Lucky Boys (14/?)
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: Holy hell, it's been ages! School's been absolutely brutal lately, but I'm trying to make more time for myself to write. Things are really getting exciting now, so I hope people are still reading this.
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! 4-13 can be found back at my journal.
The rain had not abated in the slightest by the time the four of them reached the village. Water thundered down onto rooftops and cascaded to the ground in sheets, filling sewers and gutters until they overflowed and flooded the streets. A stream roared down an alley, nearly sweeping Ringo off his feet as he skidded to a halt behind George.
They had come to a stop at the edge of what looked to be a central square, pausing in an attempt to get their bearings. Huddling beneath the small shelter that the nearest building could provide, Ringo peered out into the abandoned plaza. It was bare except for a lonely statue of some communist hero or other, and there was not a soul in sight.
“Looks like we’re safe,” Ringo panted, leaning back against the wet stone wall. “D’you think we could find some shelter?”
“In this weather? Not bloody likely,” John frowned as he, too leaned against the wall just behind Paul. “I don’t see a bleedin’ soul out there.”
“Uh, lads?” Paul said timidly, his head poking around the corner of the building and into the square, “I think I see some people…”
“Some people?” John repeated, moving to stand beside Paul and examine the square. “How many people? What sort of people?”
“Four of them,” Paul whispered, pointing to the opposite side of the plaza. “Over there.”
“The ones in black?” John asked quietly, water dripping off the end of his nose.
“That’s them,” Paul nodded, pressing himself back against the side of the building. “The really nasty looking ones.”
“The ones with the tattoos and the guns?” John was inching backwards too, his eyes still fixed on the square.
“Those are the ones.” Paul took a slow, deep breath as John slid sideways along the wall beside him. “The ones that look like the Russian Mob. That’s them. Oh god.”
“Don’t panic on me now, Paul,” John hissed, gripping the bassist’s trembling shoulder tightly. “They haven’t seen us yet.”
“Um.” They all turned to look at George, who was looking out into the square with wide eyes. “You said there were four of them?”
“What do you mean, there were four?” John asked slowly.
“Now there are eight,” George said weakly. “And I think they’re coming this way.”
“Shit!” Paul yelped, his voice jumping several octaves in terror.
“Let’s get out of here, lads,” Ringo whispered, stepping away from the wall and backing slowly down the alley. Now, he could fully see the square and its eight inhabitants who were, indeed, moving towards the alley at a worrying speed.
“G-good plan,” John gasped, grabbing Paul’s arm and towing him away from the square.
“This strikes me,” George said quietly, taking step after slow step backwards, “As really great time to run.”
“Run?” Paul repeated, his eyes widening.
John nodded. “Run.”
“Run!”
As one man, they turned on their heel and sprinted off down the alley, puddles exploding up from under their feet like landmines. Behind them, shouts erupted, the thunderous footsteps of their pursuers echoing off the stone walls. The rain stung harder as they ran into it, the wind howling around their ankles and trying to drive them backwards. They turned and bobbed and weaved, ducking down one street after another until none of them had the faintest idea where they were. And hopefully, neither did the mafia. After what seemed an eternity, the shouts and footsteps behind them started to fade, until they were sure that their pursuers were far behind them. But they kept running, just for good measure.
They had just started to slow down and catch their breath when they turned down a street and nearly ran head-first into a group of girls. The foursome stopped dead in their tracks, exchanging looks of pure terror. These girls were exactly of the Beatlemaniac age, and by the looks on their faces, things were about to get ugly.
The first girl raised her hands to her face, her lips forming the classic ‘O’ of hysteria, but Paul darted forward and covered her mouth before she could make a sound. They could barely afford to speak too loudly; the kind of insane shrieking that four shirtless Beatles would cause would give them away in a second.
“Shhh, shhh,” he hissed, putting a finger to his lips. “Please. No screaming.”
Eyes wide, the girl exchanged glances with her two friends, who were just as stunned as she.
“Thank you,” Paul sighed, shoulders slumping with relief. “Thank you.” He released her and looked nervously back at John, unsure of what to do next.
“Now, if you ladies will excuse us,” John said courteously, giving the three stunned teenagers a quick bow before darting past them and vanishing down the alley.
“Thanks a lot,” Paul added, putting a hand to his forelock as he dashed after John. Nodding gratefully at the girls, Ringo and George followed suit.
They were just turning the corner when the screams started.
“Fuck!” John snarled, turning around to glare at the mouth of the alley they had just left. “What the fuck’re they hollering for? We’re not even there anymore!”
Before anyone could answer, they heard the approaching thunder of footsteps, accompanied by men’s voices shouting in Russian. The girlish screams in the alley changed pitch from joy to terror. The foursome shared a wide-eyed look and sprinted off into the rain once more.
“We’re dead,” Paul panted, clutching at a stitch in his side. “Oh god. They’ll find us for sure now.”
“We’ve got to hide,” George gasped. “There’s no use running now.”
“We ought to get out of town,” Ringo contributed breathlessly. “We can hide in the woods or something.”
“How big is this goddamned village?” John groaned, pausing at the intersection of four tiny, cobblestone-paved streets. “How the hell are we gonna get out of here?”
“Hurry, hurry,” Paul wailed, glancing over his shoulder. The sound of the mafia men was coming closer, a great black roar that held an infinite promise of death in extremely nasty ways. They had to figure out a direction, and quickly.
“That way.” Ringo pointed to the left, where he could just make out the tops of trees thrashing under the incessant beating of the rain. Without another word, they ran.
Within moments they left the village behind, the cobblestone street turning into a soupy dirt road beneath their boots. Ringo winced but did not slow down as his bare feet landed on stones and branches brought down by the force of the storm. After a while, the pain no longer even registered; the only thing that mattered was escape.
“Woods?” Paul suggested, nervously eyeing the dark trees by the side of the road.
“No.” John shook his head.
“What d’you mean, no?” Paul demanded, his cheeks red from running and raw from wind and rain. “Do you have a better alternative?”
“Barn,” John said simply, pointing down the road to a rather derelict-looking building looming in the distance. Without a moment’s hesitation, Ringo took off towards it, George, John, and Paul following close behind.
They stopped short at the door, regarding the large, ramshackle structure suspiciously. It was almost definitely abandoned; the red paint was peeling off and the door was missing several boards. The question now was whether it was safe enough to hide in.
“D’you think it’s safe?” Paul asked finally, frowning at the rotted-out doorway.
“Only one way to find out,” John said briskly. “In you go, Ringo.”
“What?” Ringo blinked. “Why me?”
“You’re the littlest,” John told him matter-of-factly. “If the floor doesn’t collapse under you, then we’ll know it’s safe to send in George. If it holds you and George, we’ll add Paul. And if none of you break your necks, then I’ll come in and make the floor cave in.”
“That doesn’t-” Ringo began weakly, but John was already pushing him towards the biggest gap in the door.
“No time for that, Ritch, no time,” John said rapidly. “Hurry on up, there’s a good lad.”
With a sigh of resignation, Ringo slipped between the boards and into the warm, grassy-smelling darkness inside. The constant thundering of the rain was suddenly muted to a faint rumble overhead, the howl of the wind silenced except for a few places where it whistled through the gaps in the walls.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the half-darkness, Ringo took a small step forwards, his toes curling on the cool, smooth floor. And then it struck him; this barn wasn’t dangerous in the least. He turned and called back through the door.
“You can all come in!”
“Just George now, just George,” John’s faint voice ordered, and Ringo glimpsed the skinny guitarist’s dark head moving towards the gap in the boards.
“All of you,” Ringo contradicted him firmly.
“Now, Ritch, we ought to take it slowly,” Paul told him through the boards. “We don’t know if the floor will hold.”
“The floor’s stone, Paul,” Ringo said flatly.
There was a pause.
“Get in, get in!” John yelled suddenly, and George came floundering through the gap in the boards, hands flailing to keep his balance as John shoved him from behind. Paul came next, turning sideways to fit his broad shoulders through the narrow gap. Finally, John pushed his way inside, shaking water droplets out of his hair like a wet dog.
“Thank god,” Paul gasped, leaning back against the door, his chest heaving. “We’re safe.”
Ringo took a few steps further into the barn, taking stock of their new hiding place. It was dim and spacious and fascinating in that rickety, old-barn sort of way. Obviously, it had been abandoned for years; dust-covered bits of farming equipment littered the stone floor, and old straw sat in heaps all over the place. Sidestepping a broken wheelbarrow, Ringo peered up at a rickety ladder that disappeared into a square hole in the ceiling that presumably led to some sort of hayloft.
“Splendid,” John declared, hitching up his pants and surveying the surroundings in satisfaction. “They’ll never find us in here.”
“We ought to hide, though,” Paul frowned, glancing through the gap in the door at the pouring rain outside. “Just in case they’ve followed us here.”
“Alright,” John nodded, ambling across the barn and eyeing the dilapidated ladder appraisingly.
“Dibs on the hayloft!” he cried suddenly, dashing towards it and swinging himself up through the opening in the ceiling.
“Me too!” Paul yelped, following him up.
Shrugging, George moved to follow them, but stopped in his tracks as John poked his head back through the hole.
“Find your own bloody hidin’ place!” he screeched before disappearing again.
Ever the diplomatic one, Paul stuck his head through and added, “It’s probably best if it’s just the two of us up here. We don’t know if the floor will hold more, y’know.”
“Ri-ight,” George drawled disbelievingly, turning away and sharing a look with Ringo. Grinning, Ringo shrugged.
“Let them be,” he suggested as George rolled his eyes. “It’d just be awkward if we were up there anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess,” George conceded.
There was a pause, during which Ringo found himself staring at George. And all of a sudden, it occurred to Ringo that George wasn’t wearing a shirt. This shouldn’t have come as such a surprise; he hadn’t been wearing one for the past couple of hours, and shirtlessness was not exactly an uncommon occurrence amongst the foursome. And yet, it shocked Ringo. Moreover, he was rather nonplussed by the way he couldn’t take his eyes off of George’s naked torso, the way he noted the water droplets sliding across his skin and the faint heaving motion of his chest. He observed the way George was flushed and humming from all the running, and the way every muscle and tendon seemed to slip and glide beneath the skin as he breathed.
He also noticed a certain strange, creeping warmth in his lower abdomen. That seemed quite odd, and so he decided it would be worth investigating further. A glance up at George’s thick, dripping hair did nothing to dispel the warmth, and a study of the tiny rivers and waterfalls of leftover rain coursing down his face seemed to only intensify the heat.
Unfortunately, he was distracted from his experimentation when he realized that George appeared to be staring directly back at him. A new heat crept up his face as they locked eyes and then quickly looked away, both a little sheepish at being caught. The silence suddenly took on a new, uncomfortable weight, the pause now too drawn-out to be natural.
Ringo cleared his throat. “So, uh, we probably ought to find someplace to hide,” he suggested unsteadily, casting a quick glance at George. Through the thick strands of George’s waterlogged hair, his ears were so red they were practically incandescent.
“Good idea,” George grunted, shoving his hands into his pockets and shivering slightly. Ringo felt goosebumps rise on his arms as a sudden gust of wind whistled through the barn and turned every drop of water on his skin to ice.
“Should probably put on our shirts,” he mumbled, untangling his soggy bundle of clothes. As much as he hated to block the current view, he knew that hypothermia was the last thing they needed now.
“Yeah, right,” George nodded, pawing through his waterlogged clothes in a dissipated sort of way.
Ringo quickly slid his damp shirt up onto his shoulders and buttoned it up with trembling fingers. He needed to get a hold of himself. This was just silly. He needed to pull himself together. Now was not the time to be lusting after George. The mafia could burst in here at any moment; what they hell did he think he was doing, ogling his bandmate’s chest like a horny teenager?
“Where the hell is there to hide in here?” George grumbled. Now fully clothed, he was inspecting the surroundings with a frown. “John and Paul took the best spot.”
“There must be something,” Ringo said soothingly, wandering across the barn to peer at a large pile of hay.
“If the mafia shows up, d’you s’pose we could beat them off with broken farming implements?” George drawled, giving some sort of large wooden rake a half-hearted kick.
“Mm. Maybe,” Ringo said absently, turning his head sideways to get a better look at the haystack. It seemed to sort of lean over backwards into the corner… He put his back against the side wall of the barn and inched tentatively towards the corner.
Looking up from his inspection of the debris littering the floor, George raised his eyebrows at Ringo.
“What’re you doing?” he inquired, picking his way across the floor to stand beside Ringo.
“I think there’s a space in there,” Ringo explained, pointing at a patch of shadow just underneath where the haystack slumped over into the corner. Bending over, he peeked into the dark space. It was small, to be sure, but it was protected from the outside by the two walls of the barn and from the inside by the haystack. An intruder could only find it by standing exactly where Ringo and George stood now: in the awkward, tiny gap between the enormous haystack and the back wall. It would be, essentially, like hiding inside the pile of hay.
“Pretty small,” Ringo commented, withdrawing his head and straightening up.
“Yeah?” George leaned down to see for himself. “Oh, yeah. It’d probably only fit one person.” He articulated Ringo’s exact thought, his voice somewhat muffled by the straw.
“You can have it,” Ringo said quickly as George straightened up and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
“What?” George raised his eyebrows at Ringo, quizzical. “Nah, mate, you take it. You’re the one who found it.”
Ringo frowned; George had a point, but he felt greedy.
“Honestly,” George assured him, sidling back along the wall. “I’ll find me own place.”
“Alright, then,” Ringo shrugged, looking dubiously back at his new hiding spot.
And then they heard it. Above the driving sound of the rain rose the sound of footsteps-thunderous, numerous, rapid footsteps right outside. Every tendon in his body suddenly tight and still, Ringo exchanged a wide-eyed glance with George, his breathing brought to a sudden standstill. They were here.
To anyone who's still reading this: I love you. You are splendid and patient with my fail. I shall do my best to have the next part up much, much sooner.