A/N: I suppose this is my answer to the wildly famous LOTF question, "What would have happened if there was no ship?" It's going to be a bit long, and I've never done that. It's also my first bit of fanfiction off a book, so I'm nervous about that, too. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)
Jack/Ralph, hooray! There can't possibly be enough of that. Nothing serious happens until three years after the capture. Thirteen is rather young for the complication of this couple, I think, but sixteen is not. :D
This is written partly in flashback, and I hope I didn't make it...well...totally incoherent. I hope you all enjoy. :)
- - -
Ralph didn't know why Jack hadn't killed him.
He honestly couldn't even venture a guess. He could remember every detail of those minutes as he reached the beach. As he reached the end of his flight. As he reached the end of his life. It was supposed to, it should have been the end. He remembered the burning. The air turned on him, became fire in his mouth, throat, lungs, scorching him with every desperate breath. Everything was turning on him. The branches of the forest had scratched grooves into his skin as if they had been malignant hands, hunters' hands, reaching for him. The sand grated harshly against his abused feet. Blood oozed down his face, his chest, his legs. Ralph noted its progress across his skin with a strange, clam, detached precision as he continued to run, somehow, miraculously continued to run. Until his foot splashed into the ocean, and he jerked back, the salt water agony on his broken skin.
Turning on me, everything.
And the hunters were behind him, their feet a steady drum against the soft earth, creating a strangely comforting, rolling rhythm. They sounded simple and inexorable, like a crashing wave. Then the sound stopped with almost comic abruptness, because they were right behind him. Ralph's legs, already nearly liquid with exertion, simply gave. It seemed as if it took days for the sandy ground to rise up to meet him. In that long, lazy time, Ralph concluded that he was utterly hysterical. Panic was writhing in him like a thing trying to break loose, and he felt a tremendous urge to laugh. Simply curl into himself and laugh and laugh and laugh as Jack drove a spear through his heart and tossed him into the ocean where Simon and Piggy were waiting.
Well, hullo, mates. Reckon you didn't expect to see me so soon. And they would link arms and stroll off and laugh and laugh...
Ralph was rather surprised to find that he was crying rather than laughing. He heard the soft huffs of displaced sand behind him. He didn't know where he found the strength to twist himself around and throw himself at the feet of the tall, swaying, red-haired boy that was strolling toward him so casually. Where he found the strength to beg.
Beg. I begged.
"Jack." Ralph marveled that his voice could go so harsh, so rasping. The effort of speaking was agony on his throat. "Jack, don't. Please." Fear, the fear that had been present all along, half-buried in a drift of pride and integrity and good intentions and leadership, became a living, gibbering, articulate thing. I don't want to die don't kill me don't kill me please I'll do anything anything even though I hate living on this horrible island I want to live live live...
It was only after that moment that his memory grew foggy. All he remembered is that there was no brutal, driving pain in his chest. No last, fleeting moments of precious life. No fading vision. No cold embrace of the ocean. No Simon, so quiet and soulful. No Piggy, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. Just a heavy, suffocating blanket of whiteness drawn over his mind. He must have been jerked to his feet. He might have been struck. There might have been laughter. Maybe pity. He must have walked. He might have been babbling, still pleading. There must have been Jack's eyes on him. In what? Hate? Satisfaction? Vindication? Curiousity? Pleasure?
Later, as the fog lifted, Ralph found himself weighing that very question carefully in his mind. It occupied him so fully that he did not notice his surroundings until he shifted slightly and felt cold, unyielding rock dig into his flesh. Ralph sat up and immediately regretted it. Bile rose up in his damaged throat, and he continued his momentum, leaning forward until his hot forehead connected rather painfully into the cold floor of the cave. I'm in a cave, Ralph though wonderingly. I'm not dead. I'm in a cave. He moved his head with exquisite care to glance to the right and left. A fairly small cave. Feeling bold, he lifted his head slowly up, and immediately his blood chilled. No, not a cave. A prison. Branches had been tied clumsily together with plant fibers to create a crude lattice that sprawled across where Ralph supposed the opening to the cave must be. The daring, resilient shafts of light that managed to squeeze through the few slivers in the makeshift wall barely illuminated the small cavern, sustaining the illusion that the entire interior, including its occupant, was colored a glimmering, sickly grey.
- - - - -
Those were the details of his imprisonment as Ralph had observed them. And they remained unchanged. In three years, Ralph thought, running his hand over his arm and tracing a thin, jagged scar. Only one scar remained from his flight through the grasping trees, every rough, pale bit of it a memory of that day. A day that ended in what he could see now was an anticlimax. The hero did not die nobly, no. He crawled and begged. He was dragged off. Kept. Kept... Ralph shuddered with suppressed hilarity. The last one to turn into an animal, and here he was living like one. Ralph settled back against the cool, rough stone wall and allowed his mind to wander along a well-worn track of thought. I'm treated well. Very well. No one ever hurt me. He sends me food and drink once a day. He lets me bathe. He lets me wander around the island. He knows I'm not going anywhere. Ralph felt the laughter coming back up, like bile. He thought back to how surprised he had been when he understood that no excessive pain was coming his way. He thought back to that first day, lying on the stone, muscles aching, head spinning...
- - - - -
And then there was rustling at the head of the cave, and Ralph's skin seemed to actually shrink with fear.
"Ralph?" Ralph jerked at the trembling whisper.
"Eric?" The boy scrambled in under the creaking branches of the wall, letting it fall loudly shut behind him.
"Ralph, Ralph, Ralph," Eric was shaking, convulsing, really, with such horrible, racking sobs that Ralph was alarmed. He put both his hands on the boy's shoulders and shook gently.
"Eric, it's all right. Don't cry. I'm all right." That was a lie, Ralph thought wearily, and he allowed himself a smile. It was the first expression of amusement that didn't have a threat of madness behind it that he had experienced all day. Eric pressed his face into Ralph's sore shoulder and tried to control his wailing. Ralph gritted his teeth and bravely ignored the way his poor muscles were screaming in protest, patting Eric's head consolingly.
"I thought he would kill you for sure," the boy hiccoughed miserably. Ralph grimaced. He wasn't sufficiently well healed to contemplate his earlier proximity to death. He forced his voice to be steady.
"Well, he didn't. See? I'm right here, in one piece." Mostly one piece, his mind amended grimly. He embraced Eric, once again ignoring the excruciating grind of his worn muscles, as if to prove that he was indeed alive by his warmth. Eric clutched at him fiercely for a moment, then sat back and rubbed his eyes clear of tears. He reached behind him and retrieved something that Ralph had noticed him shove under the screen of branches before he followed it into the cave. It was two bowls that seemed to be made of roughly hewn wood. One filled with water, one filled with greasy cooked meat. Ralph's stomach twisted in a fantastic combination of hunger and nausea. Eric set the bowls down carefully by Ralph, and then scooted back.
"I have to go now," he said quietly, obviously wishing he didn't. Ralph, who through his ordeal had acquired a strange sort of clear, hard perception that he supposed was a side effect of mental strain, realized that somehow, even in Jack's mad grip, he and Eric were the same. Eric still looked to him for guidance and reassurance, and Ralph still supplied it for him, even though Eric was a full-fledged member of Jack's tribe and Ralph was a broken and bleeding captive. Interesting, he thought vaguely. He mustered a smile and gave Eric what he hoped was a reassuring wave, and the boy disappeared under the branches that closed Ralph from the light.
It was Eric who came to bring him food for days, weeks. He came to expect him whenever the branches began to hiss and shuffle. That was why he was so shocked, so utterly shocked, when one day weeks later it wasn't Eric. One day weeks later it was Jack.
Jack/Ralph, hooray! There can't possibly be enough of that. Nothing serious happens until three years after the capture. Thirteen is rather young for the complication of this couple, I think, but sixteen is not. :D
This is written partly in flashback, and I hope I didn't make it...well...totally incoherent. I hope you all enjoy. :)
Ralph didn't know why Jack hadn't killed him.
He honestly couldn't even venture a guess. He could remember every detail of those minutes as he reached the beach. As he reached the end of his flight. As he reached the end of his life. It was supposed to, it should have been the end. He remembered the burning. The air turned on him, became fire in his mouth, throat, lungs, scorching him with every desperate breath. Everything was turning on him. The branches of the forest had scratched grooves into his skin as if they had been malignant hands, hunters' hands, reaching for him. The sand grated harshly against his abused feet. Blood oozed down his face, his chest, his legs. Ralph noted its progress across his skin with a strange, clam, detached precision as he continued to run, somehow, miraculously continued to run. Until his foot splashed into the ocean, and he jerked back, the salt water agony on his broken skin.
Turning on me, everything.
And the hunters were behind him, their feet a steady drum against the soft earth, creating a strangely comforting, rolling rhythm. They sounded simple and inexorable, like a crashing wave. Then the sound stopped with almost comic abruptness, because they were right behind him. Ralph's legs, already nearly liquid with exertion, simply gave. It seemed as if it took days for the sandy ground to rise up to meet him. In that long, lazy time, Ralph concluded that he was utterly hysterical. Panic was writhing in him like a thing trying to break loose, and he felt a tremendous urge to laugh. Simply curl into himself and laugh and laugh and laugh as Jack drove a spear through his heart and tossed him into the ocean where Simon and Piggy were waiting.
Well, hullo, mates. Reckon you didn't expect to see me so soon. And they would link arms and stroll off and laugh and laugh...
Ralph was rather surprised to find that he was crying rather than laughing. He heard the soft huffs of displaced sand behind him. He didn't know where he found the strength to twist himself around and throw himself at the feet of the tall, swaying, red-haired boy that was strolling toward him so casually. Where he found the strength to beg.
Beg. I begged.
"Jack." Ralph marveled that his voice could go so harsh, so rasping. The effort of speaking was agony on his throat. "Jack, don't. Please." Fear, the fear that had been present all along, half-buried in a drift of pride and integrity and good intentions and leadership, became a living, gibbering, articulate thing. I don't want to die don't kill me don't kill me please I'll do anything anything even though I hate living on this horrible island I want to live live live...
It was only after that moment that his memory grew foggy. All he remembered is that there was no brutal, driving pain in his chest. No last, fleeting moments of precious life. No fading vision. No cold embrace of the ocean. No Simon, so quiet and soulful. No Piggy, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. Just a heavy, suffocating blanket of whiteness drawn over his mind. He must have been jerked to his feet. He might have been struck. There might have been laughter. Maybe pity. He must have walked. He might have been babbling, still pleading. There must have been Jack's eyes on him. In what? Hate? Satisfaction? Vindication? Curiousity? Pleasure?
Later, as the fog lifted, Ralph found himself weighing that very question carefully in his mind. It occupied him so fully that he did not notice his surroundings until he shifted slightly and felt cold, unyielding rock dig into his flesh. Ralph sat up and immediately regretted it. Bile rose up in his damaged throat, and he continued his momentum, leaning forward until his hot forehead connected rather painfully into the cold floor of the cave. I'm in a cave, Ralph though wonderingly. I'm not dead. I'm in a cave. He moved his head with exquisite care to glance to the right and left. A fairly small cave. Feeling bold, he lifted his head slowly up, and immediately his blood chilled. No, not a cave. A prison. Branches had been tied clumsily together with plant fibers to create a crude lattice that sprawled across where Ralph supposed the opening to the cave must be. The daring, resilient shafts of light that managed to squeeze through the few slivers in the makeshift wall barely illuminated the small cavern, sustaining the illusion that the entire interior, including its occupant, was colored a glimmering, sickly grey.
Those were the details of his imprisonment as Ralph had observed them. And they remained unchanged. In three years, Ralph thought, running his hand over his arm and tracing a thin, jagged scar. Only one scar remained from his flight through the grasping trees, every rough, pale bit of it a memory of that day. A day that ended in what he could see now was an anticlimax. The hero did not die nobly, no. He crawled and begged. He was dragged off. Kept. Kept... Ralph shuddered with suppressed hilarity. The last one to turn into an animal, and here he was living like one. Ralph settled back against the cool, rough stone wall and allowed his mind to wander along a well-worn track of thought. I'm treated well. Very well. No one ever hurt me. He sends me food and drink once a day. He lets me bathe. He lets me wander around the island. He knows I'm not going anywhere. Ralph felt the laughter coming back up, like bile. He thought back to how surprised he had been when he understood that no excessive pain was coming his way. He thought back to that first day, lying on the stone, muscles aching, head spinning...
And then there was rustling at the head of the cave, and Ralph's skin seemed to actually shrink with fear.
"Ralph?" Ralph jerked at the trembling whisper.
"Eric?" The boy scrambled in under the creaking branches of the wall, letting it fall loudly shut behind him.
"Ralph, Ralph, Ralph," Eric was shaking, convulsing, really, with such horrible, racking sobs that Ralph was alarmed. He put both his hands on the boy's shoulders and shook gently.
"Eric, it's all right. Don't cry. I'm all right." That was a lie, Ralph thought wearily, and he allowed himself a smile. It was the first expression of amusement that didn't have a threat of madness behind it that he had experienced all day. Eric pressed his face into Ralph's sore shoulder and tried to control his wailing. Ralph gritted his teeth and bravely ignored the way his poor muscles were screaming in protest, patting Eric's head consolingly.
"I thought he would kill you for sure," the boy hiccoughed miserably. Ralph grimaced. He wasn't sufficiently well healed to contemplate his earlier proximity to death. He forced his voice to be steady.
"Well, he didn't. See? I'm right here, in one piece." Mostly one piece, his mind amended grimly. He embraced Eric, once again ignoring the excruciating grind of his worn muscles, as if to prove that he was indeed alive by his warmth. Eric clutched at him fiercely for a moment, then sat back and rubbed his eyes clear of tears. He reached behind him and retrieved something that Ralph had noticed him shove under the screen of branches before he followed it into the cave. It was two bowls that seemed to be made of roughly hewn wood. One filled with water, one filled with greasy cooked meat. Ralph's stomach twisted in a fantastic combination of hunger and nausea. Eric set the bowls down carefully by Ralph, and then scooted back.
"I have to go now," he said quietly, obviously wishing he didn't. Ralph, who through his ordeal had acquired a strange sort of clear, hard perception that he supposed was a side effect of mental strain, realized that somehow, even in Jack's mad grip, he and Eric were the same. Eric still looked to him for guidance and reassurance, and Ralph still supplied it for him, even though Eric was a full-fledged member of Jack's tribe and Ralph was a broken and bleeding captive. Interesting, he thought vaguely. He mustered a smile and gave Eric what he hoped was a reassuring wave, and the boy disappeared under the branches that closed Ralph from the light.
It was Eric who came to bring him food for days, weeks. He came to expect him whenever the branches began to hiss and shuffle. That was why he was so shocked, so utterly shocked, when one day weeks later it wasn't Eric. One day weeks later it was Jack.