sam makes his way into the bedroom with alecto his gengar wobbling behind him, happy skips, one foot landing on a tile at a time. when he hits a crack, he points a finger at sam and sam gives a grunt.

"alecto leave my back alone."

alecto cackles, because he learned a rhyme, 'step on a crack and break your mother's back' and now he's haunting sam with it.

looking over to knox, sam gives a smile, warm, inviting. knox had been looking good for the past few days, but he was also looking incredibly bored. he'd gotten him cross words, bought him apps to occupy his time, movies, the whole nine yards. but he knows what knox wants and needs.

a day out.

but sam couldn't give it to him, until a client canceled last second. so he'd come into the room to tell knox that.

"my client just canceled for the evening, so i won't be busy the rest of the night."

alecto had pounced and stepped with two feet onto a line and then shot a minor ICY WIND at sam's back. the chills have sam's mouth seizing and he smirks, glaring at the ghost, before stomping on a crack himself while still looking at alecto.

alecto's eyes widen, then he cackles, falling onto his back and letting out the ghostly chitters of laughter while flailing his limbs.

knox prescott

sam will be busy for the rest of the night. his schedule is actually kind of ridiculous. so rigid, so full, and yet he's content with it. doing the work he does makes him happy. chalk that up to the list of things that will forever remain an enigma to knox. 

he fishes through his bag. he hasn't been able to let his pokemon stretch their legs as much as he likes to; they're normally kept in a private center the prescotts own. he's just glad summer managed to smuggle them out before his father could get his hands on them. 

he takes the muscle he needs and lines his waist with the balls themselves, hidden from casual thieves (like himself). 

captain's tail twitches and knox looks up, brows furrowing when he hears sam, and sam's terrifying gengar tailing him. knox will take minor shocks and stings any day over whatever the hell sam lets his ghost-types do to him. 

he's about to ask why he's there because didn't he have an appointment? when sam explains just that. knox blinks. oh. well, if he'd known, he would have planned something fun, but he'll be in a world of pain if he doesn't show to this. 

he shifts uncomfortably. it was one thing to talk to sam about his work over dinner, but they've never really talked about it. about the things he did, the things he's done. sam likely hasn't brought it up for the same reason knox hasn't. 

when alecto's laughter dies down, knox says, "well, you can have the place to yourself tonight." and then he hesitates. "i - well, i took a job. i have to go. i thought since i'm feeling better and you've been doing so much, well..." he checks his phone, holds an arm out to captain.

she jumps and scrabbles up his shoulder. he smiles at sam. "i promise i won't come back too late."

samuel carter

☉

sam watches knox awkwardly shift. just as he's about to ask what was the matter, knox shares, and he's moving over to knox, not to hover or crowd him just to get away from the snickers to his side from his gengar. who had begun playing with his tail and chewing on it, then licking it and blowing toxic snot bubbles to eat.

"what's the job?" he doesn't think twice about asking, because he's been trying to communicate. they'd been doing a lot better. even working through a few bumps along the way.

"i don't mind helping, if you'll have me... but," he resigns to show he's not super happy about the idea but he's trying to be. "if you want the space, i will respect that."

because he sure as fuck doesn't understand the need for space. he doesn't mind existing in knox' presence at all times. but he knew knox wasn't used to that kind of attachment, so he was trying to give him 'breathing room.'

knox prescott

this isn't a hurdle he thought he'd have to overcome. yes, it had been in the back of his mind, back when he and sam were clumsy and going off feelings alone, the future a haze before them. he could go back to that moment, wiggle his fingers and leave an air of mystery behind him. 

but he made promises and he intends to keep them (for as long as he can). 

he sits down by the bed and slips on socks and then his shoes. he checks the soles to make sure they're still intact. no rips or tears. they're specially made when he wants to take cheap shots at thugs who think they have the upper hand on him. 

he looks up with a brow cocked when he finishes tying his shoes. "i'm not telling you that you have to stay. and it's not that i want space from you. i just, sam, i'm a criminal. i'm on smuggling detail down at slateport." he frowns. 

samuel carter

☉

i'm a criminal.

sam has his own sins. he'd done his fair share of murder in kanto. never without purpose, but he knows what it's like to do something in his own perspective as right and to be hated for it because it didn't line up with somebody else's perspective of right.

i'm on a smuggling detail...

sam, literally, just gives knox a brow raise.

"weapons, drugs, pokemon, children, refugees, or all of the above?"

he's not batting an eyelash, not even using 'a tone.' he's just asking a question, like he was asking knox how he liked his eggs the other morning.

his chaos of a gengar however perked up at the mention of smuggling and the way knox frowned. negative vibes, he could get on board with that. but he doesn't. he just eyes captain the pikachu instead and wonders if eating the electric type would be like eating those popping candies sam always gives him.

knox prescott

he doesn't know what he expects. with sam, he never knows what to expect. what he wants, however, is disappointment. what he wants is disgust. what he wants is some form of you don't have to do that, you know, but instead sam punches him in the fucking gut with that flat voice of his. 

he feels sick. there's spinning, swirling color, the taste of paint in his mouth, vomit laced with splattered red. he shakes his head, wills the thoughts away, stays quiet, but he doesn't hide how shaken he is. 

he couldn't even if he tried. 

"i've drawn my line in the sand," he says finally and stands. "i'm not a monster." so don't paint me in that light.

i'm disappointed because, "i thought you'd be...not this." he waves his hands in front of sam. "talking like it's nothing. and some of it is nothing, what i move is nothing but..." he chews his lip, frustrated. "i don't know. you can come if you want. i just thought it'd bother you more."

samuel carter

☉

they should talk, that's what sam is thinking. they should talk and knox just wants to go, go, go.

"i smuggled dead corpses of all shapes and sizes across borders. in order to do that i had to remove threats regardless of age or gender. at times, new trainers or grunts would be posted at borders to keep me from progress; trainers and grunts the same age as i was at the time, but i had a job to complete, and i couldn't let them get the better of me or i would end up in the tower with the others. i promised my mother i would come back, so i did, no matter the cost of my soul."

does that help? maybe he should digress.

"i'm... very good at disassociating myself from moral or emotional things. i learned at a very early age that the world is too grey to paint just black, or just white. having a moral compass was ..." he thinks for a moment, how does he put it?

"annoying." knox is familiar with that word, so he uses it.

"what you do might be what defines you as 'good' or 'bad' in the eyes of some, but in my eyes, there is not 'good' or 'bad.' just knox. my knox, and however you take shape, i've already accepted it as mine. because i'm sure the 'bad' things that you've done are just as 'bad' as mine, if you want to put a level on it."

to sam, there is no level. it's not a scale. there is bad, there is good; there is life, and there is death. morality, humanity, is hard for him to come by.

knox prescott

you don't get it you don't get it you don't get it. he doesn't want to hear it. he doesn't want to hear the evils sam's committed. he doesn't want all the bones on the table, to pick through them and compare them to his own. because his are still inside him - broken and fractured and missing, yes, but still there. 

having a moral compass was annoying. a chilling statement. he's back behind that van, doors slamming shut before him, but glimpses of inside flit through his mind. he'd spent a long time thinking after that, driving himself mad at the realization that someone could lose their humanity to such a point and become a monster. 

"and here i thought i'd be the one to ruin you," he says with a sigh. 

he stands back up and closes the distance between himself and sam. captain makes her displeasure at being so close to alecto quite clear, but she stays perched on his shoulder. 

"i don't know what to say. that's a lot." he thinks for a moment. "maybe it's fucked up, but it's nice to know i'm not the only one who's done shitty things." 

he runs his hands through his hair. almost all the color has gone now. "come on. i can't be late."

samuel carter

☉

knox didn't have to say anything. sam just didn't want knox to think that knox was the only broken human in the room. because that seemed to be knox' m.o.

the broken boy™️

when really, sam would argue that knox was just fractured, and that he was truly broken. or maybe just different. it's why him having feelings for knox was so new, so different. because he didn't usually have feelings. just polite niceties to cover up the fact that he was talking to a pre-corpse; so he viewed humanity most days.

but not knox. his forever, his knox. not a soon-to-be-corpse, not if sam could help it.

"i understand. do you want to teleport?"

he could use his gardevoir, or he could just travel with knox on foot. he didn't care either way.

knox prescott

he'd banked on calling a flying taxi, but he'd also thought he'd be leaving an hour sooner. he checks his phone and calculates the distance; as much as he'd like to take some of it on foot and move around, teleporting will be the easiest way. 

he shifts from side to side. he's antsy and it shows. sam has been trying his best to keep him occupied, but knox has proven that captivity is certainly not where he belongs. 

"i think that's the best move." he leans to kiss sam on the lips. he's still gentle. his nose still hurts. but at least it's somewhat normal. he has a feeling his swifter recovery has a lot to do with sam's gardevoir too. 

"if we get this done quickly enough, maybe we can go find something fun to do after," he says, lips quirking, easing the tension away from them bit by bit.

samuel carter

☉

tension feels like a distant afterthought. for one, sam wasn't anxious. he doesn't mind dredging up his past. it's a part of who he is and he has accepted that. but he also accepts that knox does not like to bring up the past.

so as much as sam wants to keep the topic going, he buckles. the kiss helps him to kneel to the desire to switch topics, to focus on the job.

he surrenders to his stars, to his knox. calling his gardevoir out, he gives her a fond smile and takes one of her hands, her other held out for knox to take. the distance between them doesn't change and sam gives knox another kiss.

"whatever fun you want, let that motivate you to finish." yes, he knows what he's promising. "so long as you don't stress yourself too badly."

knox prescott

whatever fun you want. miraculously, he hasn't pushed his boundaries or his luck when it comes to that department. it hasn't stopped him from wanting sam. oh, on the contrary. but as much as he lets his mind run rampant, as hot and bothered as he's gotten in sam's bed just thinking about it, he's just kept saying wait, wait, wait. 

because every time he looks in the mirror, he sees his bruises and his father and he will not let that image of himself sit in sam's brain every time he thinks back to their first.

sam expressing his own desires has made it all the more difficult to resist, but there's something playful about it now, about this tug-of-war of wanting and not having, waiting for whoever's resolve breaks first. 

"don't tempt me," he growls, nipping at sam's earlobe, which will, in turn, elicit the opposite response of what knox just said to him.

sam's gardevoir reaches into his own mind. he hasn't quite gotten used to the sensation, but it's not as strange as it once was. he thinks of their destination and she plucks it from him; in an instant, their world is broken down and then rebuilt. he always feels dizzy after it, so he's thankful he has sam's hand to hold onto. 

"meet-up's just a couple blocks from here. we're moving the cargo to a warehouse just north of the city."

samuel carter

☉

tempting knox was too fun not to and the way he is asking sam not to tempt him, sam has learned, means that he should continue to tempt him. which only makes sam's brain get clever with ideas. like walking around shirtless-- or just straight nude. nude is tempting. nude he might do.

but then reality warps, rewrites, and they're blipped into slateport. close to the beach, but not too far away. an alley close by reminds him of the pokémon he should use more, but has in hiding.

it only dawns on sam in that moment that maybe he should tell knox about the pokémon, so it doesn't become a source of discord between them.

"lead the way, and when this is over, try and remind me to tell you about a pokémon i met not far from here."

the tone is so casual, but it's always casual, like what he's saying is a footnote, to be listened to or not listened to. he puts his gardevoir back into her ball after a thought of gratitude to her was given.

knox prescott