sam wraps his arms around him and then they're floating. knox expels a cloud of bubbles, releasing what air he can from his lungs so they don't buoy back to the surface. and his eyes are open too, looking at the mirage of the boy he loves. really, truly loves. because who else has he shared this silent, push-pull world with? 

sunlight dapples above sam. a wave rolls over, but they're too far beneath it to be jostled. instead, they drift in the current. 

until knox's lungs are screaming for air and he has to break this trance. he kicks off the ground and drags sam up with him. when he comes up, it's coughing and sputtering and laughing. he blinks the water away from his eyes, shakes out his hair, and then suctions himself to sam like an octopus so he can kiss him. 

samuel carter

☉

each action was followed happily. from expelling a bit of air so they didn't float, to going back up for water. the way knox wraps around him has sam smirking and nearly going under, but he finds a way to tread water while returning the kiss.

it is gentle and soft. a wave surrounds them and he feels the water in his ear. he tilts his head to get the water out, kissing knox at a different angle at the same time. two pidgeys, one stone.

the kiss is short lived as another wave moves them and sam chuckles, moving a hand through his own hair. his eyes find knox's and he smiles, just smiles.

"you seem very happy here."

knox prescott

the world isn't even ground out here. it's tumultuous and ever-changing and it makes sense. there are no rules. there is no right or wrong. there is just being. letting the waves take you and pull you and breathe you back to shore. 

the wave rolls over them and once upon a time, knox would have let it bat him around. he would have let himself get carried, tumbling and sand-ridden, only to dive back in again. but this time he holds fast to sam. eyes closed and the world still spins, but this time he has an anchor. 

he smiles back and simpers and thinks, yes, because it's easy out here. but he's in too good a mood to let himself sour it. so he nods and he presses his nose to sam's. 

"i'm happy with you," he says. 

samuel carter

☉

sam is a lot of things, but an idiot isn't one of them. naive, perhaps, but not an idiot. he knows good and well that knox is likely talking through adrenaline and the free feeling that comes with being nowhere close to danger.

for a moment he thinks, i could leave with you now, take you to kalos, start something modest there with you.

but would knox leave summer? sam foolishly thinks not, so he dismisses the idea completely and instead he nudges knox's nose back and smiles.

"i'm happy with you too."

it's the only reason he's treading water while trying to remain close to something that will make him sink. two bodies are harder to keep afloat than one, unless that body is dead, then it can be use to keep himself a float. but he'd be the dead body in the scenario if he had anything to say about it.

excuse that metaphorical rabbit, anyway.

"i like seeing you weightless like this." no pressures, nothing to hold him down. soaring, ever higher. "maybe i should build a beach house on the shores of mt. pyre for us."

knox prescott

he doesn't think he's weightless. not really. he feels more like a mirage - every broad smile is one just meant to cover up his terror, to assuage his own guilt. but no, that can't be right. because sam is looking at him in earnest and is speaking from the heart and knows him, really knows him. 

is this me? the real me? with voices that whisper atrocities and eyes that can't see color. surely sam prefers the rainbows. the easy-breezy. the surreal. 

"the pond, i'm impressed by, but a house? sam, you can't expect me to believe you know how to build a whole house." he laughs and holds on tighter as a wave washes over them. 

samuel carter

☉

sam holds knox to him as the wave takes them. there are plenty of pokémon around them that can save them, so he's relaxed, and he feels safe. his hands relax against knox when the wave passes, but they do not let go. not fully. only enough for comfort and to provide the choice of knox creating distance if he wanted it.

"well, not completely, i'd have to do some research like i did with the pond."

but he had helped in building houses before, so he didn't see an issue with looking into it and attempting it. for knox? sam is willing to do just about anything... hasn't he proved that?

perhaps knox needs more. and for sam, in his naivety, he assumes that's fine and acceptable. there are few people he had met in his life who right off the bat took him seriously. they all thought him sarcastic. he's sure knox knows the difference now between his sarcasm and him being honest; serious. perhaps knox is just trying to get used to just how much sam will do for him at the drop of a hat.

knox prescott

he really does mean it then. knox knows, and keeps having to tell himself he knows, just how far sam is willing to go for him. and what sam's willing to do for him. the thought is frightening. the thought is too much. the thought brings him a comfort he can't even begin to fathom. 

when the water settles, know takes a moment to pool a handful of water in his palm. then he drips it on sam's head, watches it run in rivulets down his neck, back into the ocean. the action isn't too dissimilar from when he'd done the same to sam's keldeo.

"fine," he says. "yes, let's do it. us. i want to help you build this. to be with you while we do it." build it together - build it out of love, not out of desperation or exhaustion or sadness. 

he'll have to get a couple of new jobs. he'll have to resurface. he'll have to go out in the world so they can afford the lumber, the nuts and bolts and wires and whatever else the fuck they'll need. and with that in mind, he'll be able to do it. 

this is what he tells himself.

samuel carter

☉

us. oh it sounds good. it sounds nice. it sounds perfect. them, together, living and breathing in the same space that is theirs, that they built together. the idea blossoms in his mind and he doubts it will wither away easily. to be sure of that, he purposes to build up the happy memories, the obstacles they've overcome, around that blossoming thought. to keep it and sustain it.

until he dies. because he knows this will be the only time in which he doesn't love knox... and even so, he thinks, perhaps even death cannot stop love, can it?

"i'd like the help. the pond wasn't terribly easy with pokémon's help, but i'd like to build the house together with you."

knox prescott

a house together. it'd been but a few short days ago that he'd shrugged aside such a thought. sam's bed feels like a place he can call home, but he still sees it as sam's bed. in sam's house. on sam's mountain. he has a feeling sam doesn't see it that way, that even if it's not an equal split, some part of his space belongs to knox now. 

he'd thought of getting an apartment situated somewhere in lilycove. close enough he can keep an eye on mauville, close enough to be near sam, and far enough away where he can breathe if he needs to. 

but even that amount of distance makes the voices remind him that give him an inch and he'll take a mile. 

the thought sobers him. another wave approaches, but instead of weathering it, knox sighs and sinks himself under the water. the wave crashes, rolling over them, and the current jerks, but he holds his ground against it, and comes back up. 

when he resurfaces, he smiles, but this one is a sad, tired smile. his mental exhaustion rears its ugly head. "but i have to go back out there first. i can't keep hiding and doing nothing, sam, or i'm going to go insane. i want a house to come home to, not four walls to trap myself in." 

but how can i trust myself?

samuel carter

☉

admittedly, sam doesn't immediately understand why it would feel like four walls to trap himself in, instead of a place to call home. they would be building it together, wouldn't that make it home enough?

but then thoughts of knox's father, whom they were hiding from, move through sam's mind and he frowns at the thought. frowns because he's withholding information. frowns because he had asked eden to make him promise not to say anything. frowns because he knows knox will be frustrated with him.

another wave, and this time, sam is the one who lets it take them for a bit of a ride before surfacing and looking between knox's eyes.

"i don't want you to feel trapped... and i understand if you don't want to do so right away. it was just... just a suggestion, not a necessity. the only necessity i have is you."

without you, i would fade away. into the void of nothingness that i was in before... and i cannot fathom it. i don't want to.

life without you wasn't good enough, and life with you? i've become spoiled.

knox prescott

he flicks sam on the nose. "you're allowed to want things, you know." the waves have pushed them closer to shore now. close enough that sam and knox can stand comfortably and not on their toes. so knox flashes a smile and when the next wave comes, he dives. 

eyes open underwater. the salt could never bother him anymore. he finds sam's legs and wiggles his way through them, grabs his thighs as he finds his footing and stands with the boy on his shoulders. 

knox looks up at him impishly. "i don't feel trapped when i'm with you, sam. but you can't be next to me all the time. i gotta figure this shit out."

samuel carter

☉

when he finds his grounding suddenly knox is dipping beneath the water. curiously, sam lets a gentle smile form as he watches knox's blurry form beneath the surface. when his thighs are touched and moved, an awkward grunt leaves him and then suddenly knox is standing up with sam on his shoulders.

panic.

sam grunted a bit more before grabbing the top of knox's head and ruffling that wet hair as he latched onto the boy beneath him.

"what are you doing?"

while the question was calmly asked, the expression on his face is everything but calm. he wasn't afraid of heights, but he'd never been on anybody's shoulders... ever, and it was an odd experience. he barely rode his pokémon, let alone his boyfriend.

well. shut up, you know what i mean, damn.

knox prescott

sam grabs him a bit roughly, but knox doesn't mind. he just squeezes his fingers into sam's thighs. when he looks up and sees sam's terror, his brows furrow in confusion. a wave breaks over them and knox jumps, putting sam over it but smacking his own face against it in the process. 

he sputters water and then tosses his head as well as he can to get slightly too-long hair out of his eyes. "don't worry, love. i've got you." 

samuel carter

☉