one sponge isn't enough. after a few minutes of toiling away, he strips the clothes back off. goes back to his boxers. clambers onto his hands and knees with the brownish sponge in his clutches, three extra ones at his side. he turns the tub faucet on and rinses the suds from his arms, splashes it on the spot where the clothes had been.

turns the water off, sprays the grout down, and then gets back to work. soap works its way up to his elbows, on his knees, his shins. he scrapes in between the tiles on the wall. every speck, every spot, he sanitizes. rinses and repeats. 

he doesn't notice the way he's itching at himself, the chemicals from the soap stinging his skin. 

bang bang. bubbles bursting on his skin, rainbow in color. gods, how he misses all the rainbows he used to see. all the colors he could feel. he laments his loss with another hum and then that swirls down the drain too with the rest of the suds. 

he wrings out his sponges. they're all torn up and gross now. but still he rinses them, rubs at a spot on his elbow where some extra soap must have fallen. turns the faucet back on and rinses quickly. it's when he turns that he startles into sam. 

"shitfuckshitmygodsam." he catches his breath and laughs. "all patched up, love?" he gestures to the shower. but that's not the only thing he's cleaned. the counters are wiped down, supplies put neatly away, floor scrubbed, mirrors washed.

samuel carter

☉

he looks around, almost like he's seeing it for the first time. the smell of all the cleaners is giving him a headache, he realizes. his nose scrunches and he puts all the cleaning stuff on the counter, bends down to scoop up sam's work clothes that he'd discarded. he shrugs them back on and shakes out his hair. 

"eh, guess i could eat," he says. "might nibble on your oatmeal." 

he heads out of the bathroom and flops back onto sam's bed, grabs his phone from the charger. it takes a second to boot up so while he waits, he tosses it beside him and reaches out his hands for sam. 

"what'd the doctors say?"

samuel carter

☉

he snorts, but it makes sense. no better cover than letting others underestimate you. in the end, that was really merrick's downfall. the way fear had grown in the back of his eyes when he saw sam for who, what, he was. knox almost has a twisted sense of pride for it, thinking maybe, in his last moments, he respected me.

knox flips onto his back and shimmies up to sam, resting his head on his lap so he can look up at him. he holds his hand up and touches the pads of their fingers together, explores it idly as a quiet blankets them. 

"everything's changed," he says. 

samuel carter

☉

he's not so sure about that. his instinct is to lean on the negative - on the body that's in the ground so he could earn his freedom. freedom. he doesn't know what to do with it. because even back when he was under his father's thumb, even when he was kicked out of the house and left to his own devices, he was never really free. 

he wasn't chasing highs; he was running from everything else. 

and for someone who's spent their entire life on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the concept of being okay is nearly inconceivable. 

but with sam, maybe he can learn. he drops his gaze to the boy's hand, watching himself trace patterns into his palm. 

"i don't want to lose you." he swallows. 

samuel carter

☉

well, when a sun collapses, they do, he thinks but he doesn't dare say aloud. because behind the words, sam is saying forever. he's saying he won't leave. and that's all he needs to hear. that's all he'll ever need. 

and he holds on to that sentiment as he looks up and meets sam's gaze. 

"because you're all the good i have left," he says with a sigh. and then quickly, urgently, he says, "you have my whole heart, sam. you know that, right? heart and soul and everything else that comes with it."

samuel carter

☉

he deflates. just a little bit. just enough to be noticed, but not nearly enough to know why. because sam's been home just a few short hours and already he's parsed the knowledge that he has some sort of painkiller on him. he's seen himself rummaging around in his bag a hundred different ways, taking what he can before he can be found out. 

but he hasn't. he's been good. he's been wholly focused on sam. on bringing him to bed, their safe haven, and keeping himself right. 

working on this for them. but now that everything's back to normal, now that knox is free, sam knows it's only a matter of time. and it hurts. it really, really hurts. but he matches sam's smile and accepts it quietly. that he really is broken. that he'll always be broken. even sam can't fix that.

"okay," he says. "okay, my heart."

samuel carter

☉