They'd finally gotten Jack out of the house; apparently he was staying for a while, Bill didn't know, all he knew was that Jack was out looking for things and Ralph was okay with him again and they were alone. It was basically a fantastic situation.

Except for the fact that Jack could walk back in at any second.

But Bill wasn't going to think about that.

They sat on opposite ends of the couch, looking awkwardly at each other. They'd ended up wandering around a lot yesterday, waiting for the police to get out of their house – even now, Ralph's room was blocked off – but they hadn't really been able to talk to each other because of Jack. Bill cleared his throat.

"So," he said. "I'm sorry. For not telling you about the…"

"The fact that you tried to murder me?" Ralph asked. Bill darkened.

"Yeah," he said. "That. I just figured that it… it didn't matter anymore, you know? It was five years ago, and since you didn't remember straight off…"

"You tried to murder me. That's kind of a big deal." Oh no. Ralph was starting to freak out. Bill was going to screw this up and Ralph was finally okay with him. Damn it. "It's not just something you forget. It's something you have years of nightmares about. It's something that causes you not to trust anyone, ever again. And then you came along and you were so fucking perfect and I went with it and it turned out you were one of the guys that tried to kill me!"

Ralph was yelling now. Bill didn't know what to do. "No, Ralph-" Ralph turned on him, and Bill swallowed. "Look, I- I'm sorr-"

"It doesn't matter if you're sorry or not!" Ralph swept everything off of their coffee table and onto the floor. Bill was glad there wasn't anything breakable on it. "It doesn't matter because you tried to KILL me! DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON? BAD PEOPLE KILL OTHER PEOPLE. THAT'S HOW IT WORKS, BILL. YOU'RE JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER FUCKING SAVAGES. YOU GAINED MY TRUST AND SUDDENLY JACK SHOWS UP AND THEN IT TURNS OUT ROGER AND POSSIBLY MAURICE SNUCK INTO MY ROOM TO MURDER THAT STUPID LITTLEUN!"

Bill was taken aback. "Um," he said.

Ralph grabbed onto the front of his shirt. "Shut up! Don't even try to defend yourself! You know it's your fault! It's all your fault!"

"How is it my fault?" Bill asked softly, trying to keep cool. He placed his hands over Ralph's, trying to stop shaking. Ralph really was angry.

"Why weren't you chief? I asked."

Five Years Earlier, on The Island

"Bill? Can I talk to you?"

Bill glanced up from his game of 'avoid littleuns because they're the most annoying things on the planet and don't stop crying' with Robert. Ralph stood in front of him. Weirdly enough, he looked almost… nervous. Bill didn't know why someone like Ralph would be nervous.

"Okay," Bill said, shrugging and leaving Robert alone. The two walked alone in the trees for a while. Bill noticed that he was now a bit taller than Bill. He'd passed Maurice a while back, and was catching up with Jack as well. He did like this 'growing' thing.

"I don't think I'm a good chief," Ralph admitted. Bill blinked.

"You're a good chief… don't tell Jack I said that, though," Bill grinned. "He gets mad whenever you're mentioned."

"Jack doesn't like me," Ralph muttered. "Neither does Roger, I think."

"Roger doesn't like anyone," Bill said, rolling his eyes. "And what does it matter if Jack likes you or not? He's stupid, anyway. And his voice is changing, so he can't even sing high c anymore."

This caused Ralph to laugh, and Bill was happy that he was able to make Ralph laugh. "But… you're older, right? I mean…"

"I'm thirteen, yeah," Bill said, shifting from foot to foot.

"Will you be chief?" Ralph asked, grabbing onto Bill's hand with both of his. Bill turned bright red. "Please? I think that… that if I keep doing this much longer Jack will try to take over, and I don't think he'd be a good chief."

"Sorry," Bill said, pulling away and walking away through the trees. "You've got the wrong guy. I could never be chief. Ask someone else."

Present Day

It seemed that Ralph was remembering more about life on The Island. Bill wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Why didn't you?" Ralph asked.

"I would've made a horrible chief," Bill said, wondering if it was too soon to kiss Ralph and then deciding that he was just going to go for it anyway. He put a hand on the back of Ralph's neck and reached up to kiss him. He tried to be as soft and gentle as he could; he didn't want Ralph flipping out. Ralph's hands tightened briefly, but then he relaxed and sunk down, letting his knees rest on the floor. Bill had to bend down a bit to keep in contact with him.

Ralph broke away from him. "You would've made a better chief than I ever was," he said. He looked like he was going to cry, but didn't want to. "I screwed everything up."

"No," Bill said. He felt awkward; not only was their positioning awkward, but he didn't know how to handle Ralph when he was like this. "You did the best you could. We were just kids. We didn't really know what we were doing. It all just got out of hand."

Ralph stood up, grabbing Bill's hand and pulling him up, too. They stood, face to face, Ralph searching Bill's face for something that Bill probably didn't have.

Eventually, Ralph took off Bill's sunglasses and threw them on the couch. Bill stared, wide-eyed, at Ralph. Ralph managed a sort-of smile.

"I want to kiss you," he said. "But that's wrong."

"It's not wrong," Bill said. "I want to kiss you, too."

"Then what's stopping us?" Ralph said. "We'll go up to your room, and lock the door in case Jack comes back early. We'll get over this stupid 'you tried to murder me thing', because it's just stupid. And we'll do whatever the fuck we want because we're young and don't care what anyone else thinks. We'll be happy and together and we'll never think about R-roger or Maurice or anyone else ever again. Once we finish up school we'll move somewhere else where nobody knows us or any of this whole deal and we'll be happy. Happy."

"Sure," Bill said, aware that he was throwing his life away for this fucked-up, skinny, teenage boy. He didn't particularly care.

They went up to their room and, true to Ralph's word, locked the door. As soon as Bill turned around from locking the door, Ralph pulled him close and kissed him, pulling him onto the bed.

Well.

Ralph wasn't wasting any time.

The first kiss was long, and sweet, and beautiful, but then Ralph picked up the pace and kissed Bill's lips and jaw and neck and wow, he was good at this. Bill tried to return the favor as much as he could, and soon they were moving quickly, trying to please the other as well as they could, their legs tangled and shirts off and Bill's jeans were looking like they were going to join them soon.

Ralph was taking control of this one, kissing him and nipping at his skin and Bill would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy this.

Someone knocked on the door.

Ralph paused.

"Fuck off!" Bill yelled. "Jack, I know it's you!"

"Fine," Jack muttered, and they heard his footsteps walk away. Ralph turned his attention back to Bill, kissing him on the lips; a deeper kiss than they'd ever had before, mouths open, Ralph's tongue sliding into Bill's mouth while his hands worked at undoing his jean button. Bill's hands tangled in Ralph's hair and he barely held back a moan when Ralph pushed his jeans down and stuck his hand into Bill's underwear.

"Shit," Bill hissed. "Shit, shit, shit."

Ralph worked between Bill's legs with his hand while Bill tried very hard not to lose control over himself.

Control was overrated, anyway.


i don't know how I feel about this chapter but it's been a while hi