"leveraging sex so that i'll stick around?" it was hysterical because of who knox was talking to. "i'm sad to say, that won't work. i'll be sticking around because i'm smitten with you senselessly."

the water is off and sam pulls the curtain back. he holds out one of his towels for knox to take, making sure he's balanced, then he grabs a towel for himself and runs it through his hair, ignoring the glitter that falls, and then over his body. he hadn't thought that through and as he notices the glitter being left behind, he smirks.

"look, i've little reminders of you now."

knox prescott

"oh, that wasn't me 'leveraging' anything. simply a warning. a premonition. whatever you'd like to call it. i just want you to be prepared when the time comes." he steps out of the shower, albeit not as gracefully as sam had. he chuckles at the glittery, saunters a bit to the side, and awkwardly dries off his mess of hair.

it sticks up all over the place without product in it. most of the dye has faded, too. he's been so wrapped up in sam and making ends meet that he hasn't been able to keep up with the ridiculous colors. 

he fingers a strand of weathered green and sighs. then he stops focusing on his hair and looks at his face. dark bruises lay under and around his eyes, a byproduct of the broken nose. his nose is still puffy and red, but his cheek is probably the worst. puckered and raised and swelling. 

"yeah, when the time comes. last thing i want is for you to think about this ugly mug every time you think back to our first." because yikes. 

samuel carter

☉

"i'll be sure to do my research." sam teases right back, watching as knox is fussing over himself in the mirror.

he pointedly steps into the reflection, moving his hand to the small of knox' back to get his attention, then he moved to speak against his ear.

"when i look at you, i see the stars."

he's not sure if that helps or not, but he gives knox' shoulder a kiss, trailing another on his neck, then that soft spot between both places before making his way out.

"you can wear some of my sweats if you'd like. or would you prefer just some boxers? i'm sure i have a pair... in here somewhere."

knox prescott

"y'know, i don't know whether to take you seriously or not." sam and his research. sam will probably actually do research on how to have sex. and the thought is just so fucking funny to knox. he bursts out laughing and then makes a pained wheezing sound as his lungs inflate and press on his ribs. 

but the pain is nearly immediately forgotten when sam gets all sweet and romantic. he kisses that one spot that really does it for knox and goosebumps shiver over his arms. 

"whatever works," he says when sam moves away to get some clothes for him. he takes the opportunity without any distraction to wipe at the blood on his face. it's a slow process, not without his hisses and grievances, but eventually he finishes and puts the towel down.

all he wants to do is lay down and pass the fuck out now. curling up against sam sounds nice, but..."don't you have to work?"

samuel carter

☉

"i've just canceled most of it, or rescheduled, toooo..." he glanced at the calendar on his phone while holding clothes out for knox, wearing only a pair of tight activewear capris on his own legs.

"next week, so don't plan anything. i'll be busy until evening each day."

and by evening, he means the time in which he plans on sleeping just to wake and get back to work again. he tosses his phone onto the bed and smiles at knox. it's not fake, it's not polite. it's genuine and he's been doing a lot more of it ever since the party.

because with knox, he feels happy, and he was finally allowing himself to show it.

"do you want help getting dressed?"

knox prescott

he takes the offered sweats and slips them on, but nearly trips because instead of looking at the pant leg, he's looking at the activewear sam put on. because his thighs and his ass and his - ajskdfsa "fuck." he steadies himself and slips them on, then regards sam with narrowed eyes because it's definitely his fault. 

"don't plan anything? what, am i being held captive now?" an apparition of iron bars floats around him, but he mentally bats them away. 

his plans, however, do need some reworking again. he'd been hoping with sam at work on the mountain, he'd be able to slip out...somehow...and get to mauville...okay, that wasn't going to happen anyway. 

he grabs his phone and rattles off a couple of texts instead. "i'm fine in just the sweats." he'd rather not have to endure the pain of moving his arms up just to get a shirt on that he'll have to take off again later, especially if he isn't going anywhere. 

he meanders back over to the bed and gets himself into a somewhat comfortable position. his phone lights up again and when he sees the screen, he does too. 

"remember when you said if a doctor prescribed me something, you'd take care of it?" he says smugly as he flips the phone around. 

samuel carter

☉

the name, moro. he remembers it will. with a small sigh, sam nods. while it's not the move he'd make, he's not knox, and refuses to put boundaries on knox.

"for one, eden said you should get some rest, i'm just the messenger. you can do what you like for the week, but i took it off to spend with you, figuring it would prompt you for a decent recovery if you weren't alone. secondly, if you want me to go fill it for you i can."

he smiled as well, shrugging. what did he care what knox did with his body? well, he did care, but he was fighting the urge to ... make suggestions. because, well, he didn't want knox to think he was micromanaging him.

"...is it too bold, or out of place, for me to ask if you're going to use the prescription given responsibly?"

knox prescott

disappointment. distrust. nervousness. he flips the phone back around and his smile falls flat. it's all jokes and whatnot until they're looking at him like that. the sigh gets him, even if sam is trying his best to hide whatever he's feeling about it, and knox's hackles raise immediately. 

and rightfully so, when sam asks him that. he bites his tongue because he wants to lash out and tell him he's been there, done that. this week isn't the first time he'd made an acquaintance to death. 

"how many times do i have to tell you i'm in fucking pain?" he says. sam's room doesn't seem all too welcoming anymore, and sam's presence feels pressing. he runs his fingers through his hair and seethes to himself, frustration bowing his shoulders. 

"if it makes you that uncomfortable, i'll leave. it's fine."

samuel carter

☉

"...knox, it doesn't make me uncomfortable. you could do a line of meth on my glass desk table and i wouldn't care."

and that was the truth. knox could, even, tell sam he was going off to fuck some other guy and sam would tell him to have a good time and enjoy himself. because sam's a doormat, he just wants to be told, included.

"i was simply asking a question. one you can rest assured i won't ask again. i've overstepped, i apologize. not my place."

with that, he revokes all thoughts of 'boyfriend' and of 'partner.' he's knox'... how had knox put it? supervisor, that's right.

"i'll go get it right now, just--" he looks to knox with mild fear, standing and retrieving his gardevoir's ball and his phone which has his credit and debit cards within the attached wallet on the back. "just don't leave, please. i'll be right back."

he feels as if he's shattered something between them and he's desperately trying to put it all back together.

knox prescott

he can't ask for help to get down the mountain because then that'd just be pitiful. if he really wants to hurt sam, he could insist on just walking down. which is what would end up happening anyway. or he could just sit and simmer and sulk and feel bad about making sam feel bad. 

"a weighted question," he snaps back, but he's starting to feel less angry and more...confused. meth, really? that's where you draw the line? but he'll give him shit for a couple of painkillers that are just going to end up making him fall asleep.

he chalks it up to sam not really understanding and it finally makes him deflate. still, he eyes him warily, at the way he looks kind of like a frightened bird when he asks knox not to leave.

"i don't do that shit, just so you know." he cocks his head. "and i'm annoyed you think i do." then he grabs a pillow and shoves it behind his head, then makes a show of making himself comfy.

"i'll still be here when you get back."

samuel carter

☉

sam doesn't understand. even if he read up on it all, he doesn't understand it. he doesn't understand why knox would need it. he doesn't understand what sort of shit a person has to go through to want that.

his father, the bruises and cuts now on his body. the way he says 'just so you know' and 'i'm annoyed'.

sam's heart sinks. he's failed, he feels it in his core, and he's sick. he feels ill. but he furrows his brows and pulls himself together. he pushes it all away as much as he can, but it's like a sand castle made too close to shore. just kept keet swallowed no matter how deep he made the moat.

"i'm sorry that i don't understand." it's not a foreign thing, he apologizes often for not understanding something... but this is the first time it hurt. he released his gardevoir and took her hand, pushing her the location for her to take him. she's been there, recently as well.

"but i'll be," did his voice just crack? what the hell? "i'll be right back."

with that, he's gone. he's out of sight and he's in public. he took a deep breath and steeled himself-- but to his surprise his gardevoir gives him a hug. his shoulder's sag and he frowns, brows furrowed. he's angry, irate. at himself, at the stupidity of him asking that damned question.

with that, he returns his gardevoir and knocks on the door. and poor moro, they'd given her no warning. he feels like an idiot when he's there. he offers to pay for the blanket's cleaning bill and she laughs at him, asks if he's going to pay with that credit card that won't get him shit with her. but she insists that he doesn't pay, which has him bewildered because that's not how it's supposed to go.

outside her house, he looks at the items in his hand, phone in the pocket of his activewear shorts. he doesn't even realize his shirtless. just allows his gardevoir to take him back, teleporting into his room like they always did, staring at the pills and the paper in his hand.

void. blank. stoic. he's trying not to feel so gods damned much.

knox prescott

sam's voice cracks and knox flinches. a moment later, he's gone. the room is still. even captain tenses, watching her trainer with round brown eyes. the cord snaps and knox breathes out a heavy sigh, keeps on pushing all that air out until his stomach flattens and his ribs hurt. 

he tangles his hands in his hair and wishes for some more dye. maybe blue, a little bit of purple this time around. something softer, something muted. when he withdraws his hand, he sees silver paint.

and it's not there, not really, but he's seeing that paint, the one from his lips, when he'd heard van gogh tried to fill himself with the sun and his addled, almost there, not quite yet, not close enough to that edge brain, had told him to drink some starlight.

because knox was a romantic and wanted to die with the universe inside him. 

the minutes tick by until sam's suddenly back. knox jumps a bit, muttering under his breath, and then pulls his legs around. sam stands there like a statue and knox thinks good and hates himself just a little bit more for it. 

he picks up the paper in sam's hand and snorts at the scrawl: 'here's your 'prescription,' asshole.' he crumples it up and plucks one of the pills from sam's hand. and then he tosses it back, swallows, and goes back to bed, dumping the crumpled paper in a wastebasket on his way. 

samuel carter

☉

the silence causes each action to echo through the room. it's deafening, it feels like his ears are splitting. he's feeling too much too soon and it hurts.

with a deep breath, he resigns himself to watching knox. the way he's irritated and annoyed... sam doesn't know how to fix it. maybe he can't, maybe only the silence can.

so he just starts to tidy things up. it's what he does when he's stressed, he cleans. first he starts to pick up things that he'd used to help save knox' life not but maybe twelve hours prior, then he glances at the laundry. he begins gathering it, to start a load. he doesn't even ask, just scoops up knox' clothes and starts getting out the necessary items to start cleaning the blood stains out before he can actually start cleaning them.

the whole time, his face lacks expression. hollow, empty, void; he's in shambles on the inside but refuses to show it. it's the last thing knox needs, is to see that sam is suffering.

he is 'ghost boy' once again, suffocating his emotions until they breath no more and leave him alone.

knox prescott