The search and rescue mission

Chapter summary: In which Roger finds Ralph, Jack's love is preached about by Simon and Roger, and Simon gets that 'uh oh' feeling.

Warnings: Roger's shameless prophanities, the abuse of generic 'prince charming' moments, and a side of fluff.

A/N: Here's the next chapter, hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Flies, because this is a fan fiction, so please do not sue me.

Ralph had no intention of talking to anyone if he could help it, because… Well, because he just couldn't face it. "Damnit, Nathan…" he hissed under his breath, ever so expertly working his way into a new hidey hole that would take anyone hours to find. He'd found it not too long ago… A safe little nook in a mostly abandoned hallway of the old school. It was a small room with dusty books, sheets, chairs, and god only knew what else… Essentially a muck room. But if it bothered Ralph any, he didn't show it. He simply took it all in with as much of a smile as he could manage, and crawled into a small, safe hole under the massive piles of discarded items, and pulled his knees up to his chest. Sometimes he really hated Nathan… "God, that was embarrassing!" Ralph said, locking his arms around his legs as he buried his face in his knees.

In theory, Nathan meant well, but…. Ralph would really rather that he didn't try and be all big brotherly towards him anywhere near a public place. Or at all, actually, but that would be asking too much. Although, it seemed that simply asking him not to indulge in public embarrassment was also asking too much, so it was a rather moot point. With a sigh, Ralph turned his head and set his cheek against his knee cap and let one arm fall to his side. Idly he let his fingers roam across the ground, imagining little pictures in his head that he would be tracing into the cold concrete beneath him. "The only reason he did it was because he doesn't like Roger…" he mumbled to himself bitterly, frowning deeply. At the thought of Roger, his once sun burnt looking skin flushed red once more, and a horrified expression crossed his face. He didn't even want to know what Roger had thought of it all…

Or didn't think of it. Despite Roger being the quiet, scary type, Ralph could see the thickly hidden yearning for affections. Besides, with the way he was always drawing Simon, it hadn't honestly been all that hard to figure out. He could still remember the awkward silence that had descended on the group that morning when he'd asked Roger about it. The stormy boy had stiffened and glared at Ralph, but said nothing as he'd abandoned his sketching for the day. Not much had been said, and they had all silently vowed never to bring it up again. It was like Jack's strange affinity for kittens; no one talked about it, but they knew what to do as an oh-please-I-am-sorry-now-just-forgive-me last resort. Okay, they weren't really the same, but… That was beside the point! The fact was that no one brought it up, but everyone remembered.

As Ralph was lost in his musings of kittens, sketch books, and anything but what has just transpired, Roger, Jack and Simon were all hard at work looking for their missing blonde. They'd long since worked out a route for which places to check first so that, if the tried and true hidey holes failed them, they could all meet back in one place and collaboratively go, "What the hell?" Well, except for Simon, who was usually more on the side of nervous and "Oh, sweet Jesus, where did Ralph go?" To which Jack's only response would ultimately be, "You two head back to class, I'll go find him."

"Like hell you will." Roger snorted, rolling his eyes.

Naturally, Simon protested as well. "Jack, as much as the help is appreciated, I don't think it's gonna make Ralph feel any better if you molest him." the short choir boy said matter-of-factly.

Roger laughed - a god awful sound which was a mixture of nails on a chalk board, the screams of the innocent, and lung cancer - and Jack had the decency to blush. "I wasn't planning on it, Simon." the redhead ground out bitterly.

"Could've fooled me."

"Oh, yeah? And why's that?"

"Well, it's basically rape with the way you pine after him like that, isn't it?" Roger interjected.

It was Simon's turn to laugh, as the two ganged up on Jack, causing his face to rival his hair. "If you were a little more subtle, you might have better luck, Jack!" Simon grinned. "Or you could stop trying to stare holes into his head all the time. Either would work swimmingly." And so, it was on that note that they split up once again, Roger and Simon laughing away as the sexually frustrated redhead stormed off in search of their damsel in distress.

This, however, proved to be a most discouraging task, as there was neither hide nor hair of Ralph to be seen after two hours. Now, normally it only took them a good half hour to find Ralph's new hidey holes, but this was just ridiculous. For the third time that day, they met in the collaborative '"What the hell?" spot, and voiced their concerns at the disappearance of their friend. "How much ya wanna bet he locked himself out on the roof again?" Roger mused, sprawled out on the floor as he stared up at the ceiling. "Hmm… Maybe, But not likely. I think the principal took the keys." Simon sighed, also perched on the floor and leaning back on his hands. Jack was the only one left standing - pacing, to be exact - and he sighed heavily, folding his arms across his chest. "Guys, come on, we've never had this much trouble finding him!" Jack snapped, frowning deeply.

"What about the time he locked himself in the attic?" Simon interjected.

"Or the time he got stuck in that elevator?" Roger sighed.

"Or when he hid under Roger's bed?"

"Can't forget about the time he hid in Jack's closet, though… Poor kid was traumatized for weeks."

Jack glared at them, and sighed in frustration. "Okay, so we're not the best detectives, but we can't possibly be this bad!" the redhead protested. Simon bit his lip, but nodded all the same. "So, where do you suggest we go next?" he asked. At the mention of any sort of movement what so ever, Roger groaned and scowled up at the ceiling. "Maybe we should just leave him where ever it is that he'd holed up. He obviously wants to be left alone." Roger suggested. Jack and Simon looked as if they were going to hit him. "Oh, come on, you can't honestly tell me that you would want to be pestered after Nathan barged in and did that to you." Roger pointed out. Jack snorted in indignation.

"I wouldn't have run off-"

"Yes you would have, Jack." Simon said matter-of-factly. Jack glowered at Simon, who only raised an eyebrow in return as if to dare him to disagree with him. Even if he had put up a fight about it, they all knew that Simon was right, because if Jack had been Nathan's target, he would have preached about Jack's love for his baby brother. They would have been lucky if they ever found Ralph again if that happened. Well, again, at any rate. Once upon a time, in grade school, Nathan had caught a puppy-love crush and effectively nipped it in the butt, via ranting about the undying love that the poor victim had on Ralph.

Needless to say, it took several hours for their father to convince the boy to stop packing his belongings in an attempt to run away.

"Well, I wouldn't have been so damn hard to find." Jack said and promptly took up residence leaning against the wall. "Come to think of it, with the way you drool over Ralph all the time, I'm a bit surprised that Nathan hasn't noticed yet." Simon said, eyes wide with the sudden realization. This was unspeakable! And very, very frightening. Whatever Nathan had up his sleeve, nobody wanted anything to do with it. "Maybe he was too busy trying to figure out who's become the object of Ralph's affections?" Roger smirked.

At this, a silly grin plastered itself across Jack's face and both Simon and Roger groaned and rolled their eyes simultaneously. "God, it's like we can't even say his bloody name anymore without your brain going all stupid!" Roger snapped, scowling at Jack. Simon laughed, but knew very well that Roger had every right to be moody. After all, how many times had Jack subjected him to "Oh, Ralphy," this and "But I love him so much," that, to all of which Roger begrudgingly listened. He wouldn't have been so cruel as to inflict the poor love struck bastard upon Simon.

"Well, we have to go find him sometime." Simon said quickly before Jack could retort.

Had Ralph been paying attention to the passing of the time, he would have left the confines of this safe space long ago, so as not to worry the other's too much… But it had been so comfortable and warm and quiet that, well, he couldn't help but fall asleep. He'd stayed in the same little nook of junk that he'd found and curled up on his side, with his arm as a pillow. It took him a while to drift off, however, but once he did he slept like the dead. The searching drug on for another hour before there was a slight rustling as the door to the room opened slowly. Stormy green eyes flickered around the dusty room for a moment, before settling on the minor disturbances of the ancient dirt. "Hmm… Maybe not." Roger mumbled, turning to head out of the room once more when a soft whimper pieced the air.

Roger sighed and closed the door behind him before he set to trying to navigate his way through all the junk that the school staff had placed in it. More than once he got stuck, and more than once he had to backtrack, but eventually he managed to find the little nook that Ralph had stuffed himself into. However, he was also presented with two problems; waking him up and getting him out. Firstly, the wake up call was never a pleasant thing, because Ralph had this paranoia, which usually cause him to wound the person waking him up. Jack had forgotten this a few times, and as a result, Ralph had - on several occasions - broken his nose. The getting him out part wasn't looking like it would be much better, honestly, with the small space he'd crawled into. Roger was honestly surprised that he could even fit in there in the first place.

Innuendos aside, Roger sighed warily before leaning forward and gingerly shaking the sleepy, swingy blonde's shoulder. As if on que, Ralph startled and sat up, looking as if he were going to beat the living daylights out of whatever it was that- Oh, it was just Roger. "Uhh… Hi." was all Ralph could manage, still a bit spooked from being woken up. Damnit, Nathan! Roger raised an eyebrow in question, but remained silent for a moment, taking in the sleepy, twitchy, frightened mess in front of him. "That rough, huh?" Roger sighed, sitting down outside of the small nook. Ralph grimaced and nodded slowly, pulling his knees up to his chest once again. "I hate how he decides he can just go around announcing things like that to everyone…" Ralph sighed, resting his cheek against his knee caps.

Roger laughed quietly and nodded in agreement, knowing something akin to the wrath of (1). "At least he didn't go and blurt out who it was." Roger pointed out. Oh, how he wished he hadn't done that. Ralph snorted and hid his face in his knees and mumbled something along the lines of, "He might as well have,". Either that, or he was requesting a ham, in which case, Roger was shit out of luck. "If he had it would have probably taken more than three hours to find you." Roger said. Again, he wished that he hadn't said that either. God, he was bad at this whole 'comfort' thing. Ralph looked up, mortified, and shook his head violently. "Three hours?" he snapped, turning back to Roger.

Why was it always him that got to deal with Ralph's PMSing? "Uh… Yes?" Wrong answer. Again. Ralph buried his face in his knees once more and - if the shuddering didn't give it away - gave into the water works. Fuck. "Ralph." Roger sighed. If it was scary waking Ralph up, calming him down was a different nightmare all on its own.

Simon was, undeniably, lost. Not a little, but so much that he'd completely forgotten which way he'd come from and which way he'd gone. "Uh oh…" he said, biting his lip before wandering to the window, and… He still didn't know where he was the never ending expanse of the school grounds, lush and green as ever, but no landmarks of any sort. Oh no… He was lost. In the school… In a creepy hallway… Alone. For a moment Simon stilled and took in a deep breath to calm himself, but a large sound of something crashing caused him to bolt down the hallway and away from the window at a breakneck speed. Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh!

A/N: that's all for now! Thanks for reading~

Please review!

(1) I had to come up with a last name, it was driving me bonkers!