Special Episode: Embers (Part I)
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Noah is walking as if in a dream. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he comes to a stop before Ralph.
Ralph hasn’t moved at all since Noah opened the door and came outside. He’s standing there frozen, staring at Noah.
Noah stares back at him, a whole lot of conflicting emotion storming in his heart.
Ralph hesitates, then slowly sits down on the moss-covered bench by the weeping willow. He puts his elbows on his knees and laces his fingers together between them, not looking at Noah.
Noah takes a deep breath, then drops to sit down next to him. He keeps his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his bomber jacket. Leaves a solid amount of space between himself and Ralph.
Ralph keeps his eyes on the green bed of the garden, while Noah stares straight ahead at the wall, his jaw tensed.
The two of them were best friends for twelve years. Brothers.
They spent almost every day and night together, that whole time. They used to be able to communicate hundreds of words with one raised eyebrow, one sidelong glance. Ralph has a stick-and-poke on his shoulder blade that Noah gave him, a little skull with flaming devil horns. Ralph came with Noah to get most of his ink, too. Helped him pick out a lot of his favorite designs. Their history is literally written out on the both of them.
They used to be able to sit next to each other, and to Noah, the feeling was like putting on a piece of clothing that he’d worn and loved so long that it had molded exactly to him. A specific, rare kind of perfect familiarity. Irreplaceable.
And now the silence between them is insanely tense and sharp, painfully uneasy. Noah can feel it crackling in the air between them like an invisible lightning storm. Ralph is sitting right there, his blonde head bowed, his fingers fidgeting with some leather bands around his wrist - and yet the distance between him and Noah feels fucking huge. Continental drift kind of huge.
They sit in silence for a good long while, not looking at each other.
The rain falls softly around them, dusting down through the tree boughs that open up to the night sky. The willow branches stir in the breeze behind Ralph and Noah, breathing out a quiet rustling sound.
Noah closes his eyes.
It was one hell of an effort to make himself show up for this. But he’d given it a lot of thought before he agreed to do it. He came to terms with the fact that he badly wants to know what Ralph has to say.
Noah spent twelve years of his life by Ralph’s side, and despite his best efforts, he can’t convince himself to let Ralph vanish into his past with nothing left resolved. With none of Noah’s questions answered.
Noah has to hear this. Even if the least likely outcome is that anything good comes from it. Even if the most likely outcome is that he gets hurt again. He would be wondering for the rest of his life, otherwise.
But - truth is, that’s not the only reason he decided to hear Ralph out. It’s not even the main reason, which is significantly more complicated, much more difficult for Noah to explain to himself in a way he can understand.
He isn’t sure what the hell has been going on with him, lately. He’s happy, things are fucking good. Better than good. Better than they’ve ever been. But something is eating at Noah, and has been for a while.
Used to be that whenever Noah’s thoughts drifted to Ralph, he’d either get pissed off or panicked. Not anymore, though. These days, thinking of Ralph fills Noah up with a weird, intense sense of loss. Of - emptiness. Feels like there’s a hollow place in him where something important should be.
It doesn’t make any fucking sense. There used to be a fire of fraternal love for Ralph that constantly burned white-hot in Noah’s heart, but Ralph slowly destroyed it, smothered it until it was a lifeless heap of ashes.
But. Somehow.
As of late, Noah feels like he’s finally swept away some of the ashes, and been startled as hell to find something still glowing at the center.
And since he found it there, he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. He can’t fucking help it, even though it makes him furious at himself for being so dumb. He keeps telling himself it’ll pass, but it hasn’t.
Noah misses Ralph.
Not the Ralph that put him through hell while Aiden was gone. Noah’s stupid, uncooperative goddamn heart has been reaching farther back than that. All the way back to when they were kids. The Ralph he knew back then.
Noah’s mind has repeatedly gone back to that one day after school, freshman year.
He was already running with Aiden, Ralph, and Grant by then, but it was the early days. Word hadn’t gotten around yet that Noah had become a mainstay of Aiden’s squad. And Noah toughened up fast after he started spending his days with them, but he hadn’t yet. Not by then.
To a lot of people, Noah still looked like an easy target.
He was walking home from school, and before he’d gone more than a few blocks, he attracted some unwanted attention. There was a group of bored sophomores hanging out not too far from campus. Looking for trouble, led by a nasty kid named Trevor. They started shouting insults at Noah, throwing balled-up food wrappers as he went by.
Noah made the mistake of talking back, and suddenly he was fleeing at a full sprint, racing to get away as a group of four bigger, older guys tore after him with gleeful violence in their eyes.
Aiden was out of town at an away game, but Ralph was around. Noah had only split up with him a few blocks back. He wrestled his phone out of his pocket and called Ralph as he ran, then gave him a shouted, frantic explanation of what was going on.
“Where are you going?” Ralph asked urgently, and Noah gasped out an answer.
“Got you,” Ralph said instantly. “Just come back to me, I’ve got you.”
Noah turned a corner and went flying back the direction he came, steadily running out of breath and losing speed. Bracing himself to get caught.
And then one of the guys chasing him went down hard, crashing onto the pavement. Ralph had stuck his foot out from around the corner of the building they were sprinting past, caught him with it.
The guy that Ralph tripped up got tangled with one of his friends as he went down, leaving them at two versus two.
Noah whipped around just in time to see Trevor wind up to throw a punch at his face. Ralph seized Noah by the back of his shirt, yanked him backwards, and - took the punch himself.
It was a brutal roundhouse right, but Ralph didn’t go down. Didn’t even let it throw him. He caught Trevor’s wrist before Trevor could draw his hand back or regain his balance.
Ralph wrenched Trevor forward - whipping himself out of the way as he did - then let him go. The combined force of the throw and Trevor’s own momentum sent Trevor staggering, flying backwards. He crashed against a bunch of metal trash cans, then groaned in pain, started cursing violently. The one goon still standing rushed forward to help him, and Ralph seized Noah’s wrist.
He and Noah didn’t stop running for a few blocks, just to be safe. But nobody came after them.
“Holy shit,” Ralph gasped, then pushed Noah back so he could look at him. “You okay, Noosh?”
Noah didn’t answer, only pressed his hands over his mouth, staring in wide-eyed dismay at Ralph. His nose was bleeding heavily, badly broken by the punch he took for Noah. Flecks of blood were scattered across his face like freckles.
Ralph looked Noah up and down, then let out a relieved little laugh, knuckled Noah’s cheek.
“Yeah, you’re okay,” he said, and threw an arm around Noah’s shoulders. “C’mon. I’ll walk with you.”
Noah set off with Ralph, speechless. Lost in an overwhelmingly powerful, red-hot wave of brotherly love that nearly burned him right through. It spread and deepened as Ralph walked Noah all the way home, even though his own bus stop was way in the opposite direction. Keeping his shirt pressed against his bleeding nose, laughing about their unexpected victory over Trevor and his goons.
Noah couldn’t stop staring at him. He was miles beyond impressed. Ralph was fucking fearless, even in the face of what should rightfully have crushed him.
“You’re a fucking dragon slayer, man,” Noah had said, looking at Ralph with open admiration, and Ralph laughed.
But Noah wasn’t joking. Ralph faced down the biggest, most impossible battles with his arms thrown wide and his head held high, ready for the fight. Noah respected the hell out of that.
That’s my brother, he thought proudly, his heart full of warmth.
Ralph wordlessly showed up to walk Noah to school the next day. Then he walked with him back home, after classes let out. He did that every day, until Aiden got back into town and had a chat with Trevor, who then never so much as looked at Noah ever again.
Aiden also taught Noah how to throw a good punch, and how to avoid one. By the time he was done, Noah could look out for himself, and then some.
But Noah never forgot for one second what Ralph did for him. Couldn’t have, even if he tried. Ralph didn’t have the money to see a doctor about his broken nose, so it healed with a little bump in the bridge.
Even when Ralph’s eyes started to grow colder and harder with each passing day, even when Noah couldn’t see the old version of Ralph in them anymore - Noah knew that he was in there. He could see it every day, right there on Ralph’s face. Hard proof that Ralph had that same fire in his heart for Noah.
Noah’s never went out, so he thought that Ralph’s couldn’t, either. That meant the person Ralph was before must still be in there, somewhere.
There were probably a thousand times when Noah desperately wanted to give Ralph’s own words back to him.
Where are you going? I’ve got you. Just come back to me, I’ve got you.
But that version of Ralph quietly slipped away. Got away from Noah, then disappeared completely.
And still, Noah couldn’t put out the hope in his heart.
That’s why Noah stuck around for so long. He wasn’t only waiting for Aiden to come back. In a way, he was waiting for Ralph to come back, too.
Jesus Christ. That’s why things are so different, seeing Ralph the way he is right now.
Noah’s had more than one run-in with Ralph since he permanently left the house, but none of them were like this. So unbearably tense that the two of them can’t even look at each other. Silence so painful that it’s fucking excruciating.
It’s different this time because Noah isn’t here with the version of Ralph he lived with at the house. He’s here with the version of Ralph that he was waiting for. Noah recognized him instantly, even after all this time. That’s what drew him all the way across the garden. He couldn’t fucking believe it. He thought this Ralph was never coming back.
And Ralph - he knows that he’s been recognized. In this moment, they’re both the people they were before everything got so fucked up. The two people who were tighter than anything, who did everything together, who were - brothers. And they’re both very aware of that.
But everything is so, so completely broken between them.
Even now, some voice in Noah - one he’s trying hard to ignore - is screaming at him that this could still be some kind of trap.
He’s going to say something awful, the voice warns Noah frantically. Get ready.
Ralph speaks suddenly and quietly, his knee doing a fast, nervous bounce. “How - how’ve you been, man?”
Noah keeps his eyes trained on the mossy garden wall straight ahead, measuring up how to answer.
“Good,” he says stiffly, after a moment. “Getting married soon.”
A silent second passes, and then Ralph sharply turns his head to look at Noah, blinking very fast. Noah doesn’t face him, but he feels Ralph’s eyes drop to the ring on his finger.
“To who?”
“Melanie.” Noah bites the inside of his cheek, then adds, all in a rush - “And Raj.”
Ralph draws back. “What - both of them? You got two fiancés?”
Noah nods uneasily, bracing himself for the reaction. “Yep.”
Ralph turns away and shakes his head, his eyes wide. Then he startles the hell out of Noah by letting out a soft laugh that doesn’t sound taunting or mocking at all. Just a little dazed.
“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?” he says.
Noah blinks hard at the garden wall, thrown to find himself seconds away from letting out a startled laugh of his own. He bites it back, feeling bewildered.
“Wait a sec,” Ralph says slowly. “Raj, too - so, you - you and Aiden both…?”
“No. Aiden is bisexual, and I’m-” Noah struggles for a second, trying to remember the word. He wrote it down somewhere, but words have never been his thing - no, he’s got it. “Panromantic.”
He still hasn’t let himself look at Ralph, so he can’t see any reaction that might be showing on his face. And Ralph doesn’t say anything for a long moment, which instantly builds up a burst of defensive anxiety in Noah.
“Got something to say, Ralph?”
“No. Except I guess that I’m not totally surprised by any of this. Didn’t see it coming, but I’m not surprised.”
Noah’s eyebrows furrow. “You’re not?”
“Nah.” Ralph stuffs his hands back into his pockets, turning his face away from Noah. “Your capacity for love is - like - gigantic, man.”
Silence falls over them again. Noah is completely lost, thrown all the way off. Just what the fuck is happening, right now? None of this is what he expected - this is all the opposite of what he expected.
Ralph expands that feeling dramatically when he takes a deep breath, then says, in a rough voice -
“Noah… if you want to yell at me, or whatever, you can. I’m sure you’ve got some shit you want to say. I’m - I’m not gonna stop you. Promise I won’t get mad, either.”
Noah finally looks at him. He hesitates, instinctively scanning Ralph for any of the familiar danger signals. Any hint of menace behind his words. He can’t see Ralph’s face to read his expression, but after all this time, he doesn’t really need that.
He comes up empty.
Noah bites his lip, fighting with himself. He didn’t come here to yell at Ralph. He planned to listen in silence until Ralph was done saying whatever he had to say. But now that Ralph said that…
The hurt and anger in Noah swell up, pressing hard against his ribs. They’ve ached for release for a real long time, and he can feel them pushing their way up faster than he can stop them.
“Ralph,” he begins, in a quiet, seething voice. “What the fuck?”
Ralph swallows, turns his face further away.
“Do you even know,” Noah goes on, unable to stop himself, “How far away I had to get from you before I even realized what you were doing to me? I didn’t even know who I was anymore, by the time I got away - and some of that was because I literally barely recognized myself in the fucking mirror, you blew out my eye so bad.”
Ralph doesn’t answer. Doesn’t lift his head. He’s taken his hands from his pockets, and he’s holding tightly to the bench.
“Do you know that Jamie kinda gently tried to ask me if that was the first time it happened?” Noah points at his eye. His words are coming out rushed and broken with hurt, and he’s almost yelling, but he can’t make himself slow down. “That’s the kind of relationship people thought we had, Ralph! They think that this, the punch, is why I’m scared of you. Do any of them even know how powerful you actually are, the real scale of the business? They don’t even know what I’ve been afraid I had after me this whole fucking time!”
Noah has to stop for a staggering breath. Something is welling up in his throat, making his eyes water.
“You were so mean to me, every fucking day,” he stammers, his voice suddenly hoarse and scraping. “You had to provoke me, and play me, and just - slash right through everything I tried to fucking give you. And you know what? I’m not even mad, anymore. I’m just sad as hell, Ralph, because we had something that was special, it - it was-”
Noah stops again, struggling to get a grip on himself. Ralph still hasn’t said a word.
“You never listened to me when I told you how unhappy I was,” Noah rasps. “You’re even doing it right now, you won’t even look at me while I’m… Ralph. Look at me. Could you please just fucking look at m-?”
Ralph turns his head to look at Noah. Their eyes meet, and Noah stops dead, shocked into silence.
He instantly forgets whatever it was he was saying. His heartbeat slows down, then stops. He stares at Ralph in stunned, wide-eyed disbelief. He can’t help it.
In all of his years of knowing Ralph, Noah can’t think of one time he’s ever seen him cry.
Ralph winces, then looks away again. Wretchedly pushes a hand through his blonde hair, then swipes his sleeve over his cheeks.
“That’s why I didn’t want to look at you,” he says, in a raw, rasping voice. “You should get to do this. It’s your right. And I knew that you were gonna stop as soon as you saw.”
Noah is still thunderstruck. It takes him a second to process what Ralph said, and another few to come up with an answer. “How the fuck did you know that?”
“Because.” Ralph shrugs helplessly, his wet eyes flitting back to Noah’s face. “You can’t make yourself hurt me, Noah. You just can’t. Even when you try.”
“What - that’s not true.” Noah glares at Ralph, then runs a hand over his tattooed knuckles. “Swung back when you hit me, didn’t I?”
“You missed. Barely glanced me. Shredded up your own knuckles, and nearly broke your own thumb.” Ralph lets out a soft, pained laugh. “Even then, you couldn’t hurt me, huh? You hurt yourself instead.”
“I made a mistake,” Noah answers, indignant. “I didn’t fucking do it on purpose.”
“No?” Ralph lets out a heavy breath. “I know that you know better than to have your thumb in your fist for the punch, Noah. That was the first time we threw one at each other, but we’ve been in a scrimmage or two together. Never saw you make that mistake before. Never seen you miss, either.”
Noah stares at Ralph, then slowly turns away, his head spinning.
It’s true. He’s never made that mistake before. He actually prides himself on being a first-class brawler, the best in the group besides Aiden. He knows exactly how to throw a punch and not fuck it up.
He experimentally makes a fist in his pocket. His thumb moves automatically to lock over his knuckles, forming a perfect battleax. Exactly the way Aiden taught him.
Noah sinks into a daze as the truth of the situation dawns on him. In the rapidfire storm of thoughts that flashed through his brain after Ralph slugged him, his body must have taken orders that he didn’t realize he’d given it. Rendered the punch ineffective even before he threw it.
Noah steals a sidelong glance at Ralph, in total disbelief. How the fuck did he figure that shit out? Noah didn’t even realize until right now.
He’s never understood the way Ralph does that. He can solve a whole puzzle if you hand him one fucking piece.
Out of nowhere, Noah is dangerously close to tears.
“See, man?” he stammers, his hoarse voice breaking. “You know I’m not smart like you, how - how could you do all that to me? You knew I wouldn’t know what you were doing…”
Ralph freezes for a second, and then his expression collapses. He closes his eyes and drops his head, presses his palms over his eyes. He takes in a jagged, unsteady breath.
“Oh, god, Noah,” he whispers, so quietly that Noah has to lean closer to hear him. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You - what?” Noah draws back sharply, his overworking heart struggling to keep up. “The fuck did you just say, dude?”
“First of all, you are smart,” Ralph says, firmly and forcefully. He drops his hands from his eyes, then looks right into Noah’s. “I know I did everything to make you feel like that isn’t true, but it is. I was trying to keep you from arguing with me about shit, or thinking that you knew better than me. But you are smart, okay? Doesn’t fucking matter one bit that you don’t know big words, or whatever. You’re - better at other languages. Ones that I’m fucking awful at, by the way.”
Noah can only stare at Ralph, struck speechless.
“French?” he asks faintly, after a long moment.
“Wh-? No, not-” Ralph blinks at Noah, then shakes his head, something warm and affectionate flooding his eyes. “No, man. Not French.”
Noah opens his mouth, and no words come out. He turns to stare wide-eyed at the garden, vaguely wondering if any of this is really happening.
Ralph takes a deep breath.
“This is part of why I wanted to talk to you, Noah.” He’s speaking in a strangled, rough-edged voice, like every word is costing him massive amounts of effort. “I know that forgiveness doesn’t come cheap for the kind of shit I’ve done, and I get it, if for you this talk is about - closure, and then that’s it.”
A tear escapes halfway down Ralph’s cheek, and he rushes to swipe it away on his sleeve.
“But I don’t want you going around thinking any of that stuff I put in your head is true. Can’t live with that. Especially because - a lot of what I put on you was just my own shit, my own insecurities, so. I know exactly how fuckin’ bad it feels.”
Noah struggles hard for a second before he can come up with any words. “Like what?”
“Like…” Ralph winces, wrapping his fingers tightly around his wristbands. “You know how I was always making you feel like no one really wanted you there? That we were just putting up with you, letting you tag along because you had something to offer, and that you could get cut at any minute?”
Noah lets out a sharp, hurt exhale. “Yeah, I know.”
Ralph nods slowly, and Noah stops still, taking in the pained expression in his sage-green eyes. There’s a meaningful silence, and then Noah breaks his gaze away, startled.
“Oh,” he says, more softly.
He doesn’t even know where to start with processing that. That one’s going to take him a while.
Ralph is twisting his fingers together, determinedly keeping his eyes off of Noah.
“Truth is, we all wanted you around, man,” Ralph blurts out suddenly, his words rushed and stumbling. “Me included. Not one of your good qualities was lost on me, believe me. That was exactly the - you were this fucking little ball of sunshine in our lives, and I couldn’t see how anyone would want to keep hanging out with the storm cloud. Least of all how you would. The whole reason I did all that shit to keep you at the house was - was to keep you. I - didn’t think you’d stay, if I didn’t.”
Noah can’t find a single thing to say. If what Ralph just said is true - well, that fucking changes things. It changes things a lot.
It means that Ralph was lying when he said that Noah didn’t mean anything to him, for one thing. That alone would be enough to knock Noah on his ass, but then there was everything else, too.
His heart can barely keep up. His inner geography is going through a serious earthquake, the entire landscape moving around on him. Suddenly the layout looks completely different.
There’s a long, deep silence. The rain flurries softly down onto Ralph and Noah, swaying the branches of the weeping willow. Ralph drops his gaze to his wristbands, a wet strand of blonde hair tumbling down over his eye.
“How could you think I wouldn’t stay, Ralph?” Noah finally manages. “You honestly didn’t realize why I never left?”
“No.” Ralph sounds deadly serious. “I honestly didn’t. I thought you were only staying because I was keeping you there.”
“Nah, you don’t mean that.” Noah shakes his head firmly, turning away from Ralph again. “I don’t believe you. Ain’t no fucking way.”
Ralph leans forward and catches Noah’s eye, then nods his head. A tiny movement, but the sincerity of it hits Noah with force.
Noah stares at him, nearly in tears all over again, his heart breaking. “What - but - how…? How?”
Ralph bites his lip, his gaze dropping from Noah’s again. It’s a long moment before he answers.
“Aiden said that he thinks I went too long without any love. Forgot how to show it, and - how to see it.” Ralph’s eyes very briefly flit to Noah, then dart away immediately. “I think he’s right, ‘cause at some point I just - started to think it was something that only happened to other people. Not me, even if - even if I wanted it really badly. And I believed that so much, I just couldn’t see how either of you would feel about me the way that I - felt about you…”
Blinking hard and fast, Ralph falters into silence.
Noah doesn’t break it. He’s shaken to his core, light years beyond stunned by what Ralph is saying to him. Just the fact that he’s saying it at all, out loud, right to Noah’s face… The highest voltage shock Noah’s ever taken didn’t fuck him up half as badly as this.
Noah somehow pulls it together enough to choke out another question.
“Then why - why were you so mean to me, before you felt like you had to do it to keep me at the house?”
Ralph presses his lips together and closes his eyes, his head dropping again. He looks - ashamed. Another expression Noah can’t recall seeing on him in the last twelve fucking years.
“I was afraid that you were going to come between me and Aiden,” he says slowly, every word rough as sandpaper. “You were this - super sweet guy with a heart big enough for anything, and I was this angry, pissed off, like - I thought that Aiden would decide he didn’t need to keep me around, if he had you.”
Ralph breathes out a heavy exhale, his cheeks red with obvious humiliation.
“I got - scared. Took it out on you, even though it wasn’t your fault. Not on Aiden, because I was afraid of what might happen. And you always - rallied so well, afterwards, you were so patient, stuck with me no matter what I…”
Ralph cringes with his whole face, guilt flooding his expression. He turns his face away from Noah, then adds, very quietly -
“I know how fucking awful that sounds, but - you don’t know how lonely I was, man. I was trying to survive, I - I couldn’t afford to lose a brother.”
There’s a short, painful silence as Noah absorbs that.
“So, you - you-” Noah’s eyes fill up again, and he blinks hard, fighting back the tears. “You were willing to sacrifice me, to keep Aiden?”
Ralph twists sharply to look at Noah, startled and alarmed.
“No, no no no-” He stops, taking a staggering, hasty breath. “That wasn’t how I saw it, Noah. Way I saw it, if I lost Aiden to you, then - I lost you to him, too, right? We all know who made the final decisions about who ran with the crew. And you and Aiden, you guys were so important to me, you were my lifelines, you have no idea what losing either of you would have done to me, much less b-”
Ralph breaks off abruptly, runs a hand over his face, and swallows hard. Once again, he can’t seem to look at Noah.
Noah is sitting there in dazed disbelief, overwhelmed in all kinds of different ways.
“It wasn’t as - calculated, back then, either,” Ralph adds, after a minute or so of silence. “I was just so angry. And I’ve been letting that control me for way too fucking long.”
Noah looks at Ralph searchingly. Ralph hesitates, winds his fingers around his wristbands, then meets Noah’s eyes.
“But I - I’ve finally made peace with what was making me angry.” He’s speaking slowly, haltingly - earnestly. “I’m trying my best. I’m not treating people like that no more. Especially not you. Never again.”
Noah is struck to the core by the sudden lightning flash of hope he sees move through Ralph’s eyes. He freezes, wide-eyed, pretty sure he’s been bulldozed as much as he can be for one day -
“And I - I miss you, man,” Ralph forges on, still staring right into Noah’s eyes, his voice breaking. “Every fucking day, and so fucking much. You have no fucking clue how sorry I am, how much I wish that we… that there was anything I could do to…”
Ralph trails off again, his hands trembling. Noah stares at Ralph, just stares and stares.
Something comes rushing back into Noah’s heart in one powerful sweep. Unchanged, like it only stepped outside for a minute. It’s warm and overwhelming and it misses something that’s gone so much and so deeply that it almost hurts. It nearly wrenches a sob up into Noah’s throat.
He hastily turns away from Ralph. His eyes roam all over the moonlit garden, but see nothing. He’s afraid to take a breath, to let that sound escape his mouth. He feels that gaping hole in his heart hard, right now. A tear rolls down his cheek and lands on his bomber jacket, mercifully blending in with the rain.
Ralph drops his gaze back to the wristbands, which he twines tight around his fingertips.
“Understand if you don’t feel that way,” he says, his fragile voice only just above a whisper. “Really, I do. There’s no excuse for what I did. Honestly, I’m just glad that I didn’t - hurt you beyond repair. Even if I don’t fucking get how that can be the case. I’ve got serious admiration for your strength, man. I just wish you never had to use it for this.”
Noah closes his eyes, sincerely concerned about how much his heart can cope with in the span of one fucking conversation.
Ralph seems to sense that. He bites his lip, lets silence fall for a minute. Silence so deep that the feather-light raindrops seem loud.
Ralph shuts his eyes, his knee bouncing again.
“Really, Noah. If you’re through with me, I get it. I would expect nothing less, after the shit I’ve done. Maybe it’s selfish of me to even ask for another chance, at this point. I’ll - I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want.” Ralph stops, takes a deep, shaky breath. “But in my heart, you’re always gonna be my brother. And if you ever decide you want to call me, if you ever need me for anything - I promise I’ll pick up the phone.”
Ralph gives Noah a moment, but Noah can’t answer. He’s reeling way, way too hard.
Ralph nods slowly, then gets to his feet. Noah gets up, too, automatically ready to leave with him. Then he stops, realizing that they came here separately, and that they’ll be going separately.
They both stand there for a moment, not looking at each other, the rain dusting down onto them through the overhanging branches.
This is technically where they should say goodbye, but it’s like neither of them can bring themselves to do it.
Ralph takes a step forward, presumably to move past Noah. Noah drops his head, not sure he can watch him leave.
Then he freezes as Ralph suddenly closes his arms around him, slowly pulling him into a close hug.
All the air leaves Noah’s lungs at once. He stands there in blank shock, staring straight over Ralph’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Noosh,” Ralph says softly, his voice rough with tears. “For all the love that you gave me. I'm sorry that I exploited it, and that I didn’t see it. I see it now. I can’t believe I was so stupid, to miss it before. And that feeling was never one-sided. I know I didn't let you see it, I know I made you think the opposite - but it was never one-sided. I just - need you to know that, in case this is it for us.”
Noah blinks hard, his eyes welling up and starting to overflow at a pace he can’t stop or control. He closes them tightly.
To his own astonishment, he finds himself slowly starting to lift his hands to hug Ralph back. But Ralph doesn’t notice. He gives Noah a tight squeeze, then lets him go and steps away, roughly brushing the back of his hand over his sage-colored eyes.
He looks at Noah one more time, then turns and heads for the house.
Noah stands there, staring after him until he’s gone.
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