he's going to wait until one of those foggy nights comes back around. it'll have to be when the weather isn't so foggy though - no rainfall before or after because ew, mud, but still clear enough where they can see the stars. it'll be out in the open and in the fresh air and - 

what. 

sam pulls his face in for a kiss and the rest of the world stops mattering and he wants to say he can stand there and just melt, but then, again - 

what.

"i -" his brain sizzles and pops. he raises a hand to touch sam's own. and then he crooks a smile and he thinks why the fuck not because today might be his last day and fuck if he's not going to sleep with his boyfriend at least once. 

the fantasy is thrown to the wind (not quite; he still tucks it away for later). it's a chance to do right by sam, really, and he's anxious to make it happen. 

"okay. fortree for pancakes, stop at the bondage store down the street, and then we finally, finally come back and, well, come on. are you going to get your gardevoir or what?"

samuel carter

☉

seeing knox short circuit had sam feeling some kinda way and he was immediately fumbling to find his gardevoir's capsule-- but he hadn't gotten her out. or any of them. hecate's capsule is open and she's off on the mountain somewhere, he figures. she doesn't need recalled, he'll allow her to roam. it's just breakfast, so he grabs his gardevoir to release her and two other capsules from the table; alecto and -- he hesitates.

then he stares at tartarus' capsule, hesitating, wondering.

"knox, i bring tartarus with me whenever i go out. she's usually my ... reassured safety harness." he drew in a long breath through open lips, pondering, and deciding... to let knox take the call.

"would... you rather i leave her here?"

knox prescott

all of knox's pokeballs are in a bag under sam's bed. he hasn't had a place to keep them, out of fear that his father might get some ideas and try to get his hands on them. but with him being bedridden and unable to go to lilycove, nevermind slateport, without feeling like he's being watched, he's felt awful about leaving them stagnant. 

captain fusses with his hair and twitches her tail as though to accentuate the need to get a move on. she tends to ride off of knox's energy. 

he raises a brow at the hold-up and then looks down at his hands. "i want to trust you," he says. he looks back up; some of that fear flits across his face. "bring her to give you comfort. just, if anything happens, ask me again before you use her."

well, that was certainly enough to kill the mood. "ready then?"

samuel carter

☉

relief moves over him as knox allows him to bring her, but lays rules. rules he can follow, he can abide by. rules he desperately needed. he didn't even realized he needed them until he'd met knox.

"i promise to ask first."

it is then, whether knox sees it or not, that the collar and leash are applied. sam has bound himself to his word, to knox, to the promise. while he can't wrap his mind around the notion of choosing life over death, he respects that knox can. because of that, he accepts knox as his conscious.

as the master holding the chain. one command, a release of his hand, and sam will leap immediately to protect him. to lash out. a white hot, dark, seeping rage.

but for now, it is caged. the beast within is silent, content; happy. sam notices the way knox' mood changes and he pockets what he needs before moving over and testing something out. after taking his gardevoir's hand beside knox, sam just cups his hand and gives knox' left ass cheek a squeeze.

"ready."

with that, she transports them.

knox prescott

snap. crunch. crack. he still feels a little woozy. sam may have shielded the worst of it, but no amount of smog could have blocked the gruesome noises tartarus had made.

i promise to ask first. it curbs some of his stress, but really he's warring, reminding himself that he forgave sam already. he can't take that back either. all they can do is move on. 

so he does. he chooses to trust sam and that's all there is to it. it helps to have something to look forward to.

he still looks a little green however, but that's more because of the teleportation. "i don't think i'm ever going to get used to that," he says with a grimace. 

samuel carter

☉

"i'm sorry..." it was his preferred method of transportation, but sam had gotten used to the queasy feeling. mostly because there were other things that made him more sick.

turning to face knox, his gardevoir releasing his hand, he took knox' hand in his own. his thumb he placed in the center of knox' palm, his fingers splayed just above his knuckles on the back of knox' hand, pressing gently.

then he began to rotate his thumb lightly. a hand massage. known to help people relax.

"i used to do this when getting used to the feeling. helped me to trick my brain into finding relaxation upon teleporting, instead of becoming sick."

which, he had, the first few times.

knox prescott

knox makes a face, but doesn't move his hand from sam's. "you mean like positive reinforcement? like they do with dogs?" his eeveelutions are cousins to canid pokemon. he'd had to use quite a few treats to get them to stop splashing, shocking, and freezing him. 

maybe something like this would work on alecto. granted, he's not sure what sam feeds that thing. 

before he can go down that horrifying rabbit hole of a thought, he looks down at sam's hand on his own. and after standing there for a bit, surrounded by looming trees and a bustling, yet still quiet, town, he turns his wrist and traps sam's fingers in his own. 

"c'mon, babe, i can hear your stomach growling."

samuel carter

☉

babe.

it might not be a big deal to knox. maybe he calls a lot of people that. but the way knox takes his hand and calls him 'babe' makes sam melt a little. complete putty in his hands.

he returns the hold and shrugs his shoulders.

"i've grown used to the feeling. it's become easy to ignore... maybe that's why teleportation doesn't bother me, because i'm used to it." sam's thinking out loud again. "maybe i just need to get you a gardevoir of your own."

something that will help knox get along.

"i know it's not a water type, but no water type here learns teleport. something about the primal energy. in kanto? slowbros could teleport. i even heard, a magmar had been able to teleport, which seems like one of those reddit rumors, but."

knox prescott

no? no response? hm. knox isn't so sure if he likes that one anyway. it's slipped from his mouth too many times on sweat-laden sheets. maybe eventually, but it can't be sam's. he tucks it away for later and is really only half-listening to the boy because he's absolutely positive he will never get used to teleportation. 

gardevoir are a hot commodity these days. there are people in rocket that solely hunt and move them as merchandise, selling them to the highest bidder.

it's why i almost took yours that night. 

he crooks a grin. "i mean, i've handled more than water-types." captain buzzes by sam's ankles as if to say, uh, obviously. "most of my business was done in port cities and overseas so having water companions just made sense. that and we tend to get along well." playful and buoyant and affectionate - yes, they tend to fit knox quite well.

samuel carter

☉

captain's little spark has sam looking at her with an apologetic and fond smile. he's easily able to move and give her a pet where he knows she likes it. because it's predictable. he knows her patterns. pikachus have manuals online he can read through.

not knox'. which is why he didn't respond to babe other than just smiling and moving on to get breakfast.

"i suppose that's true. i didn't mean to take away from the other types you have in your arsenal." he looked to knox then, hand retrieving from the pikachu. "i just noticed you favor water types. and speaking of, i was thinking of getting a pond installed in the back garden."

knox prescott

his eyes light up. captain, also an avid lover of the seaside and any of its close relatives, shimmies excitedly into sam's outstretched hand. when he withdraws his attention from her, she rolls a bit on the ground and then scampers back to knox's side. 

"oh, that would be amazing. they've been cooped up for a while and i still think we should make it to a beach at some point, let them stretch their legs, but they'd love that. i'd love that. i know cry misses his pond from back home." 

they draw up to the restaurant knox remembers. it's a small diner, tucked away in a throng of oversized trees, those that shape the city's namesake. he gets them a table and ends up ordering for them rather quickly. 

"would you want to, by the way? we could take a trip to dewford, put some distance between us and all this craziness."

samuel carter

☉

then a pond knox shall have, sam decides.

"a trip to the beach sounds nice... and i agree, we could use the fresh air."

and distance from everything. not from the mountain, but from the chaos.

"we could go more abroad. maybe visit alola."

being that he was in kanto, he knew a bit of alola. it wasn't far off kantonian shores, so travel there had been cheap growing up and he took a trip with his mother a few times after everything calmed down.

knox prescott

"go abroad?" and there's another big step sam probably doesn't realize is a big step. or even a step at all. i've done crazier. there was that 3-day bender to sinnoh. he's not quite sure how he ended up on that jet, only that the boy who'd told him to take him anywhere in the world ended up leaving him there with no money, no passport, and no way home. 

that had been a fun phone call to summer. 

"alola sounds like paradise." he leans over the table to give a quick peck to sam's cheek. and then he stands from his chair, drops his napkin on the table, and says, "if the food comes, just start without me. be right back." 

he lopes away from the table and follows the signs towards the bathroom. and once in, he empties his bladder, washes his hands, and then fishes for the pills in his back pocket. he turns them both over in his palm, glances over the symbols stamped to their sides, and selects one. 

and as he raises it to his lips, as he has a million and one times before, he looks up in the mirror. at his bruises, at his now slightly crooked nose (fuck), and he thinks damn, it's been too long. 

he swallows, pleased, because this will loosen him. this will scare away the rest of his anxieties and make him more him. the him sam fell for. the him sam will want in his bed. he licks his lips, ruffles his hair, and then goes to rejoin sam at the table, eyes light. 

"while we're out, i'm just gonna grab a couple more outfits. i don't want to turn this into a major shopping trip, but i'm in dire need of some underwear."

samuel carter

☉