sam watches carefully. the silence is stifling. again, it’s booming loud. it’s deafening. he hates it.

as knox lays down with open arms, sam hesitates. he wants to lay down and get comfortable with him. wants to wrap knox up into his arms as the big spoon. hold him close. but…

”…you’re not even this quiet when you sleep.” he moves his hand up to pick at the gauze, but not enough to remove it. just enough to show it’s something that his sensitivities don’t appreciate.

”are you sure you want to sleep?…i know, captain had a baggie. if you need it, i understand.”

knox prescott

he barely remembers the molly. he expects guilt to claw back up, to take control of him again because he'd crossed the line. he'd made the decision. the only reason he hadn't was because of merrick.

"you want me to get high instead of sleep?" he says flatly. he sits up, wincing as his shoulder twinges. his hands search for his phone, but again, it's on the kitchen counter. where he'd left it after...gods, that's going to be the first thing he fucking sees when he turns it on again. 

he grimaces and just as quickly, shoos the image away. 

"molly's for going up." he twirls a finger. "feeling loved up and happy and shit." nah, he'll need fucking xanax after this. maybe valium if moro can get her hands on it. ambien wouldn't be a hard sell, but it's pretty expe - except he doesn't have to worry about how expensive his habits are anymore. 

the prescott fortune is his. well, summer's, surely, but he'd eat his hat before thinking she wouldn't cut him in on some of the money. 

"can you just come lay down?"

samuel carter

☉

knox runs sam through the chemical reactions that he really should know by heart at this point. as he does, sam just shrugs as an answer to what sam wanted, because that wasn’t the case. what sam wanted was open communication and for knox to speak his mind and openly communicate with him about how this was all effecting him.

but he’d shut down at mauville and he was shut down now, in a sense. and he would continue to be until he felt like not being shut down. didn’t matter what sam wanted.

so, sam began his nightly routine. got their phone chargers from the bag he had half packed on the bed and grabbed his phone. when he goes to take knox’, the video is still up, and sam swipes enought to close all the apps like knox has taught him before moving over to plug them in.

it is then that knox asks him to just lay down, and it is then that he crawls over knox to hover over him. ignores the pain in his legs. ignores all scents but knox.

”i wasn’t trying to tell you what to do. i was asking you what you wanted. if sleep is the answer, then i’ll gladly concede. but if you need something to numb it all, i’ll find it.”

knox prescott

it breaks his heart. and he gets an angry, churning feeling in his stomach. it doesn't show on his face. no, no, of course not. but suddenly all these months of him trying to be clean for sam, for them - they don't matter? sam's not even asking him to fight. to try to cope with it in a 'healthy way' or whatever the fuck some shrink would tell him he ought to do. 

because he knows you're a lost fucking cause. because he must know that he'd crossed that line, that even if it wasn't today, it was going to come anyway. 

sam hovers over him and all he can think to say is, "maybe a bucket of paint." but that doesn't mean anything to sam. he's never told him he swallowed the rainbow alongside all those pills, begging them to take. 

he turns on his side, grabbing sam's arm so he doesn't get up to actually go get it. "nevermind. just lay down, sam. please. i don't want anything."

samuel carter

☉

the way knox says something sam has no fucking clue about and then turns over and grabs his arm has sam frowning.

”…okay,” bing bong, he’s putting his foot down. he yanks his hand back and strains, hissing at the pain and sighs. ”knox, you just lost somebody you care about and you lost your dad. wether he was a good one or a bad one, he was yours. you say you don’t want anything but you pull me onto the bed.”

knox wasn’t the only one with a trauma that would haunt him. but sam was used to being haunted and perhaps that’s the difference.

”neither of us are going to get any sleep if we don’t talk about what happened tonight. you can’t just bury it on the mountain and then leave tomorrow and hope it never comes up. you have to face it and deal with it.”

knox prescott

"cared about," he corrects. not care. he doesn't care about ollie. he hasn't cared about ollie in years. or has he? has he just been waiting? waiting for seven fucking years to see if he'd come back to him? if he came away a new person, a better person, would he have been enough for him? 

no. he snaps those thoughts up because ollie's ruined face is resurfacing again. 

"oh, i can't bury it on the mountain, but i can bury it under some molly? how about this, sam - how about, instead, you go get me a pound of coke and watch me snort it 'til my brain explodes? that sound good to you? 'cause it sounds fan-fucking-tastic to me right now." he rolls onto his other side so that he's facing sam, brows drawn. 

"and i did face it. he sent me that fucking video and i could have ran. we could have gone to kanto and i could have pretended everything was fine. like i was going to anyway. but instead i did what he wanted, thinking - no, knowing, that my fucking father was going to kill me.

"and - what - you want me to mourn him too? should we ask tartarus to barf him up? bury him nice and neat next to my ex-boyfriend he killed? hah."

he clamps his mouth shut and simmers, staring hard. 

samuel carter

☉

there are several things he’s gleaned. several things that make sam want to smile.

knox doesn’t want to cope with the trauma with drugs, he wants to cope with it with sam.

ollie is his ex-boyfriend… well okay then, why hadn’t he heard much about him? why wasn’t he brought up more? why didn’t they talk about that really? because knox had insisted that it didn’t matter and they should always focus on the now.

”you invited death because you were tired, knox. don’t try and fool yourself into thinking you went to play hero. you went there knowing you would die… and now i think you’re mad it wasn’t you, instead of ollie.”

but what did he know?

knox prescott

"i wasn't trying to fool anyone," he says hotly, but the fire drains from his face. it never lingers long. ice threatens to crawl back up and he thinks if they could just sleep, things would be okay in the morning. he would be kinder. sam would be kinder. and maybe the world would be kinder. 

"i know i'm not a fucking hero, sam. and if you think i need to say it, then fine. i wish he'd done it. i wish he'd stuck that fucking gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.

"happy?"

samuel carter

☉

”what about that is supposed to make me happy?” sam asked curiously, his own eyes remaining on knox’ and his gaze unwavering.

this conversation didn’t scare him like it normal would. no, this conversation was raw, honest, and real. it felt like, perhaps, the most real conversation they’d had since the first met.

how curious.

so he concedes. he makes his way over to the bed and takes a seat in front of knox, wrapping his legs around him and placing a hand on his elbows and side, asking permission to pull him close.

”what does make me happy, is that you’re talking to me about it, and i’m not being left in the dark anymore.”

knox prescott

he bristles, almost like he's waiting for sam to sneer. to tell him maybe he should've tried harder next time. if at first you don't succeed. but that innocent curiosity, as though knox's question had been so outlandish, makes him settle. makes him settle and feel real damn confused. about a lot of things. 

"i shouldn't have left like i did. i know." he turns his hand, thumbs sam's knuckles, but he doesn't move any closer than that. 

and maybe, for the first time ever, knox says, "i'm sorry."

samuel carter

☉

knox doesn’t move closer. sam can understand needing space from people, but wanting people to be in the room with you so you don’t feel alone. so he just keeps a hand on knox’ elbow before letting his other hand rest on knox’ kene.

had either of them even put clothes on?

”i forgave you the second you left, knox.” a character flaw he is all too aware of. he’ll forgive knox until the end of time. ”i don’t care that you left, knox. i care that you didn’t take me with you. if you’re going to die, let me be there to hold your hand while you go. or better… let me die with you.”

he took a deep breath and tried to look knox in the eyes.

”for what point is there in having a sky without stars to shine?”

knox prescott

no, they haven't, and it's something not even knox has even noticed. which is kind of crazy, considering he loves looking at sam's bare body with all his wild tattoos. turns out all he's needed to not be an absolute manwhore is to watch someone he loved get shot in the head. 

lovely. 

he doesn't know what to say and then sam looks at him and says that and his eyes get glassy. stupid. stupid, stupid, stupid. 

"i'm sorry," he whispers again. fingers clamp around sam's wrist, tugging. he suddenly wants - needs him close. because sam still wants him. whatever or however he is, sam wants him. 

and it's too much to bear. 

"please. please, let me hold you."

samuel carter

☉

”yeah,” sam nods, smiling as he lets himself feel the emotions of the night as well. it’s not so much sadness as it is the rage and possessive nature of having somebody he cared about nearly killed, nearly taken from him. ”course you can.”

because of course he wants him. he wants him however he can have him. if he’s strung out on drugs, sam will take him. if he’s clean, sam will take him. if he’s somewhere messy in the middle? he’ll take that too.

because what draws sam to knox is the way their souls dance. even in high tension moments, in traumatizing events, or during quiet evenings when nothing can touch them because they’re high on each other; their souls dance, and they are together.

so he pulls knox to lay down, allowing knox to hold him, returning the hold and ignoring how he laid on his bad shoulder. he’ll be sore as fuck in the morning but he’ll be able to take aether to the pokémon center and have her heal him with her healing pulse. it’ll take a lot out of her, but after that, she’ll get a proper rest.

”i love you, knox.”

knox prescott