Author's Note: Since Nightkill is unable to carry out Rogice Saturday this week, I took it upon myself to write some Rogice to fulfill the sacred tradition. This is becoming a multichapter of Rogice oneshots now. Yay.

Disclaimer: Lord of the Flies is not mine, I am not William Golding. Or am I.

Stones

Throwing stones was just something that Roger had enjoyed doing all his life.

It'd started out as pebbles and gravel in the driveway, skipping them across the concrete and onto the lawn. Then one day, they'd hit the toddler on the neighboring lawn and his parents had had to have a...talk...with him. They'd said that he was sadistic, and they'd asked him to define that word.

He'd agreed. He was sadistic.

He wanted to continue desperately, so he'd started going over to Maurice's house just to throw rocks in their driveway. They used to sit there together after school, tossing stones. He wasn't sure how the habit had developed, but he liked it.

And now here, he could throw all the rocks he liked, and more. He could cut and punch and twist and hurt people any way he wanted, and no one could stop him here.

But what Maurice had told him earlier was sticking in his mind. About affection. And love. What was love, anyways? It wasn't something that he'd ever considered in his whole bitter existence.

Roger picked up a stone and tossed it at a tree. It bounced back onto the ground. Perhaps he was like that rock. He let out a bitter laugh at that metaphor. He wasn't a sentimental person, why was he thinking about something as petty as affection and love?

And even if he did feel such a thing for someone, he didn't think it would be to Maurice. Even though it had been him who instigated the kissing earlier, he hadn't meant it in...that way. Not love, but a sort of proof of possession. He wanted to know that Maurice belonged to him. Was that love?

He didn't think so. Roger got up, looking up at the quickly fading daylight through the trees. He'd gone to hide here after Jack had started a savage dance among the others. He would do anything for Jack, he just needed...a bit of space.

He began to make his way out of the woods and into the scrub bushes at the edge of the beach. Fruit trees grew abundantly there, but it didn't stop everything from looking dead. That's what this island was. Dead.

Ralph, that moron, acted like Roger didn't know what he was doing to other people and the island. Oh, he knew very well, he just didn't care. He would burn down this island until it was truly dead, no longer in this half-alive state of being. He'd put it out of its misery.

Ralph was wrong about everything. What sort of a rubbish chief was he, to not believe in pain? Roger loved pain. Without pain, there could be no love, it was like the polar opposite. And he simply chose to believe more in the opposite of love than love itself.

He looked around the grove, and noticed a dark shape in the bushes. It had feathery, light brown hair. Maurice.
Roger wasn't the type to greet you first, so he simply sat down next to Maurice, who'd buried his hands, and peered out through the gaps in his fingers to look at Roger.

"What do you want, Roger?" He sounded like he'd been crying, and Roger took that moment to observe the pure, human emotion in his voice.

"Nothing."

"Oh, come on, I'm sure there's something you want."

Roger considered it, almost smiling at the fact that Maurice knew him so well. But Roger didn't smile at things like that. "Not anything I can think of currently."

"Don't lie to me."

Roger smiled and took Maurice's chin in his hands. "Oh, come now." He couldn't help but toy with Maurice's emotions, it'd been something he loved to do since he was very small.

Maurice jerked out of Roger's hands and laid his head on his shoulder, a gesture of affection that came out of seemingly nowhere. "You're horrible.

"I know."

"I expected that you'd be with Jack and the others. What're you doing out here?"

"Needed some space."

"Oh." Maurice scooted closer to Roger, and Roger had the instinct to move away, but didn't. He seemed upset, but Roger couldn't fathom what he was upset about. Unless he still cared about their conversation earlier.

"What's wrong?" He immediately regretted asking the question. He'd only make it worse.

"You."

He figured. "Well, I can't fix that, now, can I?"

"No, you can't."

Roger looked at Maurice's small, tired frame next to him and was suddenly aware of the fact that he was still holding a stone in the palm of his hand.

He threw it at a palm tree, hearing the tap noise it made against the trunk. "Do you remember, before this, when we used to sit on the side of the road and try to hit the littler kids with rocks?" Maurice said, watching the stone clatter to the ground.

"Yes. Did you like that?"

"Yeah. I miss that."

"Why? Here we've got freedom. No adults are around. We can through as many stones as we want and no one's there to stop us."

"Maybe that's not such a good thing. Jack isn't exactly...thoughtful about the stuff he does, y'know?"

Normally Roger would have growled at such a remark, he trusted Jack with his life. "Think of it this way. You don't have any limitations here. You can do whatever you want."

"I guess." Maurice sighed and looked up at the sky, which was a flaming orange sunset. "If things get out of hand..."

"If they do, that's not a bad thing." Roger slipped his arm around Maurice's shoulders. It felt odd, to have another human being this close to him. He almost wanted to dig his nails into the skin of Maurice's shoulder and draw blood, just to feel something familiar.

But something stopped him. Some part of him didn't want to spoil this. "I thought about what you said earlier."

"About what?" Maurice looked up at him.

"Affection. Not something I'm capable of, but I thought about it anyways."

"This is pretty close to affection."

Roger smiled wryly, but couldn't think of anything to say. He was a sadistic bastard, and he knew that, but perhaps there was some reserved part of him that had it in him to love another person.

i am a failure as a human being.