the nickname had sam's face immediately doing a :cringeharold: and he hadn't even realized he was doing it. it just happened, had him shaking his head lightly, and then he smiled with the cringe as knox continued on, hopefully that nickname wouldn't stick.

"i don't think you stink, and i'm not using you at all--"

then, like a ton of bricks, it hits sam. knox was joking. he digresses, shaking his head.

"sorry, that was a joke, ignore me. um..." he fidgets awkwardly, thinking. how does one respond to something like that? usually sass and sarcasm. "yes, shamelessly using you for your stink."

the sarcasm's so dry knox could snuff it.

then, pleased he might have done it right, he takes a sip of his coffee. he hums into it, recalling the nickname 'hon.'

"my mother calls me hon sometimes, please refrain. i liked babe, though." he doesn't think anything of it, just voicing his opinion. "do you prefer being called anything other than knox?"

knox prescott

knox lets him work through it. he holds a hand over his mouth, but it's just a more dramatic way to (not) cover up his laughter. sam looks so pleased with himself that it only makes it better. he shakes his head, keeps chuckling, wishes he had a camera so he could have captured every single golden expression on sam's face. 

"will refrain," he agrees. "felt like a super Straight husband talking to his wife." he shudders. "no thank you." 

he tilts his head. "oh? okay. still gotta find the one with umph though. y'know, the one for sam." he thinks on it. he hasn't ever really had any nicknames. 'knox' doesn't quite lean to any. and he's been called everything under the sun - babe, slut, bitch, whore, etc. although, he's not too sure he wants those to come out of sam's lips. 

then again. he bites his lips, wills the thoughts away. pancakes first. then clothes. then supplies. THEN THAT. 

he shrugs. "dunno. i like the way you say my name. summer calls me blue, but she's the only one." and it's hers, just as i'll only ever call her red. 

samuel carter

☉

"i won't take her name for you." blue and red. reminds him of that one movie, where there's a computer world and the computers feed off of the people's consciousness. sometimes he feels like those computers.

but anyway.

he eats at his oatmeal and sips his coffee. he notices that knox isn't touching the coffee, wonders if he's made it right. but he waits until they've got a break from their meal to ask. the break is when he's finished, not eating much. he doesn't eat much, he snacks a lot though. granola here, fruit there.

"i'll just stick to 'my knox' for now." he gave it some thought, then motions toward the coffee. "did i make it wrong?"

knox prescott

"good or you'd probably have to fight her for it," he says with a simper. he finally takes a bite of the pancakes and man, they're even better than he remembers. the syrup is golden and has just the slightest taste of honey to it. the cakes themselves are perfectly fluffy; some of the butter dribbles down the sides. 

he is, and he isn't, bewildered that all sam wants is oatmeal. the boy works himself like a dog and barely eats to sustain himself (but knox isn't going to complain about his trim body and tight muscles). 

he's a little bit absorbed in the breakfast, almost oddly so, and he ends up missing what sam says about the coffee. kind of. it takes him a second and then he pieces it together and simpers. 

"no, you didn't make it wrong. you made it like you always do." he sighs. "you were just so excited to make me that coffee after our meeting and i didn't want to say no, but then you kept doing it after that, and really enjoyed it, so i kept letting you enjoy it."

he sets his fork down. "i don't...like coffee. but i like you, so i drank it." 

samuel carter

☉

the way knox goes about eating his breakfast doesn't bother sam. he just assumes knox was that hungry.

and then knox explains that he doesn't like coffee and sam feels like a fool. a fool, because he'd been so wrapped up in focusing on not scaring knox away that he had been blind to the small tells. never finishing a cup, insisting on rinsing his own cup, or insisting on making his own cup.

guilt and amusement circle in his expression and he ends up with a small chuckle. it bleeds into a laugh, until finally he can't help but let the laugh take full form.

"you don't like coffee!"

it was the first laugh he'd given, really, true laugh, for a while. there had been so much shit, that the amusement over the coffee was a tension release. he ended up trying to cover his face to hide his laugh, eyes closed.

one of those hold your stomach because it hurts so bad, kind of laughs.

"i've been making you coffee for weeks!"

knox prescott

"yes. yes, you have," he says and finally allows himself to make a face. "they always say it's an acquired taste, but..." he trails off because sam's shoulders are shaking and at first, he thinks the boy's having another panic attack, but his laughter comes out of him and it's the best godsdamn sound knox has ever heard. 

he lights up like a christmas tree and joins him. and they earn a few weird looks, but that doesn't really matter. sam's laugh is a sing-song and he's in love with it and he wants to hear more, more, more of it. 

he loses interest in the pancakes then, in the rest of the food. he tosses his utensils down and his napkin on top and drinks sam in with that big sideways grin of his. 

"you're beautiful, you know that?" he says. 

samuel carter

☉

the laughter seemed to dissolve how annoyingly pensive they'd allowed each other to become over the evening before. rightly pensive, so any normal human being would argue. sam hadn't seen the need. it was over and done with, he didn't feel remorse because they were now safe and that bastard would hopefully figure knox wasn't worth the trouble that sam could cause.

that had been the goal, anyways. who knew what would come of it.

knox' words derailed his thoughts, smile remaining as he thought about what was said.

"beautiful?"

words like that were reserved for his gardevoir, not for him. they belonged to the way the peak of mt. pyre could catch the moon. or how a coordinator could show off a pokémon.

but him?

"what makes you say so?"

knox prescott

knox nods because uh, obviously. the peacock boy is as shallow as they come. if he didn't think sam were beautiful, he wouldn't be here right now. but, of course, and it's a hard pill for him to swallow - it's more than that. it really is his laugh, because he's never felt a pang in his chest when someone else has laughed before. 

he gestures towards sam's whole person. "because you are? simple 's that. what? i can't be smitten with my boyfriend?" 

and then he reaches forward to teasingly tap sam on the nose. 

samuel carter

☉

"uh..."

boyfriend?

the label loops around in sam's head for what felt like days. reality, maybe half a second. he furrowed his brows, smile still there. perplexed and excited, he just takes the title gently and tucks it away into the recesses of his mind. perhaps he can hang onto it in a place it can never be taken from him.

"i'm not often described as beautiful. smitten as you may be, beautiful is more a word i would use to describe scenery... take you for example," he was about to attempt and repay the compliment. "your allure, for me, is your presence. your scent, your mannerisms, how you hold yourself. captivating, or breath taking, that's the word i would use."

but beautiful? no, that word simply wasn't enough and he felt it was too much to describe himself.

knox prescott

"is that why you got that look on your face when i gave you this?" he says and tugs at the hoodie he's wearing. he thought he'd heard every compliment under the sun, but sam's are made in earnest and it makes knox feel things. things that make him want to feel more things. things that are abstract, but are pulsing on his skin and in his eyes and in his heartbeat. 

and oh, no, that's the flush on his cheeks. pink pools onto his cheeks and he can feel the heat on his ears. he makes a face and then yanks his hood up to shadow himself. 

"how are you able to do this to me?" he complains and covers the rest of his face with his hand. and then, to move on from the subject and try to get every ounce of blood in his body to go back where it belongs instead of gathering at his face, he says, "are you going to eat more? i thought you were starving."

samuel carter

☉

seeing knox so embarrassed has sam wondering if he's honestly this bashful, if he's masochistic since he's such a narcissist to himself most of the time, or if sam had missed something.

but wait. what if nobody honestly complimented knox... ever? that sounded false. not just inaccurate either, but like a sleight against the universe. knox was gorgeous. he was easy on the eyes and he had a charm and allure to him that raptured sam's entire being in just one evening.

but then the subject is changed, focus on their food, and sam glances down at his oatmeal.

"i'm always starving. i have a very small stomach. i snack a lot. for now, i'm satisfied." then he meets knox' gaze with a soft smile. "we can pay at the counter," he motioned as he picked up the ticket. "it's clothes shopping next, isn't it?"

knox prescott

well, at least they can relate there, granted knox doesn't get much enjoyment out of snacking. usually ruins the buzz. in that regard, he doesn't push sam to eat more, nor does he force himself. with half of their food left unfinished, he gets up from the table and offers a hand to sam. 

"we can pay," he says with a snort. no, ricky and that dead asshole can pay. which reminds him - he draws his phone out and sends a quick text to him, of which includes an apology for leaving the truck stranded. after texting approximate coordinates for where they'd left it, he pockets his phone again and pays with a thin sliver of newly pressed bills. 

fortree isn't the easiest town to maneuver in, but eventually he finds a boutique with some clothes to his liking. 

he starts thumbing through the clothes and then glances over at sam. "do you only ever wear sweats? i'm not complaining. just curious."

samuel carter

☉

"i wore parachute pants on our first date."

were those considered sweats? sam didn't know, and neither do i.

sam watched knox thumb through clothes. he hadn't minded knox helping pay, because he'd insisted. either way, sam didn't thumb through the clothes because he didn't plan on buying anything. but he noticed knox didn't look particularly happy... so he pulled out a small 'juniors' tank top crop top and held it over his own stoic and unexpressive frame.

"knox," he waited for eye contact before finishing with, "does this make me look fat?"

maybe that would lighten the mood.

knox prescott