Chapter Text
The dormitory always smelled faintly of damp wool and soap.
Simon had never minded it much before. It was simply a part of the school, same as the cold stone staircases and watery porridge and the chapel bells ringing at impossible hours of the morning. But tonight the smell pressed against him too hard, thick in his lungs, making the darkness around his bed feel close and stifling.
Around him, boys slept in rows.
A cough somewhere near the windows. Somebody muttering in dreams. Sheets rustling.
Simon stared upward at the ceiling beams until his chest began that familiar awful tightening.
Not now.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Sometimes the spells passed quickly if he stayed still enough. Sometimes they didn’t. Tonight the air only seemed thinner the longer he lay there.
Quietly, Simon pushed back his blankets.
The floorboards were freezing beneath his bare feet. He winced as one creaked under his weight, pausing until the dormitory settled again into sleep. Nobody stirred.
Good.
He pulled his school jumper over his nightshirt against the cold and slipped from the room.
The corridors beyond the dormitories were dark except for the moonlight spilling through the tall windows. Silver bars stretched across the stone floors. The school looked strange at night, softer somehow. Less cruel to him. Simon liked it better this way.
During the day the place belonged to noise. Shouting masters. Boys laughing too loudly. Shoes pounding through halls. At night it felt abandoned by everyone except ghosts.
He wandered without direction at first.
Past the trophy cases.
Past the locked classrooms.
Past the chapel doors standing black and enormous in the dark.
Eventually, almost without thinking, he found himself heading downstairs toward the kitchens.
He wasn’t particularly hungry.
But the cooks always left fruit out overnight in little bowls by the pantry, and the thought of something sweet sounded comforting.
The kitchen door creaked when he slipped inside.
Moonlight glimmered against hanging copper pots. Everything smelled faintly of bread.
Simon found the apples quickly.
He had just tucked on beneath his jumper when–
“You.”
Simon nearly jumped out of his skin,
At the doorway stood Jack Merridew.
He wore a dark dressing gown thrown carelessly over striped pajamas, his feet bare against the stone. His blonde hair was damp and curling strangely at the ends, like he’d washed it before bed. Without the choir robes and the prefect badge and perpetual scowl, he looked younger. Not soft exactly, Simon didn’t think Jack knew how to be soft, but less sharp around the edges.
Still frightening, though.
Jack crossed his arms. “What are you doing?”
Simon swallowed. “Nothing.”
“You’re stealing.”
Simon glanced down at the apple bulging obviously beneath his jumper.
“Oh,” he said quietly,
Jack stared at him.
Then, to Simon’s complete shock, he laughed.
It wasn’t a nice laugh. Jack never laughed nicely. It came out abrupt and rough and startled, like it escaped him by accident.
Simon blinked.
Jack looked vaguely annoyed with himself immediately afterward. “You’re rubbish at sneaking around.”
“I know.”
“You left the pantry door open.”
“Oh.”
Jack rolled his eyes and stepped fully into the kitchen. “Honestly.”
Simon wasn’t entirely sure why Jack was there either. He looked too awake to have merely wandered in by coincidence.
“You’re up late,” Simon said.
Jack shrugged.
Moonlight caught along the line of his jaw. Simon noticed suddenly that Jack had a bruise blooming purple near one wrist. Probably rugby. Or fighting. Boys at school were always hitting one another for reasons Simon could never entirely understand.
Jack noticed him staring.
“What?”
“Your wrist.”
Jack looked down. “It’s nothing.”
Simon nodded quickly. “Sorry.”
Silence stretched between them.
It should have been uncomfortable.
Jack terrified most people at school, and for good reason. He shouted at choirboys until they cried. He got into rows with masters constantly. He carried himself like he was perpetually furious at the world for failing to worship him properly.
But Simon had never been frightened of him in the same way the others were.
Maybe because Simon understood, instinctively, that anger and unhappiness were not always separate things.
Jack leaned against one of the counters. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to run off?”
“Oh.” Simon frowned slightly. “Should I?”
Jack looked strangely thrown by the question.
“I don’t care what you do,” he muttered.
Simon considered that.
Then he pulled the apple from beneath his jumper and held it out awkwardly. “Do you want half?”
Jack stared at him.
Simon suddenly became aware this might have been odd. Boys did not generally offer Jack Merridew pieces of stolen fruit in the middle of the night.
“You don’t have to,” he added quickly.
Jack took the apple.
Their fingers brushed.
It lasted less than a second.
Still, something strange passed across Jack’s face. Something tight and unreadable.
He looked down at the fruit in his hand like it had personally offended him.
Then he bit into it.
Simon smiled before he could stop himself.
Jack narrowed his eyes immediately. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling.”
“Sorry.”
“You say sorry too much.”
Simon ducked his head a little. “I know.”
Jack huffed softly through his nose.
For a while they ate in silence.
Outside, wind rattled faintly against the windows. Somewhere upstairs pipes groaned through the old building.
Jack spoke suddenly.
“You fainted yesterday.”
Simon stiffened.
“Oh.”
“In Latin.”
“Yes.”
The memory burned hot beneath his skin now. The classroom spinning. Somebody laughing. The humiliation of waking up in the infirmary afterward.
Jack looked irritated by it in retrospect, which somehow felt worse.
“You ought to tell someone before it happens,” Jack said.
“I don’t know when it will.”
“That’s stupid.”
Simon shrugged helplessly.
Jack was quiet a moment longer before muttering, “You looked awful.”
Something in the way he said it made Simon glance up.
Jack was staring very hard at the opposite wall.
Not angry.
Something else.
Something Simon couldn't quite name.
Warmth bloomed low and strange in his chest.
“Oh,” Simon said softly.
Jack looked immediately hostile again, as though he regretted speaking at all. “Don’t make a thing of it.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to.”
“I wasn’t,” Simon repeated.
Jack pointed the half-eaten apple at him accusingly. “You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“That look.”
Simon laughed quietly.
Jack’s expression flickered again.
Simon realized suddenly, with the sharpness of a secret clicking into place, that Jack liked making him laugh.
Not publicly, certainly. Jack liked humiliating people publicly.
But here, alone in the dark kitchen with moonlight spilling silver across the floor, he seemed to keep searching for it. Little reactions. Tiny smiles.
Like he wanted Simon’s attention and hated himself for wanting it.
The realization settled strangely warm beneath Simon’s ribs.
Jack shifted awkwardly under the silence. “Choir practice tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t supposed to know that.”
“You shout the schedule every morning.”
“Oh.”
Simon bit back another smile.
Jack scowled at him suspiciously. “What’s funny?”
“You.”
“Watch yourself.”
But there wasn’t much force behind it anymore.
A bell somewhere in the school chimed the quarter hour.
Jack straightened immediately. “Damn.”
“We should go back.”
“Yes, obviously.”
Neither of them moved.
Simon wasn’t entirely sure why.
The kitchen suddenly felt very small.
Jack stood only a few feet away now, moonlight silvering the sharp planes of his face. Simon noticed things he shouldn’t have noticed. The hollow at the base of Jack’s throat. The way his hair curled over his forehead. The flush still lingering from sleep across his cheeks.
Jack noticed Simon staring.
Again.
His expression sharpened instantly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me strangely.”
Simon flushed. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
Jack stepped closer.
Not enough to touch.
Enough that Simon could suddenly feel the warmth of him in the cold kitchen air.
“Well now you’re red,” Jack said quietly.
Simon’s pulse stumbled strangely.
Jack’s voice had changed.
Softer.
Not kind, exactly. Jack rarely sounded kind. But curious.
Simon looked down quickly. “It’s cold.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s a little true.”
Jack gave a short huff of laughter.
Then footsteps echoed faintly somewhere upstairs.
Both boys froze.
A teacher?
Another student?
Jack reacted instantly, grabbing Simon’s wrist and pulling him backward behind the pantry door.
Simon stumbled against him hard enough that Jack caught his shoulders automatically.
For one dizzy second they stood pressed together in darkness.
Too close.
Simon could feel Jack breathing.
Could feel his heartbeat through the thin fabric of his nightshirt.
Jack’s hand remained wrapped around Simon’s wrist.
Neither of them moved.
The footsteps passed overhead.
Silence again.
But Jack still didn’t let go/
Simon tilted his head up slightly.
Jack was already looking at him.
Close like this, Simon could see everything. The pale lashes around Jack’s eyes. The tiny scar near his chin. The uncertainty hidden underneath all that fury.
Jack swallowed once.
Simon’s breath caught.
Then Jack released him so suddenly it almost hurt.
“We should go,” he said roughly.
“Yes.”
Neither moved again.
Jack looked furious now, not at Simon, Simon thought dimly, but at himself.
Finally he shoved the pantry door open and stepped away first.
“Don’t get caught sneaking about again,” he muttered.
Simon followed him toward the corridor. “You were sneaking about too.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“It just is.”
Simon smiled a little.
Jack glared at him over his shoulder.
But there was something unsteady about it now.
Something almost shy.
And Simon, watching him disappear down the moonlit corridor, realized with sudden terrifying certainty that he wanted to follow him.