RALPH DIDN'T GET TO BE ALONE OFTEN, so, sue him for appreciating the silence.

It began when Ellie had announced she was out of water, and Ralph offered to go find a river or working water or someplace to refill it, and then Lou promptly downed the rest of her water bottle in time for a refill, and Joel admitted that his was empty too, so he ended up waddling through a nearby alley towards the sound of running water.

It was there he found a stream, not that big, but enough to fill three water bottles. Of course, he wasn't just going to let them chug dirty river water, so he set up a neat little campfire and began to prepare the water for boiling, feeling super survivalist about himself.

He wasn't alone for very long, and that was a given with the unlikely group he was in. One was always clinging to him. More often than not, it was Joel, and that was the same case for right now.

He didn't break the silence as he sat next to Ralph, watching the water run ahead of them and joining his hands over his knees.

Abruptly, Ralph veered towards him and stared at his wrist, at his shattered watch, and frowned when the hands weren't moving. In an estimate, he swapped one bottle for the other and let it simmer over the flames next.

'So... Watcha doing?' Joel finally cracked the question.

'Appreciating Daejayeon.' Ralph held his hands out miraculously and laughed at Joel's stoic, confused expression. 'Mother nature, dummy. Let it cool.'

He planted Joel's water bottle in front of him as Joel presented a different flask from his pocket, the shiny grey one from the River of Death. Ralph laughed at the sight of it, and Joel smiled.

'I annoyed a refill out of Tommy.' He said proudly, unscrewing the cap and granting Ralph the honor of the first sip. He accepted it gratefully.

'You know.' Ralph began, running his tongue along his teeth and then sucking them for a second. 'I think this has been my favorite day in a while.'

It didn't take Einstein to figure out why. '...Cause you saw that fucking giraffe?'

'Cause I saw that fucking giraffe!' He nodded eagerly, Joel cracking a smile as he did so.

'What was your other favorite day, then? Before today?' Joel questioned, raising his eyebrows. He had an answer, but he wasn't sure if Ralph did based on the expression on his face. Hastily, he was proved wrong.

'Jackson.' He seemed confident in his answer. Although that was Joel's answer as well, and it boosted his ego to know that their kiss made it in the books as one of his favorite things, he didn't expect that.

'Really?' He questioned. 'I thought with Tommy being up your ass the whole time, you'd have hated it.'

Ralph laughed, taking the drink from him and swapping one bottle for the other with the other hand. 'I mean, he was just looking out for you. It was super annoying, but, he was.'

'I don't need my pissy little brother to look out for me.' Joel grumbled, still a great deal irritated about the chaos that had unfolded during their arrival, the shit that had frankly driven him to want out so soon. That made him think about things, about their futures in Jackson, but Ralph had beat him to it.

'I, uh, I like your idea. About going back to Jackson with... All of us.' He scratched his nose awkwardly, turning to look at Joel. '...But, I mean, I kind of thought that you said-'

'I didn't mean that.' Joel shook his head quickly, not even needing him to finish his sentence to know that he was talking about the empty threat from way back when. Relief crossed him in an instant. 'I didn't mean anything that I said. I was angry, but not at you. I think I was just angry because... I hadn't seen Tommy in ten-or-something years, and he was trying to tell me that the one person who understands me was some kind of criminal or something.'

'Well, he's not wrong.' Ralph giggled. Joel met his eye. 'Say whatever you want about me, Joel Miller, but don't say that I'm a good person-'

'You are a good person.' Joel argued, cutting him off again. He shifted his water bottle to be next to his side, an odd move. 'You're the best person I've ever met, Al. Honest.'

Ralph looked at him for a while, eyes flickering from the top of his face to the bottom before he settled on covering his mouth with his palm and smiling into it bashfully. 'Screw you, man, you're too nice to me.'

Joel laughed to himself, a quick one, and smiled as well. He turned his head. 'What was your favorite part about Jackson?'

Ralph looked at the sky, pulling his hand away from his mouth to latch it onto his elbow. '...Sleeping in a real bed again.'

Joel clicked his teeth and Ralph tilted his head. 'Favorite for you, not for me. You hogged all the blankets. Was freezing my balls off.'

Ralph swatted him with the back of his hand. 'Fuck off.'

'It's the truth.' Joel admitted, rubbing the place of impact although it didn't hurt. He reached for the whiskey again, seeing as Ralph had been hogging it for most of this conversation, and stretched his arm out as he spoke around the rim. '...What about the other stuff?'

'What other stuff?' Ralph didn't miss a beat, reminding Joel how much he loved and hated this asshole and his way of flirting all at once. Joel grimaced at him with a mouth full of liquor. Ralph smiled knowingly but made no effort to continue speaking. Joel had no idea what to do with himself other than sheepishly spit the words out.

'...The kiss. And... the... Nevermind.' Sometimes, Ralph wondered how a man with the maturity of a middle schooler had led them all the way across the country.

'Oh, that stuff!' Joel did not enjoy the act he was putting on, and did not like the fact that Ralph downed the rest of the alcohol without consideration for him. 'It was okay.'

'It was what?' Joel repeated, jaw slack. Ralph went about his duty, taking the final filtered bottle from the stove and screwing the cap onto it. He let the fire go for a while longer, still holding Joel's flask in his right hand.

'It was an okay kiss.' He shrugged, rattling the metal flagon in his hand to make sure there was none left. He got to his feet then, waddling towards the stream ahead of them and kneeling in front of them. He started to fill Joel's flash with water, speaking over his shoulder. 'You were crying and shit, and then I started crying and shit, so it kinda ruined the atmosphere.'

'Atmosphere? How gay can you get?'

Ralph rested back on his heels, meeting Joel's amused look with one of speechlessness.

Then, water was flung over Joel, a stripe of cold right down the torso, and the rest was thrown to the right of him, putting out the fire with a hiss and depriving him of any warmth after that attack.

Laughing, he swiped water away from his eyes and out of his beard, unimpressed as Ralph kneeled in front of him and held out the flask with a phoney smile.

Joel didn't end up accepting his gift. Instead, he threw an arm around the small of Ralph's back and tackled him to the floor, splashing him in the face with water from his stupid grey water bottle.

'Fuck you, man! I purified that!' Ralph couldn't help his laughter, throwing his arms upwards and trying to kick Joel off of him as the man pinning him down laughed hysterically as well, head tilted back and everything.

'Fuck yourself, wuss.' Joel giggled, relaxing from his fit of wheezy laughing and limited himself only to smiling so hard that his face hurt. He ran the back of his index finger over his waterline, wiping unshed tears from it, and that made Ralph begin to cackle beneath him again. Joel began to laugh too, but his stomach was on fire, leaving him unable to do much but sit and smile and snicker a little bit every so often.

'...Alright, get off me, you weigh a ton.' Ralph said when he had finally settled, bringing his hands in front of him to reach for Joel's waist and haul him off.

'What would you rate it?' Joel caught his wrists in the blink of an eye. Ralph stared at him, confused. 'The kiss?'

'Oh... Do you want me to be honest?' Ralph smiled tauntingly. Joel rolled his eyes yet nodded. '...Like a total six. Don't worry, I'm sure it wasn't your best work.'

'Yeah, well, I could think of a few critiques to give you.' No, he couldn't.

'No, you couldn't.' Damn it. 'Now, are you gonna hurry the fuck up?'

'Fuck you.' Joel grinned.

'"Fuck yourself, wuss."' Ralph put on his Joel impression, a slight mood killer. Although the mood could never truly be killed when he was with Ralph.

Joel opened his mouth to reply when his parted lips were dragged downwards to meet Ralph's, catching him completely off guard. He was melting into it within the second, though, dropping Ralph's wrists to raise his hands and cradle a scatteredly beaten face beneath his rough fingertips.

Ralph's hands landed on top of Joel's hips, running his thumbs across the denim and pushing lightly so he could prop himself up on his elbows and even them out, get to Joel's level.

Their lips slipped apart, and Ralph had hug mode activated in case of a repeat from last time, but Joel began to kiss lightly along his jaw, beard grazing Ralph's cheekbone as he did so. Then, the scruffy feeling trailed down the side of his neck, accompanied by the light scrape of teeth and the soft sigh Ralph let out.

His left hand shifted forward, messing with the buckle of Joel's belt, annoying the man in his lap with how unhurried he was.

Joel pulled away to scold him, make a joke or something, but caught something far more disturbing over Ralph's shoulder.

'Jesus, Ellie!' He full-on yelled, kneeing Ralph in the gut with the rush of separating them.

'God, Joel!' Ralph groaned, kneeling forward and holding his stomach.

'Gross!' Ellie screamed, mortified.

'How long have you been there?' Ralph asked through his pain, looking back over his shoulder and entertaining the thought of jumping into the river as Lou approached them.

'Hey, don't spin this on me, man! I just wanted my water! I did not want to see... That!' Ellie turned away from them, facing the patch of greenery to the right of her and scrubbing her eyes to try and rid them of that image.

'What did you see?' Lou asked cluelessly.

'Go back to bed, honey.' Ralph ordered, pushing onto his knees and nodding at Joel to pull his head from his hands and redo his belt.

'No, I wanna know. You guys always leave me out of things!' She exclaimed.

'No, we don't.' He said hurriedly, getting to his feet and spinning her around with the grip he got on her shoulders. Sighing, Lou shuffled down the alley she had come from, and Ralph turned to the girl he had just traumatized. 'Both of you, bed, now, come on.'

Ellie narrowed her eyes at him, attempting to convey some message that was unknown to Joel, but Ralph got it in the beat of a heart. As Ellie wandered towards the opening of the alleyway, Ralph caught her by the shoulder and mumbled something to her.

'If you ever think about telling her what just happened, I will turn you into a piñata, Ellie Williams.'

'What's a piñata?'

'...For fuck's sake.'

...

NOTES!
this is my peace offering of silly gay chaos before the hospital chapters. hope it sufficed!