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Jack is already there when Simon reaches the lip of the cave. He is bathed in moonlight, his shock of golden-white hair a halo over his head. Simon blinks, and he is superimposed over the ornate carving of Jesus on the cross in the chapel at home. His drooped head, his wounds, the concavity of his stomach. Hungry. Simon is always hungry, these days. He kicks a rock, stumbles and Jack’s blue eyes catch him and pin him in place. His face hardens and then, almost imperceptibly, softens again.
“Hello,” Simon says.
There is distance between them but not much.
“Hello,” says Jack evenly. He pushes himself off of the rock he’s been leaning on and draws in a breath, puffing his cheeks out and then letting it deflate him.
“You keep looking at me,” he announces, full of bravado.
Simon blanches, takes a second.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You keep looking at me.”
“I…” Simon starts, stops, starts again, “I mean, you’re often talking or doing something. Am I not meant to look at you?”
He is confused and a little hurt. He thought he and Jack had some sort of understanding after the long vacs.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
His face is in shadow but his eyes still glow, like the bioluminescence at the edge of the coral reef. Simon feels caught beneath his gaze. So what if he looks at Jack? He’s the centre of them, the beating heart beneath the flesh that is Ralph, hot blood flowing just beneath the surface. For Simon, he has always been this. The colour of red, the blood of Christ, the blush of a first crush, the two of them sneaking glances in choir under the watchful eyes of the son of god. Can He really deny them this, when he has already punished them so harshly?
“Sorry,” he tells him, struggling to mean it. He doesn’t know what else to say. Jack looks down at his freckled feet in the water and then back up at him.
“You know exactly what you’re doing, don’t you?” He accuses. There is harshness in his voice that Simon associates with Jack being around the others. He looks around the cave for Maurice and Roger, hoping this isn’t some sick joke, a trap to make him seem even more batty than they already think he is. He can’t see them but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. He stays quiet, shrinking back against the cave wall. He feels the slate beneath his hands and digs his nails in, watching Jack. He is used to being prey under his father’s gaze but this feels different. There is something just underneath the surface of Jack’s skin, threatening to burst out. Simon feels it in the pit of his stomach, lightweight and massive all at once. He’s buoyant, he’s weighed down, he feels jack’s gaze on him and feels ostracised and wanted all at once. Jack breathes out through his nose.
“You’re doing something to me,” not so accusing this time. It’s like he’s talking to himself.
“Whenever I look at you, you’re already looking back! With your big eyes, the ones you used to give me on the long vac when it was just the two of us. And your stupid freckles and, god, even your sunburn! I dreamt of you last night, and the night before. Even in sleep I can’t escape you.”
Simon can’t look away, Jack’s eyes bore in to him. He realises that Jack is waiting for an answer. He’s worked himself up, his fists clenched, shoulders heaving with the terrible effort of letting Simon see him, letting him in. Simon’s throat clicks on a swallow,
“Jack,” he says softly, evenly, looking up at him.
“See?” Jack says desperately. Simon doesn’t see, he feels on the back foot in this conversation. Jack’s breath whistles through his teeth and then he’s closing the space between them, grabbing Simon’s hand and placing it on his chest. Jack is so thin from malnourishment that he can feel the pitter patter of his heart, too fast for normal.
“See?” He asks again, quieter now, “Do you see what you do to me?”
Simon takes a deep and steadying breath. His head feels thick and throbbing. He needs to be brave now. His father used to say he lacked that all the time. He touches the wrist of the hand Jack has over his own, brings it gently to his own chest, his own heart.
“We must have the same thing,” he says, then. The feeling of their skin touching is like sunburn. Sharp and achy at the same time, “You do something to me, too.”
He feels a surge of courage.
“You always have.”
They had toyed with this, of course, on the long vacs. When Jack was poorly, they had shared a bed without question, waking up tangled in the sheets, the two of them covered in Jack’s fever-sweat. They had held each other in the nights whilst both feigning sleep. At Christmas lunch with their housemaster, they had both been given a few drops of red wine as a treat, the blood of Christ. They had played drunk, gotten silly and honest and then pretended to forget the next day.
(“I think I’d like to marry someone like you,” Jack had told the ceiling of their bunk beds, head lolling drunkenly. Simon had turned to him.
“Someone like me how?”
Instead of answering, Jack wriggled closer. He pressed their foreheads together. The proximity had made butterflies erupt in Simon’s stomach, had made him close his eyes in fear and anticipation. Jack had breathed shaky breaths against his mouth for what felt like an eternity. Simon was too scared to open his eyes in case he broke the spell between them, in case Jack pulled away, or pushed closer or kissed him or didn’t kiss him. They hadn’t, that day. Or the next. Or ever. But Simon never forgot that moment between them).
Jack’s eyes go wide. He looks around, like someone might catch them and then draws closer, so they’re chest to chest. His voice drops to a whisper.
“I’ve never kissed before,” he says, confessional. Simon’s chest feels fit to bursting.
“Me neither,” he admits and cannot help the way his eyes drop to Jack’s red mouth. The blood of Christ, the colour of Jack’s lower lip. Whilst he’s looking, whilst he’s thinking of Jesus on the cross and Jack’s eyes on his above the heads of the others in the pews, Jack puts his hands on his face.
“I liked when you painted my face,” he says, his eyes roving over Simon’s own.
“I know,” he replies softly. It was obvious that Jack was taken with him in that moment, enchanted by the spell between them and Simon’s fingers brushing the bow of his lips. There’s no use sparing Jack’s blushes when he only shows this side of himself once in a blue moon.
“I like most things you do,” Jack admits.
Simon’s throat clicks on a swallow, shocked at this sudden admission. Jack has been like this with him only a handful of times, stripped raw and bleeding and completely at Simon’s mercy. Simon can’t help the smile that splits his face in two and Jack watches him silently, like he's hunting and Simon is one of the pink, squealing piglets he spends his days chasing through the forest. He looks like he’s figuring something out in his head for a moment and then he’s taking a breath and leaning forward to touch their lips together.
It’s a shock. It’s not at all like Simon imagined. Jack’s lips are dry and a little sweet-sour with the fruit they had had for dinner. One of Jack’s hands stays on his cheek, gentle like Jack is so rarely. Simon struggles to differentiate tenderness and violence. It’s a slap, a caress, a black eye and a blush. The other hand fits to his hip and Simon didn’t know that it’s nice to be touched there, nice to be held, nice for Jack’s hand to fit to him like a jigsaw piece (they had done one together on the last Easter vac, fitting pieces of The Last Supper into place. Judas had kissed Jesus before he betrayed him, too.) He thinks he should probably move his mouth or respond or something but he doesn’t know how so he just lets Jack touch him, lets him rest their mouths together with his hand burning a brand onto his hip. Simon finds that when Jack pulls away, he’s panting and that he forgot to breathe for however long they had kissed. He watches Jack’s face for a reaction but it’s as unreadable as it always is on the island, smooth ocean without a ripple underneath.
“Can we…” Simon starts, runs out of breath, “can we try again?”
It’s Jack’s turn to smile now.
“Yes,” he says simply and leans back in.
It’s nicer this time. Simon is more aware of himself, of his breathing and the need to turn his face in the opposite direction of Jack’s so their noses don’t bump. He holds jack’s upper arms, feels the muscle shift under his hands as Jack moves. He thinks hard of all the television he’s seen where people kiss and tries to move his mouth a little. Their teeth clack together and Simon can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him, joy and nervousness both. Jack stills for a moment, studies him and tries to work out if Simon is laughing at him and then decides he isn’t and laughs too. His cheeks are perfect pink, his eyes shy and lovely. Simon finds himself wishing he could be like this all the time but then again, it wouldn’t be special if he was. Jack steps back from him and Simon finds himself moving with him. He doesn’t want to go back to the beach yet, to the place where Jack looks right through him and everyone calls him batty. He wants to stay right here where Jack will give him those eyes, will hold his gaze without sneering. His wrist twitches at his side and then rises on its own accord, touching the blonde tendrils of Jack’s hair, bleached bright by the sun. Jack watches him carefully again and then closes his eyes, leaning into him like he’s been waiting for a tender touch his whole life. His lips part and then purse and he pulls back to compose himself. Shoulders back, chin high, that harsh glint in his eyes.
“Same time tomorrow?” He asks in his normal voice, careless, cruel. Simon finds it doesn't sting as much as normal. He knows the truth of it. He presses a quick and clumsy kiss to the corner of Jack’s mouth, just to watch him lose the composure he fights to keep such a tight grip on.
“Okay.”
Jack goes and Simon counts to sixty before following him. Back in the shelter, Maurice lies between them like a rock. Jack doesn’t look at him again but Simon watches him, watches him breathe like he did when Jack was ill in the Christmas vac and Simon was scared he would die. His eyelashes create deep shadows over his cheeks. Simon likes him like this. His curly hair loose and sweaty, out of their togs and cassocks. Simon will let him treat him badly if it means he gets to see Jack’s heart in private. He is the Patroclus to Jack’s Achilles, his faithful sidekick, that sliver of flesh visible through otherwise impenetrable armour. Simon says a quick prayer before he sleeps and hopes that god is listening. He thinks of his mother. Please god, he thinks, let me keep his affection without punishment.