Can’t stop thinking about Jack putting his choir robe on you when you’re cold😭 He’d be so stubborn about it but he’s such a cutie pie
i was supposed to write this as a quick two sentence headcanon. sorry for making him so annoying about it, i had to figure out a way to make it as in character as possible. i also like to add a brief character study whenever i can 😭
Jack doesn’t offer you the tog straightaway — he’s cold himself, after all. You should have had the good sense to bring along a layer of your own! Instead he curtly gestures to the smoke-hazed strip of sand nearest the fire, where the ember-lit air hangs low and sluggish and the wind can’t quite get its teeth in.
“Stand there. You’ll be out of the wind that way.” There’s an iota of exasperation threading through his tone, as though the solution ought to have been obvious to you. Freezing where you stood had been a wilful stupidity. You move where he’s indicated, though the reprieve is marginal; the wind still noses its way through the seams of your clothes. Your trembling continues, stubborn and unseemly.
Jack notices. He pretends not to for a moment, his gaze straying to the boys crouched by the spit but the trembling persists. After a moment he hesitates, irritation and reluctance crossing his face, and shrugs out of his tog.
He throws it at you, the cloth lands haphazardly across your shoulders. Immediately a couple of the hunters snicker.
Heat surges under Jack’s skin, a humiliating flush he loathes for how it so readily exposes him. He regrets the gesture at once; the tog already feels squandered, his own skin prickling now with the cold he’s just relinquished. He misses the warmth.
Then Maurice, who carries a bit of home with him regardless of their painted masks and sharpened sticks, opines, “My mother says it’s a gentlemanly thing to do.”
The hunters take it up at once, a droning murmur of approval at this unexpected little pageantry of chivalry from their leader and Jack feels the crowd turning obligingly in his favour and instinctively leans into the shift. His chest puffs out, subconsciously, as though he’s just remembered a posture appropriate to the role he’s been anointed and bears the cold.
Notes: Aged up the major characters, reader will be the same age bracket as the boys. Sbsolutely NO SMUT, nuh uh.
Masterlist
Your skin is burning, back itching as you squirm from the heat, you feel something poking in your back, moments later, you hear voices around you, whispering, yelling, little mumurs.
You groan, frowning as the noise increases. You feel something poke your leg, something sharp, something—
"Ouch!—" you sit up in contempt, your eyes squint as you try to adjust to the light, a very bright light.
"C'mon! There's another one here!"
"Not someone! It's a girl!"
Another groan emits from you and you cover your eyes from the scorching sun, you see shoes of small sizes on the ground where you're sitting, forming an almost circle around you.
"Wot?! A gorl?!"
You clutch your head, where are you? Who are these.. people?
Are they kids?
"Are you alright miss? Are you injured?" You squint when you look up to the source of the voice.
"Of course she's not alright douche bag!"
"I'm.." your throat is parched, voice cracked and ugly. You swallow a wad of saliva, it scratches your trachea, but at least not as dry as it was earlier.
"Who.. what.." you mumble, looking around, you look down and see your hand clutching the sand.
Sand?
You're at the beach?
What..
But—
"Weren't we on a plane earlier?" You ask, massaging your forehead.
"Finally. she speaks." You feel venom ooze out when he said it. Though you couldn't care less why and who it was, you abruptly stand up, the crowd nearest you gasps like you performed some magic trick in front of them.
"Wait, don't stand up too fast—"
You ignore the people now behind you as you stagger and fight for balance, clutching the side of your head, finally getting a clear view of everything, of the place.
The waters grow bigger as you approach, your foot getting caught on a stray wood, you stumble and fall to your knees in the waters, your hands catch you in time before you face plant.
You were in an airplane. Were. You're in an island, maybe abandoned, or maybe uncharted, you didn't know, all you know id that you have to calm yourself before you vomit your breakfast.
You glance back from the corner of your eye and see them forming a half circle around you, they're quiet, except for the whispers and mumurs that seemed to go on for so long.
Finally, you shakingly stood up, your right knee going up first, then you pushed yourself on your left knee and stood straight, barely
You huff, straightening yourself, patting your clothes from all the dirt and sand, your shoes and socks are wet as the tides roll in methodically, you turn to them to which they quickly straighten, you can see them more clearly now, you could almost laugh at how robotic their stances look like, especially the boy with glasses and pink cheeks, he holds a conch at his side.
There's a lot of little ones too, an overwhelming number of them.
You frown. "Where's the grownups?" You yell as you approach them, waves too loud to be just talking.
"W-we were about to check in the mountains," the conch boy stutters.
You stop in front of them, here, you can see the variety of boys you saw on the airport strip.
"Mountains?"
"Yeah," a taller boy beside conch boy answers. "Some- well most, landed there, inside the forests."
You nod, a little boy catches your attention, he slinks beside another little one with a birthmark on his face, oh your heart, they look so small.
"If you want, you can come?" He gives you a weak smile, shrugging, the conch guy elbows him thinking himself discreet, the taller one kicks his foot in return.
The conch guy clears his throat and extends his hand to you. "Anyway, what's ya name?"
You smile and take his hand, telling him your name, the others around you say it back.
"My name's—"
"Piggy is what we call 'im," a guy wearing a too long cloak and a funny hat stands forward, the crowd parting for him, blond locks lighting up under the sun.
"Isn't tha right, Piggy?" He playfully slaps conch guy's arm.
You ignore him, turning to the tall guys beside the conch.
"What's your name?"
"Oh— Ralph," he shakes your hand all the while the funny hat guy glares at your head.
"Well, who's going to the mountain?"
"Uh, Me, Ralph, Jack, and Simon," Conch guy points as he goes.
"Those are kids names," Jack says. "Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew," you hear a groan from conch boy.
Jack. Fits his rude face. Simon gives you a small smile which you reciprocate.
"This is an island isn't it?" You ask.
"I climbed a rock," Ralph said slowly. "And I think this is an island."
Your eyes land on the little ones again, you sigh and look back at the waiting boys.
"I'll stay here," you hear a small yay probably from one of the littles, Ralph and Conch nods at you. "Maybe forage for food—"
"Forage?" Jack quips, but before anything comes out of his mouth, you retort. "Yes forage. The kids might be hungry."
"Tch," he rolls his eyes and motions for Simon to follow him, they disappear behind the crowd. "All right, choir. Take off your togs."
"Yes!"
"Finally."
"It's so hot.."
A bunch of them quickly shrugs of their 'togs'.
The crowd quickly turns into a loud talking mess, conch tries to take their attention but none of them are hearing him.
"Everyone, quiet!" Ralph yells, he extends a hand out to Conch for the shell, Conch hands it to him then he lifts it up. "We ought to have a Chief to decide things."
"A chief, a chief!"
"I ought to be chief," Jack announced from the back, once again, the crowd makes way for him, opening to another circle. "Because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."
You frown, flabbergasted at the gall of him.
The crowd bursts into noise once again.
A moment passes and a guy wearing the same clothes as Jack speaks up.
"Let's have a vote."
"Yeah!"
"Vote for chief!"
"Chief chief!"
"Him with the shell." You speak up, and suddenly, all eyes are on you. You cringe and fiddle with your nails.
"Ralph. What about him being the chief with the trumpet thing?"
A beat goes and another clamor starts. Ralph raises his hands for silence.
"Alright, who wants Jack for chief?"
In obedience, the choir raises their hands.
"Who wants Ralph?"
Everyone, besides the choir raises their hands. Ralph counts them.
Jack frowns.
"That's not fair! They knew you already and they hardly knew me at all!"
"The votes happened, Jack" Simon says, nodding his head. "We can hardly have another.
"Ralph is chief."
The circle of boys as well as you broke into applause, even the choir applauded, you see Jack in the corner of your eye, his mouth opens but nothing comes out of it, then, he begrudgingly sits down as the crowd celebrates, sending Ralph a mean glare.
Ralph glances at him, trying to think of something.
"The choir belongs to you, or course."
"They could be the army—"
"Or hunters—"
"They could be—"
The defeat drains away from Jack's face. The choir eagerly discusses a name for them.
Ralph waves for silence once again.
"Jack will be in charge of the choir. They can be— what do you want them to be?"
"Hunters."
Ralph nods, the choir celebrates and hi-fives ring around the air.
"Then it's settled yeah? Four of us will go to the mountain." Ralph turns to you.
"And you'll stay here to find fruits, if you need help, you can ask the boys okay?" You nod and give him a thumbs up.
Not a moment later and they begin to depart.
"Stay safe and come back as four." You call after them, waving as they disappear from your line of sight.
some general hcs for my this... ginger........ I'm kidding don't jump me
includes: after the events of LOTF, some slight Jack x childhood bsf!reader (wc: 877)
Jack Merridew who kept his spear even after being rescued. He says it's for remembrance, that he would want his future kin to use him as an example; but it's truly because he can't accept how things have ended. It was to remind himself what he's done, how much of a monster he is, and that he can't let go that easily. He's still weak on the inside, he can't properly face it.
His body laid on the soft mattress of his bed, eyes on the ceiling just so he could avoid looking at the rotting piece of wood. It felt like something was pulling him, to try and force him to turn and look at the spear. He tried so hard not to, but he always ended up staring at it for hours; tears would fall down his unmoving face, eyes dull and surrounded with dark circles.
Jack Merridew who couldn't make anymore friends. Sure, he still had his choir, and he would try to convince everyone and himself that he was still the same cocky, Jack; but something unspoken had already shifted inside him. He never admitted it to himself, but ever since the island, he's never approached anyone else because he didn't want them to get hurt by him too.
Jack Merridew who always hung out the washroom of his academy. Washing his face with water for almost 13 times, trying to scrub everything off. It was also because he didn't want to make it obvious that he was crying, using the water as an excuse while he tried to forget about what had happened. He would shake there, gripping the edges of the sink as he hyperventilated, running off to get into an empty toilet stall to hide himself.
Jack Merridew who couldn't look at anyone eye to eye anymore. His shoulders dropped, voice slightly shaky if you listened hard enough during choir practice. He didn't even want to look at Maurice, always just looking straight through people or his eyes were looking up. He'd say it was because his head hurt, but it's been a month of these migraines of his. Nobody dared to question it anymore, partly because they didn't want to hurt him and also because they were scared of him.
Jack Merridew who didn't talk to you anymore. If you were a boy, it was because he was scared of doing to you what he did to Simon. You were one of the last few things he cared about, and he didn't want to compromise that. If you were a girl, he didn't bother paying any attention to you. Girls are gossiping about what happened to us, he would say to the others. To the others, it seemed like he was upset at the girls for doing that; to him, it was truly because he was conscious about your opinion on him.
Jack Merridew who cried at night because people were scared of him. He knew what he did, he knew the lengths he went to, he knew he couldn't blame them for it. It still hurt, though. A child being deprived of proper attention from his peers had a huge effect on them, a child being the subject of horror had worse effects. He always tugged on the hem of his polo at school, trying to make himself look calm and collected while he heard every little thing they said about him.
Jack Merridew who pretended you didn't exist. His mom would invite you over for dinner along with your family, and he would briskly eat his food so that he could escape the social setting. He couldn't face you too, knowing that your view on him had changed. He would hide in his room, locking the door behind him as he slid down the wood, crying. He couldn't force himself to interact with you at all, knowing his blood stained hands.
Jack Merridew who started hearing voices whispering to him, some sounding like Simon, some sounding like Piggy, some just someone whispering to him. He would imagine blood all over him, all over his surroundings actually. He knew it wasn't real, so why was he having a panic attack? He would be shaking in his place, curling his fist and trying to steady his breathing.
Jack Merridew who could only cry to you when he finally couldn't take it anymore. He didn't want his parents thinking lowly of him, and you had always been better at listening, even if all he did was cry. It was pure, raw rage mixed with grief, his sobs almost primal as he gripped on you tight for support. You didn't care anymore about the pain, because you knew his was worse.
Jack Merridew who finally started paying attention to you, even if it was silent stares and eating together at lunch. It wasn't much, but it was a lot of progress for someone who had gone through what he did. The beauty of being a child meant blissfully accepting things as they were, trying to live your life to the fullest with your peers. Even if you hadn't talked about it properly, you knew you'd be there for him when he was finally okay with it. Even if it took years.
Thank you for requesting this!!! Enjoy these Lord of The Flies headcanons for Ralph <3
Warnings: use of y/n, mentions of death
During Island:
- would definitely be protective. mainly because he's worried of the other boys on the island
- would ALWAYS sit down next to you during meetings. want to sit next to simon or the twins? ha, nice try <3
- during moments where the two of you are alone, ralph would try flirting (key word: try). one minute, you're getting wood for the fire, and the next, ralph is blushing red while you reassure him it's fine.
- when simon died, ralph made sure you NEVER left his side. and when you were running from the hunters after piggy's dreadful fate, he almost got a panic attack when the two of you got separated.
- when ralph reached the shore and was met with the naval officer, he immediately asked about you. luckily, roger has dragged you with him to the beach! (Ralph immediately ran towards you and cried with you)
After Island:
- On the ship, the two of you never left each other's side. the only exception being for bathing and sleeping, obviously.
- If Ralph was protective on the island, then he's a whole 'nother level on the ship.
- At one point, Ralph was asked if he fancies you.
"So, tell us, Ralph. Do you fancy Y/N? You two are always... together."
"That's none of your business, Merridew..."
- Ralph would TOTALLY try to be the nicest he's EVER been. Feeling cold? He'd drape his jacket over your shoulders. Hungry? He's already halfway through the ship getting you fruit.
- Once you both reached land, you promised each other that you'd stay in contact. Before the two of you were separated to be with your families after what felt like decades, Ralph gave you a haste kiss on the corner of your mouth before you both bid goodbye.
thank you, @distressedinthemidwest for requesting!! this was so fun to write😋
(If you have any more requests for other lotf characters, lmk!!!)
I'm going to be pretty strict with any request for this one specifically, so nsfw and intense romantic requests are not allowed! Also keep in mind that all iterations of the characters are solely book based and is not meant to be based on any film iteration.
I have this random idea that came to mind today, what if I'd write a LOTF fanfic where everything goes the same as in the book, except that a responsible teen/adult was there to scold the kids. I can just imagine them going like "ROGER STOP DOING THAT" every 2 seconds and just being like Gwen from Camp Camp lol.
Hiiii can you write one where Roger and jack like the same person?
Oh, Bugger off.
∘˙ ✶ Jack Merridew x Reader, Roger x Reader
includes: after LOTF, Jack x schoolmate!Reader, Roger x schoolmate!Reader, some hcs are when you're older in secondary school (wc: 333)
a/n — headcanon format since I feel like this fits more !!!
Jack Merridew who looked at Roger weird whenever he stared at you for too long. He was a weirdo, and he was sure you wouldn't approach the other boy, but he still wanted to make sure you weren't giving him any attention.
Roger who would collect you crab shells when he found out you liked crabs. He would leave them on your table before class, and make sure nobody saw.
Jack Merridew who would pull you closer by the arm when walking side by side, deliberately looking at Roger with a nasty look on his face whenever he made sure he saw you both.
Roger who read books with you after class. Though it was just him sitting next to you as he stayed silent for the whole time, being enough to tick the other boy off.
Jack Merridew who played it rough in rugby matches when Roger was there, even if they were on the same team. He had to impress you, didn't he?
Roger who daydreamed about hitting Jack with a stick if he ever saw him try to steal you away from him. You were his only friend, and the only one he actually liked in that sense.
Jack Merridew who would make his parents buy him gifts for you, even if it were random things like paper clips and band aids. You've never used paper clips. Were the band aids a sign for something...?
Roger who kept staring at you from across the gym as you played dodgeball. You were a rough player. You were fun to be around. What more if you had been on the island?
Jack Merridew who made sure to keep you close, just so he knew that Roger wasn't up to something. He really didn't want him as competition, but he couldn't scare him away.
Roger who made sure his position from you was at a distance, to admire you and get close to you only when necessary. He wouldn't want you hurt. Yet.
with jager tinted glasses on, how do you think roger would react to jack have a crush on reader/giving reader a close amount of attention that he gives roger?
if not that oki too bc idk how you feel about jager loll (i saw these posted on ao3 first, youre so good n realistic in your writings of the lotf boys!)
roger (lord of the flies) + gender neutral reader.
word count: 3,400+
slight jack merridew + reader. this is novel roger, and does not follow bbc roger's personality! this took me a month to write, almost cried because this fic was so difficult — i didn't account for how hard roger's pov would have been. warnings for canon-typical violence! roger doesn’t realise he has a crush on jack or that anything he’s doing is abnormal (it is). can everyone be really nice to me and interact with this because it took me forever. also, really excited about getting new flies in the fandom, hi!
Roger lets it pass the first time because nothing about it appears aberrant. Jack is a creature of appetite, and not just for meat. Praise fattens him. Attention, however meagre its source is, is taken in like air. Roger has seen him preen under the gawping admiration of boys he wouldn’t otherwise bother to remember. A grubby littlun, nose running unchecked, might be indulged for a few minutes if he supplies enough breathless awe. Jack is not discriminating when the offering is sufficiently fawning.
So at first, you aren’t anything more than another mouth open in wonder.
But you linger around longer than he had anticipated. And Jack does not grow tired of you.
The first irregularity.
Roger notices it as a discomfort, a small pebble in the shoe of his observations that he can’t dislodge without removing it entirely. Where the others rush toward Jack in noisy clusters, Roger’s attention is quiet, acquisitive. He inventories things, measuring them until he figures out what to do.
You’re not anything special. This second irregularity bothers him more than the first.
Maurice stands to Jack’s right, a customary broad, gap-toothed grin splitting his face with the easy affability that has always made him tolerable to the others. He doesn’t think much of Maurice but Maurice is competent; Maurice understands instinctively when to laugh and when to shut up. He earns his place without striving for it. You, by contrast, seem to possess neither instinct nor skill. Your grin — irritable in its enthusiasm — echoes Maurice’s closely, but without the ballast of earned belonging. It looks borrowed on you, ill-fitted. Your tongue-in-cheek remarks, when you offer them, incline towards a careless impertinence that, in any other instance, would invoke swift discipline.
And yet Jack gravitates towards you.
The rest of the camp recedes into ambient noise, fire crackles, a littlun whines and someone jostles past with a holler. None of it matters to Roger.
What matters is that Jack is speaking to you.
And not just that — he’s putting on a performance.
Not delegating instruction, or delivering the curt, utilitarian directives he employs when bossing around the others, but speaking in a way that suggests that you’re an audience worth captivating. He recounts the hunt: a reconstruction shaped for dramatics, broad in wild gestures, and elevated in pitch. He lowers himself, demonstrates the stalk before the inevitable lunge at an imaginary animal. His hands carve shapes in the air, delineating the pig’s imagined path. It’s a crude pantomime delivered with a relish that indicates he’s embellishing events instead of actually recounting them, exaggerating the smaller parts to put on a good show.
You’re wholly absorbed in whatever he’s putting on. You lean forward like the sheer proximity would enhance the image he is fabricating, your eyes tracking every movement with a hungry intensity.
“I can’t believe I missed it,” you bemoan. “I should’ve been there!”
Jack grins and readily agrees, “You should’ve been there. You’d have seen. It was perfect.”
“…Will you go again?”
Jack nods resolutely. “Of course, I will! First thing tomorrow.” Then he waits to see your reaction.
“Then I’ll come too!”
There is nothing in your tone that mitigates the force of that declaration, unshaped by the usual caution: you don’t temper your desire to fit the expectations of the group when you declare it so plainly.
There is a ripple of reaction, a sharp bark of laughter, a mumbled remark, but Jack doesn’t dismiss the proclamation.
Instead, he appraises you. And this is where he expects Jack to say no, you’d only slow them down. Jack isn’t the sentimental type, he doesn’t invest in what doesn’t serve him.
But he doesn’t, what he says instead is—
“Perhaps,” Jack says.
Perhaps.
A door left ajar, and you beam at it as though it has been flung wide.
Roger decides he’s seen enough to know that this isn’t a passing anomaly. There’s a clear pattern and it needs to be dealt with accordingly.
—
Roger isn’t impulsive, so he doesn’t seek you out with immediacy. Curiousity is a slow accrual of pressure with him. He watches you over the course of the afternoon, noting unremarkable details that could collectively amount to something.
When the others shoulder the pig, you take your place among them without protest, but your hold slackens sooner than theirs, fingers adjusting, readjusting, the strain finding you a little early. The carcass swings with its own weight, and you lag by a fraction, never enough to warrant comment, but always enough to be recorded by Roger.
Your contributions arrive, they aren’t absent — not when not contributing to the structure Jack had was a surefire way to earn his ire, so you narrowly avoid it. You give what’s required and no more, your effort tapering at the edges where theirs seems to hold fast.
You complain as the others do, your voice wriggling easily into the general litany, the interminable drag of it all. The grievances are communal, you don’t stand apart in your diatribes any more than you do in your labour.
And you laugh too easily.
This, Roger finds especially vexating. Your laughter spills out at the smallest provocation. And yet Jack doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, your laughter appears to encourage him, to draw him further into his own performances.
You listen.
Is that it, then? Is that what Jack likes about you?
Roger’s head inclines slightly, he isn’t convinced. He’s quieter than you, when it counts. Doesn’t cut in, lets Jack run on without interruption, without having to fight for it.
You don’t do any of that.
It’s a nuisance, is what it is.
—
By the time he approaches you, the camp has thinned into its evening configurations. The fire has burned lower, its earlier exuberance reduced to a steady glow. The littluns have drifted toward sleep or quiet whimpering. The older boys linger in loose, half-drifting clusters, their bodies slack-limbed and food-dulled, energy seeping out of them into a sun-drunk listlessness.
You are alone, sitting a little apart from the others, sequestered on a large boulder and looking at the unfurling chaos from above. You are picking at something — a stick, perhaps — stripping it of its bark in absent-minded strokes.
Roger watches you for a moment before making his presence known, he doesn’t announce himself, but interposes himself into your line of sight and waits.
You look up.
“Roger,” you greet, lips curling into an amicable, tempered smile. There’s a modicum of confusion present too, like you can’t figure out what he’d possibly want from you.
Uncommunicative by nature, he remains silent, considering the sound of his own name in your mouth.
You have returned to your mindless task of chipping away at the remnants of bark. Once again, you look entirely ordinary.
And yet Jack will seek you out tomorrow.
Roger knows this with a certainty that feels, in its own small way, like a warning.
“Come here,” he says.
You look up, startled, then squint slightly as though trying to determine whether this is a request or an order.
“Why?”
Roger does not answer. He turns and walks.
There is a pause in which you might decide not to follow. He does not look back to check. The outcome interests him, but he won’t go out of his way to court it.
A moment later, he hears you shuffle behind him.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
You leap up to your feet, and follow him, keeping your pace. Roger adjusts his stride minutely, to ensure you must exert yourself to keep up.
The path he takes isn’t one the other boys favour. It veers away from the well-trodden routes that connect fire, shelter, and shore, slipping instead into a denser part of the island where the undergrowth thickens and the light fractures into uncertain patches.
He stops.
You nearly walk into him.
“We’re here.”
Then he steps aside.
The pit is not immediately visible. It is obscured by a careless arrangement of branches and leaves, a half-hearted camouflage. Roger nudges the covering aside with his foot, divulging the dark hollow beneath.
It is deeper than it first appears.
You peer into it, frowning.
“What is that?”
“A pit,” Roger says.
“I can see that,” you reply, a flicker of irritation imbues itself into your voice. “Why is it here?”
He shrugs.
“There are traps round here.”
You crouch at the edge, leaning forward to get a better look. The light does not reach the bottom cleanly; it gathers instead in dim layers, the canopy of trees above shades it, casting an illusory depth.
“There’s something down there,” Roger says.
You glance up at him.
“What?”
He points.
Your notice of it arrives only after an uncertain adjustment of the eye. There, at the pit’s lowest hollow, rests a small and only partially revealed object, its presence obscured by the close embrace of packed earth. From your vantage it withholds any clear form.
“What is it?” you urge again.
“Why don’t you go and see?”
You blink.
“You want me to climb down there?”
“I should have thought that obvious.”
There is a silence in which the request might congeal into something more obviously unreasonable. Roger watches your face, waiting for the refusal, any instinctive self-preservation that should assert itself any moment now.
Instead, your mouth inches into a half-smile.
“That’s it?”
He feels like he must have frowned.
You grin, similar to the unguarded one you offer to Jack. It catches Roger off guard.
“Alright then,” you say.
Before he can figure out a way to respond, you swing your legs over the edge and begin to lower yourself into the pit.
For a moment, Roger just watches.
You descend with an awkward determination, your footing uncertain but persistent. The sides of the pit are not smooth; roots protrude, offering precarious handholds. Dirt loosens under your weight, falling in small cascades that patter softly against the ground below.
Roger doesn’t offer assistance.
You reach the bottom with a muted thud, knees bending to absorb the impact. For a second, you remain crouched, orienting yourself, then you straighten and look up.
“Well?” you call. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”
Roger does not answer immediately.
There is something about the way you stand there, confined within the circumference of the pit, that sharpens his attention. You look diminished and contained.
“Just pick it up,” he says finally.
You roll your eyes and turn to locate the object. It takes you a moment, but then you crouch and retrieve it, brushing away the dirt.
“It’s just a rock,” you say.
There is a note of disbelief in your voice, you had clearly been expecting something more.
“Bring it up,” Roger says.
You look up at him.
There is a beat.
“Help me up, then.”
Roger makes no move to help.
You stare at him.
“You need to help me,” you reason carefully, voice wavering. “How else am I supposed to get out of here?”
Another silence.
“Very funny,” you say, but there is no humour in it.
Roger does not respond.
You wait.
Your voice follows him, rising, shifting from irritation to something harsher.
“Roger, don’t— you can’t be serious?! Roger!”
—
Roger doesn’t think about the time much on the island, it’s not like it matters much. But it’s long enough for the light to shift, for the heat to dull into something less oppressive and sweltering.
When he returns, it’s with no real sense of urgency.
The path is the same. The undergrowth does not resist him. The pit reveals itself as before, its careless covering disturbed.
He approaches the edge.
And pauses.
You’re not where he left you.
He lifts his dark gaze, scanning, his attention unspooling into the dimming island. The horizon is in the act of undoing itself, light seeping away like a secret reluctantly surrendered. Tree trunks conspire with shadow, bleeding downwards into the earth until the ground becomes indistinguishable.
Then, from somewhere behind him:
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back.”
Your voice.
Roger turns.
You stand a few feet away, besmirched with earth and sweat. The evening light finds the streaks upon your skin and the dull sheen of exertion. In your hand, the small rock is still clutched, a token wrested, your fingers close round it.
You look apoplectic.
Not the petulant irritation he has seen flicker across your face before. Your eyes are bright with it, like a bolt of lightning with nowhere else to go.
“How did you get out?” he asks.
There are scrapes along your arms, dirt ground into your skin, evidence of effort that must have been prolonged. The sides of the pit are not easily climbed. It would have required determination. He should have accounted for how persistent you always were.
There isn’t much left to say. Roger never has a lot to fill the silence with — that’s usually left up to others.
He is curious when you take a step toward him and then another, and then you’re sprinting towards him and he belatedly registers alarm.
You close the distance in a single rush and drive both hands into his chest. The impact jolts through him; Roger stumbles back, feet catching on a gnarled root half-buried in the soil. He goes down awkwardly, the air knocked loose from him.
The rock is still in your grip.
You raise your hand, lancing it down. Roger rolls, narrowly avoiding the blow, and the stone scrapes empty air. You lunge after him again anyway, face tightened with indignation.
You manage to land a hit this time.
It’s not a large rock, but it doesn’t need to be. The sound it makes is enough. Roger cries out, an involuntary sound, and something in his expression fractures into a thin, venomous sneer.
He catches your arm as you draw back for another strike and twists. Pain flares hot and immediate, but you refuse the instinct to let go. Your grip tightens instead, knuckles tightening, even as the strain forces a sound out of you that is closer to shock than anything coherent.
The rock falls out of your hand.
You are shaking slightly, still carrying the aftershock of a paroxysm of anger that hasn’t been properly expelled from your body. Your breath comes quick and uneven, unable to settle into anything you can control.
You look nothing like you did earlier, standing at Jack’s side. Nothing like the rapt attentive, cheeky figure you present yourself as.
A shed carapace implies growth with the creature outgrowing its old constraints. But this feels more like being flayed, the outer layer gone with nothing to replace it, left with a sensitivity that is intolerable and a barrage of sensation that arrives amplified. The torrid heat is unbearable against your skin, the ground bumpy under your feet.
You are now left wordless and furious and trembling with rage.
Roger lunges for the rock and you dive to where it is, already prepared to intercept, your hand crashes down over his with such a blunt force that his knuckles are driven straight into the dirt, skin grinding against soil, your fingers locking over his in a grip that is more of a refusal to concede even the illusion of him having it. He jerks, the motion ricocheting back through you so that the two of you are tethered by this contested rock, the object shifting, chafing between your palms. It never settles in one hand, as if it resents being claimed at all and then, you relinquish it abruptly.
Your hand leaves the rock mid-struggle and finds him instead, surging upwards into his hair, closing there, a fistful wrenched tight and yanked, hard enough that his head snaps back violently, his body dragged after it too unprepared.
He barges, an attempt to break the stalemate through impact. You answer immediately, hurling back with equal disregard for form, the exchange devolving into unadorned, a contest of refusal to lose, each of you endeavouring to impose direction on the other without the courtesy of any actual fighting technique. He tries to turn, to slip the axis of his body out from under your hold, but every effort is interrupted, each yank forcing his body to comply with a trajectory he wants to avoid, his hand is still clamped around your arm, nails digging deeper and frantic now, more punishing, as he tries to peel you off piece by piece.
You refuse to yield to him, not when he started it. You pull again.
And this time it works.
You drive him.
It’s hardly efficient but there’s a relentless, forward insistence that denies him the time needed to recover, each step you force him into is misaligned, his attempts to brace undermined by the lingering imbalance, his shove back lacks the foundation it needs to matter.
He’s off-centre now, irretrievably so, his off-kiltered body doesn’t answer him with his earlier precision, each correction compounds the error instead of rectifying it. You see it happen: the resistance thinning and his footing giving way beneath the constant pressure you refuse to ease up on.
And you don’t hesitate, not even for a second.
You give him one hard shove, everything in you thrown behind it, an unbroken act of force that leaves no room for you to think on.
He goes down awkwardly, it happens too fast.
Roger lands badly.
The impact jars through bone, a blunt, internal shock that steals the air from him more effectively than any blow. For a moment he doesn’t move, the shock keeps him rooted, body folding in on itself in the abyss-depth of the pit. He feels numb for a while, conjuring up an emotion takes its time.
His tongue presses, once, against the tender rise on the inner wall of his cheek where you’d struck him. A trace of iron seeps across his palate, there’s no gush of blood, only the faintest metallic taste. He holds it there a moment longer than necessary before letting his tongue withdraw, leaving the swelling to continue its discreet ascent.
Roger gets to his feet, with no urgency, one hand brushing dirt from his thigh while the other hangs loose at his side. His leg answers with a low, stubborn ache, lodged deep and spreading, dulling rather than sharpening. He shifts his weight once to settle it, then again, until the discomfort folds into the rest of him and is no longer worth attending to. He doesn’t bother calling out for you. He already knows you’re not there.
He finds his footing in the shallow grooves cut into the sides, the marks crude but serviceable, each one holding just enough to bear his weight. His heart strikes hard against his ribs, a rapid, insistent knocking. So Jack had not been humouring you.
He hauls himself upwards with controlled effort, arms tightening, shoulders drawing in. His breath comes quickly, short bursts escaping one after another, his eyelids flickering with an involuntary energy that borders on anticipation. The dirt gives slightly beneath his hands, loose and shifting, disturbed where yours must have scraped and pressed in search of hold. He digs his fingers in deeper, as if he could excavate your fingerprints from the soil, he imagines the same dirt under your nails from when you had clambered out as there is in his.
He sinks his fingers deeper into the wall of the pit, past the friable crust into the denser, cooler earth beneath, where the soil yields with a reluctant give and then holds him there. The grooves are unmistakably yours, each one a record of effort from your earlier clambering. He fits his hand into them, aligning palm to hollow, fingers to the shallow impressions left behind, like the ground still retains the warmth of your tightened grip.
The dirt works its way under his nails, settling into the same narrow crescents, the same spaces where yours must have gathered as you hauled yourself up. He considers that briefly, the shared grime and the matching traces. His thumb presses into one of the deeper marks, testing its shape, testing the amount of pressure and doggedness it must have taken to carve it there.
For a moment he doesn’t move. His hand remains planted, claimed by the impression left behind.
