Lucky Boys (11/?)
Title: Lucky Boys
Author: skelly_lector
Pairing: George/Ringo and John/Paul
Time Frame: 1964, American Tour
Rating: Still PG-13.
Warnings: Potty mouths, moderate boy-lovin, and awkward situations.
Summary: What do you get when you combine four hungover lads, one airplane, and one very big misunderstanding?
A/N: Yes, I return to spam you all with yet another chapter. Why so soon? Because I love this chapter so much, I just had to post it. We're really getting down to the slashy bits now. It's excitinggg.
Disclaimer: I totally know this is true because I was totally there to watch it nearly three decades before I was conceived. Totally.
First chapter is here! Second is here! Third is here! 4-10 can be found back at my journal.
The four of them got to their feet and got to work unfolding blankets and spreading them out rather haphazardly across the grass. Three blankets end to end made a sort of bottom sheet for them all, and another blanket apiece served to keep out the cold night air. Territories were quickly staked out: John took the far right end, Paul lay down beside him, then Ringo beside him, and then George on the other end.
Ringo made sure to leave plenty of room between himself and Paul and John; whatever shenanigans those two wanted to get up to tonight, he wanted to be as far away from them as possible. He supposed that it wasn’t very fair of him to assume those sorts of things, but then he remembered that it was John and Paul. Of course there were going to be shenanigans.
“Well, good night, lads,” John said after they’d all settled in. “Sleep tight, don’t get eaten by bears.”
“Thanks, John,” George murmured, and through the darkness Ringo could see his faint, dry smile.
“You two better keep it down over there,” John warned them, sitting up on his elbows to glare at George and Ringo. “One peep out of either of you and I’ll cripple you both, I swear.”
“Yeah, yeah, John,” Ringo snorted. “You and Paulie try and keep things quiet, alright? Some of us’d like some sleep, thank you very much.”
John made a loud, shocked sort of noise, but Ringo had already rolled over, pulling his blanket close about himself and grinning into George’s rather amazed face. And yeah. He, too, was a little surprised that he’d gone there. But hell, those two deserved it, ragging on George the way they had. They could bloody well enjoy a taste of their own medicine.
“What’s got into you, then?” George asked in a whisper, his warmth breath gusting against Ringo’s face with every consonant.
“How d’you mean?” Ringo frowned. He’d just been asking himself the same question. Sometimes he wished that he and George didn’t practically live in each other’s heads.
“Dunno. Y’ve been acting funny all day.”
“So’ve you,” Ringo countered, and then it was George’s turn to frown. Avoiding Ringo’s curious gaze, he rolled over onto his back and stared silently up at the incredible view of the stars overhead. For a few moments, Ringo enjoyed his own view here on earth: George’s face, every curve silvered with the cool moonlight and every angle draped in dark blue shadow, the stars reflecting in his dark, wet eyes.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Ringo rolled over and forced his gaze onto the stars. He really needed to stop staring at George like that.
Fortunately, the view overhead provided a more than adequate distraction. It was a gorgeous night; the early summer sky was black as ink, the stars standing out against the darkness like tiny lanterns suspended in space.
“Wow,” Ringo breathed.
There was a rustle beside him as George turned his head, and the hairs on the back of Ringo’s neck prickled with the sensation of being watched. But when he turned his head to look, George had already turned away, his eyes fixed on the sky once more.
“Pretty incredible,” George agreed quietly.
“You don’t see stars like that in England,” Ringo observed regretfully, looking back up at them. “Too much smoke in Liverpool, too many lights in London. I haven’t looked at the stars in ages.”
“Hush,” George shushed him, rolling back onto his side. “John’ll murder you.”
“John,” Ringo snorted, pushing himself up on one elbow to peer over at the John-Paul side of the blanket. “Right. Probably asleep already-oh.” He broke off when he caught sight of what appeared to be a Paul back with what looked suspiciously like a John hand pressed flat against it. And now that he looked closer…yes, that was definitely a John arm curling protectively around a Paul waist. In fact, he was pretty sure that there was another John hand on the back of a Paul head, long John fingers winding their way through Paul hair.
Behind him, George made a small, questioning sort of noise and pushed himself up to peek over Ringo’s shoulder.
They both heard what was distinctly a Paul voice giggle, actually bloody giggle, and murmur, “Not now, John, not now. They’ll hear.”
And then there was a John voice growling, “I don’t care. Let them hear. They can bloody sit here and watch for all I care.”
There was that Paul giggle again, and then an ominous silence. And the John arm curled tighter around the Paul waist, and the John fingers dug deeper into the Paul hair…and Ringo decided he’d had enough.
Dropping back down onto the ground, he rolled away from…those two, a disgusted sort of scoff breaking free from his throat. Beside him, George stared for another moment before looking away, collapsing to the ground like someone had pushed him.
And suddenly, things were awkward. They lay in silence, George looking back up at the stars and thinking god knew what, Ringo glaring out into the darkness and fuming. Good lord, he’d never seen such bloody hypocrites! George had been right on the plane; those two did live in a glass house, and yet here they were chucking stones left and right. Somehow, they saw absolutely nothing wrong with constantly embarrassing George or calling Ringo a queer. You kind of had to admire their complete and utter lack of shame.
Ringo didn’t often get the urge to hit people, but right about now he was itching to get up and punch John and Paul’s collective lights out. How dare they, how dare they lie there and blatantly tongue each other, not even caring that their two best mates we right here? How dare they sit there and kiss and call into question everything Ringo thought he knew about everything? Because suddenly everything felt very strange and uncertain: John, Paul, JohnandPaul as a single entity, and George. Most especially George, and George’s feelings about him, and his feelings about George. How the hell was he supposed to know what was what with John and Paul turning things all topsy turvy all of a sudden? How dare they? How dare they be together when he and George weren’t?
That was right about when he decided it would be a good idea to stop thinking now. That thought had come out of absolutely nowhere, and if he didn’t watch out there would be many more like it. And that was very dangerous territory, very dangerous territory indeed. It was best to just stay away from those sorts of thoughts.
The heat of his rage suddenly gone, Ringo finally noticed the cold that had crept out since the sun had set. It swarmed around him on all sides, numbing the skin on his face and slithering underneath his blanket to chill him to the bone.
Pulling the thin wool closer about him, he curled up into the smallest possible ball to conserve what little body heat remained. But it was no use; the goosebumps were marching up his arms and down his spine, and he could feel his teeth starting to chatter.
Beside him, George rolled onto his side and looked at Ringo with concern, his dark brows drawing together and creating a shadow that nearly hid his eyes.
“You’re shivering,” George pointed out.
“Am not,” Ringo mumbled, wrapping his arms tightly around his stomach and trying to contain the shudders running through him.
“Are too,” George replied automatically, and Ringo managed a weak chuckle at their childishness.
“S’just colder than I expected,” he forced out between his chattering teeth.
“It’s cause you’re small, I reckon,” George said thoughtfully, pillowing his head on one arm and fixing Ringo with a calm, contemplative stare. “You lose body heat quicker.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault now, is it?” Ringo said teasingly.
“No, no! It’s not your fault you’re small,” George backtracked hastily. “Nothing wrong with being small.”
“’Cept I’m cold,” Ringo complained, drawing his blanket still tighter around his shoulders.
“Then take my blanket,” George didn’t so much offer as order, shedding his only protection against the cold and draping it over Ringo.
“I won’t,” Ringo refused, tossing it back at George.
“You said yourself that you’re cold,” George argued, tossing it back. “Take it.”
“No! You’ll freeze without it.”
“I’ll be fine. Worry about yourself.”
“I won’t take it, Geo. You need it.”
“You need it more than I do.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” Beyond frustrated, Ringo snatched up the blanket and forced it back over George, spreading it out onto the guitarist’s thin body and pressing each corner down firmly.
“There,” he snapped, lying back. “And you bloody well better keep it.”
But George was just as stubborn and instantly tossed the blanket off himself and pressed it heavily down on top of Ringo.
“God damn it!” Ringo muttered under his breath, pushing the bigger lad off. There ensued a brief struggle in which the blanket was kicked from side to side and pinned down with hands, feet, elbows, knees, and anything else they could use to keep the stupid thing down. Things rapidly deteriorated into a silent wrestling match punctuated with brief, bitten-off swearwords, quiet grunts, and whispered exclamations and threats.
“Damn it, Ringo!”
“Fuck, ow-”
“For god’s sake-”
“Oof!”
“Owch!”
“That was me fuckin’ wrist, Geo!”
“So what?”
“So you didn’t have to go and bite it like that, y’bloody savage!”
“Owch! You didn’t have to go and bite me back!”
“God damn it…”
After a few minutes of this nonsense, they paused to catch their breath and came to their senses. Ringo was pinned to the ground with one of George’s arms across his chest, his fingers tangled in George’s hair and one of his legs hooked over George’s waist. Both their blankets had somehow come to be piled on top of them, and they were both suddenly quite hot and sweaty.
They lay still for a moment, chests heaving as they struggled to catch their breath. As Ringo began to collect his scattered thoughts, he became aware of just how close George was, became aware of the heat of his skin and the weight of his body. Because now that he could think properly, Ringo realized that George was fully on top of him, kept off the ground by nothing but one arm and Ringo’s body. And now that Ringo thought about it more, considering the multiple uncertainties in his emotions at present, this whole extreme closeness thing was probably not such a great idea.
And then he made the mistake of looking up into George’s face, suspended only a few inches above his own. There were those dark eyes staring back down at him, those sharp cheekbones cloaked so heavily in shadows, and that mouth, lips parted slightly as he drew in breath after deep breath. There it was, so close, so close that Ringo would only have to lift his head the tiniest bit…
The hot breath on his face stopped, and he looked up to meet George’s widened eyes. That mouth opened again, the tip of a tongue darting out to moisten the thin lips. Ringo watched, fascinated, as the bottom lip was drawn in and captured between crooked teeth. His gaze darted back up to George’s eyes, which had narrowed slightly, the top lids lowering gently over the dark irises that had almost entirely been swallowed up by the black holes of his pupils. And then the teeth released the bottom lip, the dragon breath stuttered back onto Ringo’s skin, and he was distracted by that mouth again, that warm, wet mouth just inches from his own. It was right there, right fucking there for him to reach out and take. He could do it, he could do it now, he could…
But of course he couldn’t. He broke the eye contact with George and looked away, suddenly embarrassed. The moment was over, all the heat and surprise and intensity drained away, and they were dropped rudely back into reality. There was no magic, no mystery, no romance here; they were lying on the cold, hard ground in the middle of nowhere, a chilly breeze freezing the sweat on their foreheads, their rapidly stiffening limbs locked in extremely uncomfortable positions.
“Okay, truce,” Ringo croaked finally, fingers slowly relaxing their death grip on George’s coarse, dark hair. “We’ll share the blankets, alright?”
“All right,” George conceded breathlessly, loosening his vice-like grip on Ringo’s wrist. “Now.” He paused, taking in their tangled limbs with equal parts amusement and bemusement. “How shall we do this?”
“You can start by getting your elbow out of me ribs,” Ringo gasped. George complied instantly, drawing back slightly as Ringo winced and rubbed his tender ribcage.
“I’d appreciate it,” George began slowly, voice slightly tight around the edges with pain, “If you’d stop digging your heel into me arse…”
“Right, sorry,” Ringo muttered, sliding his leg off George’s back and letting it fall back to the ground. “You alright?”
“Yeah, fine,” George grunted, rolling off Ringo and flopping heavily onto the ground beside him.
“Christ,” Ringo groaned, massaging his sore wrist. “You’ve got some sharp teeth, mate. I wouldn’t be surprised if you broke the skin.”
“Probably gave you rabies,” George suggested idly.
“Well, if I rip your head off in the night, you’ll know,” Ringo joked. This was good. He wanted to keep this going. What he was dreading the most was a silence that would force him to think about what had just happened.
“You probably could, too,” George chuckled. “I think your teeth are sharper than mine. Feels like y’got to the bone in me shoulder.”
“Oh, is that where I bit you?” Ringo grinned. “I couldn’t tell.”
They both laughed at that, little snickers that swelled into huge, chest-wracking guffaws that they had to fight to suppress. Silently, they laughed and laughed until their stomachs ached and their faces hurt, their knees and foreheads knocking together as they curled into balls to stifle their uproarious laughter.
As this sudden fit of hilarity subsided, Ringo gulped in the chilly night air and felt himself relax a little. Things were still okay. For now, at least, everything was alright.
“Okay,” George panted, reaching up and resettling the blankets. “We ought to get some sleep. We’ve got a lot of walking to do tomorrow.”
“Urgh, yeah,” Ringo groaned, tugging the blankets further toward himself. “’Ere, stop hogging the blankets, Geo.”
“I’m not hoggin’ ‘em!” George protested, pulling them back towards himself. “You’re the one who’s snatching them all for yourself!”
“Am not,” Ringo pouted. “You’re not leavin me any room.”
“That’s because there is none. These blankets are meant for one person, not two.”
“Well how’re we supposed to share, then?”
“Move over here, you bloody idiot,” George finally huffed, grabbing Ringo around the waist and bodily dragging him sideways until he was within the aura of warmth that surrounded the guitarist. This aura, limited as it was by the rather inadequate width of the blankets, was quite small. So, of course, being within it meant being pressed up quite close against George.
Not, Ringo thought absently, that he minded very much. It was nice and warm underneath the blankets. Cozy, really. And naturally the shared body heat of two was much better than the pitiful warmth of one.
Though, his darker thoughts chimed in, taking into account the events of the past fifteen minutes, this was not such a great idea. He had very nearly lost control, had been this close to doing something that he would surely, surely regret.
But he wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t going to think about how he’d almost kissed George, had actually been thinking about leaning up and pressing his lips against his best mate’s. What the hell was wrong with him? But George had been so close, so warm, so there. It would have been so easy. What the hell was wrong with him? Why hadn’t he done it?
As the conflicting factions of his brain continued their little screamfest, Ringo shivered slightly and pulled the edge of the blanket down over himself. Compliant as ever, George rolled over onto his side to give Ringo more blanket room. And so they found themselves in a position that had become all too familiar in those drafty Hamburg hotel rooms: lying side by side under shared covers, one man’s back to another’s front, curled up close to one another in order to conserve warmth. In a word, spooning.
“Well, it seems,” George remarked sleepily, his voice close against the back of Ringo’s neck, “That the sleeping hierarchy has been disrupted.”
“So it has,” Ringo agreed, a yawn swallowing most of the words. “I don’t mind,” he added before his brain could slam on the brakes. “I never liked sharing with John anyway.”
“He kicks,” George said, the grimace evident in his voice. “Thrashes, too.”
“Punched me in the stomach once,” Ringo chuckled. “Told me he dreamed that Winston Churchill was trying to make him tap dance.”
“Did he really,” George chuckled, a deep, rich note of amusement in his voice. “Well, Paul’s not any better. The sod talks in his sleep all the time. Used to keep me up nights mumbling about god knows what. One time he sat up, shook me awake, and told me, ‘Don’t let them put the beans in my ice cream, Arthur. You mustn’t let them put the beans in my ice cream.’ He, of course, lay back down and started snorin’, but I couldn’t fall back asleep for hours.”
Ringo put a hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter. “’Ee sleeps like a rock, too,” he contributed. “Rolled over on top of me one night in Manchester; total dead weight. He was crushin’ me lungs, and I couldn’t wake him up.”
“What’d you do?” George asked, halfway between laughter and sympathy.
“Well, if I’d yelled then I’d’ve woken everyone else up, but I couldn’t push him off,” Ringo explained, recalling the real terror of asphyxiation he’d felt in that dark hotel room. “Didn’t want to hurt him, either. I think I got a bottle of whiskey off the bedside table and dumped it out onto his head.”
“Christ, lah,” George laughed. “I would’ve punched him as hard as I could. Bastard never remembered anything in the morning anyway.”
“He needed his sleep, he did,” Ringo agreed. “Always used to complain about me leavin’ the lights on and readin’ half the night.”
“Nah, you weren’t bad at all. Once I got used to sleepin’ with a light on, it was fine. That and the snoring, but I always fell asleep first. Even that trumpet hooter of yours couldn’t wake me up.”
“Oi. At least with me you knew you could wake up without some mad tentacle monster squeezing the life out of you.”
“S’not me fault I cuddle,” George mumbled sulkily. “M’not responsible for what I do while I’m asleep.”
“Neither is anyone, I s’pose,” Ringo shrugged. “Not John kicking or Paul talking or me snoring or you cuddling. I never really minded any of it, not much. As long as I woke up in one piece the next morning, I was alright.”
“Very gentlemanly of you,” George snorted. “Now, how about cutting all the talk about sleeping and actually getting around to it? Not to be rude, but today’s been a bit tiring.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Ringo yawned again. “All right, then. G’night, Geo.”
“Good night, Ritch.”
Despite his normally uneasy relationship with sleep, this time Ringo drifted right off into a doze. Between the warmth, the slow steady rhythm of George’s breathing, and the simple comfort of being close to another human being, he soon slipped from his doze into a deep, exhausted sleep. He barely noticed when, just before he went under, George’s arm slung itself across his chest and pulled him imperceptibly closer to the guitarist’s skinny chest. And, really, he didn’t mind. In fact, even as his brain shut down for the night, his hand found its way up to that foreign arm, wrapping around the wrist and letting his cold fingers warm against that steady, reassuring pulse.