Orange Collision

[macca44552]

Title: Orange Collision

Pairings: J/P, G/R   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: Anyway, I know that there are a lot of AUs in the community as of late, but 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). It’s a way of branching out, you see. =) Also, this story is very Lost-esque, but obviously it has a different plot. There are just some similar themes.

A/N 2: Sorry for this chapter’s delay: summer has kept me quite busy. The next update should be up early next week, though! I promise. :)

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Beatles, nor do I claim to. This is a fictional story and is not written to be libelous.

Chapter 1


Chapter 2

He was stacking up dolls, side by side, arm to arm. They donned blonde hair and their blue eyes seemed to twinkle through the fading paint. As Ringo stacked these dolls on a dirty shelf-a dirty shelf that was suspended nowhere, in nothingness-he noticed that one doll was missing. One doll wasn’t in the box that floated beside him.

And he knew that that was Neil’s doll.

Ringo’s eyes peeled open slowly, apprehensively. He was curious to know whether or not he would see uniform-clad men with helicopters and boats-he was curious to know whether or not rescue had come. But, yet again, it hadn’t come. He had been on this…island thing…for three days and no one had arrived to save them. Still, Ringo wasn’t too bothered by this-the past two days had managed to keep him busy. Even if those days had also filled him with despair.

Neil was gone. Neil-their assistant, their driver, their friend. Learning about Neil’s death was the worst thing that had happened to him so far. It was worse than the plane crash, it was worse than the pain in his arm, it was worse than the tortured faces of his mates, and it was worse than the deadly silence that had descended upon the beach. Neil was gone.

They had buried him on the second day. Sure, the other survivors had been keeping a pile of dead bodies on the beach (they were waiting for rescue to come so the bodies could be delivered to their families), but they weren’t going to wait for Neil’s body to start to decompose. Besides, they were Neil’s family, and they knew that Neil would have wanted it this way.

So Mal and John picked a nice secluded area (they didn’t want to be spotted by the other people on the beach), dug a hole for Neil, and placed him in it. Ringo, Brian, George, and Paul were all there, and the latter had, per Brian’s request, prepared a speech for their fallen friend.

“Neil…hi,” Paul started as he shifted his weight nervously, keeping his eyes on the piece of paper that contained his speech, “I…I don’t know if you can hear me or not…but I’d like to think that you can,” Paul said, pausing to swallow back a lump in his throat, “We’re the Mad Lads Gang, remember? We used to get into all kinds of shite together. You…ah…you had a part in ruining the near-innocence of George. You had a part in helping John corrupt me. And, you know, if it wasn’t for your help…we might not have…might not have…The Beatles… We made it because of you,” Paul spoke and Ringo looked down, biting his knuckles.

He almost felt like he shouldn’t have been hearing this; he almost felt like this moment didn’t belong to him. Everyone had connected with Neil better than he had. Hell, Neil hadn’t even wanted him in the band in the first place-not that Ringo blamed him for his alliance with Pete. And even though Ringo and Neil had eventually managed to become good friends, he couldn’t help but feel like some kind of intruder when he looked at the pain and sadness that was littered all over his mates’ faces. He wished that he would have spent more time with Neil. He wished that he could have known him as well as everyone else did.

“But anyway,” Paul continued, “We’re gonna miss you loads. We…everyone loves you,” Paul finished as he crumpled up the bit of paper in his hand. As Ringo blinked back his emotions, he looked around him and saw the Brian’s eyes were red and a few tears were creeping down his face. George had his arms crossed and his head was determinedly bowed so that no one could see his face. John and Mal both wore hardened expressions as they grabbed their makeshift shovels (sticks) and began filling in the hole that Neil was currently resting in. Without another glance at his friends, Ringo turned around and walked away, eager to get away from the proof that Neil was really gone.

Because he knew that it really wasn’t just Neil who had perished. That funeral had been for everyone that they had lost; that funeral had been for every member of their entourage; that funeral had been for every reporter that had traveled with them; that funeral had been for Jerry Bishop and Larry Kane. And Ringo felt sad and guilty.

All those people had died, and yet he was here. What made him so special? Why was his life above all the other lives that had been lost?

On that very depressing night, Ringo had hoped that a bottle of whiskey would have given him his answer, but he had been sorely mistaken. All that it had managed to do was to numb the throbbing sensation in his arm, but his heart still felt like it was being pelted with knives. Luckily, he hadn’t drowned himself in the burning liquid because George, Paul, and John came over to drink with him. They hadn’t talked; they just drank.

Now it was Ringo’s third day on the island. The first day had been spent weaving in and out of consciousness as Jessica stitched up his wounded arm. The second day had been spent remembering Neil and the others while drinking himself to blood poisoning. And now, as he looked at the sunny skies around him, Ringo hoped that today would be a good day. Even though rescue still hadn’t come, Ringo was hoping that something good would happen. Anything.

“Hey, Ritchie,” George greeted half-heartedly as he took a seat next to Ringo.

“Hello,” he responded, taking a moment to shake the sand out of his hair. It was going to take a while for him to get used to this whole ‘sleeping on the beach’ shite.

“So…er…how are you?” George whispered and Ringo instantly knew what he was talking about. Neil.

“Yeah…I’m alright, I guess. What about you?”

George put his head down and shrugged, “Well…I dunno,” George said as he played with his hands distractedly. He threw a curious side-glance to Ringo, “How’s your arm?”

“It still hurts and all, but it’s better. I think the bleeding’s gone down,” he responded as he looked at the bandage that Jessica had secured around his arm. Fuck, he hoped that this injury would heal quickly. He was a fucking drummer…what use was he without his arm!?

“Hey! Poofters!” John yelled and Ringo looked up immediately. John was standing in front of them, his arms crossed, “We have to go over there,” John said as he pointed to a place along the beach where the other survivors seemed to be gathering. Ringo raised his eyebrows.

“Why?”

“For some stupid fucking ‘getting to know each other’ shite.”

“So we’re having a meeting with them?” George asked.

“Yes George, we’re having a meeting,” John spoke condescendingly, “Now get over there! That old man’s gonna kill me if we don’t hurry up.”

“Wait. Where’s Paul?” George asked.

“He’s already there with Brian and Mal. Just come ed!” John said, glancing over there in irritation before he turned to Ringo, fluttered his lashes, and held out his hand.

“Do you need help, m’lady?” John asked and Ringo rolled his eyes and pushed his hand away.

“I’ve got it, thanks.”

“I’m only trying to help. It’s my job to help the disabled.”

“Have you tried helping yourself first?” George retorted and John laughed loudly.

“Oh look at that! Harrison’s quick in more ways than one!” John joked and the three of them laughed as they walked to the other survivors. Despite the fact that they would most likely be leaving this island soon, Ringo was still happy with the opportunity to get to meet some new people. Hell, maybe they’d even have a huge party before the rescue came!

“Is that everyone?” the old man asked as soon as the three of them approached.

“All accounted for, sergeant,” John said and Paul, who was standing across from them, gave his companion a dirty look. As for himself, Ringo almost started giggling at John’s antics.

“Wonderful,” the old man replied, keeping his weary eyes on John, “Well now that we’re all here, we should probably introduce ourselves. I’m Jack Frisby.”

“Tosser!” John shouted excitedly, only to be met with blank and annoyed stares. Ringo actually did giggle that time.

“I beg your pardon?” Frisby responded.

“Tosser. ‘Cause your name’s Frisby. God, you’re soft, eh?” John said which resulted in a chorus of laughter. Well…the laughter was spawned from the other Beatles, but it was still a pretty nice chorus.

“Please excuse him. He’s not very good in social situations,” Brian spoke as he gave John a disapproving look. “Anyway, I’m Brian and this is Mal. The other four, as you might already be aware, are John, Paul, George, and Ringo,” Brian said, pointing to everyone in turn.

“Thanks a lot, Eppy. You stole my introduction,” John grinned.

“Yeah, John was probably going to pull down his pants or something,” Paul inserted.

“And Macca was going to bow.”

“And George was going to stare,” Paul said with a smirk.

“Yeah, and Ringo was going to show off his bloodied-up arm,” John said and Ringo responded by hitting him playfully. They were probably making a great first impression on the other survivors.

“Speaking of Ringo’s bloodied-up arm…I’m Jessica,” Ringo’s savior announced and everyone nodded at her gratefully, well aware of what she had done for Ringo.

“I’m…ah…I’m Nicole,” a young brown-haired woman spoke. Ringo saw as Paul, quite obviously, gave her a heated glance. He had to bite his tongue to keep himself from laughing.

“And I’m Tucker,” the last of the survivors said. He was a short man (shorter than him!), and he had a confident smile and an air of pretentiousness. “Of course, John and I already had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Pleasure is one way to describe it,” John said, eyeing Tucker maliciously. Ringo licked his lips and looked at the ground. He could tell that Tucker and John weren’t going to be the best of friends.

“If your song writing is any indication, I’d say that adjectives aren’t your forte,” Tucker responded with a smirk that rivaled John’s. The latter clenched his fists and almost ran at Tucker, but Paul held him back just in time.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Paul warned.

“Actually, Paul, you’re the one doing something stupid. I was just about to take care of our rodent problem,” John spat and Tucker shrugged innocently.

“I was just joking!”

“Yeah, and we’ll see who’s laughing!”

“Alright, enough!” Frisby announced, holding his hands up, “I asked everyone over here for more than introductions. As everyone knows, our plane crashed and we’ve been waiting to be rescued for three days,” Frisby paused, looking over at everyone, “Now I don’t know how long it’ll take them to find us, but I figured that we could give them a little help.”

“Like how?” Brian asked.

“Well…there’s a pretty high peak over that way,” Frisby said as he turned around and pointed at the forest. Backing up, Ringo squinted at the view and noticed a hill-like point that seemed to overlook the entire land.

“If we climb up there and light a fire, the smoke might be high enough for the rescue vehicles to see,” Frisby explained.

“So we’re gonna light a fire in the middle of the forest? You’re an American, right? Haven’t you ever seen Smokey the Bear!?” John asked and Frisby smiled.

“There are methods that we can use to control the fire.”

Ringo shrugged, “It sounds like a good idea. When are we going?”

“You can’t go,” Jessica reprimanded, “You can’t do anything extraneous or you’ll pull out your stitches,” she said and Ringo sighed as another wave of pain went through his arm.

“I’ll go,” Mal spoke quietly and Ringo turned to him instantly. Mal was never the most talkative bloke in the first place, but he had been positively silent since they had buried Neil.

“Yeah, I’ll go too. Nothing says fun like burning down a forest,” John said.

“I’ll go!” Paul spoke, but John shook his head firmly.

“No, you’ve got to stay here and help Ringo.”

“Ringo doesn’t need a nanny! George can stay!” Paul replied.

“Fine. George, you and Paul can stay!” John responded.

“Hey! What if I don’t want to stay!?” George retorted defiantly but John brushed him off.

“Tough. I need you and Paul to stay here like good housewives,” he replied and George glared at him angrily.

“Fine. I’ll stay. But only because Ringo is a right better sight than you.”

“That’s a good motto, George,” John responded halfheartedly as he and Mal walked over to stand near Frisby.

“Wait, if George is already staying here, then why do I need to stay!?” Paul countered.

“Because you’re a fragile little ponce! You’ll get yourself killed in there!” John yelled, his frustration teetering on-edge.

“I’m not fragile! And I don’t need you to protect me!!”

“Actually, I just want to get the fuck away from you!” John yelled and Paul shut his mouth instantly. Red-faced, he glared at John for only a few more seconds before he turned around and walked away, doing his best to uphold his dignity. Ringo gave John a questioning look. Something strange had been going on between John and Paul for awhile now. They were less talkative around each other, and even when they did speak to one another, it often came across as forced and unnatural. And that was the weird thing, because John and Paul had always managed to talk to each other-to be around each other as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Not wanting to get involved, though, Ringo had just shrugged his shoulders and waited for their row to pass. Unfortunately, this had been weeks ago, and their row still hadn’t passed. Now Ringo had to wonder what was going on between his two best mates.

“So, I’ll see you three ladies when I get back,” John said, nodding at George, Ringo, and Eppy before he turned around and glared at Tucker, who was standing behind him. “And what the fuck are you doing?” John demanded.

“I’m going with you guys, what does it look like I’m doing?” said Tucker. John spared him a dirty look before he addressed Frisby.

“You sure you’ll be able to handle the forest, Tosser?” John asked. The man smiled.

“I’m old, not stupid.”

And with that, the four of them headed into the woods and Ringo stared at them jealously as he clutched his aching arm. He had wanted to help them get closer to rescue, but more importantly, he had wanted to trudge through the woods and forget about the pain over losing Neil. But now he was standing on the beach doing nothing. His arm had rendered him useless.

Well, at least George was with him.

“Do you think it’ll work?” George asked as they started walking back towards their belongings.

“What?”

“Frisby’s plan? You know, lighting a fire on top of that mountain thing. Do you think it’ll actually help them find us?” George questioned and Ringo shrugged.

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah, I guess. I hope they find us.”

“They will. We’ll be rescued soon,” Ringo said reassuringly.

“Yeah. You’re right. It’s funny; John reckons that they’ll never find us and we’ll have to resort to eating each other,” George grinned and Ringo snorted.

“Well, if that does happen, I bet I know who John’ll end up eating first,” he replied and both of them started laughing.

“What are you two going on about?” Paul asked as soon as Ringo and George had returned to their place on the beach. Yesterday, before Neil’s funeral, the four of them had looked through the pile of luggage that Frisby had managed to extract from the plane. They had found John and Ringo’s suitcases, and had come to an agreement that Paul would share John’s clothes and George would share Ringo’s. As a result, Paul needed a belt when he wore John’s pants, and George’s ankles showed when he wore Ringo’s jeans. Eppy and Mal had managed to find both of their suitcases, but no one had managed to find a guitar. They had been especially upset over this.

But at least they had managed to find some of their things. Everything else in that pile, everything that no one had claimed, was brought to the edge of the forest (along with the airplane food and beverages) and was shared with the other survivors. It was a nice little system, but Ringo knew that they only had enough food and water to last for a couple more days. He hoped that help would come before then.

“About John eating that Tucker kid if we ran out of food,” George supplied as he plopped down next to Paul. Sitting next to them, Ringo reached into his pocket and pulled out a ciggie. He didn’t even want to think about how many days it would take for them to run out of cigarettes.

“Oh. That bloke’s an arse,” Paul said and Ringo grinned.

“He reminds me of someone.”

“Yeah, but even John’s not that big of a sod,” George said.

“He’s big enough,” Paul grumbled bitterly as he stood up and stretched. “I’m going to go swimming. Wanna come?” Paul asked.

Ringo shook his head and pointed at his arm, “Better not risk it.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll stay with Rings,” George answered. Paul yawned and waved at them as he started walking away.

“Suit yourselves!”

As Ringo watched Paul run along the beach, George was rifling through their luggage noisily. When Ringo turned to him, George was clutching a black pen and he took the cap from it eagerly.

“What’s that for?” Ringo asked. George gently grabbed his arm.

“I’m going to write a message on your bandage,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You’re going to…what?”

“I’m going to write a message on your bandage.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’ll make everything more cheery,” George answered as he brought the end of the pen in his mouth and began to chew pensively. When Ringo didn’t respond, George continued, “So what do you want me to write? I could sign my name in a weird, loopy fashion. Or I could draw you picture of a goat or something. Or I could draw a piece of toast. That might be easier. Or, you know, I could write you a message…something random like ‘meet me at Dwarf Drive’ or something,” George rambled.

Ringo could only stare at him with raised eyebrows.

“I’ll do all three, then,” George decided and he got to work writing messages on Ringo’s bandage. Ringo shook his head and began to laugh. He wondered how he had managed to have such a strange, quirky lad as his best mate.

“You know that Jessica’s going to come over here and change my bandage soon, right?” Ringo reminded but George just waved him off.

“It’s alright. I’ll do it again.”

Leaving George to his artwork, Ringo put out his ciggie, and looked back at the beach. Paul was in the water up to his ankles, and he was making a particularly dramatic display of taking off his shirt. Upon further notice, Ringo saw that Nicole was sitting nearby, watching the charming bassist. A snort escaped from him. They had crash landed on an island in the middle of nowhere and all that Paul could think about was having a shag?

“All done,” George announced and Ringo turned his arm to the correct angle so that he could see George’s additions. Like promised, George had signed his name in a showy script, and he had drawn a rather large and chewed-up piece of toast. On the bottom of his dressings was a message that read, ‘We’re trapped on a bloody island. Can I have a fucking sandwich, please!?’

Chuckling, Ringo turned to George and nodded, “It’s very nice.” George laughed in response. Well, Ringo reflected, this day wasn’t turning out half as bad as the other days that had been spent on this island. Maybe it would all get better from here. After all, they were all alive, they were on a beautiful island, and rescue was surely going to come in a few days.

“How long do you think it’ll take for John and the others to get back?” George asked. Ringo frowned and looked at his watch.

“Well it’s ten in the morning right now, and they only just left,” Ringo turned around and examined the mountain in the distance-the mountain that John and the others were headed for, “They’re not going that far either,” Ringo decided, “I suspect that they’ll be back sometime around nightfall.”

“I hope so,” George said. Ringo frowned.

“Hope so?”

“Well…that’s the thing, right? We don’t know what sorts of creatures live on this island, do we? Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll find other people. But maybe…”

“Look, look. I’m sure that John’ll be fine. Frisby and Mal are with him. There’s no way that anything bad is going to happen,” Ringo desperately tried to reassure his younger band mate, though he wasn’t quite so sure if he was successful in reassuring himself.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re probably right,” George said with a nod. Gulping, Ringo looked away quickly. As he was trying to sort out his thoughts, he noticed that Jessica was walking towards him with a first aid kit, ready to change his bandages.

George spotted her as well, “Oh. Well I’ll leave you to it, then. I better go check on Paul and make sure that he doesn’t drown himself,” George said as he stood up and wiped the sand from his pants.

“Okay.”

“Yeah, but in the meantime, think about the new message that you want me to write on your bandage,” George said as he grinned at him charmingly. Ringo laughed as George turned around and started walking towards Paul.

“Ready for me to change your bandage?” Jessica asked and Ringo nodded gratefully as she sat down beside him and began her work. As she was doing this, Ringo couldn’t help but think about John. He was going to be okay, wasn’t he? What could possibly be lurking in the woods that would put his mate in danger? It was John Lennon. He was going to be okay. Yes, he had to be. Because things were just starting to look up, and nothing was going to go wrong.

Ringo told himself this over and over again all day. And he had to repeat it particularly strongly when John didn’t return that night.

To be continued…