Title: Talk Like The Natives
Rating: T ( 16+), mostly because of the nature of the story. For strong language. Plus, it's Shonnen Ai (That means, guy on guy, Folks, if you didn't know) But, it's clean. Just think of it as if they weren't the same gender…
Category: Books Lord of The Flies, by William Golding
Subjects: Angst/ Romance/ Hurt/ Psychological scars/ Memories.
Summary: Six years ago, Ralph was on an Island with several other boys - the only survivors of a plane crash months before. Now, Ralph is eighteen, and still haunted by those days on the Island. But, after six years, how would meeting the people who populate his nightmares, and his waking fears make him react? Could it be, that they had more problems than we first imagined? And is evil really ingrained into everyone?
Inspiration: I recently went to see Lord Of The Flies preformed by the Pilot Theatre in London. As a result, I realised I both love Jack, and actually quite enjoyed the book. It was the over-analysing that killed it for me. I decided I had to write something for Lord Of The Flies. It seems, I am not alone. Other inspiration was Mark Knightley…I'm sorry, but, as Jack…he is amazing, and not only as an actor (Which he really is- quite amazing. Utterly so!) but, God, Shoot me and bring me back from the grave - he's the hottest darned thing I've ever seen.
Author Note: As if I haven't said enough already, but, I just wanted to apologise - one, for talking so much; two, for my random time jumps; three, for all the random things I manage to push into this. Psychological scars isn't even subject on here…I just thought it applied.
'Stronger, wiser, nothing holding him back. Jack Merridew.'
"We talked about our feelings, for the siblings we had lost, and, I couldn't help but realise that Jack and I weren't so different. Were we? Or was it something more fundamental then simply situations which made us clash so? Was it that, there was something in Jack, which I would never possess…was it ambition, leadership and drive? Possibly not. It was blood-lust, and arrogance. Yes, I had my fair share, but, not in the same way, not quite so, fiercely. I didn't understand the red-head, but I wanted to, for reasons beyond my comprehension for years to come, but, I did know that I wanted to know."
Six Years Later
"Good morning, my name is Ralph, and I'm here today to tell you about…"
He chuckled cruelly at me, and I frowned, stamping my foot and flinging the papers to the floor.
"I'm sorry, Ralph," he told me, clearing his throat, and bending down to retrieve the wad of notes. I shrugged, he handed the thick speech back, and made his expression serious. "You know I'm sorry – don't sulk."
"I can sulk if I like," I replied tartly, then noticing my tie in the mirror, began to straighten it unsuccessfully.
"For God sake, learn how to sort your tie!" he growled, grabbing me by the lanyard and pushing my unskilled hands away – correcting the mess I had made.
I smiled at him, he was so cruel at times, but always helping in his own subtle way.
He grumbled about my lack of skill at making myself look presentable, I continued to smile, his eyes softened, smiling back at me.
"Thanks," He shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal of his own weakness of kindness.
"Good luck," he sighed, lightly kissing my forehead – I wasn't a child, it annoyed me, but, the meaning behind it wasn't childish.
I checked myself once more in the bedroom mirror, pushing back my hair and beamed at him.
"See you later!" he nodded, folding his arms over his chest and watching as I ran towards the door.
"You'll be fine." He promised me, I turned on the stairs and nodded.
"Bye, Sam." He shrugged, but couldn't hide his grin.
Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes and Ten Seconds Later
What the hell was going on? I was seeing the person who had haunted my dreams for the past six years, standing before me. Without a care in the world. He cocked his head to the side, the red-hair I knew so well tumbling over his eyes. He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching my face, recognition of a sort obvious. But, it would seem, he couldn't place me. Frowning, he trailed me with the dark blue eyes across the room, alight with a dark curiosity. My lips tightened. He didn't remember, after everything that had happened. How could he not remember me? See those scars, and know that it was he who had inflicted them six long years previously.
He had missed my speech, swaggering in at the tail-end and taking his place, he didn't know me. Or, he did, but, he didn't remember the boy he had tried to kill.
After, while I was standing with several of the boys from the group, Jack meandered over. He obviously knew one of my friends from previous, unmentioned encounters. I glared at him. Jared turned to me and grinned.
"This is our man of the hour – really saved the team. Thanks again, Mate."
You're no mate of mine, you bastard I thought angrily, how could he let the young man standing next to him even talk to me? After all I had been through?! But, for the sake of face, I smiled politely.
"No problem, a friend in need..." I repeated the phrase easily enough, used to my father's preaching. Jared nodded, clapping me on the shoulder a little painfully. He indicted Jack, whom he had been introducing, and I had been ignoring.
"A pleasure to meet you, I don't think I caught your name?" Jack extended a pale hand to me, and I looked at it with disgust. Had he washed Simon and Piggy's blood from them? Had he forgotten them too?
"You didn't catch it – because I didn't introduce myself." I snarled back, pretending the hand was not held out in friendship to me. A mixture of astonishment and confusion flashed across his pale features, and he let his hand drop to his side once more.
"May I have the honour then?" He asked.
"Ralph." I shook his hand, he nodded.
"Jack Merridew – how do you do?" he smiled warmly, could this really be the same boy, as all those years ago? Yes, of course it was, his name was Merridew. His red hair, his simple arrogance, they were all him.
"I know." I replied acidly, hate layering my gaze as I inspected his reaction. He frowned, and then the eyes softened. He shook his head.
"I'm afraid not. You must be mistaken."
Two Hours and thirty-six minutes later
It was wrong, so wrong, to know exactly what was happening. To know, and to do nothing.
I smiled weakly.
"I blamed you for a long time...I really did..." I looked away, it wasn't so easy being honest now. Unlike when we had spoken of Annealice, and Maria. A long time.
One Hour and twenty- one minutes earlier
"You remember?" I asked slowly, he frowned, shaking his head slightly…six years had changed him incredibly. He was different from my memory…almost like the person I had liked the company of at the beginning…almost. There was something ever-present about him, which lurked beneath the surface. The heart of a murder…something terrible.
I sighed, if he didn't recognise me, I wouldn't mention the Island…it was something I wanted to forget - forever. Never look back, feel the stains of Piggy and Simon's death like a shadow over my face, changing me. But, how could I forget? When I lived with two people who had experience the very same thing? Sam and Eric had haunting dreams too, woke up terrified of the beast…but, not as badly as I did.
I'd leave the light on to keep the beast away, lie awake at night, staring blindly at the ceiling, and seeing everything again, and again, repeating constantly. No way to get around what had happened. When I slept, my dreams would be swirls of colour, hot and oppressive, a drug like scene of the Island…so bright, it brought fear to me of the purest kind. The Beast would stand there, telling me my sins and whose fault it was that Simon and Piggy had died. Never, had I not woken in a cold sweat, screaming in terror, clutching the blankets, desperately trying to find the light, and banish my fears. But they lurked, throughout the day, in the afternoon, as the Twilight visited and the Dawn called to the evening. It plagued my waking hours, and decimated my resting ones. I never rested. The memories so vibrant I could never push them from my mind, not even for a few hours.
At least Sam and Eric understood to an extent. We had moved schools when we returned all those years back. We couldn't see the other boys again. Roger would be there, Jack would have been there…the choir…Maurice…all of them.
Father hadn't understood what the problem was, why I woke from my sleep screaming of a beast and unable to go into the dark, why I jumped at the slightest thing, and why the shadows scared me again. He never understood my fear, even when I told him…he always told me 'It was just a game, Ralph', or 'Those friends of yours dying, was just a horrible accident,' but, I knew better. I had witnessed it. It had been no pathetic game; it had been a warped reality, and our true natures had been shown. Beneath the covers of our society, there lurked people like us - the ones marked by evil. The only thing I had been able to reason out, was that I must have been one of those scarred souls…one who has been singled out to be this way, one of the evil ones. At least Piggy and Simon had died, proving that they were the only ones worth saving by God.
God didn't love me, he did not. Church held a mark against me when I returned, I couldn't face the sermons, the kind words of the congregation…the help of the vicar and his son. The son still alive.
Percival Wemys Madison had been killed in the fire, and that was my fault too. Percival's older brother Thomas Robert Madison was older than me by two years, he asked me about Percival that one time. And then I knew that I was a cursed one, those who had been good enough, who had deserved salvation of the most painful, but ultimate and purest sort - they had been taken.
Oh, why couldn't I have died too? Why had I fought? Why had I not let Jack and his hunters simply kill me along with the others?
Because I was scared, scared of death - and I knew I should have been scared of what lay after it. I'd surely not have gone to Heaven with the others. I was scared of the eternal torture.
I learnt Piggy's real name two years after I got back from the island. His auntie came to see me, one bright fittingly warm Autumn afternoon. I sat in the conservatory with her, her smile weak, but pure. She was a relatively young woman, slightly overweight, but not considerably. I wondered at the time, if she had lost weight after Piggy died. It transpired that she had been looking for me all this time.
"You're Ralph, are you?" she asked me slowly, her concern obvious…she didn't want to upset me. Me? The person who could have saved Piggy had it not been for my foolish, selfish instinct of self-preservation. She had light strawberry blonde curls, and chocolate brown eyes, and I remember thinking of how she both resembled, and contrasted with Piggy's image. She didn't wear glasses which she pushed up her nose; she had clear sight. She didn't wheeze like Piggy used to, but, I could see him in her. Looking out from behind her dark eyes, telling me his next idea, explaining how things worked, trying to teach me Pythagoras' theorem. I never remembered anything in maths as well as I did that one theorem. Thanks to Piggy.
"I'm Ralph," I confirmed, fear of curses from this kind looking woman to damn me further still.
"I spent a long time trying to find you." She explained, I put my head to the side in confusion. How had she been looking for me? "I suppose you wonder how I found you?" she voiced my thoughts.
"Slightly. Yes, ma'am." She smiled.
"I had to work out who you were first," she told me seriously.
"How?" I queried.
"Well, you see, my boy. It appeared my nephew wasn't known by his real name on that island…" she trailed off, obviously thinking of Piggy, and I found myself thinking of him too. I missed him, he might have been a pain at times, but, he had always stuck by me, always, always, been my friend. I mourned him.
"No, he wasn't…"
She nodded, "Well, I had to work out what had happened, then, once I found out who he had been known as, I had to find out who knew him best. That was you, Ralph. It took a while to prise that information from several people. No one knew your surname though, even when I got the name out of them, and then when I finally found that - I also found you had moved schools. It's been a long search, but, I've needed to speak with you." I nodded.
"Can I ask one question though?" she nodded, " What was Piggy's real name? And his surname?" she smiled sadly. Disregarding that it had, in fact, been two questions.
"His name was Rupert, Rupert Hildon. I was his mother's sister - so we didn't have the same surname. Mine is Thompson." I nodded slowly at this, the name Rupert Hildon didn't necessarily fit Piggy, but, it gave him some degree of dignity.
"What happened to his parents? He never spoke of them, only you…" Miss Thompson sighed, looking me in the eye.
" Well, my sister, Jessica, she left his father, John, when he was four. My brother-in-law couldn't deal without her, and he turned to drink, he never hurt Rupert mind you, but, he wasn't fit to look after the boy. When Rupert was seven, John got into a street fight while he was drunk, and he was killed. It was an accident, a shard of broken glass cut his jugular, and his friends didn't notice until it was too late. Rupert came to live with me, and he never talked about either of his parents again."
I coughed, finding it hard to imagine what Piggy - Rupert- had been through. I could imagine the scene only too well, and I wondered why she had told but a child of this gruesome end. To protect me?
"And Piggy,- I mean, Rupert- he had no siblings?" she shook her head.
"No, he did. He had a twin sister, Emeline, but, when Laura left, she took Emeline with her - we never heard from either of them again. But, I know Rupert missed Emeline, even if he was only four when she was taken away with his mother. I could tell it always hurt him to know that his mother hadn't wanted him, and had just taken his sister. " I wiped my eyes subtly.
"I think it would hurt anyone." Miss Thompson simply looked sad.
She told me all about Piggy, about everything I had wanted to know, but never taken the opportunity to ask him when I had had the chance. But, when you're twelve, you don't expect your friend to die…they're just supposed to be there…forever. I told her everything I could remember, every detail, every good thing Piggy did, how highly he valued his auntie, anything that showed how good a person he had been. I tried to make the bad things seem less, the things that would hurt her. How he had been teased, bullied, ostracised. I briefly explained his death, not going into exact account, I myself, couldn't help but see the image. The image of Piggy, his body still twitching slightly, his glasses askew, his skull crushed and the contents of the cranium pouring out onto the rocks. The blood, oh, the blood. I didn't tell her.
The fourteen year old me, had said goodbye to her, hugged Miss Thompson, and promised to write. And I did, every month, and she was happy. I knew I wanted to talk to her, because, she understood, even if she hadn't been there, she was the only adult whom had believed everything I said, and I could give her something to help her both forget Piggy's death, and treasure his memory. The last link to him, his friend. His best friend. I always would be.
"So, when are we supposed to have met?" Jack asked me, his blue eyes watching me intently.
I shrugged, " As you said - I must have been mistaken."
"You seemed rather sure of yourself, to suddenly believe yourself mistaken. Do expand on how we may have met, it's possible I have just forgotten the encounter." He had put a hand on my shoulder, both threateningly and in a friendly way. I pushed his hand off as if it had burned me. Scorched the skin with yet more sin. Black curses he could imprint upon me further. I couldn't stand being branded so, not more still.
"You would have remembered this encounter." I assured him, he bowed his head.
"As you wish - I won't press you further, but, if you ever do decide, once again, that we have indeed met - I should be interested to hear of the circumstances and details of the meeting."
I nodded weakly, confounded by the ease and arrogance of his words. He was utterly the most vile person I had ever encountered. I wished the meeting had, in actual fact, been a figment of my scarred imagination. Too bad it was a reality. But, a reality so vivid it seemed unreal, almost forgotten, as if I had not quite been there, distant, but always there. Always waiting.
He turned to the door, where the rest of the group stood from his school. As he walked through the entrance, I called after him.
"Can you still sing C sharp?" either he didn't hear me, or he didn't want to, he carried on walking.
I entered the hall a few minutes later, returning to the group from my own school, taking care to not look in Jack's direction. I sighed slightly, Jared grinned at me and I glared straight back.
"Mate, what's wrong? You've been all uptight since after your speech." he asked me.
"Nothing," I replied tartly, he groaned.
"God, Ralph. You know how to be all moody at the wrong time, don't you? Look, you did well, I'm sure we're going to win - don't fret over it. You were perfect." But, I wasn't worried over the results, I didn't care if our school won the trophy or not. It was something worthless, unlike life. Life was precious. Something, I was sure that no one else in that hall understood.
Jared called the group of well-dressed boys from Herringdale School over to join us. Just what I needed, more of Jack's company. They wandered over, their team leader literally stalking over as if he had already won and it was some injustice to stand with us. Jack wasn't a leader for once…how amusing…and fitting.
But, as it turned out, I was wrong. The boy from Herringdale, whom I had watched perform his speech on stage earlier on, wasn't the captain of the group. He, had in fact, just taken the first round because they had expected everyone else to put up their best speakers first. Which, every other group had. This boy, whose name was Laurence, was their worst speaker. In my opinion, if he was their worst, I dreaded seeing their best. This strategy would win their team, both more points, and a higher recognition when they destroyed and pitted against the worst speakers from the other groups. Distinguishing them as the ultimate winners. I had been our first speaker.
"So, Herringdale, who's you're best speaker?" Jared asked, as he addressed the group as a whole by their school name…it reminded me of Jack's address to the choir…how they had been a whole…a dark creature, formed of several.
"Jack is," A sandy haired boy, who transpired to be unfortunately named Horrice, stepped forward declaring this. He looked like a Horrice too, pug nose, small eyes, typical up himself private school boy. It sounded like he worshipped Jack, and he probably did, many had before. I myself, had taken to a quieter existence once I returned, and stayed ultimately as unknown as possible at school. Jack smiled, slightly embarrassed by the attention, how was that possible? Jack from the Island would have grinned with triumph at the praise, but, not this Jack. He was far too sly for my liking, and I hadn't liked him to begin with…
"What about your school, Merrington?" Jack asked pleasantly. Jared spoke for our school as a whole. As Jared Krinton, was , or should really have been the leader.
"Ralph's our best." Jack's expression changed for a moment, as if, maybe, the repeat of a similar scenario had triggered a memory perhaps? But, then it was gone again.
"Ah, so , are you Captain then, Ralph?" He asked, turning to me.
"No, Jared is."
Jack raised an eyebrow, "Then, why are you not Captain, if you are, as Jared says, the best speaker of your group?"
"I don't like positions of power." I replied angrily. We were still the same as back then, him grasping at opportunities of power, myself, having it forced upon me. "I'm going to get a drink." I told the group, and walked away from them towards the trestle tables of refreshments.
I was annoyed to find Jack standing there next to me several minutes later.
" I can still sing C sharp, yes." He said under his breath. I turned to him suddenly, angry. How dare he play with these memories, stir the pain up inside me, and act as if it was nothing. Did he never see the people he had killed in his dreams? It made my blood boil to think of it.
"You remember?" he frowned, shrugging again. I really wished he'd make up his bloody mind!
"I'm not sure…"
"How can you not be sure? How can you forget something like that?!"
"Because, it hurts to remember?" he asked, pulling food onto his cardboard plate (you'd think a private school could fork out enough for normal plates and then wash them rather than waste so much cardboard, wouldn't you?) and looking away from me.
"Hurts?" I asked, appalled. He wasn't allowed to be in pain, he should be guilty. He deserved to remember what he had done. "What would you know?" His jaw tightened, and he put his plate down, grabbing me by the arm, and dragging me out of the hall behind him.
Once we were through the door at the opposite end of the corridor, and had scaled a flight of stairs, he released me. He turned to me, taking a calming breath and bowing his head to me.
"Say what you will now, but not in front of everyone. Tempers running high cause things to happen badly, and people to find things out that you don't want others to know."
I scoffed, " Don't want everyone to know what you did?"
His jaw tightened again, but he shook his head, " No, I assumed you wouldn't want everyone to know what had happened to you. Hence, why you moved schools, and avoid positions of the slightest, trivial power."
"And you just lap them up!"
He sighed, "I declined the offer at first, if you must know, but, eventually gave in, I hoped I would learn to handle power better."
"As if that could happen with you."
"I thank-you, for your unguarded support." he replied, dryly.
"Why should I support you?" I hissed angrily.
"because, you have the same problem." he explained.
" Shut your mouth, you bastard" I yelled.
He sighed, massaging his temple slowly, " Please do control your temper, Ralph. It will only make things worse. Now, I'm prepared to talk about this, here. Nowhere else, only here. If you can stop yelling and using profanities for once."
"You used to swear all the time." I pointed out, he nodded, obviously pleased with the return of my normal tone of voice.
"That was a long time ago." Damn him.
"How can you be so relaxed? How could you have forgotten me?!" Jack watched me curiously, and sighed yet again.
"Relaxed, well, that comes with time. Forgetting, it was too painful for me to remember you - I blocked you out." I gawked at him in amazement.
"How, could it be painful for you? You killed people! You took that road."
"I did not kill anyone, Ralph. It was painful for me, I realised what I had done, that it had been my fault, how I had acted, how power, and jealousy had gone to my head. The freedom we had, letting me do anything without consequence, I took advantage of our predicament; and I regret it to this day. And, I truly am sorry for wanting you dead. I was paranoid, scared of the power you had over others, worried I'd be taken out. I created a group, which could turn on me any moment, if you had taken that power, what do you think I thought would happen?" I blinked several times at him.
"Then why did you carry on?"
"I…I don't know, I was power hungry, I wanted recognition for something, I wanted to get back at someone."
"but, you didn't have to kill…"
"I told you - I didn't kill anyone, Ralph!"
"Jack, you did. You killed Simon and Piggy."
He shook his head fiercely, "I may have had a part in Simon's death, I was one of many. But, Piggy, much as I disliked him, I did not kill him!"
"You did."
He growled, "Do you not remember? It was Roger who killed him!"
"You told him to," I replied angrily. Jack shook his head again.
"No, I didn't, he did it of his own free will."
"You're still to blame!" I insisted.
"You mean, you think I made him that way?" he asked, putting his head to the side and staring intently at me. I nodded.
"Roger was always like that. Always. He didn't want the power, he wanted to manipulate from back-stage." When I thought about it, that had been true, Roger had always been cruel, and manipulative, but not directly. Something dark about him, but, he had lain in wait; watching, planting ideas, changing people's perceptions. It wasn't Jack's fault for that…it was Roger whom had killed Piggy.
"Why did you hate me so much?" I asked eventually, after I had concluded that Jack couldn't be the one who'd ended my best friend's life so young.
"You were…" He paused, searching for the words desperately, "You were…positive, and naturally good at leading, and people looked up to you, charismatic…you had the looks, I didn't. They picked you over me, and it made me angry. I thought you were good fun, I enjoyed your company, but, that made me envy you - I wanted to be what you were, what you didn't want to be. I wanted to be admired…"
"Is that why you wanted to hunt?" he nodded silently, "But, I did admire you, I envied your talent, and I wanted to be like you…"
"Looks like we should have just swapped abilities." he chuckled. I nodded, it would have been easier that way.
"Did you ever have nightmares?" I asked him slowly. He shook his head with a slight confusion at the sudden change in topic.
"No. Sometimes, I would remember things though, or I'd forget I was back…and I'd miss the people I had spent most of my time with when we were there."
"Roger and Maurice?" he nodded
"They were my only friends there…Roger, he may have been a horrible person, but, so was I. And, he was a good laugh - most of the time, anyway. He manipulated what I wanted, but, it didn't matter - because I had friends. Maurice, well, I doubt he ever really wanted to be part of the hunting and such, but, he agreed, because he was scared, and because he knew what Roger was like, he had always helped to keep Roger in line a bit. Roger was uncontrollable back at school, but, even more so on the Island. He was better when Maurice was there though. Even on the Island. It would have been much worse there if Maurice hadn't been there, I can only imagine how bad."
"I dreamt of there." I told him.
"What did you dream of?"
"Of Simon, and Piggy, of how they died…I'd see the beast, again, and again…you." he frowned.
"Me?" I bit my lip, nodding slowly. "Why me?"
"I blamed you, I always did."
"You dreamt of me…and the beast?"
"Yes, The Beast." He frowned yet again, then spoke once more.
"You still dream of the Island, don't you?"
"Every night," I nodded "every single night, every day. It doesn't go away…"
"So, you knew it was me straight away?"
"I could never forget your face."
And then Jack did the strangest thing. Something I never expected, and something I had never realised, not in all of those years. Never understood why it hurt so much, why his image haunted me so. Why I so wanted to blame him, but, found it so easy to forgive him. I understood then.
Suddenly, faster than I could have thought possible, I realised why I had wanted to know everything about him, understand him. It wasn't simple curiosity, it had been more. Much more.
Because, what Jack did - unlike in the nursery rhyme- was that he kissed me.
It hadn't been because I thought he was cool, or looked up to him, even if that much had been true. It wasn't why it had hurt so much to know he hated me, and wanted me dead, so much better to take that out on him, to hate him for my friends death's, needing some way to justify why he frequented my dreams, every single night. Every single night, for six years. Justifying to myself, that it was hate that made me think of him and feel the pain in my chest. Tell myself, it wasn't because I was in love with Jack Merridew. Even after he had murdered my friends, and tried to kill me. I had needed an excuse to love the bad boy. I had lied to myself all that time, and I had never realised. Not for a second. Thought it was a punishment for letting Simon and Piggy die, a judgement for my guilt.
It was, but, when I realised, the problem was, even if I hated him still. Even if everything he had done still scarred me, plagued my waking and dreaming hours, made my life almost unbearable, my judgement - I liked it. I wanted more. So much more than I was being given, being teased with.
I couldn't help but know that, much as truly one part of me hated him, I always had loved him, and never had stopped. It had felt like betrayal when he'd left us on the Island, and I knew why. Why I had told them he'd come back, turned it to a mantra, because, that was all I wanted in the world. But, it wasn't what you were supposed to do. It wasn't what people would approve of. I was too young to understand why I felt that way.
It was what I craved.
Jack withdrew, obviously startled with himself, and brushed his hair from his eyes nervously.
"Bet you're glad you didn't do that in the hall," I teased, he looked at me, scarlet with embarrassment, and confusion covered his face.
"I don't know what came over me, I'm…please accept my apologies."
"It doesn't matter." I assured him, he couldn't tell that it had been what I had wanted for a long time. Waiting for, needed.
"I'm not sure I follow you…you're not mad at me…you're not shouting - attacking me, screaming. Most people would react like that…"
"Do all the people you kiss do that then?" I teased happily.
"No, but, I've never kissed a guy before…" he shrugged, " It's what I would expect a guy to do."
I sighed, "I could punch you if you really wanted me to."
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Then why are you complaining?"
He shrugged, "I'm…surprised."
"I'm sorry."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"How did you?" I asked curiously, quite enjoying this turn of events.
"I don't know…what can I do to apologise to you?" he asked uncertainly, his stance awkward, his expression unfathomable. Jack's cheeks were still flushed though, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching away from me as if ashamed of himself, worried for his reputation, about himself, confused.
I pondered his request for a moment, what could he do to apologise? I didn't need him to apologise…or to make it up to me, well, at least, not about the kiss. But, I suppose, it was like killing two birds with one stone. Even if he didn't feel the same way, I could get a certain degree of revenge for all of my pain, and what I wanted. And, what I wanted, was close to what I had gotten.
"You can make it up to me…by," I trailed off, enjoying his expression of nervousness.
"Yes, how?"
"You can do that again." I said seriously. Jack's face became a mask of embarrassed confusion.
"Do what?"
"What you're trying to apologise for." He blinked in astonishment at me.
"Why?"
"Because…it's what I say." I replied, not wanting to admit, it was what I wanted.
"You confuse me, Ralph…" He told me, I was about to reply with a quip, but, then he was kissing me again - and, he quite literally took the words from my mouth. Whether he knew them or not, was a matter I didn't not know.
Pulling him closer, I sighed against him. He was much taller than I was, which was the way it had always been. I clung to his shirt, drawing him nearer, and he only resisted slightly. Some part of him, unsure as to what was going on, and why on God's earth he was kissing someone who had been his enemy, and he had tried to kill. He didn't resist for long though, letting me wrap my arms around his neck, and trailing my hands into his hair. It didn't matter anymore, what had happened, I could forget. I could forget the pain of the twelve year old me. Nothing seemed to be brought to mind when I kissed him, or…he kissed me…whichever it seemed more likely to be. Gently, he trailed his tongue across my lips, prising them open, with little argument from me. Grazing my bottom lip with his teeth. He didn't seem to be able to forget it was me though, and that I was a guy too, something in him pulling back, and holding himself from what I wanted - just a kiss that I knew he meant. That would have been enough. I pulled him down, closer to me by his hair, clawing at his back through his thin shirt and nipping his lip lightly. He was startled, pulling away and glaring at me.
I leant against the window's ledge casually, a smile playing across my lips. It seemed that had worked out just fine, I'd known I had kissed the person I was in love with just once, and I'd managed to repay some sort of revenge on him for everything that ailed my hours.
"You need to calm down a bit." he told me, rubbing his neck lightly, and examining the blood his lip had produced.
"Whatever for?" I asked, humour picking on my tone.
"You'd make anyone think you enjoyed that."
I pouted, "Didn't you?"
"Fuck, Ralph - you're a guy!"
"Your point being?" I shrugged.
"Guys don't do that, or they shouldn't with other guys…" he trailed off, his argument absolutely ridiculous.
"You started it." I reminded him.
"I must be ill." he replied quickly.
"You're just denying that you like me!"
He spluttered in surprise, "Don't tell me you read into that?" I frowned, had I? I suppose so…yes, it had been something anyone would read into - wasn't it? He wasn't drunk, after all, why else would he do that?
"Look, Ralph, I want to be mates. I know what happened upset you, it upset me too, but, we can put that behind us. Maybe, things on the Island made you feel strange things for me…or some of the others too, but, I don't feel that way. I think it's just because of what we went through together. Psychologically clinging to someone else who understands what we went through, put each other through, and other on that island."
I nodded dumbly, he could very well be right. I wasn't sure, the thing was, I couldn't tell. I hadn't met Jack before the island. Who knew what I would have felt if I had…he always had been subtly smarter than I was.
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"Yeah." He smiled.
"Sorry."
"Don't be, could happen to anyone."
I nodded, also true. "Maybe."
"Friends?" he asked, holding out his hand to me. So much had happened in the short hours since he had held out his hand to me that day, and I had hated him. Now I was at a friendship point, I wasn't sure if he was right, but, if he was, there was no harm in friendship.
"Yes." I took his hand and we shook. We both grinned, laughing slightly.
"That's taken a long time." I nodded, six years…perhaps more. To get to where we were, between pain, and friendship, salvation and the understanding of ourselves.
Maybe, one day, I'd know if he was right or not, but, for now, we'd be friends, and I would move on from the things that had followed me through my life, weighing down my shoulders with guilt and sitting scared of my fate. That would come later. I would know one day.
'Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of a man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.'