Chapter Text
October 15 1958, around 2 pm, dismissal time. Felix had memorized the exact time and date that Jack Walten had walked towards him in long strides and held out a hand in front of his face. He hadn’t anticipated it, what with Jack being one of the most intelligent and well known students in Cleary, its hard to imagine that he’d want anything to do with Felix, the local nerd.
So he sits and stares at the hand being offered, not entirely sure what the taller kid wanted.
“Man”, Jack said, flexing his fingers a little, his eyebrows creasing in mock irritation. “Are you going to take it or not?”. Felix stares at him for a couple more seconds before reluctantly taking Jack’s hand, silently hoping this wasn’t a joke. He was prone to being bullied left and right by people he barely even knew just because he was different from them, he thinks its bullshit but that doesn’t stop them anyway.
Jack brightens and shakes Felix’s hand, “Hey, my name’s Jack Walten, although you probably already knew that”, he says with a hint of smugness and Felix resisted rolling his eyes, “Uh… yeah, I-I’m Felix, Felix Kranken. Do you need anything?”.
"Actually, yeah I do”, Jack pulls up a chair and sits next to him, “What are you doing?”.
Felix hesitates before answering, “I’m coding for the homework Ms. White gave me”, he declares, watching as the code he’d typed up does its work , “I’m taking up Computer Sciences and I have to finish this today so I could graduate by next year. Did you know I carried this heavy thing around all day? pain in the ass honestly. What about you?”.
Jack knew, he’d seen Felix lunging the thing around campus earlier, gaining his interest, “Oh, I’m on engineering. Mr. Pinesfield dismissed us early and I thought I’d stop by here and see how you’re doing”, that gets him an eyebrow raise from Felix.
“Really? That’s suspicious”, he pushes up his glasses, amussed , “Especially since you just met me, stalker”, Jack flushes with embarrassment.
“No! That’s not it”, Felix laughs loudly and Jack playfully hits him, “I saw you earlier carrying this thing and I’ve been meaning to ask if…”.
Jack noticed Felix’s shoulder hunch in a defeated way, as if anticipating Jack to leave once he got what he wanted out of him, that simply wouldn’t do, so he thought his words over.
“…You’d… uh… want to be friends?”, something akin to hope flashes across Felix’s face before disappearing quickly, “Its totally fine if you don’t want to, I’m not pushing you or anything-“.
“NO”, Felix says, a little too loudly which caused Jack to back away, startled. “No, I didn’t mean..”, the kid raises his hands, as if calming down an animal, “I meant, yeah… I’d love to be friends with you”.
Jack takes a second to process his words but when he does, his smile grows wide, so wide Felix thought his head would split apart. Jack wraps an arm around his shoulder and states, “Great! That’s nice to hear!”, Felix’s breathing hitched and his stomach tightens, Jack was extremely close to him, he could feel the strands of Jack’s curls against his cheek, “You doing anything after school? Felix?”.
“Huh? Wha- Ah… n-no, nothing. Why?”, the warmth that resonated from Jack vanished and Felix realized that Jack has stood up and is grabbing his bag, “I don’t know”, he hands him a square calling card, written on it was an address, “You can come by after school today, or tomorrow... if you're busy I guess”, he zips his bag close and slings it over his shoulders, “There’s something I want to show you, I think you’d be interested in it”. Felix watches as Jack walks toward the door, exiting the classroom, “See ya ‘round Fe”.
“Yeah… see you”, Felix says, relatively quieter. The calling card resonating with heat against his palm. He knows he should probably get moving but he couldn’t shake away the feeling of Jack hugging him, the warmth he’d thought lasted a few hours actually only taking up minutes. He scratches his head in confusion, the beeping of the machine pulling him out of his thoughts and forcing him to make a decision. He hurriedly saves the file and carries the device to Ms.White’s desk. Turning it off, he runs after Jack.