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The idea that Jack hates him — as absurd and ridiculous as Ralph tries to make it seem — is beginning to bother him more than it should.
Being a leader, as Ralph was so gloriously proclaimed to be literally a week ago, is doing nothing for him. What use is the thing if Jack, whose opinion Ralph holds more personally than anyone else, won’t listen to him?
He sees the strange looks Jack throws his way — wistful, wary. Unsure. Like Ralph is a puzzle, and he’s considering breaking the thing apart in the name of understanding.
It is hate, Piggy insists. He hates you, just as he hates me, but it doesn’t matter. As long as we aren’t alone.
And Ralph pretends not to hear.
Instead he settles down beside Jack, who is lying down on the beach blissfully quiet — the shelters Ralph spent so much time trying to uphold be damned — because it is never the other way around. It’s not like that means anything, though, because maybe Jack just enjoys his weird solitude.
“Not asleep yet?” Jack is quick to say, and it could be argued he’s glaring.
Ralph glances at him; or, more honestly, at bright hair stark against the white of the sand. The moon glows above them, a fuzzy halo in the dark. “No,” he whispers back. He is mindful of the littluns, like always, but they seem very, very far away right now. “You aren’t, either.”
“Nope,” Jack mutters, yawning dramatically and stretching quite like a cat. He sighs as he relaxes again, hands layered over his chest. “But I’m about to be.”
After staring at him a little longer than appropriate, Ralph averts his sight, but does so while rolling over so that his body faces Jack.
Sounding uncharacteristically calm, Jack asks of him, “You ain’t cold?”
The random question surprises Ralph a little.
“No.”
What other answer Jack was expecting, Ralph has no idea. The entire island has always seemed to be infused with a heat so powerful it occurred to Ralph often that perhaps they were all trailing over a volcano.
(Eventually he’d had to convince himself that this was impossible, because it terrified both the littluns and himself, although he refused to admit it.)
Ralph bites his cheek. As a half-hearted attempt at prolonging the conversation: “I don’t even remember what it feels like to be cold.”
Jack considers this, expression unseen in the dark. After a moment, of which Ralph spends gazing emptily at the stars, assuming he is the only one now awake, Jack huffs, “just— come here,” and it is so quiet Ralph wonders if it was spoken by mistake. He looks over. Tilts his head forward into the sand questioningly.
Jack slowly meets his gaze, jaw tense. He looks like he does when he is hunting. “Come here,” he repeats, rather rudely to be honest, but Ralph is just a bit too tired to register it properly. Ceremoniously, he sits up, propping himself up with one arm as he observes Jack and his unwelcoming arms.
Maybe it is a little cold.
“…Well, damn, just forget I said—“
Ralph shushes him, vision gloriously adjusting just enough that he is able to see the blazing red of Jack’s cheeks. He shuffles a bit closer, head plonking onto a bony shoulder.
“Hullo,” Ralph murmurs, leaving the hand not squished between their bodies to rest over Jack’s.
Jack stares at him for a long moment, then scrunches his face up with extremely fake disdain.
Ralph can’t bring himself to care. “G’night then,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. He inwardly smiles when Jack raises an arm to cradle him, and yes, he is so accustomed to being warm— but not like this. Never like this.
“Your hair’s pissin’ me off,” Jack says, although there is no one forcing him to bury his face into golden curls. Ralph would scowl, if he had the energy.
“Good night,” Ralph repeats pointedly, and after some unintelligent thought, he splays his palm out over Jack’s bare stomach, fingertips mapping eternity across freckled skin.
The next day, Jack gets upset and runs away, and it takes everything Ralph can do to not plead for his return.
It goes mostly unnoticed by Ralph, but it seems that Simon is dying a little more with each passing day — that is, only if you try looking close enough. His eyes are sunken, small mouth a little wider, and where his cheeks were once full and girlish they are almost hollow. Even his voice, gentle and soothing, is distant like a memory.
Simon is dying a little more with each passing day, and Ralph can not find it in himself to care.
“Look at them,” Piggy mutters, fiddling with the slab of meat in his hands indignantly. It’s hard to see in the dark of night, but all the head movement is probably him trying to push back his glasses. The fire, annoyingly, is too far down the beach to be of any use to their group. “Bunch of savages.”
Ralph looks over at Piggy mildly, at where he’s sat cross legged on the sand. “Shut it. I don’t need you causing me more trouble, all right?”
The muttering doesn’t cease, but at least Piggy keeps to himself.
Beside Ralph, sat precariously on the rock they share, Simon nibbles cautiously on his food. He’s hardly consuming anything, and it irks Ralph a little more than it would usually.
“You know,” Piggy speaks up again, tone bright, “I’ve been thinking about it. This— all this could count as a proper war. The ones they put in books.”
“Really,” Ralph says, distracted. Simon’s knee bounces against his every so often, and it’s becoming annoying.
“Yes, I think so.”
At this, Samneric frown together. Sam — or maybe Eric, whatever — does not bother to finish his chewing before he talks. “I thought wars only happen when one country insults another—?”
“—and we ain’t countries, that makes no sense.” Eric (?) finishes.
Piggy doesn’t seem deterred, nose scrunching up. “Mmm—sure, but it’s similar.”
“I don’t feel insulted, either,” Sam chirps, chomping down hungrily on the boar.
“Well, that’s cos’ Jack doesn’t hate you, he hates Ralph.”
Ralph turns, offended. He blows the hair out of his eyes to glare at Piggy properly. “He doesn’t hate me.”
Piggy’s brows go taut. “Well—“
“He doesn’t,” Ralph presses, the phantom weight of a lie settling heavy on his shoulders. He forces himself to relax. “We’re— I mean— it’s complicated. But he doesn’t hate me.”
“I don’t think—“
Samneric nudge each other. “So Ralph’s a country?”
They, as well as Piggy, delve into a long, boring tangent about the meaning and significance of war, and where Ralph might usually find himself perking up and stuttering the words of his father with a patriotic pride you don’t often find in the youth, he is silent.
Simon leans into him, and Ralph irritatedly casts the boy a look. “What?” He snarls, but at Simon’s disquieted expression he tries to reign the attitude in a little. Much softer, he asks, “Anything happen?”
Whirling around to face him, Simon blinks a few times, and it is here that Ralph notices how dull his eyes look. “I never thought—” Simon begins slowly, and then stops. He tries again. “Ralph, if you thought I was the beast, would you hurt me?”
Ralph is beginning to think Simon’s genuinely gone insane. “What? No.” This doesn’t seem to appease Simon at all, and at his expectant gaze, Ralph struggles to explain himself. He tries to catch Piggy’s eye, but he’s very passionate in his speech about the Great War. “Because…that’s stupid. Why would you be the beast? You’re real small, for one, can’t keep your eyes open—“
“No,” Simon cuts in, lips parted, “that’s not what I…” He doesn’t pull away from Ralph’s gaze as he flounders for his words. Ralph looks away again, in fear of becoming judgemental. “All right, say— say I was the beast.”
“But—“
“Just,” Simon starts to look desperate, his eyes pinched in that way they do when you cry. “imagine, all right? Imagine I really was the beast, would you hurt me?”
The answer comes to him easily, although it is hard to vocalise. “I suppose,” Ralph starts carefully, a little creeped out, “I’d have to, wouldn’t I? If you were the beast. Cos’ you’d like,” he waves a hand around uselessly, “hurt us instead. Because you’re— you’d be the beast.”
“Because I’d be the beast,” Simon echoes faintly.
Ralph averts his gaze awkwardly. “But you’re not.”
“But I’m not.”
In the dark, Simon’s eyes look glassy and vacant. And still they manage to hold a sort of reverence that could easily be mistaken for worship.
“Right.”
If it had just been the two of them, there might consequently be a very awkward silence, but instead Piggy says, “I read somewhere it’s real bad for animals to be in a war.”
Sam, probably, pauses his meal. “Do the pigs count?”
Eric’s eyes widen slightly. “Are we going to Hell for this?”
“Jack ought to.”
Ralph tries to pay attention, really, he does, but perhaps it is better for them all that he keeps quiet.
“…yeah, this ain’t even our war! We’re feasting with the enemy. So, it’s…Jack’s hunters versus the pigs?”
“Wait, so what side are we on if he's the enemy?”
“Well, we’re eating the pig…”
“Okay, but—“
Simon is shaking, now, and therefore jostling Ralph’s leg. He pushes back a little roughly. Simon, determinedly looking downward, startles, and turns to him accusingly.
Ralph tries to sound sympathetic as he searches for reason. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’ll have to be,” Simon mutters dazedly. Ralph is at a loss.
“…Right. Okay. Am I missing something?”
“No, I…” Simon occupies himself with the meat. “It’s dark out,” he mumbles morosely around a small chunk.
“Yes,” Ralph concedes, eyeing him cautiously, “yeah, it is.”
Later, when Piggy slides into the empty space beside Ralph, he notices nothing, but at least he is no longer thinking of Jack.
The beast is stood eerily still, while the sharpened ends of spears come whirling at its gangly limbs, which are oddly short and light like a child’s. It is forced against a tree, encircled with no sight of freedom, and perhaps it is crying but no one wants to listen.
A boy, grip around sharpened wood loose and delighted, stumbles forward eagerly, but someone must have pushed him too far, for he ends up on the ground. His thoughts are swimming, if he has any.
The beast’s head falls a little, enough to give off the illusion it is looking directly at the boy.
It is these final moments that Ralph wants and chooses to forget the most; Simon pinned against the bark, Ralph motionless at his feet.
(It takes longer for everyone to stop than it had for them to begin. And once they leave — or flee, rather — Ralph finds he cannot follow.
At some point, he is cupping water and pouring it over Simon’s hair, carding blood out of dark curls. His eyes are closed, features open and expectant, the way it is when he’s listening out for the answer to a question. Expectant. Like he’d been waiting for it to turn out this way.
Sometimes Ralph thinks he catches a flash of ginger hair amidst the forest as he works, but for once it is harder to look than it is to not. He ardently focuses on cleaning Simon’s face, his skin, but Ralph’s vision is blurring and perhaps the salt in the water is more from his tears than it is from the sea.
At last, he decides to let Simon rest on the beach. Let the sea take him, let the earth embrace her child — reclaim him once again, so that he might find peace.
“Sorry,” Ralph says aloud, but the word means nothing without company and it is far from great enough to encapsulate his rattling regret.
The waves lap at his feet, whispering.
“You did good,” Piggy tells him. “You didn’t have to, but you did. That’s good.”
Tomorrow brings more death, and Ralph does it all again.)
They are all young enough that the papers will say this is all just a delay in their lives, a momentary interruption — but Ralph doesn’t think so. They are young enough that this will be some of their earliest memories; young enough that none of them have any idea of what they will do when they go home.
The fire crackles loudly in the distance, but it is no louder than the bellowing of the hunters.
They will return at some point, Ralph reminds himself again, and the world will keep turning, but for now they have to live their lives blind to the outcome.
This is hardly comfort.
Ralph runs a hand through curly, matted hair, pushing it away from his face. He stays low, close to the earth, who he might call his only friend.
He wants to think of something else. Hope, if it might be called that, and optimism for the future’s possibilities has yet to do him any good. All he’s learned is that logic, philosophy, whatever Piggy and Simon tried to fight for their lives with, that is all superfluous. Running has done him far greater good than any beckoning of the conch.
It’s finally dawning on him that maybe Piggy was wrong — that what truly matters is teamwork, pigs, and spears, and all alone he is finding that ever so hard to come by.
They capture him, sometimes.
It’s not like they do anything; it’s like they can’t bring themselves to. Samneric tell Ralph that it’s because the few remaining, the few whose doubt lingers beneath the paint — Ralph is their one, pulsing hope of rescue. A reminder of home, and that there is still a home worth missing.
So here Ralph sits now, exhausted against a tree, feet coated in dirt. It’s like a second chase, trying to catch his breath — and Jack looking down at him curiously helps nothing.
“I’ll kill you.”
Simon and Piggy are waiting, and so is Ralph.
“You may,” Ralph says evenly, flicking at one of the strange plants that continues to sway into him. His temple is throbbing; he’s thirsty, but won’t ask for a drink.
“I’ll kill you,” Jack repeats, and the absence of contempt in his voice hurts more than anything. His face is twisted into that God-forsaken frown, the corners of his lips pulled downward, displeased.
“Right, and I’m telling you, you may.”
Jack comes over. Kneels down, and promptly throws himself around Ralph, shameful face burrowed into filthy hair. His nails dig into his back, his hold heavy, and it hurts.
If Ralph clings onto the boy, Jack says nothing.
Like always, when dawn makes her move, Jack’s grip has by now loosened enough that Ralph is able to retreat back into the safety of the wilderness. The only worry on his mind is Roger, but he hasn’t seen the kid at all since—
Life tries to move on.
“Where’ve you run off to?”
Ralph presses himself against a tree, out of view. And he waits.
Jack rushes past, but he must be too out of it to make a point of listening out, because he hardly reacts to the crunch of dead leaves as Ralph yanks the spear out of his hold and uses his weaker arm to throw him back against the bark.
“Shit—“
Jack’s breaths are laboured, and Ralph doesn’t know what to do. Yell at him? Stab him?
Jack kicks his leg clumsily, and Ralph stumbles back a bit, but his grip on the spear only tightens as he moves the end of it towards Jack’s throat.
“Okay, mind it—!”
“Shut up,” Ralph grits out, nails digging into the wood, his mind racing. Oh, God, what is he meant to do? What does he want?
Jack is surveying him curiously — in the same way he’d done the first time they’d met. His hair falls in waves around him, the ends messily cut, and Ralph is really distracted right now—
“You killed him,” Ralph manages, voice cracking. It’s far from enough.
“Oh, don’t start with shit like that.” Jack’s hand comes to circle the stolen spear slowly, and Ralph jerks it back. Other than this, they do not move, and Jack’s hand falls to his side. “Seriously, Ralph— fuck you! You are just as guilty as the rest of us!”
“But you killed him,” Ralph yells jaggedly, breath hitching, “you all killed him, and none of you care!”
Distantly, he realises he sounds angry — and he is. Or he would like to believe so. But he is angrier at himself than he is towards Jack.
No, the more suitable word for him would be jealous. That Jack could find a way to escape the damned cycle of grief, despite everything. Ralph hates this — being trapped by the island, by the tribe, by his own regret — and he doesn’t know what to do. As long as we aren’t alone, Piggy had said, but now he is gone and Ralph doesn’t know what to do.
“How would you know? And— God— what the hell do you want from me? We can’t bring him back, idiot, he’s dead!”
It hurts that he’s right.
“Killing me won’t do nothin’, Ralph, you know that.”
The spear wavers in Ralph’s hands as it presses against Jack’s chest. After seconds, long enough to be hours, Ralph tosses the cursed thing away, and he does the only thing he really remembers how — he runs.
In the face of an officer, they do not know what to do.
“I should have thought…” the man is saying.
Somewhere behind Ralph, he knows they are watching curiously. He wipes his nose, catches his breath.
If rescue had come right after the death of Simon, Ralph might have left the island angry. At the world, at God, at himself. The newspapers might talk of his grief, might peer through the facade of a distraught little boy and find the silhouette of an animal behind his raging eyes.
“I should have thought a pack of British boys — you’re all British, aren’t you? — would have been able to put up a better show than that, I mean—“ he glances around, eyeing the fire appraisingly.
But standing here now, Ralph can only stare, broken. It is strange to face salvation, and be entirely unable to articulate just how much you don’t deserve it.
“Who’s boss here?”
Something strikes Ralph, then. It is the realisation that he does not think he can bear it. He can’t bear to be alone on the island, long after he’s left it. He’s lost all else, and perhaps Jack isn’t his to lose, but if the officer might be fooled into thinking so, at least he may pretend.
“I am—“ so Ralph says loudly, over Jack’s unfamiliar, broken voice. “Me.”
The admission settles over them all like a weighted blanket.
I’m responsible.
There is no one willing to confirm, but there is also no one willing to argue, and the air is quiet in its grief.
At least in this — in drowning remorse, mourning — Ralph is no longer alone, and for a moment God lets him believe that his life might be able to move on.