sam watches his features and body language as he speaks. watches how his face changes. watches how his fingers move, the way the gold and orange shines over his body. it's appealing, it's beautiful... it's relaxing.

then he moves a few things out of the way and shifts, laying on his back beside knox, moving his hands behind his head for comfort's sake. his eyes slowly blink, twice.

"am i different than everybody else...in a good way?"

he worries he's a monster, because he is one. but he mostly worries that one day knox will decide that monster is too much and just... be gone. he'll wake up, and knox will be out of reach, out of touch; like a vapor.

knox prescott

he didn't phrase it right. he never does. i didn't want you to leave is i didn't want to be the one to make you leave. and how raw, how obtuse that thought is when it's right in front of him, staring him in the face, a sliver between them, no longer blocked by a thousand and one walls made of self denial and coke and ecstasy. 

his hands drop to his chest. sam moves beside him and his stomach growls again. it's an uncomfortable pang. annoying. 

"for me, maybe," he says. because anyone with half a brain would dump his sorry ass on the street after what he's done. but sam is different. 

easily manipulated and strung along. he'd do anything for you. that's really what you wanted. someone you can whip and they'll turn around and fucking thank you. 

"but i think i was wrong. that's not really what i wanted. it's what i thought i wanted. but really i wanted to be different. i wanted to treat you differently than any other random boy i'd met before." he frowns. "i was lonely."

samuel carter

☉

but i was wrong.

but really i wanted to be different.

a week ago, the idea was perplexing. wanting to be different than who he was? well, that was just crazy talk. sam had always been raised by his mother to be himself. he was also raised by his mother to not be himself to everybody all the time and to only show his true self to select people that he could trust.

in her defense, it was just her, she was seventeen when she had him, and when he was six he killed a rattata with his bare hands because it bit him... she did her best, y'know?

sam thought so, anyway. he always had. treated her like the world belonged to her. because she didn't have anybody to do that for her.s he was lonely... and suddenly he's seeing the correlation and his brows are furrowing. knox is not a replacement for his mother, because he wouldn't want to have his mother's finger ... places that knox' were. so then, is it just a coincidence?

no. he was lonely as well, and he hadn't realized that until knox showed up.

"at least... you knew you were lonely."

turning to look at knox' profile, sam looked at each part of him. the bruises, his hair, his eyelashes, the way his jaw was lined.

"...do you regret who i turned out to be beneath the surface?" he didn't really want to hear the answer. "i don't regret meeting any side of you."

because so far, every side of him, terrified or otherwise, was still laying next to him. it is that thought that causes sam to reach his free hand over and take knox' to lace their fingers together again.

knox prescott

he'd die for you. he'd die without you. he'd kill for you. he has killed for you. you finally did it, knox. you found the thing that will make you whole. all you need to do is break him in the process. can you do that? will you do that?

of course you will. 

his seams start stretching; that blackness leaks through. he turns his head to the side, away from sam while sam's lost in his thoughts, looking up at the sky. tears well and his face scrunches. 

he opens his mouth, but the thing in his throat threatens to come out as a croak. so he takes a moment and he swallows and he pulls it all back inside of him. raises his shoulder to brush the tears off. 

"i don't know if knowing's any better. knowing that you're doing the wrong thing," like now, like now, like now, "and not doing a damn thing about it..." 

i don't regret meeting any side of you. he looks up, turns his head, to show sam his disapproval. 

"i don't regret it. the world's a fucked up place. at least you did what you did for the right reasons."

samuel carter

☉

at least you did what you did for the right reasons.

...didn't he say what he did was wrong? he certainly acted like it was. he never outright said it, but he did tell sam that he wanted sam to care about what he'd done. which is what he is trying to do, which is what hurts.

because he still can't seem to find it in himself to care that he protected knox.

"...i was under the impression you thought what i did was wrong?"

he thought what he did was wrong. because he thought that's what knox wanted him to feel. but maybe he was wrong? if that's the case, what did knox what him to feel? what does knox want him to feel?

does knox even know?

knox prescott

"it was," he says blithely, "but you did it with good reason. it's not like you just walked up to a random person and just fucking shanked them for no reason or hurt a kid or something. you hurt bad men who wanted to hurt me." 

he untangles their fingers and props his hands under his head, elbows sticking out. "but then again, who am i to judge anyway? it's not like i'm a godsdamn saint." he laughs. 'cause in the grand scheme of things, sam, i'm far worse than you. i did nothing. i'm still doing nothing. and people are still getting hurt when they don't have to be. 

maybe his father really is better off dead. 

no. cut off the head of a hydra and two more emerge in its place. you'd have to kill it at its source, and that's out of your hands. that's the universe itself. 

"life's a cruel joke and then you die, right? so maybe it didn't matter."

samuel carter

☉

"so maybe what doesn't matter? life?"

sam took in a deep breath, thinking back to when they were here. it was far enough away that he couldn't remember vivid details, but he could remember words. words etched into his heart for all of eternity, so he felt.

"i didn't want to trust anybody else, was the trouble. why curse somebody with my existence? why burden somebody with my shackles?"

drawing a breath through his teeth, he exhales, moves to scratch idly at his fingertips, nervous, afraid, vulnerable.

"you told me, everyone's got their skeletons and that life is too short to wallow...so i trusted you. i let you on my road. that fragile one i carved for myself, because you looked like you needed a hand to hold while you learned how to carve your own path."

then he swallows, leaning up and looking at knox' tears, wiping them away with his thumb, the ones that remained.

"do you even want help learning how to make your own road?"

knox prescott

maybe it doesn't. he's lived life, at and to its fullest. he took everything he possibly could, became the namesake of mischief and mayhem, chaos and destruction. wherever he went, he left glowing cinders. he ripped apart love and guzzled down peace, feeling if he could empty the world with what's left of the good, the bad wouldn't seem so bad.

and yet he was the one chewed up and spit out. left on the curb, left with nothing. but that's not true. how can you say that? look at what he's done for you! the blanket and the food and the empty sky above them. 

he snatches sam's wrist, pulls his fingers away from his face. don't. don't hurt him. he's the last good thing you have. don't fucking hurt him. 

"i did make my own road, sam. and i carved it straight into a fucking pit, okay? you should know. you spend all day digging them." 

he sits up and hunches his shoulders. instant regret. terror. sam will walk away. that's what you wanted. but it's not. then why did you say that? i don't know. for the attention. it's all it is. you want him to tell you that it's not over, that you're 'worth' something.

he fists his fingers in his hair and makes a noise of frustration, and then sobs. "i'm so scared, sam. i'm so sorry and i'm so scared and it hurts and i can't make it stop hurting."

samuel carter

☉

the moment his wrist was grapped sam tensed. why was knox pushing him away? was he suffocating him? did knox need a break?

no, no that's not it. there's something else. there's that bit of knox that is kept hidden and it's beginning to surface. sam wants to reach into knox and pull that part of him to the surface. speak to it. he wants to take knox' skeletons and shake them to life. to hear their stories.

so when knox pulls in on himself, curls into a ball, sam looks along knox' outline and contemplates... before making a decision. he moves closer and hugs him. skeletons, demons, confusion, hate, anger, pain, guilt, sorrow, all of it. he hugs every piece of him.

"i can't make it stop hurting if you don't let me..." and by that, he means, "the truth of it is, i'm not enough to make you feel better. i might not ever be enough. i can offer to hold your hand, i can offer to carry you along, i can go out of my way to try and make you happy. but in the end, it's your decision on whether you'll be happy or not... but know this,"

he takes knox chin in his hand to force knox to look into his ever determined and moistening eyes.

"i meant it when i said i wouldn't let you leave me. even when you lock yourself away because it hurts, i'll love you then, just as i love you now. i love you whole, i love you broken. i accept you good, i accept you bad. i want all of you, even if you don't want it yourself."

knox prescott

i'm not enough to make you feel better. it's rushing water in his ears. it's truth and it drowns him because what else does he have that's good besides sam? if sam's not enough, then what the fuck is? he wants to kick and scream and say he doesn't want this. he's not choosing this. if he could be fucking happy with sam, he would. 

but he's insatiable. he didn't walk his way into a pit. he is the pit. where all these good things fall into, because he promises he'll catch them, but then they break and splinter and all he can do is live with that inside him. 

"you can't," he bites out. "you can't say that, sam." he raises his head again, fingers unknot, and this time it's with an urgency that he brings sam's face to his own. eyes wild, not all there. mania. "you can't let me hurt you. i can't live with myself if i hurt you."

samuel carter

☉

"we're going to hurt each other knox, it's human nature."

there's such an urgency in knox' voice that sam actually feels compelled to lie. it's odd for him, given that he always just tells the truth and damned be those who don't agree. but with knox... this fragile and terrified version of him.

"i'm in too deep now, knox. if you hurt me, then you hurt me. but when you do, just be there to mend the wound and nurse me back, like i have you... and for me, that will be enough."

he's forgiven knox for whatever is coming his way before has even done anything to forgive him.

"knox...you could shatter my soul into a thousand pieces and i would come running to you with each piece in hand asking you to put it back together again... because i feel like you're the only one who knows where all the pieces go."

knox prescott

he let this go all wrong. sam was practically bouncing on his toes the whole way here. beaming wide. buzzing with energy. he could have let his barrier down for one fucking second and taken some of that. and it would have been easier. this would have been easier. and they'd be enjoying the stars and they're dinner like they were supposed to. 

his breath comes in shallow gasp. he can't fix anything. his hands have always shaken - they're shaking now. what good are they for mending? 

so just don't hurt him. don't do the thing that hurts him. he's been trying so hard for days now. it's excruciating and his world is upside down and he's so empty all the time. 

except - 

he leans into sam. i'm addicted to it, the feeling i get around you. he goes back to that moment and he rewrites it. he makes himself stay. he makes himself say yes, i feel it too. 

and he does that by twisting in sam's arms and tangling his fingers in his hair. he throws his weight into him, shoulders shaking, tears still slicking his, their, cheeks. he kisses him roughly, but not carelessly. like an addict chasing his next high. 

samuel carter

☉

let me mend your broken pieces too.

that's what he wanted knox to know, to feel, to see. he wanted knox to let him pick up his pieces. because he knows knox' hands are shaking. he knows that knox can't put himself back together. but he has those pieces of himself hidden away and locked up-- until the kiss is given.

it feels like a door is unlocked, like its opened, and to step through sam kisses knox back. his hands move to knox' cheeks and to his jawline. he doesn't wipe tears away, he just embraces them, embraces him; them.

he keeps knox in his hold, kisses him back with whatever fervor he's given. he understands that knox needs a high of some kind and this is knox asking sam to be that high...so sam complies. while he had meant for it to come about differently, he is prepared. not that knox knows that, it was part of the surprise.

but sam doesn't want to ruin the moment, so only if knox pushes it further will sam. though sam does encourage the movement, shows that he too wants to go back to that moment. wants to say that he feels it too. with hands that slide down knox' cheeks ot his neck, to his collarbone, along his ribs.

knox prescott