A/N: Hi! Skylar here. So, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but I just couldn't seem to shut up, so it's turned into more of a four-shot. Or so. I don't own Lord of the Flies.
Dedicated to Sheridan, as always, the Ralph to my Jack. She inspired this story when I made her mac and cheese. I swear it'll make sense.
This should not have been so difficult.
I was blaming it on anxiety, on the way my hands kept shaking and I couldn't quite focus my thoughts. Not that I could blame myself, really. No I couldn't blame myself at all.
The kitchen was a disaster, dishes strewn across the counters, spices scattered among them. I'd had it all planned out, this expensive, elaborate dinner. Just for him. But everything was going wrong, because everything always went wrong. I was blaming it on the anxiety.
It had been ten fucking years. Ten years of haunted dreams and tainted memories and pain. Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could still see it all so vividly. Like I'd never even left. Then I remembered that was the past, and I had a hard time breathing for a few minutes, and then I went on with the false sort of happiness I called life.
With a small groan, bred from my need of constant perfection, I abandoned the kitchen for the bathroom. Flicked on the lights and offered a grim smile to the reflection in the mirror. Red hair that had darkened to an auburn sort of color, blue eyes that had dimmed with the thousand secrets they held within. Muscled enough, but the constant slump made it impossible to ever truly appear as strong.
Holdyourselftogether, I thought; the voice in my head was some twisted combination of sarcasm and a very real desperation. But the anxiety beast was whispering to me too-you'regoingtoloseit. There was a small, orange bottle on the counter full of tiny pills, and as much as I wanted to pretend I didn't need them, I'd rather have swallowed my pride than have dealt with the fucking beast of anxiety. The vivid nightmares that tore me from a dead sleep in a fit of screams.
I had just wanted it to be perfect. I took out a pill and swallowed it down with a drink straight from the faucet. Because I'd done everything so, so wrong, and it had been ten years, and I figured it was about damn time to start fixing what I could.
Dinner was not one of those things. I kept telling myself that it didn't matter. I was Jack fucking Merridew, and I had no one in the world to impress. But that was a lie, like most of the things I tried to convince myself of. I was always trying to impress, to make up for everything I had ever done. Or maybe for what I hadn't.
The sound of the doorbell drew me out of my tangled mess of thought. "Shit," I muttered. Digging my nails into the palms of my hands to distract myself from all the things that made up life. I took measured steps to the door of my apartment, slow enough so that I didn't seem eager, fast enough so that I didn't seem rude. I completely ignored the mess in the kitchen, because sometimes things like that just didn't really matter.
My fingertips lingered about the door knob for but a moment, and in those seconds I felt more doubt- hedoesn'tcareaboutyou.Hedidn'tevenrememberyouexisted- than I believe I had in the last ten years put together. Then I opened the door, knowing very well that once I did there was no turning back.
Outside, the air was crisp, the sort of late night fall weather that seemed to sink right under flesh, seep into the soul. The stars above blurred right into the London city lights, till I could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.
I barely noticed it at all. My blue eyes were fixed only on the fair haired man standing in my doorway, shivering just so in his black pea coat. He raised his eyes slowly to meet my own; they were a pale green color that just seemed to display composure. He wasn't smiling, and he didn't say a word.
I myself was having a hard time finding my voice. Everything was crashing back into me, all those nights spent alone on the beaches, longing for a home we never thought we'd see again, and perhaps the feel of a hand intertwined with our own. The sound of his screams echoing off every possible surface as he ran, ran…
And now he was here. I should have been regretting ever sending that letter, that damned letter telling him everything about everything, about the anxiety beast and the pills and the way the night made me feel like I should just end it all. I should have been regretting inviting him here. But I wasn't. It was as simple as that.
"Ralph," I managed to say at last. His name came out sort of strangled, gasped, and he blinked a few times in response. Then I remembered myself, and I stepped aside to usher him in.
Once in the foyer, with the door falling shut tightly behind us, Ralph unbuttoned his coat and shrugged it off his shoulders, and I held out my hands quickly to take it from him. I almost thought our hands might brush in the exchange-oh,you'dlovethat,wouldn'tyou?-but things like that never happened in real life.
I felt myself breathing a sigh of discomfort. The tension between us was overwhelming. If only he would speak, say anything to acknowledge-hedoesn'twantanythingtodowithyou- that he was even really here with me.
Ralph looked at me like he wasn't quite sure what to do next. "Hello," I said, perhaps a little too quickly. "I'm uh, glad you could make-"
"Are you okay?" Ralph spoke suddenly, cutting me off. Instinct told me to lash out at him, those few tendrils of annoyance and anger welling up- blameitontheanxiety- but I managed to push them aside. Because it had been so fucking long since anyone had asked me that and meant it.
