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Cowardice	By : saucyminion Category: G through L > Lord of the Flies Views: 17461 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Flies, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 19
- 20
…And she FINALLY slaps on an ending, even though she hasn’t read the book in nearly four years.
A brief explanation: I have a busy life; I pass out pretty frequently. Hope I’m not the only one who can relate to this chapter in that regard.
Thanks so much for staying with this. class=GramE>Means a lot to me. I’ll write something better soon and post more often for it so whatever that thing may be, do check it out :)
Love, Saucy

Part 20 – Nothing Brave or w:st="on">Normal II

It was, to put it simply, a difficult morning. Ralph wanted so badly to sleep the day into history and Jack was doing nothing but pushing him out the door since he opened his eyes to the dawn.
They ate cold cereal in silence. Ralph was nauseous and frozen and he saw that Jack was hardly touching his food either. There were so many thoughts churning inside his head and feelings of dread swimming in his belly that it filled him completely until Ralph could take nothing else in. When Jack left the table and went to get their coats, Ralph could not move at first.
It was already past noon when they were leaving and Ralph couldn’t remember eating lunch or speaking more than a few sentences. Everything was slipping out of his grasp and Jack was steering him along a terrifying path into semi-consensual emotional paralysis. Ralph was in Jack’s hands and he felt weak and frightened, but conversely it felt safe because he knew that Jack was a powerful man.
When they kissed that morning, Ralph felt nothing.
Too soon, they were in the car. They were driving to a small airport in a rural town that Ralph had never heard of.
style='mso-tab-count:1'> “But I am a boy.” Ralph wasn’t sure if he was really talking. “But style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>you’re not a boy, are you. You’ve got a mansion… a business… a pool… a fiancée… you’re a big grown up now, mister, yes, all grown up…”
Jack tugged frightfully at Ralph’s hand and wiped the sand from his forehead. “It’s not possible you have a concussion, is it? Oh god…” He pulled. “Try again… class=GramE>stand up… I’ll help you…”
Ralph found his feet and he considered protesting when Jack pulled him in close for balance and comfort but the cool breeze from the water drove him into the warmth of Jack’s body. He opened his eyes a crack and saw the fading sunlight dancing against the strands of Jack’s red hair up close. Touching it, Ralph could feel Jack’s fingers combing through his hair, too, taking the sand out.
“Where are we,” Ralph heard himself mumble. Even as he asked he knew that his conscious awareness of reality was only just returning and hoped that Jack was familiar with the feeling of coming to grips after being unconscious.
“Just take a few breaths,” Jack encouraged.
Ralph tried to remember. He remembered riding in the jet and how unexpectedly safe and steady it felt. He remembered landing and not wanting to leave the plane or look out the windows or open his eyes. He remembered arguing about something… being alone on the beach.
“I fainted,” Ralph managed to articulate.
Jack laughed softly; breathily. “I know. I was afraid you might have heat stroke.”
Ralph closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Jack. He could feel the fingers in his hair still and he was pretty sure that the sand was all gone. “This shouldn’t feel as nice as it does right now, being with you, here.”
Jack said nothing. He must have thought that Ralph was slightly delirious. And maybe he was.
Ralph kept his eyes closed, not ready to face the rocks and water and trees again quite yet. But when his senses came flooding back to him, despite some deep emotional tremors in his body, he accepted it all.
Fear was there and he had been expecting it since the prospect of the journey. Ralph welcomed the fear. The boy who was once the object of his fear had become the object of his comfort and, with his arms wrapped tightly around Jack’s warm, tender body, he knew he had nothing tangible to run from anymore. There was no reason. Sadness and remorse were still lurking in his heart and there was nothing he could do about that. Nothing good would come from forgetting the destructive tragedy in his past. People who tried to erase their history erased a part of themselves, though fear really was becoming obsolete very quickly in Jack’s arms.
“Are you alright?” Jack asked, wiping his hand across Ralph’s damp forehead. “You hit your head on something. God…” His fingers worked through Ralph’s hair, looking for bumps, or maybe blood.
“No, I didn’t, I’m fine.” He looked down the expanse of the beach, examining the delicate curve of sand that disappeared into the trees, rocks, water and sky. The island felt like its own tiny, round planet, and unreal like a picture. “Where’s the plane?” he asked casually, feeling ignorant for not being able to remember. His head was still spinning a little bit.
“But we’ve only just arrived. You don’t have to be afraid, it’s not going anywhere.”
“I know.” He breathed deeply and tore his eyes away from the scene around them and placed his gaze on Jack’s face.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m not afraid. You don’t have to fuss.”
Jack looked like he wanted to say something but just continued to examine Ralph.
Ralph stepped away from Jack then. The sand was very soft and yielding under his shoes. He thought about taking his shoes off and feeling the sand against his bare feet. But maybe clams, too. And maybe bones.
No. None of that.
His shoes stayed on regardless.
Out of Jack’s arms, the soft breeze encased Ralph’s body. He felt alarmingly comfortable. “Are you alright?”
Jack nodded. “Yes,” he lied.
Ralph shook his head. His memory was returning and he was feeling empowered. There was something perversely self-strengthening in the weakness of others. He now knew how he must have been making Jack feel. “Don’t look at me. Turn around. Look at the forest. Look at the water. Don’t look at me, Jack. I’m fine. Look.” He stretched out his arms and looked out past the fingertip of his left hand to a familiar rocky hill hovering just out of his grasp. “We’re here. This is what you wanted.”
“You’re ok?” Jack said vaguely, glancing over Ralph’s shoulder, examining the forest behind him, as directed. “Are you sure? You fainted.”
“It was the sun,” Ralph said only as he realized it. “And getting onto flat land after the plane ride and you know I haven’t eaten or slept much. Now I feel…” He took in his surroundings. In the smell of the forest, the wild flowers and the salty water there was none of the expected, sour aroma in the air. The whole island had a peaceful silence that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not equate with lifelessness. The colours were not incredible but there was no dankness to the place. It was an ordinary sort of pretty. Jack’s back yard was more exotic. “I don’t feel anything. But it’s very nice here.”
“And you think that feeling nothing makes you ok?”
“Would you rather I was a wreck so that you could distract yourself with me instead of facing what’s obviously difficult for you to confront? All around you?” Was it even a question? Was it an accusation? He felt that waking up from his little spell in the sand had somehow focused his thoughts. The day felt new. They had been on the island for only 10 minutes. He remembered that now.
Jack stared at him blankly. “Ralph, don’t talk like that.”
Ralph was suddenly caught off guard by what he saw. He was startled. They had stood there before. He could see the rocky crest over Jack’s right shoulder and the sun blazing over his left. He’d seen this picture, but now the face was older and different. What were they talking about the last time they were here?
“How do you want me to talk?” Ralph asked finally, composing his thoughts. He forced his hands onto his hips, and then let them fall to his sides. “You know I didn’t want to come here and now that we’re here I’m a little disappointed that I’m not feeling any sort of loss or closure or whatever it is you thought we were coming here for. So what do you want to do here then? Talk? Listen? Watch? Sit? Stand? What?” But he had felt something. Just a moment ago. He wasn’t certain what it was, but it was the most vivid memory he’d ever experienced. It must have been déjà vu. It meant nothing.
Jack opened his mouth but no words came out.
“Are we paying respect to the dead?” Ralph continued anxiously. “Because their bodies are gone now. Do you believe in spirits? Do you want to have a séance?” Ralph ran his fingers through his hair. He could feel his blood pumping and wondered if there was something in the air he hadn’t been able to identify. Maybe he was affected. He felt different. “Just tell me what we’re doing. We could at least make sand castles while we’re at the beach. I feel like this is a big waste of time.” He told himself to stop talking. His emotions were running away from him and he knew it. He wasn’t making a point. He was simply arguing.
Jack cackled. “Waste of your time? Your time? And what is it that you plan on doing with your precious time, other than collecting dust and handouts? Have you considered the sacrifices I’ve been making for the past few days to be with you? I’m not the kind of man who has time to talk or fuck or go to the beach, I can’t believe you said that…”
“Man? You’re not even twenty. You’re a little boy playing dress up in his daddy’s business suit.” Ralph meant it but it was only a piece of a fragmented thought. He knew what they were both saying was wrong but he didn’t know how to stop. He felt vulnerable in such dangerously familiar territory, as pretty as it was. All of his defences were up.
Jack’s eyes blazed. “I have a lot of really important things I could be doing with my time right now, but I’ve been trying to set that aside. Just don’t talk to me about time. You don’t know how I value my time.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes as if something was amusing to him. “For some mixed up reason you’re more valuable right now, which is inconvenient to me.”
“Don’t talk about inconvenience now, I never asked for your hospitality.” Ralph swallowed hard. He didn’t know what he could say anymore that wouldn’t bite at Jack. “What are we doing here,” he reiterated, choosing to disregard everything Jack had said.
“I don’t know!” Jack turned away for a moment, trying to compose himself, but didn’t give himself the opportunity before he turned back to Ralph. “I don’t know anything! I can never make a plan. I can’t follow through on one bloody thing in my life. I thought this was a good, mature, responsible choice. But you’re right, I’m just a child in my father’s business suit, you’re not lying, it’s the truth. I thought it was a good decision because it was so hard. I thought maybe… maybe this could change me. I thought maybe something would come out of it. But I don’t know what! And then y-you… you hop off the jet and faint and you’re telling me I’ve got some kind of problem. Give me a second to breathe this in! That’s all I want! Stop questioning me and stop being so critical and try to just… just for a moment show that you trust that I’ve done something right. For a reason. There has to be at least one person who thinks I can do something for the right reason, and I really hoped that it could be you.” He walked a few paces toward the water and sat defiantly in the sand.
Ralph stared down at the man on the beach. He noted that Jack was still not looking at the island. With a defeated sigh, Ralph trudged over beside Jack and sat next to him, casually placing an arm around his shoulders.
Jack was stiff.
“You’re right,” said Ralph. “This was a very adult choice.”
Jack still didn’t respond to Ralph’s arm but he didn’t move away. “You aren’t afraid at all?”
Ralph took a deep breath and exhaled with the gentle gust of wind that came up behind him and blew his hair across his cheeks and forehead. “Hardly,” he admitted, and it was the truth. “There’s nothing sinister about this place. It’s just like anyplace else. But you know what it reminds me of? The Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. I went there when I was very young.” He felt odd for bringing it up, but he trusted that he was going somewhere with it and kept talking. “It’s a huge graveyard, absolutely enormous. But it doesn’t feel any different being there than it does being anywhere else. It could be Hyde Park. You know it’s actually very popular to be buried at Pere-Lachaise. All the celebrities are doing it. Or did it, I should say. Anyway, it’s just a place. Full of death. And it’s still just a place.” He paused. Was it a bad metaphor? There was no response. “Did you know that somebody stole the penis from the statue on Oscar Wilde’s grave in the Pere-Lachaise?” He looked over at Jack, expecting to see a smile, but there was none. He’d crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on his forearms. He was looking out to the water, his eyes sparkling and moist. Ralph moved the arm from around Jack’s shoulders to stroke his back encouragingly. He tried not to look at his face because he didn’t want Jack to feel babied. He didn’t want to give him more attention than he needed.
“I feel so afraid,” he said. “I know why I did everything I did. I thought that I could come here and see things through new eyes. And I have changed a great deal.”
“I know…”
“Aside from you, everything here looks the same. It’s just how I remembered it. I haven’t changed as much as I’d hoped. I still know why I did what I did. I think I would do it again.”
Ralph wasn’t chilled by Jack’s words because of the grief in his voice. “Given what circumstances?”
Jack thought. And thought. Perhaps he hadn’t heard the question.
“Under no circumstances would you ever be in the same position again,” Ralph explained, “so you can’t say you’d do things the same, because you couldn’t. class=GramE>Because it can’t happen twice.”
Jack nodded into his crossed, defensive arms.
“Jack, it’s ok to be afraid of this.” He was explaining it to himself nearly as much as to Jack. “But you can’t regret it. All of this has made you who you are today and you shouldn’t take away anything that makes up a part of who you are.”
“Maybe I don’t like who I am today. I’m not a very good person. Maybe I would have been different if I was never in the position to hurt those boys so much. And w:st="on">Shannon, oh god… I don’t even know… I forced her to have class=GramE>an… abortion and now she’s so sick.” It sounded as if he could say the word louder than a hush for the first time. That brought certain other hush-words to Ralph’s mind. “I don’t know how it went wrong. It’s not supposed to go wrong… unless she made that up.” He paused. “You know, I think she made that up but either way, she doesn’t belong with me. But she style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>should belong with me, but I could be with you. Except… I’m with her…”
Ralph swallowed hard. “Do you think that you would be gay if you were never here and had never met me? I mean I never would have brought it all up or drank all your wine… and…” He stopped there. It was an awkward question without grace or modesty. He thought maybe that’s what Jack was getting at.
Jack almost recoiled at the question. “I told you before, I’m not gay. I don’t even like that word, it’s childish to use a silly code like that.” He swallowed. “I just need you. I care for you a great deal. And I don’t know what kind of question that is that you were asking me. I can’t understand you. But you have nothing to do with Shannon and I and how I feel about her… or how I don’t feel about her, for that matter.”
“I… I don’t know. I’m sorry. Ok.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s ok.” Jack lifted his head and looked into Ralph’s eyes. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’re here right now.”
The sincerity in his eyes was heart-wrenching and quite unexpected. For a moment, Ralph couldn’t speak.
“It’s a strange thought,” said Ralph finally, “But I half expected that this place wouldn’t even be here anymore. I thought it might have been sort of torn down like an old, vandalized building. Irreparable. class=GramE>A danger to the public.”
“Although it looks like it’s repaired itself just fine without our help.” Jack was finally looking back over his shoulder at the lush, green island. There were hardly any traces of fire.
“I suppose you’re right,” Ralph agreed.
Jack stood.
Ralph stood, following.
“I think we’re the only ones who have come back,” Jack observed, gazing out to the trees.
“It was a brave idea,” offered Ralph.
“No, it’s not that it was brave. It’s just nothing that normal people would bother subjecting themselves to. Rather, wasting their time with. You’re right. class=GramE>Big waste of time.” He began to walk toward the sloping hill across from the beach. There was a patch of black-eyed susans and daisies growing there. “And it really isn’t scary at all,” Jack realized, calling back to Ralph. “We are.” He knelt to pick some of the daisies from the base of their stems.
Ralph watched him from the sand. Jack was difficult to follow at times. He was beginning to learn this once more. “You’re not afraid then, after all?” He asked, stepping closer to where the sand met the grass.
Jack continued picking flowers with gentle selectivity and did not turn. “Not of this island.”
Ralph was quite certain he understood. Jack was afraid of himself. All the island did was remind him of all the reasons he had to be afraid of himself. It had sprouted new flowers since he’d left and replenished its leaves and grass. Jack surely felt he hadn’t grown enough in that time, and despite the damage done to the island, it thrived again. Behind his company and his woman, Jack only pretended to.
Ralph took several more steps toward Jack until he was standing right behind him. Approaching his friend, the shadow Ralph cast over Jack’s crouched body was so dark that he had to kneel down next to him so that he didn’t feel so oppressive, though he allowed himself a moment to relish the sensation.
“Would you ever hurt yourself?” Ralph asked, carefully.
Jack paused for a moment but didn’t look at Ralph. “Why would you ask me that?”
class=GramE>“Because you’re not afraid of this island. You know as well as I do that a place can’t be evil but that people can do evil things. You’re afraid of the people. If you still feel scared it’s either because you’re scared of me or you’re scared of yourself.” Ralph crossed his legs and placed his hand on Jack’s arm. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I think you know that by now.” He thought back to their episode in Jack’s kitchen and wondered why it felt like such a time had passed since then. In the same thought, he realized why Jack was picking flowers. They were for the owner of the former cat from the rainstorm. Jack mentioned he’d send her flowers.
Jack snapped the stem of a final daisy and added it to the bouquet in his hands. “I don’t want to hurt myself, no. But more importantly, I don’t want to hurt you.” He looked at Ralph. “It’s very easy for me to hurt people.” He inhaled deeply and straightened his nack in confidence. “So I don’t need this damned island to make me scared, I can do it just as well on my own time.”
Ralph had never met anyone with as much self-hatred and doubt as Jack. “You really wanted this trip to change you. You were depending on it.”
Jack’s nodded. His eyes were brimming with hopelessness beneath a thin shell of defiance. “Yes, I really was.”
Ralph shook his head. “Don’t. You’re alright.”
Jack looked him up and down for a second as if he was expecting to find some sort of condition. Oddly the statement held more weight than ‘you’re perfect’ or ‘you’re brilliant’. ‘Alright’ wasn’t impressive enough to be a lie.
Ralph knew this too, and there were no strings.
Jack tenderly let the bouquet drop from his hands back into the bed of wildflowers. He took Ralph’s face in his hands and kissed him warmly and more gently than he had ever kissed anyone.
Ralph felt as delicate as the wildflowers against his hand. He leaned into the kiss, crushing black-eyed susans beneath his palm for balance, making himself ready and weightless at Jack’s lips.
Jack parted and let his lips rest on Ralph’s cheeks as he spoke. “Would you like to go home now, Ralph?”
Ralph nodded. He was enfolded in a rich sense of belonging between Jack’s soft lips and the heat of the setting sun, with the vision of ‘home’ in their prospects. “Yes,” he replied. “Let’s go home now.”
This time it was easy. This time, together, they rescued themselves.
- 19
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Cowardice