Chapter Text
The assembly dissolved into noise almost immediately, breaking the eye contact the two held. Boys wandered into groups across the beach, arguing about shelters and food and whether anyone else had survived the crash. Ralph kept trying to restore order while Piggy followed beside him clutching the conch nervously.
Roger stopped paying attention after a while. The heat pressed heavily against his skin, his damp choir shirt sticking uncomfortably to his back. Somewhere near the trees, littluns were already crying again over bruises and stolen fruit.
Jack stood nearby talking loudly. "We need hunters," he announced. "If we’re staying here, we need meat."
"Fruit is enough for now," Simon said.
Roger looked over instantly. Simon stood near the edge of the shade, sleeves still rolled unevenly to his elbows. One side of his collar had fallen open, exposing the beginning of a bruise near his collarbone. Roger’s eyes caught there before moving back to his face.
Jack scoffed "Maybe for you."
Simon only shrugged lightly "It’s the first day."
Ralph interrupted before Jack could continue. "We should climb the mountain first. See if this really is an island."
A few boys groaned. Jack agreed immediately, eager to take charge again. "Fine. Choir boys with me."
Roger barely listened. Simon had gone pale.
It wasn’t obvious unless someone was looking for it. His shoulders had tightened slightly, one hand pressing briefly against his ribs before dropping again. Roger noticed anyway. Simon always did this strange drifting thing. During rehearsals. During long sermons. Like his body stopped cooperating with him for a few moments at a time. Before thinking much about it, Roger crossed the sand toward him.
"You look sick."
Simon glanced up. "I’m fine."
"You don’t look fine."
"It’s hot."
Roger crouched in front of him. Too close probably, but neither of them moved away. Simon’s curls hung damply over his forehead now, shadows shifting across his face through the palm leaves overhead.
"You keep staring at me," Simon murmured.
Roger’s mouth twitched slightly. "You notice."
Simon looked down at the sand between them. For a second the noise of the beach faded behind the sound of waves.
Roger leaned his arms loosely over his knees. "You stared too." Simon went still.
"During mass," Roger continued quietly. "Choir practice too."
Simon swallowed once. "You frightened me." Roger expected the answer to feel satisfying. Instead it settled strangely in his chest.
"Still do?" Simon hesitated too long.
Roger watched the tension move across his face before Simon finally said, "Sometimes." That almost sounded honest.
A shout broke across the beach. "Roger! We’re leaving!"
Maurice waved from farther down shore where Jack and Ralph were already gathering boys for the climb. Roger stood slowly.
Simon finally looked up at him again, eyes darker somehow without the careful neatness he usually hid behind back home.
"You’re bleeding again," Simon said quietly.
Roger glanced at the scrape near his shoulder where blood had started soaking through the fabric. He hadn’t noticed. Simon always noticed things. Roger looked at him another second before turning toward the others. Halfway down the beach he stopped.
"No priests here now," he said without looking back.
The silence behind him lasted long enough to feel dangerous. Then Simon answered softly, "I know." He knew what he had done thinking about Roger that no priest would approve of.
Roger payed no attention to Jacks incessant commands. All he could think about was Simon. The pent up something he had for him. He didn't know what it was. He thought about the times he would follow Simon home. He would blow his cigarette smoke as hard as he could hoping it would reach the other boy.
To have him inhale something that had been in his lungs drove him wild. Simon drove him wild. The innocence and purity he carried. Roger wanted to destroy it. The fragility of Simon, the rage he felt looking at another person damage him. And yet he wanted to crack him open and feel his warmth. Like it was an addiction. Roger wanted to take every piece of Simon for himself. Being around him was simply not enough. He wanted him to come to him and lay himself open.
The overwhelming of these thoughts surely had to do with the fact they could be achieved without repercussion. Unlike at home, unlike under the warm glare of stained glass where their obsession was overruled because it deprived them of a normality they never wished to know.