sam wraps around him and the duvet tussles, shifting the phone. he goes to snatch it and ends up hitting play, but before any of the audio can go off, he darkens the screen. and what he's left with is just a scared, naked boy with pink hair staring back at him. and then he sees sam's reflection too, head bowed over his shoulder, expression gentle. concerned. 

knox frowns as he turns the phone screen back on and taps the screen to pause it again. sam's words are a comfort, yes, but that conniving part of him is running down pathways it shouldn't be. asking questions like why is sam talking like he knows what happened? like he knows ollie? 

he and summer have been spending a lot of time together. it doesn't take a lot to put two and two together. sure, he doesn't guess as far to summer still having all of his texts on record, but it doesn't take much to reach the conclusion that she's talked. 

does it matter? maybe not now, not here, when sam's arms are around him and he is affirming that he loves him, that he accepts him. no, it will skulk up to him later when drug-induced paranoia crowds in, when he second guesses everything and all signs point to lies, deceit, one more of summer's games. 

he leans back into sam and pulls up the trash menu. a big red bar tells him he can delete the video if he wants. his hand shakes. will this be enough? will this be enough? to finally move on. to reflect, like sam says, and grow. 

they say drugs stunt your brain. maybe the damage has already been done. 

you say i didn't deserve it, that he was a monster, but i did the same thing to you, didn't i? that night in the bathroom, i didn't care what you wanted, sam. i knew what i wanted. this is why he watches the video. because he sees himself and seeing himself means keeping sam at arm's length. means keeping him safe. from the inevitable crash and burn. until sam's the one stuck watching him on loop. 

he deletes the video, but even that is a hollow act. at this point, it is burned into his mind. into every acrid corner of his selfish being. 

"i think," he says, "one day, you're... can i...have some time alone?" his brows furrow.

one day, you're going to regret me.

samuel carter

☉

time… ”alone?”

the thought is baffling. why would anybody want to be alone? is this a moment sam is supposed to say no and put his foot down? should he even follow eden’s advice when she isn’t here? perhaps she has her reasons…

but for sam, it means she wasn’t strong enough, that perhaps she didn’t grow when she could have. or maybe knox really burned that bridge.

i don’t want you to burn my bridge. i won’t let you.

but he can’t just say no. instead, he offers, ”can you give me a good reason why?”

because this isn’t the time to be alone. sam doesn’t think, anyway. but he just, he can’t wrap his mind around it. was this why he didn’t want sam to leave mt. pyre? why he didn’t want sam to stay? is there more? is there something?

no! i told myself i wouldn’t doubt him, that i would trust him. enough!

”i need to understand.”

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott

once upon a time sam would have granted him his wish. he has in the past. when knox got cold feet and left him with those burns on his skin, knowing full well sam wanted him to stay. and he doesn't know how to sort his thoughts out or how to answer sam's question. 

only, he does know the answer, but sam isn't going to like it. 

he buries his face in his hands and draws his shoulders tight, blotting out the rest of the world. trying not to feel sam's legs still wrapped around him, tentative touches on his sides.

the floodgates open and he hates every word of it because it's poison on the two of them. ruining the only good thing he has. i tried to warn you, sam...

"i barely understand. i'm - i'm a fucking coward, sam. you're out there every day righting merrick's wrongs. how long have i known?" he lifts his head, twisted grimace on his face now. self-loathing glittering in ice blue eyes. "i've known what he moved for years. and summer? fucking summer had a bigger hand in it. by her own godsdamn rules, you oughta kill her too. and me.

"i just can't...stop thinking that, fuck, sam, ollie was right. he was a fucking asshole, but he was right. and we're just gonna, what? pretend like we deserve happiness? people like us don't get that." so give him artificial love. give him chemical snow and liquid dreams and let him paint his own world, somewhere all this bad can't touch him. 

samuel carter

☉

love isn’t something earned. it’s something given, accepted or not. it’s a multifaceted and powerful thing that exceeds human understand. you’re not supposed to make sense of it.

that’s how sam feels, anyway. people like them, they don’t deserve anything but as much of a grave as merrick and ollie have. but they have something neither of them had, because they do, in fact, have love. with each other. happiness can bloom from that, deserved or not.

but how does he formulate that … to knox? the one who has a haunt of ollie conditioned into his brain through years of several different kinds of abuse; some self inflicted and some wrongly given.

”do you love me?”

it’s a simple question that is asked with the most gentle tone. with confidence in the answer he knows he’ll receive. and while his patience at their sibling bickering had snapped, his love for knox grows fonder by the moment and so he finds the patience to wait for an answer.

never moving, continuing to be close to him. to keep his hand on the small of knox’ elbow and legs wrapped around him. not to suffocate, but to be near. to comfort. to hold.

to show, in action, his love.

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott

he's worked himself up and it feels so wrong that sam is so statuesque behind him. that he's not meeting him with explosive fervor, with that same energy knox had thrown at him just a couple of hours before. but his own body is still, even though his skin is crawling and he wants to run. not away from here, not toward anything. just move, feel like he's moving in a direction. 

his soliloquy dies in the back of his throat at sam's question, breath hitching. and the of course dies in the back of his throat. and then the silence lingers and the lump in his throat grows bigger. 

his fingers curl, muscles stiffening, every bit of his body on edge. sam's touches, as light as they are, send shockwaves over him. not the sexy kind either. 

"what if -" he starts in a croak, clears his throat - "i can't?" what if, after all this time, he's incapable? every bit broken ollie always told him he was. 

samuel carter

☉

what if he couldn’t?

”haven’t you already, though?” there is a bit of confusion in his words, but no attack.

he knows better. it is why he is calm. because knox is rifling through many emotions he’s been burying behind a video on a screen. behind anger at summer. the bottom line is—

”i’m not asking you if you love yourself, knox. i know you don’t. and that’s fine, because that’s what i’m here for. to love you in your stead.”

and wasn’t that what it was like, to have a twin flame? to be two sides of the very same coin?

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott

he thinks he has. he thought he has. but before that, before the falling and everything in between, he had been scared. scared of this moment, of all the ways it could go wrong. sam has proved countless times over that knox's love is enough for him, but what if it's not love? what if, one day, sam is sitting here with this same epiphany? 

ollie was a monster as we are monsters. 

so then, knox, what's to be done? does he end it? here and now? after everything they've been through? after everything sam's sacrificed?

"i," he starts, thinking he might as well just let his mouth run if he can't pin down the words - he'll find them along the way. "thought i loved wrong. i wasn't...enough. and i see what you've done because of me. for me. and i think, oh, i ruined him too. and i don't - fuck -" he chokes off, grits his teeth, wipes aggravatingly at his eyes. 

"i relapsed. already. doing fuck all while you were moving in and it's all i can think about when you're gone. but i don't want you here all the time. the reason i'm not..."

knives fingers through his hair, twisting pink strands. "and i don't know why, but suddenly you being okay with it kills me."

samuel carter

☉

”i’m not okay with the abuse of the substance… for the purpose of having fun? i get it.”

everybody needs a hobby. knox’ hobby is seeing stars when he can and tasting the ocean from a bottle given the right amount of something spiffy.

”i don’t want you to feel like you have to change who you are just to fit a mold that you think i want. relationships,”

he thinks back to the texts. talk of the ‘r’ word had really thrown knox into a spiral last time, but he presses on with his thought, smiles even.

”they’re all about compromise. they’re about learning to understand, not changing to fight one another. i don’t think you should risk your health with these things, but if you want to do something like that to have fun…”

then, it dawns on him. it dawns on him like a ton of bricks and he moves to take knox’s hand, gently gives it a kiss, pressing their coldness against his warm neck, enjoying the chill it sends down his back and across his arms.

”how about, i tell summer my job in helping this family is keeping you out of what she dubs trouble. i can be your body guard. which gives me more time with you regularly and … i can be here, so that you don’t have to do that stuff to feel the absence of me.”

he leans back, to gauge knox’ reaction. eyes soft.

”and that way, i can still work at mt. pyre… we can go visit the pond, even.”

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott

but there is no in between. surely sam has known him long enough to know that it is all or nothing. explosive everything or nothing. the excessive sleeping, lack of interest in the world around him, months of it all so painstakingly recent. and he can't go back to that. he won't go back to that. but he doesn't know how to fill that space without it. 

without going up, up, up. 

he's saying things that are starting to make sense and maybe it's clicking, but then sam's eyes lighten and he takes his hand and kisses it and says something that makes knox's shoulders slump. 

"bodyguard? you mean babysitter," he snaps.

"yeah, stop killing pedophiles so your stupid boyfriend doesn't do coke 'cause he's just oh so lovesick." and he's laughing at the end 'cause fuck, it's funny. funny because he's cruel and defense mechanisms are unfurling because he's dug himself into a hole he doesn't know how to crawl out of.

samuel carter

☉

it’s true to a point. bodyguard and baby sitter can be seen as one in the same. but sam doesn’t mean it like that. he’s never seen himself as knox’ babysitter.

knox shoots him down, spits on his idea, grinds it into the dirt with a defensive grin on his face. laughs, even. all sam can do is… recoil. pull within himself.

because that’s his defense mechanism. so he just takes in the laughter and the silence that follows for a few moments. just breathes, listens to knox’ pain, witnesses the struggle.

”i extended undoubting trust to you, knox.” he knows that will sting and he knows that knox will become defensive, angry, and lash out. so he wraps his arms around knox and presses his cheek to his shoulder blades, holding him from behind.

”for so long it’s been what i think is best for you. but what about you? what do you want? everything aside, what do you really want? because i thought,” foolishly, he thinks. ”for a moment there i thought it was more time with me, so you could feel more yourself like i feel more myself when i’m with you. but maybe… you don’t work that way.”

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott

and sting it does. but he finds, as he flinches, smile growing ever wider, cheeks hurting, jaw cracking, that this is what he has wanted. this is why he pushed, why he begged for bites and bruises, all while pressing his fingers to sam's throat. because pain is a comfort - a sick, twisted comfort that he's only just now had to face in the mirror. no more living in ignorance, not with sam breaking down his walls and trying to make him better. 

his weight rocks and sam knows him too well, because he's about to make for his escape when arms wrap around him. he struggles, briefly, and then looks up, dropping his head back, breathing through his mouth. 

"i just want it to be over." and then, quickly, "this part. to get to the next. but i can't ask you to stop now. summer needs you. and i...need you to make it right. for me. because i can't.

"and i'm sorry that i can't."

samuel carter

☉

“i forgive you.” the words he will speak a thousand times given the chance slip from his lips. “because in this way, i can help you. where i have been helpless to really do anything before this”

he leans back enough to offer small kiss against the pale exposed neck. his fingers curl and nails move along pale flesh to show his determination, his adoration. all in one motion. because knox understands these methods of communication better.

“i stood by and took care of you on that mountain, but i couldn’t heal what had injured your soul. in this endeavor, i feel as though i can help repair a few broken pieces. claim them as our pieces of the puzzle to put back together.”

his words are whispered along that same kissed skin before he leans away, hand taking the back of knox’ head gently to being their foreheads together. voice small, husky. emotions a bit higher than they had been.

“so thank you for letting me. i’ll be as quick as i can. i swear.”

it’s why he is so exhausted. why he is so tired. why he hardly sleeps anymore.

all for knox. because he finally can help knox. is allowed this avenue.

[attr="class","sambr"] knox prescott