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Jack’s lot were off again.
The sun gazed down like an angry eye. It beat upon the sand, and peeked through the canopy of leaves above in white-hot beams. Even the shade didn’t help in the haze of the afternoon, what with the humidity in the air that made breathing a slog. You could glance over to the water and you could see the air shimmering, and you could also see the ocean rise, breaking apart, moving away in manners that were realistically impossible. There would one moment be land in a spot where there was no land, or what looked like the coral reef rising into the sky. Ralph had heard Piggy call it a “mirage,” and Ralph believed him. Piggy was, after all, the smartest of them.
Ralph watched the shoreline as he moved toward the shade of the trees, watched the way the water glittered and sparkled. With arms full of branches and other pieces of wood, Ralph moved to the treeline, where there sat the makeshift huts. Rather, where they were supposed to be, for they weren’t all done.
In the weeks that had followed the fire, the boys had established shelters. They had all worked on the first one, and it was perfect. The littluns were given that one. They were working on the second one now. There had been four: Simon, himself, and Samneric. That was supposed to be the team today, but the twins had quit working halfway through, so now it was just him and Simon.
Ralph threw down a pile of branches and sighed deeply, looking at the structure standing wobbly in front of him, then at Simon, who was nudging some fronds and thinner branches into place as reinforcement. The boy’s swarthy skin was glistening with sweat, and he looked faint. Frustration bubbled up inside him, but Ralph shoved it down. It wasn’t right to be fussy with Simon; he was the only one actually helping, and Simon wasn’t who Ralph was mad at anyhow. It was Jack and his hunters, and it was the other boys who played games instead of focusing on what was important.
“Simon.”
“Uh?” Came the boy’s gentle voice.
“Stop for now. We’ll see about this later, when it isn’t so hot. Tomorrow morning, maybe.” Ralph stated, scrubbing his hand over his face. Every part of him felt tense.
“Alright then.” Simon replied.
Ralph watched Simon as the boy wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and walked off towards the lagoon. He was tempted to follow him, to wash off the work and stress of the day, but his thirst called to him first. Ralph’s eyes followed the treeline, and the palms where there sat coconut shells caught his eye. There was a figure there, returning from the deeper woods, cradling one of those shells in the nook of his arm. Judging by the short frame and the way it was filled out like a bag of fat, it was undeniably Piggy.
The coconut shells were another thing they had all decided at assembly. They had all agreed to fill the shells up with the fresh river water so nobody had to travel halfway across the island for a drink. Another thing everyone agreed on yet didn’t commit to.
Ralph found himself moving toward the palms without really thinking about it, getting there just in time to see Piggy sitting the water-filled coconut down and wiping his forehead. Ralph could see the sweat on his brow, and hear the way his breath was all wheezy and rattling.
“Hullo. What’re you doing?” Ralph asked impulsively, before grimacing at his verbiage. He, however, did not correct himself immediately.
“Whassit look like, Ralph?” The fat boy replied crassly. Ralph winced, recognizing the sudden irritation that came with the heat. The heat made your clothes stick to your skin, made you sweaty, and worst of all it made you angry.
“Well, I know what it looks like, Piggy. But I meant”—Ralph made some meaningless gesture with his hands—“I meant.. why. Why are you doing that? I mean, you don’t have to. You got ass-mar.”
“Because nobody else is doin’ it.” Piggy answered smartly, though his anger had clearly softened. He wasn’t mad at him, and that fact sent an odd jolt of relief through Ralph.
He hummed in agreement, picking up one of the coconut shells and gulping down the water inside of it. The relief was immediate. “You could say that for a lot of things around here,” he grumbled.
“Uh-huh? Like what?” The question wasn’t rhetorical this time. Ralph looked back at Piggy and observed the genuine curiosity, the willingness to listen. It was almost enough to make him feel guilty for always half-listening to what Piggy had to say. Almost enough, but not quite. Piggy had a way of talking that was, to Ralph, often quite boring.
“Oh, everything, Piggy!” Ralph bemoaned, glancing between the shade and the sand, then at Piggy again. “Walk with me?” He asked, a sudden desperation grappling him. He wondered if Piggy would have any answers.
Piggy gave a wordless nod, and the two began to stroll. Neither had a destination in mind, not that there were many destinations to choose from. They stayed in the shade of the trees for the most part, desiring nothing more than to escape the heat of the afternoon. As they walked, Ralph began to speak, “It’s Jack. He won’t help with the shelters. It’s always hunting with him.” he glanced sideways toward Piggy. “If we don’t get the shelters done, what happens when a storm comes?”
Ralph watched Piggy as his brows knitted together and a small frown came over his lips. It was a common feature on Piggy, an expression he made whenever he was thinking or had something serious and smart to say. Then it smoothed back out, and Piggy pulled off his glasses to wipe the lenses on the hem on his shirt before sliding them back on.
“Right, well, I highly doubt we’ll have as many shelters as you want built. Time management and that, you know,” Piggy said, “and we aren’t much of architects, are we? We’ve only got one, and we gave that one to the littluns.”
Ralph scoffed. “We’d manage. If only Jack and his hunters would help.” He kicked a stray coconut shell out of the way, his gaze moving away from Piggy and towards the horizon, watching the boys that were splashing in the lagoon, watching the littluns play in the sand.
“They could do a bit more, yes.” Piggy hummed in agreement.
Ralph nodded, before he grinned suddenly. “So could you, you know,” he began, “you could sit in the shade with us and complain and tell us all about how we’re building things wrong.”
He watched Piggy as his brow furrowed once more, his bespectacled eyes squinting and his cheeks turning a vibrant, blotchy shade of pink. Then Ralph laughed, pausing under the shade of a tree. The coolness of the shadows was a welcome thing.
“I don’t complain that much,” came Piggy’s voice in protest, a bit shrill with indignation.
Piggy’s embarrassment was the perfect source of amusement. Ralph laughed again. “But you do! You complain about the heat, and the sand, and the water, and how we all act like children,” he stepped closer, sun breaking through the canopy to dapple his skin. The smell of decaying vegetation and salt lingered in the air.
“But,” Ralph added, his expression turning a bit more honest, “you’re usually right. So don’t stop. We need you to keep telling us when we're being right fools." He gave Piggy a quick, playful nudge with his elbow. He was just a boy right now, distracted from his chiefly duties.
Piggy stumbled from the bump against his arm, hand flying up to steady his spectacles. He blinked rapidly, turning his head to gaze at Ralph. Then, the chagrined pout quirked up. A small smile. Piggy suddenly bumped Ralph back, his voice turning lighter, softer, something more subtly affectionate. The nudge-back was a bit more awkward, a bit heavier, but it was something that warranted a good playful tackle into the sand. “You lot aren’t fools. You’re just.. wrong most of the time,” he bickered back, looking a bit too proud of himself.
Ralph was silent for a long moment, processing the out-of-character action: the teasing, the retaliation. Then he smiled, bright and toothy and wide. He began giggling, half disbelieving and half excited. “Most of the time! A bit harsh, isn’t it? We’re the ones doin’ all the heavy lifting!”
He couldn’t help it. The playful energy was infectious, and the urge to break through Piggy’s intellectual defenses with a bit of boyish chaos was much too strong to ignore. As Piggy began to giggle along, Ralph swung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer. Piggy immediately protested the motion with a yell of surprise, but Ralph was already grinding his knuckles up against his scalp, mussing up his short, wispy hair.
“Ralph! Ralph!” Piggy cried out, batting at his arm.
“Oh, shut up,” Ralph chuckled, leaning forward with perhaps more force than he intended. Next thing he knew, they were tumbling. Piggy hit the ground first, landing hard on his rump, but then Ralph was upon him soon after and they were rolling. They ended up in the sunlight, in the same position as when they started, Ralph slumped up against Piggy’s round frame, coated in hot sand.
He braced himself on his elbows and pulled himself up enough to look down at the fat boy under him.
“Why’d you do that? What’s the matter with you?!” Piggy’s voice was frantic.
Ralph opened his mouth to say something snide, but faltered when he realized the sliver of space between them. Piggy’s specs had slid down his sweat-slicked nose, crooked but miraculously intact. Their breaths, both warm, were mingling. Piggy looked like he was about to puke and cry all at once.
As he faced the fact of their proximity, Ralph found he didn’t mind Piggy at all. He didn’t mind his fat body, his ridiculous specs, his ass-mar or his odd accent. He liked to listen to Piggy blather on; mostly to laugh at him, but a small part of Ralph genuinely enjoyed Piggy’s smile. It made his cheeks look rounder, like…
Well, like a piglet. A plump, sensitive little piglet. Like the one in Charlotte’s Web.
The other boy’s voice broke through his thoughts like sun through the clouds.
“Ralph! Answer me!” Piggy’s voice shrilled in his ear.
Ralph huffed, before he reached out to pluck at a wispy strand of Piggy’s brown locks. “You’ve got sand in your hair,” he said as he dusted the short hairs at Piggy’s temple.
“So do you. And it’s all… all in your face, too.” Piggy replied, much more tentatively than Ralph.
Ralph felt Piggy’s pudgy fingers brush his cheek. His hand was hot and clammy, creating a trail of warmth as it wiped away grains of sand. Ralph felt his cheeks heat up, his body tensing, and felt Piggy jerk his hand back.
Piggy’s voice was a quiet, trembling sound, “Sorry.”
The apology hung in the air, small and fragile, and it made Ralph feel a sudden, fierce need to reassure him. “No need to be sorry, Piggy,” he insisted, dropping his head, their foreheads meeting with a hollow thunk. “S’just sand. You were just wiping my face.”
“Yes. It was just… fixing a mess,” the bespectacled boy trailed off, blinking rapidly.
It was quiet for a long moment. The silence was filled by the crash of the waves further off, the cry of tropical birds, the rustling of swaying leaves. The scent of sea salt and sweat stuck in his nose. The sun beat down on Ralph’s back, and for the time, it didn’t feel overwhelming.
Quickly, before Ralph could doubt himself or retract, he leaned further in and pressed a kiss to Piggy’s lips. It was a simple little peck, and it lingered for but a second, but it was enough to turn both their faces hot. Ralph scrambled up off of Piggy, sitting up in the sand and looking away, toward the horizon. The other boy sat up not too long after, his breath wheezing in his chest.
“That was an accident.” Ralph grumbled when Piggy looked his way.
“…Well, don’t be sorry.” Piggy muttered timidly, echoing Ralph’s earlier sentiment with a small smile.
Ralph glanced over, looked at Piggy’s pink cheeks, and offered a bashful smile. “Was just a slip,” he insisted, though he didn’t sound as convicted as he should have, really. Then he grinned. “You’re red as an apple, Piggy,” he teased.
Piggy simply sighed and pulled off his spectacles, wiping sand off the lenses. “Oh, quiet,” the bespectacled boy murmured, though he didn’t seem all that upset.
Both of them looked out to sea then, Piggy squinting. The sun had moved over them now, and the mirages that had appeared in the earlier heat had dissipated like mist. The breeze of the evening blew on their backs, cooling the sweat on their necks. The waves crashed against each other in smooth, flowing motions, rising and falling. Ralph tensed slightly at the feeling of Piggy leaning his head against his shoulder, but the soothing roll of the waves helped him to relax.
“Piggy.” Ralph said.
“Uhm?” The portly boy hummed in acknowledgment.
“Thank you.”
“For what?” Piggy raised a brow, slipping his specs back onto his button nose.
“For walking with me.”
Piggy just nodded, and Ralph watched him close his eyes. Ralph gently reached out, fingers wrapping around Piggy’s own. For the first time in a long while, Ralph felt less like he was on an island. The world was chaotic, but in this one, perfect moment, everything felt exactly as it was meant to be.