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Soundtrack: A Lack of Color - Death Cab for Cutie
Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Still don't own anything. If I did, then I'd be William Golding, and I'm not, so...
Note: Also (because I feel that this is important), everyone is a few years older (15, 16ish?), save the littluns.
Warnings: Nada.
ALRIGHT. HEREWEGO ~
In Fire We Fester
"And when I see you, I really see you upside down."
It was apparent that Piggy was hurt by Ralph's choice of companions to explore the island. Louise hadn't seen much of it, but it hadn't been hard to tell. From the way the poor boy now skulked around the clearing, obediently obeying Ralph's 'orders' and taking the names of boys he already knew, Louise recognized the extent of his distress. Needless to say, the discovery of his nickname already poisoned the boys against him, and with a pitying heart, Louise observed as a couple boys teased Piggy now.
Shame, she thought, gazing on as Piggy defiantly huffed and turned away. He was peculiar, but friendly all the same, and he had been the only one who hadn't found amusement in Jack's haughty play earlier on. That impressed Louise, so when Piggy stared over at her, she smiled, almost as if inviting him to join. A friendly act.
Friend.
It was comforting to think that, despite all odds, perhaps she could have one friend on this dreaded island. Without Gracie she had been lost, and would continue to be displaced without her, but at least Piggy could perhaps lighten her burdened back.
The pain in her leg was raw and throbbing, and as Piggy sat down beside her, a few of the choir boys snickered and laughed. Louise looked away, flustered by their churlish behavior. Still, she made no act to stop them. She was just one girl, and compared to the flock of boisterous boys, she was practically nothing.
Nothing. It sure was an awful feeling. Like a void beneath Louise's gut. Sadly, the girl turned to Piggy and forced a small grin. He returned her act of kindness with a small nod and curled lips.
"We'll be alright," he said quietly, almost reading into her thoughts. The noise of laughter and gaiety swelled and faded amidst the pale blue sky and dusty beach.
"It's definitely an island."
Sun-flushed faces gazed back at the blonde, who held the conch firmly between his hands. Jack stood on his left size, staring out at the group before him in scrutiny. Louise stuck close to Piggy, who, for whatever reason, was slowly gravitating towards Ralph. It was as if he found satiating solace in being close to the prominent leader, whereas Louise was only annoyed. She sat on a fallen palm tree, legs crossed and hands situated firmly on her lap, like any proper lady should sit. Her dark hair was mussed and tangled, tumbling long and wavy down her back. The wind rustled it and breezed through the thin cotton of her shirt. She felt the warm sun on her skin and wished for the cool, spring nights of London, where the rain came often and the city apexed in excitement.
Ralph cleared his throat, awaking Louise from her mindless thoughts. She had a tendency to drift, as her teachers liked to say. It wasn't a bad quality, but she had trouble focusing, especially when the object of attention was as self-seeking as Ralph.
"We can fun on this island," Ralph continued, meeting the gaze of his dutiful followers. "There's no one else here, only us. Our plane was shot down - nobody knows we're here."
His words fell upon the clearing with dark truth. Louise briefly remembered Gracie's mangled form and shivered, trying to dispel the horrible image from her mind. The guilt of leaving the girl was eating away at her tired heart.
Jack spoke up from beside the chief, nodding his head as he talked.
"There's pigs which we can hunt, and lots of fruits. There's a stream that runs through the forest. Bunch of fun, I'd say."
"Yes," Ralph agreed, giving the redhead a timid smile. "We found an impressive amount of things out there. I'd like to think-"
The blonde was interrupted by the sound of soft laughter from a cluster of littluns. Louise threw a lazy glance in the direction of the mirth, gazing on as a few boys urged their whimpering friend forward towards Ralph. The boy couldn't have been older than six, perhaps, and was marked by a large mulberry blot that covered the expanse of his left cheek. The group watched in weary patience as the child moved forward, sniveled, and turned towards Ralph.
The blonde looked upon the child with ebbing sympathy.
"Alright," he muttered, waving the boy forward. "Come on then."
The boy, frightened by the hungry eyes turned towards him, bashfully reached out for the conch. His eyes were wide and panicked, and his hands trembled as he grabbed for the shell, arousing a pent of laughter from the assembly.
From beside Louise, Piggy shifted and raised his hand, as if to calm the group.
"Hey! Let him speak!" Piggy demanded, displaying more confidence than Louise knew he possessed. The group quieted forcibly and turned their mocking smirks back upon the now-sobbing boy. Even with the great shell in hand, the small child had been coaxed from speaking, terrified and humiliated from the fit of laughter. His voice was a squeak, a mere breath of air, and with a heavy sigh, Piggy arose and knelt down beside him, listening as the child instinctively whispered his urgent message.
After a moment, Piggy stared up from the boy and said, "He wants to know what you're going to do about the snake-thing."
Ralph was the first to laugh at the absurd sentiment, and the others followed. Louise felt her heart thrashing madly against her chest. Humiliating a poor little boy like that! What kind of chief is he?
"Snake-thing?"
Piggy dipped his head for the boy to whisper again and was silent.
"Now he says it's a beastie," Piggy explained, watching in chary patience as the group erupted once more. Louise only sat and stared, hands clenched, skin feverish from the scorching sun. Her mind told her that their laughter was wrong - with Ralph leading it too! It made her sick.
With a smirk, Ralph stepped forward and arrogantly shook his head. "There's no beastie. Not here."
"Probably a nightmare," one of the choirboys - Louise thought it was Robert - said from behind his friends. An accord of agreement spewed up from the adolescents, but even so, Jack took the conch from the small boy and stood with authoritative delight over his peers.
"There's no beastie, as Ralph said, and even if there is, me and my hunters will kill it. See? We'll get meat and pigs for everyone, and we'll hunt the beast too-"
"Alright, alright!" Ralph had snatched back the conch from the redhead, and his cocky smirk was replace by twisted frustration. "Now, we need to get rescued - that's our priority. Is that understood?"
A few children nodded, but most remained icily still, clinging onto the fervor of Jack's previous words. One boy - Louise thought it was Johnny, but it was hard to tell, especially now that his face was caked in remnants of whatever fruit he had divulged himself in- timorously raised his fingertips and reached for the conch. Once situated with the pink shell, he arose and quietly spoke.
"We could...we could build a fire. You know, for smoke."
The idea took to the group, and almost immediately, they were rising and making plans - it'd be on the mountain, the hunters would keep fire watch, the fire was the priority. Louise noted this with disdain.Rescue. The thought sounded surreal, and to be comical, the idea that such a destructive thing as fire would be their asset to being rescued made her cringe. Fire consumed, destroyed, and lily-livered Louise was anything but.
There was an uproar of applause, and suddenly, Louise was being pushed and shoved by eager bodies, all fighting for the first spot atop the mountain to light the fire. She caught a flash of red and knew Jack was leading the procession, followed closely by the raven haired boy Roger. Disregarding the injury on her leg, Louise arose and attempted to at least follow the swarm of boys. Almost immediately, she tripped over a careless foot, stumbled, and saved herself at the last moment. With flushed cheeks, she felt a warm hand curl around her elbow and gingerly help her to feet. Once she was standing firmly again, she was met by concerned blue eyes and pursed lips.
"You alright?" Ralph asked, eyeing the injury on her leg with anxious worry.
Weakly, the girl nodded and gently tugged her arm away from his tender grasp. Her face was red, her skin swathed in sweat and grime. Ralph took a final look at the laceration and shook his head.
"First thing when we get back, I'm fixing you up. Now c'mon, I'll help you up the mountain."
Blushing, Louise reluctantly complied.
The tongues of flame licked up into the smoke soaked sky with feverish ardor. Louise watched in sickened repulsion as Ralph released his hold on Piggy's glasses, smiling valiantly. A fire had been ignited, and now grew mercilessly against the folds of the warm, island breeze. Cheers combusted against the gnaw of fire against bark, and with a slight smirk, Ralph stepped away from the ever-growing fire.
Unlike the audacious applause, which had silenced moments ago, the fire didn't cease. It grew, hungry and desperate for fuel, and devoured the helpless matter around it. Seeing the fire's refusal to restrain, Louise gently tapped Ralph on the shoulder and pointed at the glowing beast - a silent warning, in her mind. Ralph lazily looked in the direction of her gesture and gasped, overwhelmed by the sudden threat of being burned alive. Wordlessly, he stared around at the others, but they already had noticed the fiery monster. Cheers were replaced with screams as children bounded down the mountain side, tumbling and thrashing like a herd of animals, Louise among them.
The blunt force on her injured leg was brute and painful, but the close proximity of heat and fire urged her forward. The girl tripped and stumbled, but forced her way back up, following the swarm of bodies down the hill. All at once, the entire thing came to a drooping standstill, and suddenly Louise found herself clambering clumsily on the grit of damp sand, hair matted and thick with the scent of smoke.
The boy with mulberry mark from earlier was no where to be seen.
"Got it in the crash, then?"
One of the boys generously offered their shirt as a make-shift bandage for Louise's gaping wound. Ralph fitted the flimsy thing across her leg, gently cleaning in with sea water. It hurt like hell, but Louise manage to suppress her groans of agony. She still had hardly said a word to the blonde - to anyone, really - and now that a direct question was posed at her, she was filled with a warm sense of panic.
Louise greatly feared talking to people her age. Especially boys.
But now Ralph looked at her with such a kind expression, blue eyes aglow with amicable charm, as his hands gently wrapped the torn shirt around her injured leg. He knelt beside her, carefully thumbing the material of the shirt. Louise brought her gaze to him, suddenly aware of the fast pace her heart had taken to.
"Yeah." Her voice came as a low whisper - barely audible, but there still. Ralph nodded at her reply and smiled, tightening the cloth around her leg.
"I played rugby back at school," he began, eyebrows furrowed as he worked upon her wound. Louise couldn't help but let a small smile slide - after all, he looked rather adorable with such a stern expression. Almost comical.
Parting her lips slightly, Louise leaned back on the palm tree she was seated on and quietly said, "Yeah?"
Satisfied at holding her interest, Ralph grinned and continued.
"I was the fullback, you know, and once this big old bloke tackled me pretty bad." His brow crinkled as he said this, and with a slight smile, Louise watched the blonde in content. His golden fringe fell over his forehead in soft waves, and his eyes were hard in concentration. At the memory of his injury, he had begun to shake his head, and now the edges of his mouth curled into a resentful smile. "Bloody awful. Broke my nose. Blood everywhere. I had to wear a bandage for two weeks."
At this, Louise giggled, not because the thought of Ralph with a bandage plastered over his nose was funny, but because the actual memory of it was hilarious. She remembered when one Monday, the blonde walked into Latin class with his nose all bandaged up, shoulders hunched and eyes sad like a little lost puppy.
Ralph, of course, couldn't understand why the girl was laughing, so in curiosity, he grinned and leaned towards her.
"What's so funny?"
She laughed harder at this, humored that he hadn't any idea that they both shared a common class back in England. If only he knew...
"Nothing," she said quickly, smiling at the boy with absent-minded affection.
He returned the soft gesture by tenderly touching the flared skin of her leg, engulfed by the joy at making the shy girl smile. His touch soothed her scratched flesh, yet at the same time, left her skin burning with such an unusual sensation, she almost thought his fingertips were aligned with fire. At the feeling, her lips parted, and she forcibly suppressed a gasp that itched in the back of her throat. Ralph's fingertips grazed her scraped skin, sending delicate little shivers through her body. She stared into his dark gaze, determined to learn the secret of his fiery touch, but when only cobalt eyes stared back, she drew away, flushed and humiliated by her obvious reaction.
Ralph, too, seemed rather flustered. His fingertips left her skin, and almost mechanically, he was clearing his throat and purposefully fixed his eyes in the opposite direction. There was a strangled moment of silence between them, brandishing the newfound friendship with strenuous tension. Louise was red in the face, and Ralph looked more than ashamed, as if touching her had been a grave mistake. Louise sadly empathized with him; the feeling had been raw and slightly vicious, but at the same time, wonderfully delightful. Her skin still stung from where the blonde touched it, and with furrowed eyebrows, she chewed on her lip and abruptly arose.
"I'm going to go find Piggy," She said rather vaguely, choking on her words as she spoke. Ralph nodded dumbly and met her gaze with hard, blue eyes.
"Of course."
She felt the sudden need to add that he should treat the littluns better, and honestly, his fire was a completely stupid idea, and that whatever 'facade' he was trying to build with her was phony and absurd and...and...and...
Louise cringed when she realized that, perhaps, she hadn't minded Ralph's company as much as she thought she would've. After all, he fixed her wounds up quite well, and it had been nice to listen to his steady voice as he spoke, friendly and warm.
But that feeling. And what had he been thinking in touching her like that? A simple finger upon her leg had lit her skin on fire - hungrier than the flame the boys foolishly ignited with Piggy's specs earlier. No boy had ever laid a hand on her leg before, let alone seen the bare skin of her calf. It was forbidden back at home, that's why boys and girls were so strictly segregated. It wasn't right...
Her eyes burned down at Ralph's mop of blonde hair, his fair skin that was slightly brown from the sun, the hands that had so tenderly bandaged her leg...
In ruffled haste, Louise turned away and hurried down the length of the beach - away from Ralph, away from the two littluns who kept throwing sand at each other. Despite Ralph's meager mending, her leg still quaked with pain from her ragged laceration. And her head...
God, it hurt.
Louise had a mind to go see Gracie again, but then again, her decaying body hadn't been a very calming sight, exactly, and she doubted it would help her now. If only she wasn't so shy, then she'd tell that Ralph what she really thought of him. The idea brought a smirk to face. He had been so rude at the assembly, but then with Louise, he was...
Kind? No...friendly?
Louise was abashed that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as bad as she initially assumed.
Maybe.
A/N: Phew. That only took me forever to write. AND MY GOODNESS T'IS LONG. If you go through that, then KUDOS HERE'S A COOKIE :D
Oh, and...
MERRY CHRISTMAS ;D And if you don't celebrate Christmas, then HAPPY HOLIDAYS :D
Bonus Content :
Peppy Voice-over: HEY KIDS, IF YOU COULD BE ANYTHING, WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
Ralph: I'd be a football player, because I love playing sports!
Jack: I'd be an Abercrombie model, because I'm sexy!
Piggy: I'd be a professor, because I love spreading my knowledge!
Sam: I'd be Eric!
Eric: I'd be Sam!
Bill: I'd be someone memorable, like Roger.
Roger: I'd be invisible, so I could kill things without anyone knowing.
Maurice: I'D BE A CONDOM.
ENDE ;D