BOWIE DELVECCHIO, for all five foot something of him, posed a mean threat to any infected that came across his path. He was all shits and giggles to anybody he spoke to, a ditsy fella with little to no genuine wits about him, but he could be a mean bastard if he needed to. That's just the duality of man in a world like this, Ralph supposes. Especially when you're the eldest brother of five baby sisters. Gotta do what it takes to keep the people you love alive. That went well for him, eh?

Either way, he's Jesse's go to patrol leader, especially for the newer rookies. He has a sense of organisation and ruthlessness about him that nobody would expect from a twenty year old that still looks fifteen, but he prevails. He's the only patrol leader, who isn't breaching middle age, that Ralph would feel decently afraid of if he was put in a room alone with orders to kill him. Bowie sticks out from all of Jackson's other dweeb, cocky wannabes -- He knows what he is. What he's capable of. That's where they're alike.

It's always been a bit of a embarrassment to him that he regularly hangs out with his estranged daughter's boyfriend, but Ralph can't help it. The little fucker's radiant to the core, and that's exactly why nobody in Jackson has a bad thing to say about the weirdo. He's a good kid, but Ralph's internally realising he's wasting that term on damn near anybody he considers to be a 'kid.'

He likes Bowie, though. He had his initial suspicions, as does any dad when a hyperactive white boy starts lurking near their daughter a little too closely, but once the inherited pharmacist made it clear that he was in it for the long run, Ralph grew on him. Soon enough, Bowie was joining them at the dinner table every Sunday, making joyous small talk with himself during those tension filled times. He was a hero, really. Many awkward dinners were made, at least a little bit, less awkward with his presence.

Cooped up in the small apartment above the pharmacy that his family runs, Bowie and Ralph are sitting cross legged on the floor of the living room with rubbing alcohol, rags and cotton balls, and an ashtray with a half smoked joint. They're splayed out around a bunch of firearms, a small pile of two pistols, a double barrel shotgun and a sniper off to the side, yet to be scrubbed down. Ralph's busying himself with a hunting rifle, absently nodding his head in time to the music that blares around them, smearing a sterile smelling rag over the wooden handle as he looks over at the blonde.

"Who's this?" He asks, scrubbing the gun from breach to muzzle and then back down the length of it, barrel pointed directly towards him nonchalantly.

"You've never heard MF Doom?" Bowie cocks his head, jaw agape as the music rings out around them, no doubt leaking down into the very much active pharmacy beneath the two of them. The stench of weed probably isn't helping either, but he gets this shit for free, so, fuck them. "Oh, how have you lived, you sad man?"

"Being Korean makes me a sad man? Well, okay, then," Ralph puts the words in his mouth with an exaggerated blow of a raspberry, to which Bowie just laughs and picks up his blunt, lifting it to his lips and taking a big inhale before setting it back down again.

"Does Mr. M know you smoke?" The younger boy asks curiously, cocking his gun back and inspecting the crevices, ensuring there's no build up of grime or collections of Infected blood.

"Don't call him Mr. M, he's my husband," Ralph hisses as if the reminder of his senior status has physically hurt him, plonking the hunting rifle off to the pile of cleaned weapons and picking up the double barrel next. They're hosing down all of Bowie's guns, and while it's a little jarring that one dude needs this many, Ralph can't talk. Their basement looks like a panic room for a trigger happy maniac. "And I don't even smoke. I come over here and you hotbox me and I have to endure it 'cause you never clean your rims."

"Yeah, you love cleaning my rims, don't you Mr. Z?" He giggles, and Ralph rolls her eyes at the led comment, even though he sighs a silent laugh through his flared nostrils. There's a stretch of silence, surprisingly not uncomfortable after such a lewd passing, but Bowie talks again, knocking a foot against the other as he speaks over the alternative hip hop resonating in their bones. "...You two going tonight?"

"Hell no," Ralph scrunches his features and shakes his head simply, running a bristle brush around the inner ledge of the double barrel's rims. "Too old for that shit."

"But you're not too old to hotbox with a twenty year old?" Bowie raises his brows enthusiastically with a little shake of his head, and the older man glares at him for a moment, movements halting, before they resume like clockwork. "I think it'd be fun. I never see you two together anymore. What, trouble in paradise? You need me to slide you some Viagra?"

"Not trouble. And we definitely don't need Viagra. Just..." Ralph purses his lips, tossing the double barrel with a clatter into the pile of deep cleaned guns and moving onto his third, meanwhile Bowie's still nursing his first. He leans forward to plop his rag back into the dish of alcohol, wringing it out and leaning back to jostle the pistol in his lap. "Y'know, everybody on our street was invited to a New Year's sermon this Sunday? Everybody apart from us. Probably everyone in the whole damn town, bar the homos."

"Fuck off," Bowie stares at him incredulously, and he doesn't even notice that Ralph's taking a long inhale of his blunt with the shock of the statement. "Really?"

"I'm not sure people would take it well, is all." He says simply with a shrug of his shoulders, placing the join back in the ash tray. "Not that I give a fuck about appeasing a bunch of sad, bible bashing motherfuckers. Just don't want the drama of it all, you get me? Also, I've got no patience anymore. Someone'd get shot."

"What about Joel?"

"...He doesn't have tough skin about this type of thing. Not yet." He says, a little softer. Ralph looks away, back at his gun. "Sorry. It's a complicated thing. Well, I always knew I liked dick, but... It's harder for some. I wouldn't expect you to get it."

Bowie's lips draw into a line and he nods, silent for once. His gaze lingers on Ralph for a moment, almost as if he's waiting for a punchline, before they go back to his gun with a vague expression of confusion. "I say you guys should still go. Stick it to them. They don't want you at their sermon? Well, they can watch you guys grind to Africa by Toto."

Ralph snorts, grimacing slightly at the mental image that joke spawns, but the sound of the smaller boy's laughter cuts through the momentary discomfort and amplifies his own laughter. It's died down by the time the front door to Bowie's cramped apartment opens, and there's now an awkward silence in place of it as the sound of someone stopping in the doorway of the living room, drawing in a thick breath, and then continuing on fills the space.

Lou's presence, and notably her resentment at Ralph's presence, sets the warmth of the weed-filled air off kilter, a sudden chill smothering the two of them. Bowie feels it too, overpowering the heart warming feel that comes with his girlfriend returning home safe and sound.

Their hotboxing session ends shortly thereafter.

...

"SPEAK OF THE DEVIL AND HE WILL APPEAR!" Jesse claps his hands together sardonically, his thick woollen gloves dampening the sound of him welcoming his best friends arrival. Upon horseback, Ellie and Dina start cheering gleefully at the sight of their patrol leader not being a total buzzkill. If anything, an active effort should be made to separate the three of them. Bowie's just boy Dina, truthfully. And Ellie? Well, Ellie's an enabler.

"Yeah, I thought you said something about a radiant, talented hunk," Bowie claps his hand on Jesse's left ass cheek, using the back of his leather padded wrist to wipe a smudge of light pink gloss from high on his cheekbone as he hoists himself onto the back of an Appaloosa named Taima. He pats the old girl between the ears as she grunts in protest, missing the way Jesse swivels at the hips in the direction that the blonde came from, craning his neck. As if searching for someone.

"You were saying, good sir?" The blonde atop the horse prompts, readjusting either of the firearms slung around his lithe frame to rest more comfortably for the short ride.

"...Yeah, uhm," Jesse turns his attention back to the group of civilians, blanking on his protocol for a fraction of a second. "You're taking Route 191 down to Hoback."

"Ha, Hoback." Ellie grins cheesily at the same time Bowie cocks his head accusatorily. "What did you just call us?"

Dina's hand raises, fingers waggling when Jesse doesn't immediately sate her need for attention. He nods at her, and she smiles widely. "Hi, yes. Should we stick to the road, scan the countryside, hit our checkpoints and sign the logbooks?"

"Y'know what? That sounds great," Jesse nods in solidarity, walking around and handing out rags, green and yellow in colour. "But while you're doing all that, we've got reports of strays, so be careful when you get into the town."

Jesse holds the yellow rag out of reach of the squad's leader, leaving Bowie to almost careen off of his horse headfirst. "Careful. Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Bowie feigns confusion and swipes for the rag again, but Jesse only raises his eyebrows. With a huff, Bowie accepts defeat. "Yes, I promise to be careful and to make sure everybody else on this run is careful too, Mister Jesse Sir."

"Good." Jesse finally forks it over, addressing the group once again. "Now, even though Ellie is running around here looking like Curtis and Viper--"

"Bowie has more guns than me!" She waves a hand.

"--Let me remind you all that this is simply a recon patrol. If you see one or two runners, that's fine, clear 'em out. Anything more, anything worse, you come on back here and we send out a squad. An equipped squad of grownups. Are we clear?"

"You know you're only, like, four years older than us, right?" Ellie asks monotonously.

"Power trip." Bowie sing songs.

"I'll take that as a yes," Jesse sighs, waving an arm and signalling for the people on gate watch to start drawing back the grand entrance to the quaint little town of Jackson. "Your patrol leader is the mouthy little blonde in the cowboy hat, so you will follow his orders. For better or for worse."

"Hey!" The mouthy little blonde's hand falls upon his cowboy hat protectively.

"When you're back, today's all-clear sign is yellow. Yellow, good. Green, bad." He moves over to Ellie and Dina, lingering at the latter's side for a moment to murmur something hushed to her. "Jokes aside, can you three make sure you take today seriously? The others look up to you. For some fuckin' reason."

"I will," Dina says, her gaze hard, almost knowing. "If you promise not to get any stupid ideas while Bowie's out today."

Jesse looks at her like she has three heads. "I... Have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, you don't, do you?" She pouts at him.

"I really, really don't," He responds swiftly, almost jogging away from her as he turns on his heel to cup his hands to his mouth, "Alpine run, moving out!"

And moves out, the Alpine run.

...

THE SILENCE IS CHARGED TO EVERYONE apart from the person who should probably be concerned about the tension the most. Bowie and his big clunky cowboy hat ride just a short distance away from Ellie and her binoculars and Dina and her bobble hat, hips rocking in steady time with the cantering of an oblivious Taima. Snowflakes catch on her ivory mane, to which Bowie does his best at flicking away every single one of them, a way of getting into the stubborn steed's good graces. It doesn't work, she's still huffing with every step.

A greying fog clouds the town in the distance, snow twinkling down around them, the nipping cold flushing their cheeks and blocking their noses. Behind him, Dina and Ellie exchange glances every so often. That and exaggerated head bops to try and persuade the other to press him for info first.

They've been sitting on their little fan theory for a while, though it's not something Ellie particularly likes to talk about for reasons that only seem obvious to her. As hopeless of a romantic as Jesse is, he isn't a homewrecker. Even if he looks at Lou like a kicked puppy the rare times she's seen outside of the house.

"So, Bo..." Dina begins, finally taking the plunge. Immediately, Ellie straightens up on horseback and casts her gaze out to the forest of piled up snowfall and piney trees, trying to make it seem like she has no affiliation with what's about to unfold. "You and Lou coming out tonight?"

"Oh, yeah, I have to go," He nods absentmindedly, not even turning his head to answer. He plucks a snowflake from the tip of Taima's deep grey, almost navy, ear. "Mom and Dad never let me skip any town functions, 'cause we, like, leave an impression or whatever. Lou? I'm not sure if I can get her out of the house. I'll have to beg. Why, you wanna see her?"

"Not particularly." Dina shakes her head swiftly. Lou's always been a bit of a buzzkill. Has been ever since the four of them returned to Jackson. "Just... Making sure you're going with her is all."

"What does that mean?" Bowie turns his head to squint back at her in the blindingly white surroundings, hand on his hat to make sure it doesn't come flying off.

"Bowie," Ellie chimes, brows raised. "You haven't noticed anything? Like, with Jesse? And Lou? Jesse and Lou? Lou and Jesse?"

"They're..." He contemplates, really racks his brain. "Both... Asian?"

"Not that, you--!" Dina grunts to herself, clenching a fist momentarily before steeling herself. She should probably break this to him sweet, rather than insulting his intelligence right out the gate. "Jesse has a big fat crush on Lou."

"What!?" He hollers, and his voice ricochets off the mountains. The three up ahead turn to face him urgently, fully expecting an emergency with the sudden exclamation, but, nope. Just Bowie and his cowboy hat. "No, he doesn't! Ew, Dina, that's gross! Why would you say that, assbrain?"

"Because it's true, that's why!" Dina bickers back, holding her arms out like a bear trying to attack. Bowie rolls his eyes and scoffs, and Taima's canter picks up a little. Dina hurries up, falling into trot beside him, and Ellie fumbles to keep up with them, nearly dropping her binoculars in the fuss. "Listen, we're saying this from a place of concern, dude. We aren't trying to drive a wedge between you guys, we know he's practically your brother, it's just--"

"It'd be wrong to know and say nothing," Ellie finishes for her, and Dina waves an arm towards the brunette in agreement. But then, Ellie keeps going, and Dina ends up cringing a little at the brutality of her words. "I mean, he looks at Lou like he's never seen a woman before. It's gross. I wouldn't be surprised if he was plotting some, like, masterplan to murder you and wear your skin. Go real Texas Chainsaw Massacre on you, like, rhh- rhh- aghhh!"

Bowie looks back at her with a face of mortification, glances her up and down, and gallops forth in silence.

"You have a way with words, do you know that?" Dina asks her.

Ellie clicks her tongue. "So I'm told."

...

NOTES!
hihihihi wow two chapters in two days who is this??? dont get used to it once spring break is over its gcse season and im so dead mf.

i know the chapters have been redonkulously slow paced but i fear thats just how things will go until we go golfing guys IN THE MEANTIME ahhhh jesse and bowie beef!! except its not rlly beef theyre my babies i lvoe them my brothers i hhhrrrhrhrrrr i eat them

i loooove bowie delvecchio if it isnt very very painfully obvious okay bye all