Orange Collision; ch 34
Title: Orange Collision
Pairings: John/Paul, George/Ringo Equal time for both pairings
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: sexual situations, drug and alcohol use, language, distressing situations
Summary: En route to Los Angeles, a storm diverts the Beatles to an uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific. Finding themselves among the few survivors, romantic tension flares up as they try desperately to find a way home. Meanwhile, some peculiar events occur that lead them all to fear for their sanity...
A/N: I really wanted some practice writing situation-based conflict as opposed to character-based conflict (even though the main theme in this story is still going to involve character-based conflict). Also, this story is very Lost-esque, but obviously it has a different plot. There are just some similar themes.
A/N2: School prevents me from updating this on a regular basis.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Beatles, nor do I claim to. This is a fictional story and is not written to be libelous.
Previous Chapters
Chapter 34 - Day 55
Paul tapped his fingers to his chest quietly, hearing the snores and sighs of his mates, patiently waiting for time to pass. It was dark with only a small sliver of moonlight for solace and he drummed his fingers harder, listening to the echo they made off his chest.
George was shifting, mumbling fitfully in his sleep. He’d first noticed George’s restless sleep a few weeks ago when he had made the decision to stay awake and make sure that Nicole wasn’t spying on them, and now that his nighttime lessons with Tucker were once again ensuring him that he’d never have a decent night’s sleep, he had noticed George’s fitful slumber all over again. He wondered if he’d been like this ever since they crashed on the island.
Sighing, Paul sat up and stroked George’s back slowly, feeling his body relax and his shudders cease. When his breathing descended into regularity Paul shuffled away and grabbed the guitar, pausing to pet Tidbits on the head.
“Hey, there,” he cooed and she purred loudly, vibrating all over John’s leg. For his part, John just laid there. No indication that he had heard anything. Paul let out an annoyed breath. He was making it so fucking easy for him to just wake up and catch him-how deep of a sleeper was he?
Paul even plucked the A string. Loudly. No avail. John shifted once, twice, and then slumped and resumed his breathy snores.
Oh well. Paul supposed that he could just, you know, tell John that he’d been going out every night to teach Tucker how to play the guitar, but he already knew how that conversation would end. With a punch to his face, probably. And then one to Tucker’s. Probably even two to Tucker’s.
He shuffled out of the hut and walked briskly, leaving footprints in the cool sand, a trail for John to follow later. If wind didn’t exist, of course. Coming up to his hut, he smoothed his hair back and knocked.
The curtain was immediately shoved away. Tucker had on wide grin as he leaned against his hut with his shirt pulled up a bit.
“Come in.”
Paul rolled his eyes, “Hello.” He went inside and plopped down in his usual spot, handing Tucker the guitar once he had done the same.
“Tuning it again?”
“Until it doesn’t take you half a century, yes,” Paul responded dryly.
“You’re a really boring teacher. But at least I get to spend half a century looking at you.”
Paul ignored that last bit and focused on the utterance before it. It was true, wasn’t it? These lessons were boring-he was boring. Tucker’s words carried with him long after they’d finished their lesson and long after he’d went bed. But what was there to be done? They couldn’t make too much noise. Not during the night, it would wake everyone up.
Paul groaned, yanked the pillow out from under him and put it over his head.
Something had to be done soon.
“I ran into Tucker on my way over here,” John breathed, sweat was clinging to his forehead and Paul was ten seconds away from doing something horrifying like licking it off. Then he processed John’s words.
“Oh. What did he say?” his heart pounded.
“Didn’t say anything, really,” John said, and Paul let out a breath of relief, even though there had been something off about John’s tone. But he chose to ignore that because he’d really rather focus on how good he felt after just coming with John’s knee between his legs. And then giving him the same treatment. Oh yeah, that had been good. “He just fucking whistled with that stupid face of his. If I wasn’t coming to meet you I would have taken the time give him a good shiner.”
Paul let out a breath of frustration, running a hand through his hair, “You know, it’s a bit odd that you mentioned Tucker right after we got off,” he said, grimacing as he felt the stickiness in his pants.
John flicked his eyelid. Hard.
“Ow,” Paul exclaimed.
“You’ll get more than that if you make more remarks like that, son,” John warned, leaning back on crossed arms, “And I only mentioned him because-fuck-you don’t think he knows about our sex den, do you? I wouldn’t be surprised if that sick fuck was out there secretly watching us. He’s hiding something, I know he is.”
“I doubt it,” Paul said, casually picking the dirt out from beneath his fingernails, “He’s not that bad you know.”
John barked with laughter, “Piss off.”
“He’s not.”
“And how would you know?” he suddenly rounded on him, eyes hard and suspicious.
It would have been a good time to tell him, but something stopped him, something sharp and horrible that made his throat itch to change the subject. He stiffened and looked away, “I don’t. But, you know, we hardly know him, right? Maybe he just acts that way around us because he’s…I don’t know…put off because we’re so famous.”
“Don’t tell me you’re about to say he’s housing a kind and mushy heart in the centre of his queerness.”
“I’m just saying…I don’t know, he’s annoying, but he’s hardly bad enough to be put on John Lennon’s Kill List.”
“No, because he’s apparently already signed on to Pretty Paulie’s Fan Club.”
Paul sighed and stood up. His legs were post-orgasmic so they shook a bit as he tucked everything back into his jeans, feeling the soft blanket dig into his toes. Okay, so John was too stubborn to feel anything other than hatred for Tucker, and, when the truth inevitably came out, he could look forward to long silences and constant fights and probably an end to the fucking sex den. Which wasn’t all bad, because he fucking hated that name.
“Hey,” John said, standing up and stepping in front of Paul, “Don’t get pissy. It turns me on and we’ll end up being here for another hour,” he smirked, putting his hands on Paul’s shoulders, lightly massaging them.
Paul smiled weakly, trying to calm his thoughts, “You couldn’t even last an hour.”
“Oh really?” John arched his eyebrows, “We’ll see about that.”
Paul held back his smile when they kissed.
It was pouring when he left the hut that night.
“Fuck,” he cursed, holding the guitar over his head to keep from getting drenched. Only, that wasn’t working so well and as he ran to Tucker’s hut his only company was the constant boom boom as the rain splashed and echoed off the back of the guitar. Fuck, these strings were already old, if they got wet enough they’d snap off completely and he’d have to look forward to John and George’s hands around his neck.
“It’s me, I’m here,” he shouted, voice sounding distant and small through the storm. Tucker opened the curtain quickly and Paul would have stepped in if his eyes hadn’t taken in Tucker’s drenched state.
Or the drenched nature of everything in his hut.
“Well, well. A wet Paul McCartney at my door. I wasn’t aware it was my birthday.”
Paul just continued staring. Tucker’s hut was so haphazardly constructed that the rain had no problems penetrating the disgraceful looking thing. Everything was soaked-it was literally falling apart before his eyes.
“Oh yeah,” Tucker said, realizing what he was looking at, “Turns out my hut doesn’t like the rain.”
“We built them so they would protect us from the rain!” he yelled. He’d gone from feeling bad for Tucker to feeling heatedly annoyed.
“I’m gay-do I look like I know how to build things?” Tucker exclaimed. And then he cringed because a part of his roof just collapsed, “Look, we’ll go somewhere else. How about Frisby’s place?”
Before Paul could even respond Tucker was running towards the old man’s hut. He swore fluidly, still clutching the guitar over his head, and ran after him. The wind was picking up the rain and making it settle in his ears, so he had to shake his head oddly and he accidentally knocked it into the guitar a few times.
“There’s no way that Frisby’s going to let you stay with him!” he yelled.
“His skin might look like a prune but I’m sure his heart isn’t one. Who could leave a poor, homeless boy out in the rain?” Tucker smirked, leaning over on an invisible walking stick like some kind of perverted Tiny Tim.
When they reached Frisby’s hut Tucker didn’t even knock, just stormed right in.
“Frisby! Hope you don’t mind but I need somewhere to stay tonight.”
Frisby mumbled and stirred. He knew it was rude to enter unannounced but he was fucking soaked and, well, Tucker had done it first. So he entered the warmth and calm of Frisby’s hut and pushed the wet hair off his face.
“Frisby! Hello?” Tucker sang loudly. Paul frowned.
“You’re out of tune.”
“Fuck you,” he retorted immediately, “I wasn't doing it seriously, God.”
Frisby sat up, “Tucker? Paul?”
“Sorry,” Paul apologized, taking in Frisby’s disheveled state, “Er…his hut-”
“It fell over, ka-boom!” Tucker finished, rolling his eyes with boredom, “So I need a place to stay tonight. You offering?”
Frisby scoffed, “No, I’m not.”
“Why not? Don’t want a queer staying with you?”
“That’s part of it,” Frisby answered, grinding his teeth, “The other part is that I told you weeks ago that the current condition of your hut was not going to make it through a storm and you refused to rebuild it.”
“Yeah, okay. I don’t need a lecture from you, I get enough of them from Paul,” he dismissed. Then he turned to look at him, “Speaking of which, looks like I’ll have to stay with you.”
Paul’s eyes went wide and his stomach turned, “No no no no. You can’t. No. No.”
“I need a place to stay!”
“John will murder you by the end of the night.”
Tucker laughed humorlessly and crossed his arms, “You know, I’m starting to feel like I’m not very loved around here.”
“Paul!”
Oh no. Paul’s stomach sank, he nearly dropped the guitar. He didn’t know exactly why everything in the universe was making it so that this was the fucking shittiest night of his life, but he knew that there was nothing to be done now-it was over. He turned towards the opening of Frisby’s hut and saw John standing there soaking wet and looking very furious.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.
John’s eyes were darting between Paul, Tucker, the guitar and Frisby-the sharpness in their gaze made him feel like he was being pricked by needles every time they landed on him.
“We were…Tucker’s place fell apart. I was helping him look for somewhere else to stay.”
“Why were you with him in the first place?”
He had an answer ready, “I couldn’t sleep. Ringo kicked me awake…so I took a walk.”
“In the pouring fucking rain? With the guitar?”
“I didn’t have an umbrella,” he answered quickly.
John’s eyes popped, “So you fucking decided to take the only guitar on the island with strings that are already old and close to snapping in order to cover your pretty fucking hair?”
Tucker turned towards Frisby, “Can you feel how sexually charged this conversation is?”
Paul quickly grabbed the back of John’s shirt to prevent him from kicking Tucker’s teeth in.
“Shut the fuck up!” John shouted at Tucker before wrestling out of Paul’s grip, “I know what’s been going on. I’m not fucking stupid, Paul!”
“Technically you are stupid,” Tucker said, leaning against the wall, “Because I’m the one who had to tell you what’s been going on.”
“You told him!?” Paul barked. He shrugged.
“I told him yesterday. He needed to know.” Oh, he could have strangled him.
“Yeah, and you know what, Paul, I didn’t fucking believe him at first. But then you started acting like a fucking fidgety bird when I mentioned him yesterday, so I stayed up tonight. Just to be sure. And this is what I fucking find!” John screamed, throwing his arms up in the air.
“As fascinating as this all is,” Frisby boomed, “I want you all to get out of my hut.”
John didn’t need telling twice. He ripped the guitar out of Paul’s hands and then practically ripped Frisby’s curtain off as he marched into the storm. The adrenaline was buzzing in Paul’s chest as he ran after him.
“John!” he yelled, “Stop! I wanted to tell you!”
He whipped around, “What the fuck are you doing Paul!? Why are you tutoring him!?”
“Because he asked!”
“In case you’ve forgotten, he’s a fucking slimy git,” John yelled, moving closer as thunder barked in the background.
“He wanted my help! What the fuck was I supposed to say!?”
“No! You were supposed to say no!”
“We were the ones who took the guitar from him in the first place!”
“We deserve it more than he does and you fucking know that, Paul, or else you wouldn’t have taken it! Or does your morality shift depending on when it’s convenient?!”
Paul growled and rubbed his hands on his face, digging the water deeper into his skin, “I knew you would react this way. This is why I didn’t tell you!”
“Bullshite! You didn’t tell me because you knew that you were making a mistake and you didn’t want to hear me tell you that you were acting like a complete dolt!”
“What is so fucking wrong with tutoring him?!”
“You tell me, since you’re the one who decided to hide it!” John spat. Then he stepped closer, rain bouncing off his lips, running down his nose, clinging to his eyelashes, “Or are you and Tucker doing something else in the dead of night?”
Paul laughed incredulously. Fuck it, he was done with this conversation. John was being stupid and irrational, just like he knew he would be. Sometimes he wondered why he put up this shite, “You’re being ridiculous,” he stated before he backed up and began walking away, limbs tingling.
“Do I need to fucking remind you what happened the last time you put your trust in someone on this island!?”
Something inside him snapped. His body was red and hot and numb to the point where he couldn’t feel the rain, couldn’t see the lightning crackling behind purple and thick clouds. Suddenly he was right in front of John, restraining the urge to punch him, lips trembling as he talked, “Don’t you fucking mention her.”
“Why, Paul? Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten what she did. Writing about us-that pissed you off quite a bit, didn’t it?”
“I’m warning you, John.”
“And what happened in the end? You threw her book in the ocean and she ran away. Never to be found again,” John said, and even though his next words were whispered, they were by far louder and cruder than the storm, “Because she’s dead.”
Paul was shaking. He told himself to stay in control, stay in control. “She’s not dead.”
“Well where is she!? Been missing for how long?”
Something flared in his stomach. Despite all that, he still managed to make his words come out cool, collected, “I wanted to find her. Straight away. But you wouldn’t let me go.”
“You had just split your head open on a fucking rock! You would have killed yourself looking for her!”
“Oh don’t pretend that’s the reason. You couldn’t care less whether she lived or died. You were too busy being jealous of everyone I was mates with.”
“Is that fucking so?” John whispered before his face contorted into some ugly and almost demonic, showing all of the anger that he was just barely keeping under control, “You know, I want nothing more than to hit you over the head with this guitar.”
Paul wanted it, oh did he want it. The weather was doing something to him, the wind swirled and let the clouds burst open to crackle bolt after bolt of lightning, the electrical charges in his body matched and succumbed to the black void. He noticed that John’s arm was shaking, the guitar clenched brutally in his fingers. All rationale shut down.
“If it’s anyone’s fault that she’s dead, John, it’s yours.”
He didn’t get what he was expecting. With an animalistic growl John punched him in the chest, sent him flying backwards a few steps. He clutched his chest and tried to laugh through the pain. Looked up into the sky and let the rain into his eyes.
“You’re a fucking cunt,” John said. And Paul must have really gotten him with that last comment. John usually cut better than that. He relished the upper hand.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to continue tutoring Tucker, and I’m going to talk to whoever the fuck I want, regardless of whether or not you approve. And if you have a fucking problem with that, then you can fuck off!” Paul shouted, chest exploding. Once he was done he turned and walked away, shutting his ears off to whatever John was yelling behind him. He breathed deeply, feeling his lungs expand further than they had in a long time. He felt like every single one of his veins was throbbing, sprinkles of euphoria still running down his chest.
When he was under the semi-cover of the forest he sighed loudly and smoothed his hair back. The wind sounded musical when it swam through the trees and he listened to it mindlessly, closing his eyes.
“So I guess this means you’ll be able to tutor me during the day now?” Tucker’s voice rang through the wind’s song and Paul nearly jumped. Tucker’s arms were crossed and he was standing in front of a tree, playing with a leaf.
In the smooth, dark, quiet cover of the forest Paul’s thoughts settled, his adrenaline cleared. He looked at Tucker and he remembered why he’d been reluctant to tell John about tutoring him-because this would happen. And now where was he? He was soaking wet in the dark forest with no one to talk to except the most annoying person on the island-and everything that had happened between him and John, everything that was so brilliant…that was over. They were done. He had an urge to rip out his hair.
“Don’t tell me you regret standing up to him?” Tucker said. Paul’s stomach roared. His anger refocused and he marched to stand in front of Tucker, fists balled at his sides.
“Why the fuck did you tell him?!”
“Because you weren’t going to.”
“That was none of your fucking business,” Paul spat.
“It became my business when our lessons sucked because you refused to stop being a coward.”
Paul pushed him into the tree and watched as he winced, “You’re lucky that I agreed to tutor you in the first fucking place. If I wanted your help I would have asked for it!”
“Well now you have it,” Tucker groaned, walking away from the tree and rubbing his back, “I’m sick of people fucking lying around here. And if no one else is going to tell the truth, then I am.”
There was something dark in his eyes that Paul hadn’t seen before. He squinted and studied him carefully, surprised at how pissed Tucker appeared to be with this whole situation. “Who do you think you are, our savior!?” he asked with a dark edge to his voice to match the darkness in Tucker’s eyes.
But then he smiled and laughed, the glimpse of darkness going away and being replaced by his usual mischievous nature, “No, I’m not that important. But the fact that you need a gay savior? Well, that’s saying something isn’t it?”
Paul let out a deep breath and grabbed the end of his shirt, wringing it out. It was windy and he was wet and he wanted nothing more than to get out of these clothes. But, well, not like he could go back to the hut, right?
“Looks like we both need a place to stay tonight,” Tucker said, as if reading his thoughts. Paul blinked and stared at him.
Tucker smiled, “Follow me.”
“No,” Paul answered immediately, “Where are we going?”
“To my forest hideout,” he smirked over his shoulder as he began to walk away. Not like Paul had anything better to do, so he followed him, “I believe you know where it is. Since that’s where you stole my guitar.”
Oh. The guitar. John still had it-would he even be allowed near it from now on?
And then he stopped in his tracks. Yes. He didn’t need John’s fucking permission to do anything. He could take that guitar if he wanted.
“Hey, are you coming?” Tucker asked, staring at him.
Paul smiled, “Yeah,” he nodded, “Yeah I am.”
“Good, I promise that I won’t touch you while you’re sleeping. Though I can’t promise that I won’t think about it.”
He wasn’t doing this to get back at John, to prove anything. He was doing this for himself.
And with that thought, he followed Tucker to his hideout, stumbling only a few times along the way.
Pairings: John/Paul, George/Ringo Equal time for both pairings
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: sexual situations, drug and alcohol use, language, distressing situations
Summary: En route to Los Angeles, a storm diverts the Beatles to an uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific. Finding themselves among the few survivors, romantic tension flares up as they try desperately to find a way home. Meanwhile, some peculiar events occur that lead them all to fear for their sanity...
A/N: I really wanted some practice writing situation-based conflict as opposed to character-based conflict (even though the main theme in this story is still going to involve character-based conflict). Also, this story is very Lost-esque, but obviously it has a different plot. There are just some similar themes.
A/N2: School prevents me from updating this on a regular basis.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Beatles, nor do I claim to. This is a fictional story and is not written to be libelous.
Previous Chapters
Chapter 34 - Day 55
Paul tapped his fingers to his chest quietly, hearing the snores and sighs of his mates, patiently waiting for time to pass. It was dark with only a small sliver of moonlight for solace and he drummed his fingers harder, listening to the echo they made off his chest.
George was shifting, mumbling fitfully in his sleep. He’d first noticed George’s restless sleep a few weeks ago when he had made the decision to stay awake and make sure that Nicole wasn’t spying on them, and now that his nighttime lessons with Tucker were once again ensuring him that he’d never have a decent night’s sleep, he had noticed George’s fitful slumber all over again. He wondered if he’d been like this ever since they crashed on the island.
Sighing, Paul sat up and stroked George’s back slowly, feeling his body relax and his shudders cease. When his breathing descended into regularity Paul shuffled away and grabbed the guitar, pausing to pet Tidbits on the head.
“Hey, there,” he cooed and she purred loudly, vibrating all over John’s leg. For his part, John just laid there. No indication that he had heard anything. Paul let out an annoyed breath. He was making it so fucking easy for him to just wake up and catch him-how deep of a sleeper was he?
Paul even plucked the A string. Loudly. No avail. John shifted once, twice, and then slumped and resumed his breathy snores.
Oh well. Paul supposed that he could just, you know, tell John that he’d been going out every night to teach Tucker how to play the guitar, but he already knew how that conversation would end. With a punch to his face, probably. And then one to Tucker’s. Probably even two to Tucker’s.
He shuffled out of the hut and walked briskly, leaving footprints in the cool sand, a trail for John to follow later. If wind didn’t exist, of course. Coming up to his hut, he smoothed his hair back and knocked.
The curtain was immediately shoved away. Tucker had on wide grin as he leaned against his hut with his shirt pulled up a bit.
“Come in.”
Paul rolled his eyes, “Hello.” He went inside and plopped down in his usual spot, handing Tucker the guitar once he had done the same.
“Tuning it again?”
“Until it doesn’t take you half a century, yes,” Paul responded dryly.
“You’re a really boring teacher. But at least I get to spend half a century looking at you.”
Paul ignored that last bit and focused on the utterance before it. It was true, wasn’t it? These lessons were boring-he was boring. Tucker’s words carried with him long after they’d finished their lesson and long after he’d went bed. But what was there to be done? They couldn’t make too much noise. Not during the night, it would wake everyone up.
Paul groaned, yanked the pillow out from under him and put it over his head.
Something had to be done soon.
“I ran into Tucker on my way over here,” John breathed, sweat was clinging to his forehead and Paul was ten seconds away from doing something horrifying like licking it off. Then he processed John’s words.
“Oh. What did he say?” his heart pounded.
“Didn’t say anything, really,” John said, and Paul let out a breath of relief, even though there had been something off about John’s tone. But he chose to ignore that because he’d really rather focus on how good he felt after just coming with John’s knee between his legs. And then giving him the same treatment. Oh yeah, that had been good. “He just fucking whistled with that stupid face of his. If I wasn’t coming to meet you I would have taken the time give him a good shiner.”
Paul let out a breath of frustration, running a hand through his hair, “You know, it’s a bit odd that you mentioned Tucker right after we got off,” he said, grimacing as he felt the stickiness in his pants.
John flicked his eyelid. Hard.
“Ow,” Paul exclaimed.
“You’ll get more than that if you make more remarks like that, son,” John warned, leaning back on crossed arms, “And I only mentioned him because-fuck-you don’t think he knows about our sex den, do you? I wouldn’t be surprised if that sick fuck was out there secretly watching us. He’s hiding something, I know he is.”
“I doubt it,” Paul said, casually picking the dirt out from beneath his fingernails, “He’s not that bad you know.”
John barked with laughter, “Piss off.”
“He’s not.”
“And how would you know?” he suddenly rounded on him, eyes hard and suspicious.
It would have been a good time to tell him, but something stopped him, something sharp and horrible that made his throat itch to change the subject. He stiffened and looked away, “I don’t. But, you know, we hardly know him, right? Maybe he just acts that way around us because he’s…I don’t know…put off because we’re so famous.”
“Don’t tell me you’re about to say he’s housing a kind and mushy heart in the centre of his queerness.”
“I’m just saying…I don’t know, he’s annoying, but he’s hardly bad enough to be put on John Lennon’s Kill List.”
“No, because he’s apparently already signed on to Pretty Paulie’s Fan Club.”
Paul sighed and stood up. His legs were post-orgasmic so they shook a bit as he tucked everything back into his jeans, feeling the soft blanket dig into his toes. Okay, so John was too stubborn to feel anything other than hatred for Tucker, and, when the truth inevitably came out, he could look forward to long silences and constant fights and probably an end to the fucking sex den. Which wasn’t all bad, because he fucking hated that name.
“Hey,” John said, standing up and stepping in front of Paul, “Don’t get pissy. It turns me on and we’ll end up being here for another hour,” he smirked, putting his hands on Paul’s shoulders, lightly massaging them.
Paul smiled weakly, trying to calm his thoughts, “You couldn’t even last an hour.”
“Oh really?” John arched his eyebrows, “We’ll see about that.”
Paul held back his smile when they kissed.
It was pouring when he left the hut that night.
“Fuck,” he cursed, holding the guitar over his head to keep from getting drenched. Only, that wasn’t working so well and as he ran to Tucker’s hut his only company was the constant boom boom as the rain splashed and echoed off the back of the guitar. Fuck, these strings were already old, if they got wet enough they’d snap off completely and he’d have to look forward to John and George’s hands around his neck.
“It’s me, I’m here,” he shouted, voice sounding distant and small through the storm. Tucker opened the curtain quickly and Paul would have stepped in if his eyes hadn’t taken in Tucker’s drenched state.
Or the drenched nature of everything in his hut.
“Well, well. A wet Paul McCartney at my door. I wasn’t aware it was my birthday.”
Paul just continued staring. Tucker’s hut was so haphazardly constructed that the rain had no problems penetrating the disgraceful looking thing. Everything was soaked-it was literally falling apart before his eyes.
“Oh yeah,” Tucker said, realizing what he was looking at, “Turns out my hut doesn’t like the rain.”
“We built them so they would protect us from the rain!” he yelled. He’d gone from feeling bad for Tucker to feeling heatedly annoyed.
“I’m gay-do I look like I know how to build things?” Tucker exclaimed. And then he cringed because a part of his roof just collapsed, “Look, we’ll go somewhere else. How about Frisby’s place?”
Before Paul could even respond Tucker was running towards the old man’s hut. He swore fluidly, still clutching the guitar over his head, and ran after him. The wind was picking up the rain and making it settle in his ears, so he had to shake his head oddly and he accidentally knocked it into the guitar a few times.
“There’s no way that Frisby’s going to let you stay with him!” he yelled.
“His skin might look like a prune but I’m sure his heart isn’t one. Who could leave a poor, homeless boy out in the rain?” Tucker smirked, leaning over on an invisible walking stick like some kind of perverted Tiny Tim.
When they reached Frisby’s hut Tucker didn’t even knock, just stormed right in.
“Frisby! Hope you don’t mind but I need somewhere to stay tonight.”
Frisby mumbled and stirred. He knew it was rude to enter unannounced but he was fucking soaked and, well, Tucker had done it first. So he entered the warmth and calm of Frisby’s hut and pushed the wet hair off his face.
“Frisby! Hello?” Tucker sang loudly. Paul frowned.
“You’re out of tune.”
“Fuck you,” he retorted immediately, “I wasn't doing it seriously, God.”
Frisby sat up, “Tucker? Paul?”
“Sorry,” Paul apologized, taking in Frisby’s disheveled state, “Er…his hut-”
“It fell over, ka-boom!” Tucker finished, rolling his eyes with boredom, “So I need a place to stay tonight. You offering?”
Frisby scoffed, “No, I’m not.”
“Why not? Don’t want a queer staying with you?”
“That’s part of it,” Frisby answered, grinding his teeth, “The other part is that I told you weeks ago that the current condition of your hut was not going to make it through a storm and you refused to rebuild it.”
“Yeah, okay. I don’t need a lecture from you, I get enough of them from Paul,” he dismissed. Then he turned to look at him, “Speaking of which, looks like I’ll have to stay with you.”
Paul’s eyes went wide and his stomach turned, “No no no no. You can’t. No. No.”
“I need a place to stay!”
“John will murder you by the end of the night.”
Tucker laughed humorlessly and crossed his arms, “You know, I’m starting to feel like I’m not very loved around here.”
“Paul!”
Oh no. Paul’s stomach sank, he nearly dropped the guitar. He didn’t know exactly why everything in the universe was making it so that this was the fucking shittiest night of his life, but he knew that there was nothing to be done now-it was over. He turned towards the opening of Frisby’s hut and saw John standing there soaking wet and looking very furious.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked.
John’s eyes were darting between Paul, Tucker, the guitar and Frisby-the sharpness in their gaze made him feel like he was being pricked by needles every time they landed on him.
“We were…Tucker’s place fell apart. I was helping him look for somewhere else to stay.”
“Why were you with him in the first place?”
He had an answer ready, “I couldn’t sleep. Ringo kicked me awake…so I took a walk.”
“In the pouring fucking rain? With the guitar?”
“I didn’t have an umbrella,” he answered quickly.
John’s eyes popped, “So you fucking decided to take the only guitar on the island with strings that are already old and close to snapping in order to cover your pretty fucking hair?”
Tucker turned towards Frisby, “Can you feel how sexually charged this conversation is?”
Paul quickly grabbed the back of John’s shirt to prevent him from kicking Tucker’s teeth in.
“Shut the fuck up!” John shouted at Tucker before wrestling out of Paul’s grip, “I know what’s been going on. I’m not fucking stupid, Paul!”
“Technically you are stupid,” Tucker said, leaning against the wall, “Because I’m the one who had to tell you what’s been going on.”
“You told him!?” Paul barked. He shrugged.
“I told him yesterday. He needed to know.” Oh, he could have strangled him.
“Yeah, and you know what, Paul, I didn’t fucking believe him at first. But then you started acting like a fucking fidgety bird when I mentioned him yesterday, so I stayed up tonight. Just to be sure. And this is what I fucking find!” John screamed, throwing his arms up in the air.
“As fascinating as this all is,” Frisby boomed, “I want you all to get out of my hut.”
John didn’t need telling twice. He ripped the guitar out of Paul’s hands and then practically ripped Frisby’s curtain off as he marched into the storm. The adrenaline was buzzing in Paul’s chest as he ran after him.
“John!” he yelled, “Stop! I wanted to tell you!”
He whipped around, “What the fuck are you doing Paul!? Why are you tutoring him!?”
“Because he asked!”
“In case you’ve forgotten, he’s a fucking slimy git,” John yelled, moving closer as thunder barked in the background.
“He wanted my help! What the fuck was I supposed to say!?”
“No! You were supposed to say no!”
“We were the ones who took the guitar from him in the first place!”
“We deserve it more than he does and you fucking know that, Paul, or else you wouldn’t have taken it! Or does your morality shift depending on when it’s convenient?!”
Paul growled and rubbed his hands on his face, digging the water deeper into his skin, “I knew you would react this way. This is why I didn’t tell you!”
“Bullshite! You didn’t tell me because you knew that you were making a mistake and you didn’t want to hear me tell you that you were acting like a complete dolt!”
“What is so fucking wrong with tutoring him?!”
“You tell me, since you’re the one who decided to hide it!” John spat. Then he stepped closer, rain bouncing off his lips, running down his nose, clinging to his eyelashes, “Or are you and Tucker doing something else in the dead of night?”
Paul laughed incredulously. Fuck it, he was done with this conversation. John was being stupid and irrational, just like he knew he would be. Sometimes he wondered why he put up this shite, “You’re being ridiculous,” he stated before he backed up and began walking away, limbs tingling.
“Do I need to fucking remind you what happened the last time you put your trust in someone on this island!?”
Something inside him snapped. His body was red and hot and numb to the point where he couldn’t feel the rain, couldn’t see the lightning crackling behind purple and thick clouds. Suddenly he was right in front of John, restraining the urge to punch him, lips trembling as he talked, “Don’t you fucking mention her.”
“Why, Paul? Don’t tell me that you’ve forgotten what she did. Writing about us-that pissed you off quite a bit, didn’t it?”
“I’m warning you, John.”
“And what happened in the end? You threw her book in the ocean and she ran away. Never to be found again,” John said, and even though his next words were whispered, they were by far louder and cruder than the storm, “Because she’s dead.”
Paul was shaking. He told himself to stay in control, stay in control. “She’s not dead.”
“Well where is she!? Been missing for how long?”
Something flared in his stomach. Despite all that, he still managed to make his words come out cool, collected, “I wanted to find her. Straight away. But you wouldn’t let me go.”
“You had just split your head open on a fucking rock! You would have killed yourself looking for her!”
“Oh don’t pretend that’s the reason. You couldn’t care less whether she lived or died. You were too busy being jealous of everyone I was mates with.”
“Is that fucking so?” John whispered before his face contorted into some ugly and almost demonic, showing all of the anger that he was just barely keeping under control, “You know, I want nothing more than to hit you over the head with this guitar.”
Paul wanted it, oh did he want it. The weather was doing something to him, the wind swirled and let the clouds burst open to crackle bolt after bolt of lightning, the electrical charges in his body matched and succumbed to the black void. He noticed that John’s arm was shaking, the guitar clenched brutally in his fingers. All rationale shut down.
“If it’s anyone’s fault that she’s dead, John, it’s yours.”
He didn’t get what he was expecting. With an animalistic growl John punched him in the chest, sent him flying backwards a few steps. He clutched his chest and tried to laugh through the pain. Looked up into the sky and let the rain into his eyes.
“You’re a fucking cunt,” John said. And Paul must have really gotten him with that last comment. John usually cut better than that. He relished the upper hand.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to continue tutoring Tucker, and I’m going to talk to whoever the fuck I want, regardless of whether or not you approve. And if you have a fucking problem with that, then you can fuck off!” Paul shouted, chest exploding. Once he was done he turned and walked away, shutting his ears off to whatever John was yelling behind him. He breathed deeply, feeling his lungs expand further than they had in a long time. He felt like every single one of his veins was throbbing, sprinkles of euphoria still running down his chest.
When he was under the semi-cover of the forest he sighed loudly and smoothed his hair back. The wind sounded musical when it swam through the trees and he listened to it mindlessly, closing his eyes.
“So I guess this means you’ll be able to tutor me during the day now?” Tucker’s voice rang through the wind’s song and Paul nearly jumped. Tucker’s arms were crossed and he was standing in front of a tree, playing with a leaf.
In the smooth, dark, quiet cover of the forest Paul’s thoughts settled, his adrenaline cleared. He looked at Tucker and he remembered why he’d been reluctant to tell John about tutoring him-because this would happen. And now where was he? He was soaking wet in the dark forest with no one to talk to except the most annoying person on the island-and everything that had happened between him and John, everything that was so brilliant…that was over. They were done. He had an urge to rip out his hair.
“Don’t tell me you regret standing up to him?” Tucker said. Paul’s stomach roared. His anger refocused and he marched to stand in front of Tucker, fists balled at his sides.
“Why the fuck did you tell him?!”
“Because you weren’t going to.”
“That was none of your fucking business,” Paul spat.
“It became my business when our lessons sucked because you refused to stop being a coward.”
Paul pushed him into the tree and watched as he winced, “You’re lucky that I agreed to tutor you in the first fucking place. If I wanted your help I would have asked for it!”
“Well now you have it,” Tucker groaned, walking away from the tree and rubbing his back, “I’m sick of people fucking lying around here. And if no one else is going to tell the truth, then I am.”
There was something dark in his eyes that Paul hadn’t seen before. He squinted and studied him carefully, surprised at how pissed Tucker appeared to be with this whole situation. “Who do you think you are, our savior!?” he asked with a dark edge to his voice to match the darkness in Tucker’s eyes.
But then he smiled and laughed, the glimpse of darkness going away and being replaced by his usual mischievous nature, “No, I’m not that important. But the fact that you need a gay savior? Well, that’s saying something isn’t it?”
Paul let out a deep breath and grabbed the end of his shirt, wringing it out. It was windy and he was wet and he wanted nothing more than to get out of these clothes. But, well, not like he could go back to the hut, right?
“Looks like we both need a place to stay tonight,” Tucker said, as if reading his thoughts. Paul blinked and stared at him.
Tucker smiled, “Follow me.”
“No,” Paul answered immediately, “Where are we going?”
“To my forest hideout,” he smirked over his shoulder as he began to walk away. Not like Paul had anything better to do, so he followed him, “I believe you know where it is. Since that’s where you stole my guitar.”
Oh. The guitar. John still had it-would he even be allowed near it from now on?
And then he stopped in his tracks. Yes. He didn’t need John’s fucking permission to do anything. He could take that guitar if he wanted.
“Hey, are you coming?” Tucker asked, staring at him.
Paul smiled, “Yeah,” he nodded, “Yeah I am.”
“Good, I promise that I won’t touch you while you’re sleeping. Though I can’t promise that I won’t think about it.”
He wasn’t doing this to get back at John, to prove anything. He was doing this for himself.
And with that thought, he followed Tucker to his hideout, stumbling only a few times along the way.