all at once he relaxes. the waves are music to his ears. and he thinks i'm home and the thought terrifies him. using knox would have looked at all the pretty parts of it, would have shoved the misgivings away in a box for later, for the sober knox that would never quite come along. but now, with arms free of bruises, and a nose that hasn't bled in weeks now, he's free to fantasize about all the ways this can go wrong. 

joy. 

"yeah," he says. he droops over sam's shoulders and kisses his cheek, still making no move to get down. 

"y'know, sometimes i forget how strong you are and then you carry me like i'm nothing and it hits me how godsdamn sexy you are all over again."

samuel carter

☉

"that's my party trick," sam says in a tease, tone dry as ever as he starts to walk the shore with knox on his back like he's just a satchel. "dopeass piggyback rides."

but really, he doesn't have a party trick. he just has knox. he has knox on his shoulders. a happy knox kissing his cheek.

he doesn't need a party trick because he's not a party goer. and if he does go, it's literally only because knox asks him to go. so ... that makes knox his party trick.

he keeps that revolation to himself as alecto plays with the water and sand, and astrea's purrs follow them as she pads softly through the sand.

knox prescott

he snorts. "if i catch you giving other guys piggyback rides at any of my parties, i'm not gonna be happy." jealousy isn't a pretty color on knox. he's never really dealt with it much. whenever ollie cheated on him, he hadn't felt jealous. he'd felt vengeful. ah, young love.

sometimes he thinks he should tell sam about ollie. he has, in a way. 'that in about seven years, you're almost an entirely new person? i was in a hospital bed when someone told me that. that people can change.' but that night feels so long ago and the memories are a little bit blurry, a little hazy around the edges. drugs'll do that to you, but even knox will admit to a little bit of repression. 

he doesn't know why he's thinking about this now or why he's thinking about ollie or what he said. but he does know. he knows it's because of the texts and all the things knox has been keeping from sam.

"i love you," he says suddenly, as though that will make up for it.

samuel carter

☉

"and i love you."

it's sudden but sam takes it when it's given. he's greedy when it comes to knox's declarations of any kind. negative or positive. love or hate.

because it means knox is there. and when knox feels powerful emotions, sam feels them too. which is a marvel, honestly. because otherwise he's hollow. without knox, he's empty.

"you know," sam begins as he walks, watching as his umbreon prances ahead and trills at the pokémon ahead in warning to attempt and get them to scatter. "it never bothers me if we just do things you enjoy. because the things i enjoy, they're outweighed by how much i enjoy spending time with you. really doesn't matter what we're even doing."

basically, sam doesn't care about extravagant dates or otherwise.

"but, i do recognize that you're trying. you're trying to do things that i like too, and i want you to know i see those efforts. and i appreciate them; i just appreciate you enjoying yourself more than doing things i like."

knox prescott

he listens quietly because that's all he can do. blue eyes shift from the boy underneath him and out to the water, where he can watch the waves crash against the shore and think about all the reasons he's here - because he loves sam. truly, undoubtedly, and irrevocably. but also because he's scared. 

here's where they could build their house. here's where they could build something together. but eventually his father will find him. and he'll take everything good in his life before the end. 

in sam's words lay truths he knows all too well. and he wants to get excited about things. he wants to dote on sam - take him out to eat, travel, go to extravagant places. he wants to gobble up the world with the boy beneath him but he's trapped in a cage of his own making. traveling means exposure. exposure means being found. and found means dying. 

hundreds of texts now. of phone calls. of voicemails. drunken promises of manslaughter. 

"i'm lucky," he says softly, afraid if he says much more he'll crack. how can sam not feel all this weight on top of him? his own shoulders are threatening to give way. 

"have you spoken to summer lately?" he asks.

samuel carter

☉

"not in length."

though it's not like he needed there to be length. he had plotted with others to take down mr. prescott and he was still plotting with Summer Atreides herself to take down the head honcho.

he had a pretty solid plan going, one that would take place while both kids were out of the country. summer, he had given cash under the table from a funeral so she could buy tickets to alola for a while, get out of the country.

for he and knox, he was planning on visiting his mother. a trip he'd planned a while ago and was now using as an excuse to be out of the region while his pokémon executed his will.

with an amplified telepathy between a few regional stations, his pokémon could allow his consciousness to be present. that was all he needed, was a consciousness. it would look very much like the ghosts of mr. prescott's past were coming to drag him into hell.

and to meet him there, two houndoom, ready to tear him apart and burn each limb. make sure there wasn't a trace. because even tartarus couldn't stomach eating that vile man.

"...do you want to talk about it?"

it being the constant cufant in the room, the reason for all of his trauma and anxiety; his father.

knox prescott

knox frowns at the vagueness of it, but he doesn't say more. he doesn't want to. he's done a damn good job of ignoring all of this by shutting himself away on mt. pyre, pretending it's a vacation with his boyfriend. but they both know it's a lie and the seashore curls with the ever-present mist of the mountain, phantasmal and eerie. 

do you want to talk about it? there he goes then, making this all about himself. and on sam's birthday no less. a very important day in which they should be celebrating love and joy and all the other good things he hasn't felt since he stopped using. 

that's the real problem, isn't it? you don't give a flying fuck that ol daddy-o wants to kill you. because living doesn't fucking matter if you're not high. 

he shifts, suddenly a little uncomfortable up on sam's back. touching him this much. being this close. even if the alternative is sam seeing every godsdamn emotion he can't hide on his face. 

"no," he says stubbornly. "i want to spend your birthday doing fun things and not ruining it with my dramatic ass self."

samuel carter

☉

in a way, they've been spending the last few weeks doing all the fun things. but sam doesn't voice that. instead, he just let's knox process his emotions and shrugs his shoulders.

"you know, i enjoy talking about you. it's a fun thing, for me. so for me, it would be fun for me. it just wouldn't be fun for you."

but then again, he doesn't want to pry and push the matter.

"but you're right. we should be doing something that we both enjoy."

so he starts walking, heading up the mountain a bit toward that ever familiar spot. where they watch the stars and bask in their light. where they pretend that nothing else matters. that place where the world stops and all that matters is that they're breathing next to each other.

because as much as it's 'sam's birthday,' he just wants knox to be comfortable and happy.

knox prescott

something they both enjoy. even the notion is enough to scatter knox's misgivings. at least that something has been able to keep him occupied these past few weeks of basically being in fucking witness protection. in sam's bed, shut away from the world, one might think he's stuck on ogygia, with only the whim of the gods capable of releasing him. 

'cept he's no odysseus; no home to go to and no family waiting with open arms. only a pit of snakes and scorn. 

sam starts heading up the mountain and knox is still just along for the ride. he hunkers closer to him, once again astounded and turned on by how damn fit his boyfriend is. 

"are your arms or legs even a little sore from carrying me?" he asks, mood lightened (a constant up and down, high and low, this way that way, with him now). 

samuel carter

☉

at the thought of being uncomfortable, sam just smiles. his arms and legs are fine, not sore, but they would be by the following day. namely if this evening played out the way he assumed it was going to play out.

with a lot of extra leg and arm work ahead of him. which, he didn’t mind. they had those extra curricular activities quite often and sam was finding fun and far less gross ways to have it. because he and knox had a big discussion about how fluids in any way on sam’s body aren’t appreciated. even the rain.

unless it’s fully raining and he’s soaked or in the ocean, he shouldn’t be wet. wet and dry at the same time is not acceptable. too many sensory issues.

”my arms and legs are fine for now. by tomorrow i might be signing a different tune. but i don’t mind.”

not at all does he mind. he’d be sore for knox twice over if he needed to be.

knox prescott

knox, meanwhile, enjoys sticking his feet in the pond sam dug for him. or trailing an arm through the water and staring up at the sky while he waited for sam to come home. granted, the clouds aren't as fun to look at now that there's no way they'll come to life for him. 

"of course you don't mind," he says with a snort. he shifts a little bit, fingers curling at the nape of sam's neck. he's not stupid. he knows where sam's taking him. seems like this is the only damn place he can come alive anymore. and it's awful, but at least it's something. 

when they reach the spot, knox slips down sam's back. he doesn't let him turn, though, just encircles his arms around him and draws him close, tucks his head into the crook of sam's neck. breathes in and out in a low sigh. 

"it's...been long enough, i think. i mean, for all of this to blow over."

samuel carter

☉

”i was thinking the same, actually.”

with knox’s arms around him, sam relaxes into the hold and allows himself to breathe. slow and calming breaths that allow his mind to open up and loose hold of all the pent up complications of setting up a master plan behind knox’s back. making it all look like an accident and making sure he wasn’t even in the damn region by the time they heard the news of what sam had planned.

turning in the hold around him, sam kissed along what he could find of the pale neck of his boyfriend, hands resting comfortably on familiar hips.

”…i want you to meet my mother. i go and see her bi-monthly, and i was wondering if you’d come with me this time.”

knox prescott

with sam's back to him, it's easy to lie. he gets that from summer. or maybe just his father. a likeness he doesn't want painted to him, but is there nonetheless. but still, he expects sam to put up a little more of a fight. his heart flutters and then anxiety curls in the pit of his stomach. 

leave? now? with summer under the watchful nose of their father? what happens if knox isn't there to take his attention? when he can't blame the state of his business on his fuck-up son? but instead his too-pretty daughter, a snake of his own making. 

"i...i mean, you know i want to meet your mom and all, but i still have things to take care of here. i can't leave. not until i fix all this."

samuel carter

☉