he'd left the estate. as asked, he'd waited until he heard knox make his escape, watched him make his escape, and he'd left.

he regrets having listened. he regretted it since the moment it happened. he was a mess. he couldn't stop worrying. what if knox didn't get far? he should have teleported and grabbed him, whisked him away to the mountain with him. but he couldn't. he's just left alone, delivered messages, left on read.

left on read.

he suddenly understands why it's a big deal when he leaves people on read. he's been told it's rude, but he didn't get it. not until he suddenly assumed knox was dead or worse somewhere and he couldn't do a fucking thing about it.

so he distracts himself with work. he dives head first into the comfort of death. into the one thing he is threatening with every fiber of his being to leave his knox alone. death is what's inevitable. it comes for everyone...but suddenly he's wondering if there's a way to fight it, hand to hand combat, to push it away.

by the end of the night he's running. his daily run that usually happened in the morning happening at night. he's so distracted by his thoughts and checking his phone for messages that he ends up tripping and tumbling to the ground. flat on his back he stares at the stars.

his eyes are void. his heart is mourning. tears don't come because he wills them away. he's only just met knox... but his worried. life will inevitably carry on without knox... but sam's finding he doesn't want it to.

not that he's suicidal at the thought of losing knox, he just wants knox to live. to be with him. to answer his fucking texts!

anything. even a goodbye.... he'll accept that. had he done something wrong? should he call summer?

he slides through his phone to send knox a million texts, but he deletes them all and lets the phone fall to the ground, eyes staring at the stars, memories of the night before playing through his mind.

"my star had best not go out...or i'll thwart the universe to bring it back to alight."

a promise to the gods, to the legendaries, to anything that's listening.

knox prescott

moro's a fucking drug dealer. she doesn't have sutures or stitches or a magic wand to make all his hurt go away. when she goes digging through her first aid kit, all she comes up with are some butterfly band-aids. and with knox falling in and out of consciousness, all she knows to do is call up her friend and ask what the fuck she should do. 

while she's chatting, knox's breathing slows. moro didn't offer him a towel so he just grabs her throw and shoves it on his face. biting into it helps muffle his howls. 

his heartbeat skitters and the device on captain's pokeball expels him. the pikachu blinks, fur rising, static shedding as she smells all of his blood. knox scrunches and his phone wriggles out of his pocket and falls to the floor. 

the pikachu's tail twitches and she paws at it. knox swipes for it a couple of times, but all he manages to do is smear blood on the screen and unlock it before he gives up. captain, however, doesn't, because she's smart enough to know that this is not the place knox needs to be. 

so she presses the screen, mimicking her trainer without knowing what it'll do. all she knows is that sam's face looks familiar and pressing the buttons near him might help. 

and when nothing happens, her ears droop and she carefully crawls up by knox's side. 

samuel carter

☉

the phone buzzes on the ground and sam lazily turns his head to see it. the contact name, however, shoots adrenaline through him.

he never believed in prayer until that moment.

he reads the message frantically, then he taps the location. it's mauville, he knows that much, and within twenty minutes he had teleported back to the reception building on mt. pyre, grabbed his own supplies for treating more serious injuries that were business related, and then he teleported to mauville. at the door, he panted, having ran, and furrowed his brows before knocking on it.

"knox??" it was more of a whisper, which had him pulling his phone out and calling knox' number. "c'mon."

maybe he could hear the phone vibrating, or a ringtone? he could follow that, even if he had to bust the door down.

knox prescott

there's a knock on the door. moro utters a "fuck," and scurries to the door, grabbing a bat on the way. knox is out of it now, head lolling, moro's throw blanket crumpled at his chest. he tries to turn his head to see who the fuck is coming for him. 

captain, on the other hand, hears sam from the other side of the door and makes a couple of squeaking noises. moro cracks the door open, sees sam with all of his tattoos and grips her bat in warning. 

but then she sees the medical tools under his arm and hesitates. knox's empoleon and greninja force the door open and gesture to the couch.

samuel carter

☉

oddly enough, when the nearly crazed woman holds a bat up as she eyes him through the door, sam just braces for impact. at this point, he'll accepted a bat in the face to get into the place knox is. or at least to ask about his cell phone being there-- but then two water types, though dual types as well, pulling him in and motion toward the couch.

"damn."

while it might not be fuck, it's astronomically more effective given sam doesn't hardly ever swear. he's cursed more in the past however many hours he's been away from knox than he had possibly in his whole life.

bending down, he begins pulling the kit open and moving a hand to knox' face.

"hello starlight," was that too much? "how're you feeling?"

y'know, all things considered. really, he just spoke so knox would know who was touching him.

knox prescott

damn. he knows that voice. oh, shit. oh, no no no no no no no no no no no no no. how did he find him? he can't see him like this. can't know how bad it is (and he's not talking about the busted open nose or the gouge on his cheek). it's about how bad the poison is that lives inside him. 

hello, starlight. he turns. one of his eyes has swollen shut. blood covers most of his face. he manages to crack a smile; the white teeth are garish against the rest of the gore on his face. 

"mm, be better 'f moro pitied me a bit more." the woman in question huffs and drops the bat to the ground. she stalks out of the room and rummages around in her kitchen. knox hums to himself in an attempt to distract himself from the pain and the fact that sam somehow found him. 

"no hospital please," he repeats, this time to sam. and moro comes back with a fistful of pills. she snatches her blanket away from him and replaces it with the pills.

"percocet. and that's all you're getting." she turns her attention to sam. "if he's gonna die, make sure he does it elsewhere."

samuel carter

☉

"no hospitals, i promise." his eyes turn to moro. "and no dying, either."

sam's tone is gentle, he eyes the pills and runs through the numbers on them, but 'moro' is telling him what it is and he's relieved. relieved it's not what he knows knox likely wants, he looks to moro as her suggestion is made. retrieving a pokéball, he released his ever faithful escape route; gardevoir.

"can i at least take you back to my place? no doctors, no hospital. just me and you, knox."

knox prescott

with that promise made, knox relaxes, albeit slightly. there's only so much one can relax when their nose is fractured and their cheekbone's exposed to the elements. but then he tenses when sam releases his gardevoir, when he says can i take you back to my place? 

knox wants to jest, wants to say i haven't had enough to drink but instead he flinches away, mumbling "no" as moro says "uh, yes."

she throws her hands up and says a few choice words about him before grabbing herself a beer from the fridge and tromping up the stairs to leave the two of them to talk...or something. 

samuel carter

☉

sam refused to do anything with knox agreeing. he gave moro a polite, tired, and sarcastic smile. he was mocking her with polite manners and the second she left, his smile fell and he looked to knox.

instead of forcing him, he just looked to his gardevoir with a smile, asking her to be patient with a simple thought. she gave him a small bow of her head and turned to look at knox' pokémon, giving each a wave of polite emotional greeting. her own way of communicating via her telepathy.

"knox..." with a sigh, sam sat with his back on the couch and leaned it back, eyes softening at the sight of his beaten and battered star. "why won't you let me help you?"

knox prescott

he curls in on himself. it's so hard for him to look at sam right now, nevermind talk to him, but of course sam isn't going to let him out easy. he also knows, though, that if knox told him to leave, he would. just like he left the estate. left and made himself safe. 

he's known his father was capable of these evils, that he's done far worse to a lot of people, and he's toted his fair share of lashes. but this is new. this is malice. this is hatred. 

and he doesn't know how to cope with that. so he grinds his teeth and he says, "it hurts." it's not an explanation. so he tries again. "you shouldn't have to fix it."

samuel carter

☉

"people shouldn't have to die, but it's the way the world works."

ever the philosopher. he looks to knox, watching him in pain... it hurts him. hurts him enough to make his eyes moist, but he wills it away. he'll hurt when knox is asleep. when he frets over him in panic to make sure he's breathing. for now, he has to be here, present.

"i want to help you, knox. but you have to let me..." please let me. "just, let me patch you up, at least. i'll do it here, if you're insistent."

he'll make it up to moro somehow. maybe pay her? strike a deal with the mountain? anything.

knox prescott

but he can see now, with the tears in sam's eyes, that telling him to leave would be all the more painful. the struggle leaves his face torn and he balls his hand into a fist, muttering a "fuck" to stop the godsdamn wetness in his eyes. 

"no, we," he starts, voice shaky. he reaches out a bloodied hand and rests it on sam's shoulder. "we can go." he wants to say more, but his muscles draw taut as another wave of pain wracks him.

samuel carter

☉

"don't stress yourself," sam insistes, like a worried mother hen. he stands and the gardevoir moves to put a hand on his shoulder. "may i hold you?"

the motion he makes for his hand indicates he's asking to pick knox up. bridal style. he thinks nothing of it, since knox looks like he can hardly move anyway.

but, again, he wasn't about to do anything without knox telling him he could. because he respected boundaries and consent too much.

knox prescott