the silence, for once, was deafening. usually its welcome to sam. the silence is where he has found his home.

but with the trauma they’ve experienced, the silence is so loud.

the sounds of the mountain, the waters far off, the wind glazing through leaves and branches. it helps to blot out the screams, the thrill, the adrenaline.

it is his own addiction, his own sin.

knox’ emotions cut through his thoughts as he stands, shovel ready, watching knox barely manage to stand. the body that lays on the ground, on knox’ shirt, means nothing to sam in so much as it means, apparently, everything to knox. he knows this is a selfish thought, but his earlier resolve of not shutting himself off allows himself to feel it.

the rage that comes with jealousy.

”yes knox, he is dead.” it’s a fact, and he walks up to stand beside knox, wanting to wrap an arm around him and doing so because he knows knox is a creature of touch. ”so let me bury him, hm?”

knox prescott

he's blubbering so much he bites his tongue. and maybe it's for the best because he doesn't really register what sam is saying, or how he's saying it. he doesn't see the silent jealousy in his golden eyes or hear it reflected in his voice. just leans into that touch, that comfort, and tries to muster what strength he has. 

he looks down at his browned hands, flexes his fingers. nods. 

"can you get two shovels?" he asks softly. 

samuel carter

☉

two… shovels?

why do you need to bury him with your own hands?

”yeah.”

there’s an annoyed sigh that follows, holding the shovel out. he’s tired, he’s killed more people than years he has lived in that evening alone. he’s going to end up working for summer and doing that a hell of a lot more.

that much, he doesn’t much care about. it’s worth being himself, accepting that animal within himself, to keep knox safe. and for once, he doesn’t even care if him keeping knox safe is ‘what knox wants’ because it’s what sam wants for knox, and what summer wants for knox;

which means it’s obviously what’s best for the moron even if the moron doesn’t realize it just yet.

after handing knox the shovel, he goes to get his own. aether makes quick work of teleporting them to the shed so he can grab another shovel, then teleports him back so he can begin helping knox bury his whatever-this-guy’s-name-or-relation-is.

he’s not an idiot so he’s come up with a few ideas. summer doesn’t like him, check. so not a lost sibling or something. knox clearly is reacting like he’s lost a piece of himself; which concludes that clearly this was a ‘past’ lover… if it was even a past lover or not.

knox prescott

eventually, knox will tell sam what this means to him. why it means what it does. that ollie was the only there to visit after he'd woken, throat still raw from his own self-poisoning. seven years. and he thinks of this, the pained memory of his own bloody self-infliction hard to swallow past now. phantom pain or something like that. 

sweat breaks over him. he and sam work in silence. just the shunk and scrape of the spade breaking the earth. he looks up, once, and watches sam work with a scowl on his face. 

when it's deep enough, and sam tells him as much, he drops the spade. drops hypatia's pokeball because aether looks so strained. the gardevoir, touching his thoughts, eases the tremors from knox's hands. 

he feels like he should say something. 

"seven years," he whispers. he picks up his hand, places it on his chest. then his other. holds them there for just a moment. "seven years, ollie. that's all it takes." he closes his eyes as fresh tears spill over and even softer, says, "i'm so sorry."

hypatia lifts him. and because she can tell that sam and knox are exhausted beyond measure, delicately fills the grave. knox doesn't argue.

and when it's over, he bows his head and walks into sam, hunching into him with his arms hanging at his sides.

samuel carter

☉

sam is silent because he is still working through how he feels. still trying to find his emotions and how to best show them. his face isn’t neutral, his brows are furrowed in confusion. the man in the grave, his name is ollie, and sam doesn’t know him either.

doesn’t know knox, doesn’t know ollie.

but that’s not true, about knox. he knows that knox enjoys things that aren’t good for him. knows that he loves the beach. knows that he struggles with living. struggles with the idea of meaning anything to anyone.

but… what takes seven years, he wonders to himself. just as knox turns to walk into him, shoves the shovel harsh into the dirt. he opens his arms and accepts knox into them. a small thought is given and aether manages one more teleport for all of them. she returns herself to her capsule once she’s finished.

sam and knox are in the shower already. sam continues to hold knox, leaning enough to turn the faucet on. cold water at their feet, but they cannot feel it with their shoes. he gives knox a small kiss on his jawline as a warning before bending down, adjusting the water and feeling it while his other hand works at knox’ shoe. first to unlace, then to remove, and then he’s flipping the faucet so that the shower sprays down on them while working on the other shoe’s laces.

knox prescott

sam doesn't say anything but knox doesn't expect him to. he doesn't know what ollie means - meant - to him. he doesn't understand history resurfacing. painfully. all at once. but he doesn't need him to say anything. just hold him and forgive him for leaving. forgive him for doing this to him. forgive him for making him become a monster. 

the faucet spits on and knox blinks down at himself. at sam's pants and the bottom of his shirt and their shoes. but he can't bring himself to say anything. he's too busy watching all the dirt come off of his vans. 

he takes off one of knox's shoes and then reaches for the faucet. knox opens his mouth to protest, but the water sprays him. the warmth, the steam - it magnifies the smell. he brings his hand to his nose, but the dried blood has liquified again and it's running rivulets and he's bleeding bang bang watching his father slide down the wall ollie slam forward knox sway trip

"shi - s'm." darkness crowds him and he hasn't breathed in some time. his back hits the wall of the shower hard, muscles freezing, trying to keep him upright on instinct alone. 

samuel carter

☉

suddenly, as sam was going to get the other shoe off, knox is falling against the wall and mumbling. sam looks up at him with wide eyes and immediately stands up straight, shoe half off of knox’ foot.

”knox? knox??” it doesn’t usually happen, but here sam is on very little sleep, no explanations, and a new resolve that leaves him feeling. so, the curse slips. ”fuck!

“knox, hey?” he’s standing now, holding knox up and looking at him curiously. he puts a hand on his pulse out of instinct.

”hey, physical ailments, can you list them? did you get shot?”

if anybody should be passing out it’s sam. loss of blood. there were shards of ice in his legs that had melted and clogged, now reopening as the water washes over him, but he ignores it. he has to.

knox prescott

wide eyes, wild, blinking away bloody water. he sucks in a gasp, turns his head from the water. sam's voice is echoing and the world is still pressing closer. his pulse is fast, light and feathery, and images are flashing before him every time he blinks. 

too much to contain. his arms itch and his throat burns. paint and stomach bile scorching him from the inside out, dripping copper. brown rivulets score sam's face, spattered by the water. 

knox reaches out for him, thumbs pressing against the tattoos on his cheeks. focusing on that black ink. not red. not rust. just part of sam. just sam. safe. 

"heart," he croaks, harkening back to that night in the van, the first time he'd glimpsed sam's dark side, "hurts."

samuel carter

☉

nearly, he thought yet again that knox had a heart attack. but the night in the van, what felt like decades ago, plays through his mind.

did you know every cell in the human body replaces itself? that in about seven years, you're almost an entirely new person?

sam’s blood boils as he realizes… as he realizes who…

i was in a hospital bed when someone told me that. that people can change.

who that someone is. that told knox that people can change. sam’s mind is reeling through a lot of emotions as he thinks it over. but before he knows it, he’s wrapping knox up in a hug. there is a hand between them, rubbing along knox’s heart. it slid up and under his clothes to do so, too. fingers against flesh, kneading gently, a reminder.

”we are made not only of flesh and bone, knox. we are complex. we host a soul that can change in an instant if the will within is strong enough.”

knox prescott

sam is upon him, pressing him against the wall, hands up his chest. and knox drops his hand onto sam's own, squeezes him hard, closes his eyes. but that only beckons the nightmares waiting for him, so he opens them again and stares hard in sam's eyes.

and thinks, i am so tired. 

he grits his teeth, not understanding. not knowing that sam is defying/denying ollie. that he is light and promise and sees knox for who he is, for who he could be. and not just in this instant but the next. 

"every atom," he says and there is still fire in his throat. swelling, filled with pills and paint and anything else that could cut him up from the inside out, "belonging to me."

he shudders. speaking chases it away. pulls him back inside himself. where the water is taking everything away, not painting it anew.

it passes, finally, and he presses his forehead to sam's, mumbles, "as good belongs to you."

samuel carter

☉

the panic attack passes and sam relaxes a bit, the tense parts of him. he’s leaning more on the shower wall now than when he had needed to when they first got in. his hand slips down, caressing knox’ hip gently as he feels the weight of his boyfriend’s forehead.

it is a contrast. a contrast to the weight of all knox needlessly carries to feel alive; to exist.

”we are not permitted the leisure of good or bad, you and i. we are permitted instead each other.”

sam cares not for good or bad. there are things in his morals he cannot look away from. child murders, pedophiles, obvious things… but there are sins that make him equally as guilty. sins he’s committed because of emotions he’s cut himself off of for so long. to cage the beast. to keep it hidden.

but no more.

knox prescott

he exhales. and the water keeps running past them and they should move. they should do something other than stand there in their sodden clothes. but he doesn't. he feels the circles sam makes on his hip and breathes in tandem with him around the water. 

until knox looks down and actually notices why sam's leaning the way he is. 

he startles, puts his hands on sam's shoulders and says, "sam, what - " and then shame washes through him. guilt chokes him yet again. he looks away, jaw tightening, shoulders tense. 

"sit down. let me see it."

samuel carter

☉

sam has half a mind to take knox’ attention back… but he’s too exhausted, too tired. instead, he furrows his brows and makes sure knox can really stand on his own before leaning away.

some cuts are deep enough that when he moves, fresh blood is leaning them, but others are just surface scratches. but as he removes his hoodie, the black hoodie, his white undershirt is stained in blood around his shoulder. he winces and pulls his white shirt off after his hoodie, just letting both flop on the side of the tub.

a bite mark, from a pokémon he cannot be bothered to even remember. there are bruises over his body from the battles. he doesn’t have a busted lip because he never let his face get hit.

the worst of it is the bite mark, though. but sam knows that with time, it will heal.

”persephone,” the comfey of his garden that knew aromatherapy. ”i plan on sitting out in the garden with her after we get cleaned and bandaged.”

knox prescott