Chapter Text
As the last bell of the school year rang out, the students of Bremin High flooded out of the school yard, yelling and laughing as the summer holidays began. Sam jumped out of his seat and ran for the door, excited to finally be done with another year of education.
“Sam!” Jake yelled, getting the shorter boy to wait. “Calm down, mate. We’re not even out of school yet.”
“Yeah, but it’s summer, dude. No more work, no more being told what to do and no more being told when to eat!” Sam said, bouncing on his feet, unable to keep still.
“Only for six weeks.” Felix spoke up from behind the two as he, Ellen and Mia walked over to them.
“Dude, can you not bum me out? Please?” Even though what Felix had said put a slight damper on his mood, Sam couldn’t help but smile at the goth.
Ellen smirked. “Where’s the fun in that?” She grabbed Mia’s hand and began to walk off before turning to the boys once more. “Sammy.”
“Wha- Mia! I told you not to tell her that!” Sam yelled over to the two, annoyed.
Mia smiled and shrugged. “It’s fun to pick on you, Sam. Sorry.”
Sam held up the rude finger as the two girls began to walk off again. “Yeah, yeah. Go. Have your ‘summer of love’.” Turning back to Felix and Jake, the skater huffed and crossed his arms. “How fuckin’ dare she?” He muttered.
Felix shrugged. “Eh, I think it’s a cute nickname.”
Sam’s face flushed slightly as he looked at the ground. “I don’t do cute.” He mumbled.
Felix smiled down at him. “Yeah ya do.”
Jake coughed, grabbing the two boys’ attention. “Anyway,” He started, rolling his eyes. “Hangout, shack, 5:30, yeah?”
Felix nodded. “Yeah.”
Looking past the two for a moment, Sam spoke up. “Hey, is it cool if I invite someone?”
Jake raised an eyebrow while Felix furrowed his.
“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Jake replied.
Sam smiled. “Cool.” Stepping to the side, Sam cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled across the school yard. “Hey! Andy!”
Felix noticed Jake tense up. After Sam had begun to hang out with them again, he had invited Andy and started to integrate him into the group and it was pretty obvious that, after a while, Jake had a soft spot for the nerd.
“You wanna hang out this arvo?” Sam continued to yell as Andy walked over to them.
“You can stop yelling, I can hear you.” Andy said as he approached the three. “When?”
Sam nudged Jake’s arm, startling the jock. “Uh… 5:30?”
Andy smiled up at the taller boy. “Okay, see you then.” Waving goodbye, Andy walked back over to his sister, Viv, and left the school grounds.
“Yeah… See ya…” Jake mumbled back.
Felix blinked a few times. “Wow, Jake, that was…”
Jake groaned, rubbing his hand over his face. “Awful. Just awful.” He shoved Sam lightly. “Why’d you do that?”
“’Cause he’s my friend.” Sam stated as he began to chuckle. “Plus, it’s fun to see you squirm.”
“Jake Riles; Super Athlete, choked to death because a nerdy boy smiled at him.” Felix said with a terrible impression of a news reporter.
“Oh, ya think that’s funny do ya?” Jake asked as he grabbed Felix and put the goth boy into a headlock.
“Ahh! Jake! Get off!” Felix’s cries were somewhat muffled due to his face being slightly squashed into Jake’s shirt.
Sam smiled widely at the scene before him. He had really missed that sort of thing earlier in the year and even through out the year as Sam slowly became part of the group again. It took a while for things to be close to what they were like at the beginning of the year, but as time went by, Sam noticed the others becoming comfortable with him again and now their friendship group was stronger than ever.
“Sam.” Felix said, waving his hand in front of the skater’s face.
“Huh-“
“I said, I gotta go. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Oh, yeah… Bye, Fe.” Sam replied as the goth began to walk off.
“See ya, Felix.” Jake said. Once Felix had left, Jake began to chuckle.
“What?”
“You guys are so into each other, holy fuck!” Jake said as he finally began to leave the school grounds.
Sam caught up to the taller boy. “Wha- No. No! Felix doesn’t like me like that.”
Jake raised an eyebrow.
“Not-… Not anymore.” Sam sighed. “After the shit I pulled this year, why would he?”
“So, maybe you fucked up a bit, but you apologized, and he forgave you.”
“Yeah, so I’m extremely lucky that he agreed to be friends again but that doesn’t mean that… whatever we had before is on the table.” Sam laid his skateboard on the ground, resting his foot on it. “Felix is just a friend, and I can live with that.” With that, Sam got on his skateboard and pushed off, heading home.
-/-/-/-/-
Sam was the last one to arrive at the shack, once again, bringing a ton of food, glowsticks and sparklers with him for everyone throughout the night.
“Sam! Hey, what took you so long?” Felix asked, walking over to the shorter boy.
“I had to bribe Pete into driving me here.” Sam groaned. “I have to wash his footy gear for the next month.”
Laughing, Felix walked over to the esky that Jake had brought and grabbed two cokes. “Hey, can I talk to you for a bit? Ya know, later?” He asked as he handed Sam the other coke.
“Uh, yeah, dude. Sure.”
“Cool.” Felix smiled and began to drink his coke before being hit in the back of the head. Looking down, the goth spotted a red and yellow gummy snake in the grass. “Jake!”
Jake smirked. “What? I didn’t do anything.” He said, faking innocent as he bit into a green and blue gummy snake.
Beside the jock, Andy threw two more snakes at Felix. “He’s not wrong.”
Sam smiled. Yeah, he really missed this.
-/-/-/-/-
Felix was sitting on his own, outside the shack, watching the sun go down as the others began to distribute glowsticks between themselves.
The goth felt a tap on his shoulder. “I got you some.” Sam said, holding out three glowsticks.
Felix gave a small smile back. “Thanks.” He said, grabbing the glowsticks. He snapped them as Sam sat down next to him and handed him connectors.
“So…” Sam started as Felix connected his glowsticks individually into wristbands. “What’d you wanna talk about?”
“You remember earlier this year?”
Sam tensed. He had thought things were going well. “Y-yeah, how could I forget? I fucked up pretty badly.”
Felix shook his head. “No, before that.”
Sam rattled his brain for a moment, coming up with nothing.
“When we… said that we liked each other.” Felix continued.
Sam eyes widened. He wasn’t expecting that. “…Yeah, I- I remember.”
Felix didn’t say anything else.
Sighing, Sam looked over to where the sun was setting, making sure to avoid eye contact from the boy next to him. “Look, Felix. Obviously, I still like you. Everyone knows it, and I know that things aren’t going to go back to the way they were and if you want, I’ll go back home and stop hanging out with you guys-“
“Sam-“
“-even though that’ll majorly suck-“
“Sam-“
“But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable-“
“Sam!”
The skater finally stopped rambling, looking over at the goth who was smiling.
“I still like you, too.”
Sam blinked. “I’m sorry, what now?” He mumbled.
Rolling his eyes, Felix closed the gap between them like he had done almost a year beforehand, but not quite as awkwardly. “You’re a dork, Sam Conte.” Standing up, Felix held out his hand. “You coming?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah.” He smiled as he linked their hands together.