Samwell and Matthys danced badly and brilliantly, the way only two people who had stopped caring could. The sand was warm beneath their feet, the music was loud enough to feel in their chests, and Samwell found himself laughing for the first time in what felt like weeks. Proper laughter, the kind that came from somewhere deep and unguarded, the kind that Matthys had always been able to unlock in him.

Between songs, still swaying slightly, Samwell slung his arm over Matthys’s shoulder.

“So what happens when we go back?” he asked, the words slightly loose around the edges. “I’m still relieved from duty until they finish repairs on the Whirlwind, so I’ll probably head home to Ventax Two for a bit. See my parents. Let my mum feed me until I can’t move. Let Cheryon annoy me in person instead of over subspace.”

“I’ve got to send my formal decision to the Academy and break the bad news to my parents.” There was a hint of acceptance in Matthys’ tone now. Acceptance and, perhaps more importantly, relief. He had made his decision. Those in his life who didn’t support it could, quite frankly, bugger off.

“I’ll probably need to sort out the logistics too, and figure out how exactly all of this is going to fit into my life. The program starts in a couple of months.”

That thought brought with it a slight rush of anxiety. Not something he wanted to feel right now. Life would return quickly for them both, perhaps a little sooner for Matthys than Samwell.

The next song started, and they kept moving with the crowd, easy and close, when Samwell felt the shift before he saw it. A familiar shape at the edge of the restaurant. Two figures being led to a table near the stage.

Oliver and Kimas.

Oliver spotted them almost immediately. His eyes found Samwell on the dance floor, then moved to Matthys, then to Samwell’s arm draped across Matthys’s shoulder, and something tightened in his expression.

He said something to Kimas, touched her arm, and walked over.

“Sammy.” Oliver’s voice was carefully casual, but his jaw was set. His eyes flicked to Matthys again. “Who’s your friend?”

Samwell was drunk. He was beyond drunk. He was in the warm, reckless place where the filters had all burned away and only the truth remained, and the truth, at this particular moment, felt like a weapon he was happy to use.

He pulled Matthys closer against his side and grinned.

“This,” he said, “is the guy I’m sharing my private villa with.”

And then, before the sentence had fully landed, Samwell turned, took Matthys’s face in both hands, and kissed him.

It was not a quick kiss. It was not a peck between friends. It was slow, and deliberate, and aimed directly at the man standing three feet away, and Samwell made absolutely sure. Oliver saw every second of it. When he pulled back, he looked at Oliver and said nothing at all.

Oliver stared at them both. His jaw worked. Something flickered behind his eyes, hot and sharp, and for a moment Samwell thought he was going to say something he couldn’t take back. But Oliver Fenton was, above all things, a man who knew how to swallow what he felt.

“I hope you’re happy, Samwell,” he said quietly.

Then he turned and walked back to Kimas, slipping into his chair with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and didn’t look over again.

Perhaps it was the alcohol, but the entire moment felt almost dreamlike.

Matthys was feeling Samwell’s lips against his own. Finally.

The kiss was feverish, and for the briefest moment, Matthys almost let himself completely give in to it. He had wanted this for so long. Then the alarms went off in his head. Whatever this kiss meant to Matthys, he knew it didn’t mean the same thing to Samwell. This was a performance. A message intended for Oliver, delivered through Matthys.

He hated Oliver, so admittedly, he didn’t mind being used to deliver that particular message. The problem was what it had done to him. Matthys had spent years convincing himself that the boundary between friendship and something more was one he could never safely cross. 

Now, for just a moment, Samwell had dragged him across it.

He had experienced what was on the other side.

And by the gods, in that moment, Matthys wanted to walk through that door completely.

The moment Oliver was gone, the recklessness drained out of Samwell like air from a hull breach. He let go of Matthys and stepped back, and the look on his face was no longer smug or defiant. It was horrified.

“Matty. I’m so sorry.” He ran both hands through his hair. “I shouldn’t have done that. That was… I used you to hurt him, and that’s not fair on you, and I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
He glanced back towards the restaurant, where Oliver was now sitting across from Kimas, pouring her wine, performing the part of the attentive boyfriend with practised ease.

“That was him,” Samwell said quietly. “That was Oliver. And I think that was also the end of it.”

“I… yeah.” It wasn’t exactly the masterful play on words Matthys might normally have managed.

His thoughts were still battling one another as he tried to settle himself, resisting every urge to pull Samwell back into another embrace and feel those lips against his once more. Matthys channelled every ounce of self control he could muster, which wasn’t particularly much considering the amount of alcohol they both had on board.

It was enough though.

Matthys simply stood there, looking slightly dumbfounded. Thankfully, neither his expression or his body betrayed the full extent of what was happening inside.

The conflict. The desire.

“I forgive you,” he finally managed, his expression softening. “It’s okay.”

They left the restaurant shortly after, and Samwell, in what he would later describe as his finest tactical decision of the entire shore leave, stopped at the bar on the way out and collected two bottles of something local and strong.

The beach was theirs. The restaurant noise faded behind them as they walked, shoes in hand, feet in the shallows, the warm water running over their ankles. They found a spot far enough from the lights to see the full sky, and sat down on the sand with the bottles between them.

“To stupid decisions,” Samwell said, uncorking the first bottle and taking a long pull before passing it across.

“To us both making fewer of them.” Matthys accepted the bottle and raised it slightly. “Or not. Whatever makes us happy.”

He took a drink.

Whatever had happened back at the restaurant, Matthys had managed to regain some semblance of himself. He was ready to let the rest of the night take them wherever it wanted.

They drank. They talked. They talked about the Columbia and the mud baths and the Cardassians who couldn’t stand the smell of them. They talked about the nebula painting, Matilda, and the time Matthys fell asleep in the holodeck bath and nearly drowned. They talked about nothing and everything, the way they always had, lying on their backs on the warm sand, passing the bottle back and forth, the stars wheeling slowly overhead.

“We should stay up for the sunrise,” Samwell announced at some point, his words now considerably more relaxed than his diction.

“Sunrise…” Matthys laughed. “We’re… not going to make it to sunrise.”

He curled himself a little closer to his friend. His eyes were already growing heavy as the physical and emotional exhaustion of the evening finally began to catch up with him.

“I’m serious. The first sun comes up over the water. It’s supposed to be… it’s meant to be really…” He gestured vaguely at the horizon with the bottle. “Beautiful. Apparently.”

He did not see the sunrise.

At some point between the second bottle and the slow greying of the sky, the conversation had thinned to murmurs, the murmurs to silence, and the silence to sleep. They lay side by side on the sand, close enough that their shoulders touched, the empty bottles half-buried beside them, the ocean keeping its patient rhythm a few metres away.

Two old friends, drunk and sunburnt and peaceful, asleep on a beach at the edge of the world, with everything ahead of them and nothing resolved.

The sun rose anyway.

Some time later, Matthys felt his heavy head gently rise and fall with every breath his friend took. His body hurt. He was exhausted. Yet somehow, curled against Samwell as his best friend lightly snored away, he couldn’t have felt more content.

Matthys managed to summon enough energy to look at Samwell. Really look at him. Even after everything that had happened that night, what he felt most strongly in that moment was gratitude. Gratitude for Samwell. For their bond. For a friendship that had somehow survived years, different ships and half a galaxy between them.

Yes.

Matthys wanted more. He could admit that much to himself. But what he wanted more than anything was for this friendship to never end. To never put the most important relationship in his life at risk simply because some part of him wanted it to become something else.

Matthys shifted upward ever so slightly, closing the small distance between them. He pressed the lightest, most gentle kiss against Samwell’s cheek before settling back against him.

Within moments, he drifted back to sleep, with a content look on his face.