What Are Friends For?

Disclaimer: The rights of Total Drama Island belong to its distributors; Teletoon, Cartoon Network, Fresh TV, and Cake Entertainment. The twenty-two original contestants, and newcomers from seasons three, four, and five belong to the aforementioned companies.

Oh, and I am writing this purely for entertainment and no monetary gain.

This is rated T. There's no language, violence, or sexual themes, but there is a pretty dark theme in here. Not exactly M themes, but enough for it to be T.

Author's Note: This is a friendship story dedicated to three of my favorite characters from Total Drama: Pahkitew Island. In fact, Sammy is my favorite female character (almost tied with Ella), and Shawn is my favorite male character (just ahead of Max) for the season.

I ship Jasmine/Shawn and Jasmine/Sammy, and maybe this a little bit too, but this is meant to be nothing more than a friendship story between the two. Oh, and Jasmine/Sammy/Shawn is my OT3 of the entire series.

Oh, and I am completely surprised to see how stellar this season is. The writing is phenomenal and is on par with that of Island or the first half of Action. I don't truly dislike any of the characters, except maybe for Dave, but the season is young. I am excited for the rest of the season. So far, it is a million times better than All-Stars.

I hope you all enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The hour had grown late, and the inhabitants of Pahkitew Island had long since retired to their shelters. While the other members of his team was sound asleep in their cave, Shawn had found a relatively cozy spot in the tree he had declared home.

It was raining rather hard, so Shawn had found a handful of leaves to keep himself from getting too wet. After all, hypothermia was the last thing he wanted. He had told himself that "when you're sick, you're slow; and when you're slow, you're zombie food".

Shawn sighed as he struggled to fall asleep. He turned over to his side to see if that would do any good, but it didn't do anything for him. The zombie conspiracy nut groaned and shut his eyes, hoping that morning would come soon. He looked forward to his morning-scavenging conversations with Jasmine and Sammy, but mostly with Jasmine.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, Shawn was startled with a moan and whimper. He gasped, wondering if it could possibly be a zombie. The paranoid teen quickly dusted the wet leaves off of himself and hoped down from branch to branch until he reached the ground.

He grabbed a large stick to serve as his makeshift weapon and tiptoed to the source of the noise, careful as to not be too loud. As he had learned from years of watching and reading about the undead, zombies could hear you coming.

It wasn't the undead, however, that was making the strange noises when he found the source.

"Sammy?" Shawn whispered to himself, confused.

The blonde cheerleader from the other team, Sammy (or as everyone called her, Samey) was leaning against a tree, soaking wet. Although it was hard to tell because her entire face was wet, tears were running down her pale cheeks.

She looked up at him with tears on her eyes. Quickly, she wiped them away and sniffled. "H-Hi, Shawn," she said weakly. Suddenly, a confused look grew on her face. "Did you just call me Sammy?"

"Well, that's your name, isn't it?"

"Everybody else calls me Samey," she admitted, sighing heavily.

Shawn sat down next to her and shook his head and said, "Hey, you can be called whatever you want, now and after the apocalypse. That's one of the benefits of it. But, I don't think I'd change my name though. I like 'Shawn'."

She smiled weakly at what she assumed was a joke, but then frowned again.

"Well, I don't like my nickname," Sammy said submissively. "But Amy makes all of the others call me it. She somehow manages to convince them that I like it."

"What were you crying about?" Shawn asked.

The blonde girl shook her head. "It's not anything important."

Shawn shook his head and said, "Hey, if you were crying about it, it's got to be pretty important, right?"

"Well," Sammy said, biting her bottom lip, "it was almost twenty minutes ago and Amy just woke me up and said I was snoring. I told her I would try and not, but she said 'that wasn't good enough' and told me to get out of our shelter. I was so upset I just ran here. I don't even know how far away I am from it."

"Look, you should try and stand up for yourself," Shawn told her. "Amy's your sister, and you've got to have family. They're important... they'll look out for you when a walker tries to munch you!"

Sammy smiled and giggled. "I guess, but she's just... she's hated me for sixteen years and I can't deal with that."

The shaggy-haired teen was about to say something, but his eyes bugged out when he saw Sammy's wrists. "Did you get scratched?"

She gasped and quickly rolled up her sleeves. "N-no... not scratched..."

Although he generally thought of nothing but the impending zombie apocalypse, Shawn did have the common sense to know when someone was clearly lying and enough logic to address an everyday situation, social or otherwise.

He put his hand on her shoulder and said, "Look, you can tell me why you're... doing what you're doing. I won't tell."

"You... you promise?"

Shawn nodded. "Of course. Unless you're gonna turn into a walker, I won't tell anyone anything you tell me. That's what friends do."

Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. "You... you want to be my friend?"

"Of course," Shawn said. "You're a sweet girl and... well, friends are there to look out for each other."

Sammy sniffled and looked up at Shawn. "Other than you and Jasmine, I've never... I've never really had a friend before."

"Why's that?"

"Amy," Sammy said, glaring at the ground. "She always spreads these nasty rumors about me... and she's popular and makes sure that nobody, not even the unpopular kids, associate with me... not the computer geeks, not the Goths, or the skaters, or the AV kids, or the football players... Nobody...

"She's why I've been cutting... I've been doing for about a year. Amy's always told me to go and kill myself, she even came at me with scissors once for accidentally wearing her pair of tennis shoes. I've never tried to kill myself, but cutting my wrists feels... better. I guess I deserve it. I mean, there has to be a reason she treats me like this, right?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. There's no reason for anyone to treat another human being like that, let alone your own flesh and blood!"

"Then why would she do it?" Sammy asked, her eyes filling with tears again.

"I have no idea, maybe she's just jealous of you," Shawn guessed.

She shook her head. "What would she have to be jealous of? She's the pretty one... the smart one... the popular one..."

"First of all, you're prettier than she is," Shawn said, "I don't care if you're identical twins. And I hear stuff. Jasmine told me that you come up with all the ideas, she just takes credit. And popularity doesn't matter, especially in high school. I like you more than Amy. And the only thing that matters is what your friends think."

Sammy's frown turned into a smile that stretched from ear to ear. "Nobody's ever said anything that... nice to me before, aside from Jasmine."

"Just stick with me and her," Shawn told her. "We'll look out for you, okay?"

He stood up and offered his hand out to help her up and she accepted. She then gave him a big hug and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks again.

Shawn smiled and patted her back. "Don't mention it. Just promise me one thing, okay?"

"What is it?" Sammy asked, although she was certain she new the answer.

"Don't cut yourself anymore," Shawn told her. "It's unhealthy mentally and physically. And it could get infected. Promise?"

After a few moments of silence, Sammy sighed and finally said, "Okay. For you and Jasmine... I won't."

"Good. Now come on, let's get you somewhere dry."

"I can't go back to the tree house," Sammy said, biting her lip. "Amy would probably throw me out... literally!"

"You can come to the cave with me," he said, smiling. "Normally, I wouldn't sleep there with them... but hey, I'll bring you if you want."

Sammy smiled. "You're the best," she said.

"Hey, what are friends for?"

He noticed Sammy was shivering, so he took off his orange vest and handed it to her. "Here," he said. "Take this. You'll need it more than me."

"I can't take this," Sammy said, frowning. "You're going to get cold and wet, too!"

Shawn shrugged. "Hey, I've still got my sweater," he said, pointing to his white sweater. "And I'll be fine. It's pretty thick."

"If you say so," she said, smiling again. "You're so nice."

"Not really," Shawn replied. "I'm just doing what's right. Anyway, come on, I'll show you to the cave."

He did the "follow me" hand motion and walked towards the cave. Sammy followed him.

"Now, you can say no, but do you want Jasmine to know about what you've been doing to yourself?" Shawn asked. "She's your friend. And since she's a girl, maybe she could me slightly more effective in advice. I don't know, I'm not very good about this kind of stuff."

"If you think it will help," Sammy said, looking sad. "But I really didn't want anyone to know! Amy would just tell everyone and they'd make fun of me."

Shawn shook his head. "Nobody's going to tell Amy and why would they make fun of you? Most people here are pretty decent when it comes to morals."

"Thanks," Sammy said, looking at Shawn. "I... I'll tell her. Tomorrow, I'll tell her."

Eventually, the duo came very close to the cave. They ran the last five or so yards and eventually escaped the heavy rain. Shawn sighed in relief and looked over at Sammy to say goodnight, but she had alright passed out and was on the ground, snoring.

"Huh, so she does snore," Shawn thought as he tapped his chin.

The next morning, Sammy woke up to hear shouting and yelling. She sighed and thought "Well, Amy would be fighting with me, so this isn't that much of a difference."

"Why would you bring that enemy into our cave?!" Sugar snapped, throwing her hands up in the air. "She's on the other team!"

"She was cold and it was raining," Shawn retorted. "What was I supposed to do?"

Dave shrugged. "I don't know," he grumbled. "Bring her back to her own shelter? It's a lot nicer than what we have here, anyway."

"I didn't know where to look for it, and she was too tired to tell me how to get there," Shawn said, his voice getting more hostile.

Ella smiled. "I for one am glad to have a new team member. Perhaps I can sing her The Welcome Song! ... You are welco-!"

She was cut off when Sugar pinched her lips. "I've got a song for you... SHUT YER PIEHOLE!"

"Look, Sammy's not joining our team, okay?" Shawn explained. "She was just getting out of the rain, okay?"

Sky turned to face her team mates. "Shawn's right, you guys. Whether she's a team mate or not, Shawn did the right thing. Can't we all just accept that?"

"Yup!" Dave said quickly. "You're right! Good job, Sky! You're so moral and smart!" he chuckled nervously, and then sighed and smacked his forehead discretely.

Unable to deal with his team's disfunction anymore, Shawn sighed and grabbed Sammy by her hand. "I'll just bring her back, okay? Her team's probably wondering where she is."

"What were you doing out in the forest at night?" Dave asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Looking for the undead, with me!" Shawn barked. "Now leave her alone, okay?"

He led her out of the cave as he left his very confused team. "Just ignore them," he said. "They're always arguing."

"Thanks for last night," she said, smiling.

"It was no big deal," Shawn replied, shrugging. "I wasn't just going to leave you out there by yourself."

Sammy's sighed nervously. "There's Jasmine, picking our berries right now."

"I can go if you just want to be by yourself with her," Shawn said.

"You can stay," Sammy said, smiling.

Suddenly, Jasmine approached them, carrying a big basket of berries. "There you two are. Sammy, you weren't in your corner this morning, where were you?"

"I... I was with Shawn."

Jasmine was embarrassed and horrified. "You were... What were you doing?"

"He helped me," Sammy admitted, rubbing her arm.

Relieved, Jasmine asked, "What was he helping you with?"

Sammy slowly rolled up her sleeve on her left arm to reveal the series of cuts on her wrist area. Jasmine was so surprised she didn't say anything.

"He found me like this last night," Sammy explained. "And he offered to be my friend."

Jasmine immediately grabbed Sammy and pulled her into a very tight hug. "Promise me you won't do it again, okay? I'll help you through this."

The skinny blonde blushed and hugged her friend back. "Th-thank you, Jasmine. That means a lot to me."

"What caused you to do this?" Jasmine asked with a look of sorrow.

"Amy," she finally said. "Her abuse for the past... forever! I've been doing it for three years now..."

Jasmine growled and clenched her fists. "I'll have to show that little... I'll show her not to mess with my friends!"

"Just don't do anything too much okay?" Sammy asked nervously. "I... I don't want to make a big fuss about it."

"'A fuss'?" Jasmine asked, flabbergasted. "Your own sister made you bleed. That's not okay! Look, Sammy, we'll help you through this, okay? Me and Shawn."

Sammy sniffled and a tear rolled down her face. "Thank you..."

The tall Australian pulled both Shawn and Sammy into a tight hug. "You both... I'm Shawn, you're a sweetheart. Sammy, you're the kindest girl ever."

"Thank you both for helping me," Sammy said, smiling.

Shawn and Jasmine both looked at her and hugged her tighter. "Hey," Jasmine said, "what are friends for?"

...

...

...

Author's Note: I hope you all enjoyed reading this little one-shot I put together. Sammy was one of my favorite characters in all of TD and I was so devastated to see her go home. Her revenge on Amy in episode three was completely epic, though.

And Yes, I'll call her Sammy because that's her real name and Samey is just hurtful.

Shawn was a little OOC, I fear, but tell me what you thought. And Sammy's character was expanded a bit here past what we saw on the show. I was very impressed with how realistic an abusive sibling relationship was portrayed, and I feel like this is realistic enough to be something the poor girl would do.

If you decide to review, I thank you for your time and effort.