Orange Collision
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: Gah, still not much George and Ringo in this chapter-only one scene. That’ll change in the next update, though! For now, you’ll just have to deal with John’s angst.
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 4
“Go…go get Tosser and Mal,” John breathed, his eyes fixated on the bloody man lying on the ground. He could hear his own heart beat-he wondered if Tucker could hear it too-and he could feel his stomach shifting and begging-begging him to release himself all over the fucking grass. He really didn’t know if he could handle much more of this shite.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?! GO GET THEM!!” John yelled suddenly, a violent jolt of anger consuming him. But when he turned around, Tucker was already gone. He hadn’t heard him leave, but he supposed that he hadn’t necessarily been preoccupied with the rustling of Tucker’s steps; he had been more concerned with the pathetic little gasps of pain that were seeping from the man below him.
That was another thing-what the fuck was John supposed to do now? How was he supposed to help him? He couldn’t even look at him. Bloody hell-why the fuck was he always thrust into these sorts of situations?! On the first day he had to leap over dead bodies in his search for Paul, on the second day he had to bury Neil’s body, and now this. And now this.
“I…I…help,” the man sputtered, driblets of blood coming out of his mouth. It looked red to John, too red.
“Yeah, yeah. Someone’s coming and they’re gonna help you,” John answered quickly, his gaze cemented on a bush to his left.
“I…help. My stomach…” the man gasped. John chanced a look at him and his head swam dizzily when he saw a blood stain on the man’s shirt-a stain that was getting larger and larger, even as he squinted at it.
“…hurts.”
“What?” John asked feebly, his voice nothing more than a croak. And John internally cringed when he heard the sound of it, because he knew that the man could probably see right through him. He knew that the man could see that he was weak, terrified, and that wasn’t supposed to fucking happen! John was supposed to be strong, capable; John was supposed to know how to deal with these situations! His mates had always looked up to him-he had always been the leader, the initiator. He was supposed to face shite like this with a brisk attitude and a decision-enabled mind. But he was fumbling. And he knew that he couldn’t do that anymore. He had to deal with this. He had to deal with this like a fucking man.
Steadying his shaking limbs, he stumbled over to the pale man and kneeled beside him. Upon closer inspection, John could see that he was wearing a uniform; a tag above his right breast acknowledged his name as Tim. Tim the co-pilot.
The name breezed around in his head. Tim. He could picture a stout woman with a faint moustache and an apron calling Tim’s name in a very deep voice as he trodded into his home, fatigued from work. He could picture a dozen kids piling on top of him, yelling ‘dad’ as poor old Tim broke his back. It made him sick to picture all of that, because Tim had a life. A life that he would probably never go back to.
And this was only confirmed when John peeled back his damped shirt and saw a thick branch sticking out of his stomach. The sight was vomit-inducing but he didn’t look away. He blinked in sympathy and stared at Tim.
“Stomach…hurts,” Tim wheezed and John closed his eyes, nodding.
“Yeah, I know,” John responded. The beach was still about an hour away and John knew that he wouldn’t be able to bring Jessica back in time. Even if he could, what could she do? She wasn’t even a fucking doctor and Tim was bleeding internally. Fuck.
“What happened?” John asked as he pressed his hands firmly on the wound, trying to keep the blood inside. For what it was worth.
Tim shook his head from side to side, as if recalling a bad memory, “I was…we were…then the plane crash. And I fell. I was…alone,” he paused to cough up some more blood and John tried to bury his shiver, “…I was looking for someone…for days. Then I…then I saw something. It was…beautiful. The best thing…the best thing that I’ve ever seen…” Tim’s eyes clouded over and filled with tears. Feeling as though he were intruding, John looked away from the dying man’s emotion and quickly scanned the trees. What the fuck was taking the others so long?!!
“But then…but then it turned ugly…it started to attack me…and I ran…but I couldn’t see,” Tim licked his lips, blood tingeing his whitish tongue, “I tripped and landed on this,” he feebly nodded his head towards the branch sticking out of his body, “I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”
As his hands were turning red, John swallowed and faced Tim once more, “You don’t remember?”
“No…no I don’t.”
The silence overwhelmed them and all that John could hear were the struggling gasps from the poor man. A part of him wished that he would die already, save himself all the misery of letting himself go all slow-like. Save John the torment of having to watch him die when there was nothing that he could do about it. Maybe he should have just placed a careful hand over Tim’s mouth, helped him along. Helped them both along.
But John talked instead, “So…you were our co-pilot?”
Tim let out a sad smile, “Yeah. Wasn’t…wasn’t supposed to be, though.”
John frowned, “What do you mean?”
“Son…the plane…the plane…it was never supposed to fly.”
John felt his stomach drop dangerously, “What do you mean the plane was never supposed to fly?” he asked, his voice tensed as his hands tightened their hold over Tim’s wound.
“There was…there was a storm warning. It was supposed to cover the…it was supposed to cover the Pacific seaboard. So…the flight was canceled. It was dangerous,” Tim started coughing again, his throat sounded like sandpaper. A few more droplets of blood landed on his face and John felt the tender compassion to wipe them away. But he didn’t move as Tim continued, “There was a man…the pilot told me about him. And…and he wouldn’t accept it. He said he had important people that needed to be somewhere. Or so he said. And…well…I guess he was…convincing. So we flew,” the man rasped. John knew that he shouldn’t have been pushing him to talk; John knew that he should have been telling him to save his last breaths, think about his wife or something.
But, fuck, John needed to know. And at least Tim’s final breaths were useful. “What happened after that?”
He closed his eyes painfully, another cough ripping through his throat, “We couldn’t fly in the continental U.S. or…or we would run into the storm. S-so we…we flew over the Pacific. And…and there was a window. An opportunity to fly into California and avoid the storm…but…but we didn’t make it in time. So we turned around quickly and aimed for Honolulu. But we didn’t turn around quickly enough, and we got caught in the storm.”
John winced and he pressed harder onto Tim’s wound. He remembered that. He remembered the black cloud.
“…we were flying off-course for awhile before we eventually crashed.”
The only thing that he could do was nod at the co-pilot’s words, his red blood steaming underneath his fingertips. The words swam inside of John’s head and gnawed at his insides when realization came crashing down on top of him. An avalanche of realization came crashing down on him. John clenched his teeth as his ears buzzed.
He’d almost missed what Tim was saying, but when a loud cough roused John from his thoughts, he turned to the man quickly and managed to hear the tail-end of what he had been saying, “…she told me, you know. She told me not to be a co-pilot. Told me that they make…they make shit money. But I’ve always wanted to fly…ever since my father let me fly with him when he was…giving people lessons.”
It all went silent for a few minutes then. John didn’t know if Tim was expecting him to say anything, and even if he was, what could he say? Sorry that your dream job resulted in your death. Now can you hurry up and die already so I don’t have to hear your raspy breathing?
John cringed. No, that wouldn’t do. It was best that he kept quiet. He had never been that good at comforting people anyway.
“I’m…I’m glad that you’re here…” Tim broke the silence and John’s heart stopped, “I’m…I’m glad that you’re helping.”
John blinked, “I’m not helping,” he said. He had never meant to say it; the words just left his mouth in a guilty tumble. He didn’t want this man to die thinking that John was his savior. Because he was just a worthless idiot who couldn’t do anything to help him.
Tim just smiled, though, and he reached out to grasp at John’s arm. It all happened in a few short seconds. A strangled cry left his lips, then he turned, and then he stopped. Stopped moving, stopped breathing. His eyes dulled and looked beyond, and John wondered briefly if he was seeing that beautiful thing that he had mentioned earlier, that beautiful thing running in the forest, but John immediately dismissed the idea as idiotic. Tim wasn’t seeing anything. And he wouldn’t, ever again.
He didn’t know how long he had been sitting next to Tim’s body before the others finally showed up, but when he heard three sets of frantic footsteps, John turned to them with piercing eyes.
“Where the fuck were you!?!” John asked, and his voice sounded dangerous, even to his own ears.
“What…what happened?!” Tosser asked, his white hair sticking up in comical wisps as his eyes darted between John and Tim.
“What happened was that there was a fucking dying bloke here and NO ONE came to help him in time!!!!” John shouted.
“Look…I’m sorry. I got lost-I couldn’t remember how to get back here!!” Tucker screeched, his eyes wide. John sent fury in his direction.
“Well brilliant, good job. Thanks to you, he’s dead. He’s dead because of you. I WATCHED HIM DIE BECAUSE OF YOU!!!” his face was red, his eyes were dark, and it sounded like those words were fucking ripped from his throat.
Tucker just opened and closed his mouth dumbly, at a loss for what to say. Tosser stepped up and faced John, “Listen, don’t go spreadin’ the blame, alright? It’s not going to bring him back.”
“Easy for you to say!! You didn’t have to sit here and listen to him ramble on as he was bleeding onto my fucking hands!!!!”
“What did he say?” Tosser asked, eyes lighting in curiosity. John squinted.
“Don’t fucking change the subject!!!! YOU LOT KILLED HIM!!”
“What did he say?” Tosser asked in a voice that reminded John of how Uncle George used to scold him. A slight harshness, meant to intimidate, but with a never-ending supply of patience behind his words. John swallowed and squinted at him, slightly flustered by the memories.
“He was prattling on about the plane. About our flight and how we got caught in the storm.”
Tosser raised his eyebrows, “Did he say anything else?”
John bit the side of his mouth, “No. That was all he told me.”
Fleetingly, he chanced a look at Mal to see if the burly man could sense that he was lying. As he should have expected, though, Mal was looking off into the distance, his eyes glazed over. John blinked and looked away. He wasn’t going to tell Tosser about what Tim had said about his father. No, he’d keep that secret.
“So…should we…bring the body back to camp?” Tosser asked as his arms swung to and fro. John looked down and in a split second he realized that he was still holding Tim’s wound. With a spastic flail, he took his hands off of Tim’s cold skin and stood up quickly, looking at his bright red hands. The others were staring at him curiously, almost worriedly, but John just glared at them.
“No. Just leave him here,” John said, wiping his hands on his pants and turning away from Tim. He didn’t even lean down to close the man’s eyes. Just in case Tim really could see that beautiful thing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they finally reached the beach, John could see the relief-driven faces of Brian and Ringo, ready to come over and hug him or some shite. But John was hardly in the mood for that. Instead, he took a sharp right and went to the place where they were storing their alcohol. His reddish fingers curled around the neck of a whiskey bottle and he took a long gulp once he had pried it open, his body slumping against a tree.
He could hear the faint voice of Tosser talking to the people that had been left behind, but John didn’t bother to string together any sentences. He didn’t want to hear what the old man was saying; he didn’t want to hear what anyone was saying. Honestly, he just wanted to close himself off to everything; just wanted to drink himself into a stupor so that he would forget all that had happened since the plane crashed. So he closed his eyes. He closed his eyes to the world. He closed his eyes to the death that always seemed to follow him around; he closed his eyes to the island; he closed his eyes to the people all around him-people that he couldn’t help. He kept his eyes closed and he sealed them shut. That way, if he died out there, at least he wouldn’t have to see it.
But then he came; called for him. He came and John opened his eyes.
“John! What happened?” Paul asked, his large eyes wavering between the dried blood on his hands and the smeared blood on his pants. John looked away and took another pull of his whiskey, wishing that it burned his throat a little more.
“John!?” Paul prodded when he didn’t answer. He sighed and slumped further into the tree.
“There was…there was a man out there,” John started. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew that he couldn’t avoid explaining the blood all over himself for too long. “He…was dying. I…er…held his wound.”
Paul’s breath hitched and he licked his lips, “Shite.”
“Yeah. He died though; I couldn’t help him.”
Paul licked his lips tentively before he asked, “Did he…did he say anything?”
John kicked himself off the tree and took another swig. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But…wait!? Did he say something!?”
“Drop it, Paul.”
“John!” Paul called after him, but he wasn’t listening. John was walking resolutely, the bottle swinging in his grasp, as he made his way over to the salty ocean water. Eagerness overtook him and he wanted nothing more than to wipe Tim’s blood from his body. If that meant that prissy McCartney wasn’t going to get his answers, then that was just too fucking bad.
With a sigh, he dropped onto his hands and knees, splashing the water on his pants, the sea wiping Tim’s blood from his body. Near him, John spotted a brown shell, shiny and smooth. He made a reach for it, but the tide just took it in anyway and John cursed underneath his breath.
“John! What’s going on!? Did he say something?” Paul pressed as he came up to him and put a reassuring hand on his back. The contact made John’s skin sting uncomfortably and the gesture was anything but reassuring. Before his eyes, his recurring dream flashed-the dream about Paul touching him when he was on his hands and knees in the bath-the dream that had been stalking him for weeks-and John jerked out of his reach, standing up quickly.
“Get away.”
“But-John!”
“Just get the fuck away from me.”
“You can’t…you can’t really expect me to drop this!! You come prancing into camp with blood all over you, and you expect me not to ask questions!?”
“You know what Paul!?! How about YOU go and watch a fucking bloke die right in front of you, okay?! How about YOU go through that!!! And when some fucking annoying cunt comes ‘round to question you about him, YOU can answer him. YOU can see how that fucking feels!!” John raged to a stunned bassist before he whipped around and walked resolutely towards the other two Beatles. Ringo was sitting on the ground, looking at John cautiously while George was writing something on his fresh bandage. John snorted and took another sip of whiskey.
“John! How are you?” Ringo asked warily, his blue eyes taking in his appearance. John rolled his eyes and pointed at George.
“What’s he doing?”
“I’m writing a message on Ritch’s bandage,” George answered as he looked at John with a sly grin. Unfortunately, John didn’t have the patience to tend to Harrison’s stupid antics.
“Really!? What’s it say?” John bit and he could tell that George immediately sensed his mood.
“Erm…I’m still trying to think of what to write.”
“Yeah? Well maybe you should write ‘Don’t worry Ringo, John will take care of everything. John will risk his neck for you lot with nothing in return!! John will deal with the dead bodies, John will deal with EVERYTHING!!!” he exploded, the whiskey bottle flying to the ground.
George didn’t say anything. He stopped writing on Ringo’s bandage, putting the cap on his pen and throwing it into their trunk.
“John, what happened?” a voice asked. He turned around and saw his manager standing next to him, Paul at his side. A violent wave of anger erupted inside of him, hot and dangerous, and all John wanted to do was to smash Eppy’s head into the fucking ground.
“You want to know what happened?” John spoke quietly. Looking around, though, he noticed that he had an audience: the other survivors were crowding around them, looking on at the scene anxiously. A chuckle escaped his thin lips and John spread his arms out before he loudly yelled, “Do you all want to know what fucking happened!?!”
No one answered him of course, and he had a faint idea as to what he must have looked like right then and there. He still had some blood on his jeans, his hair was wild and full of dirt, and his eyes were sparkling with a vicious, powerful anger.
“The man that I saw die right before me very eyes-well-his name was Tim!! Tim was the co-pilot of our fucking plane!! And do you know what he told me!?! He told me that the plane wasn’t supposed to fly because there was a storm!! He said that the flight had been canceled!! But guess what!? Apparently some man-some man with important people-had to be somewhere. So this man fucking bribed the airline into flying the plane and risking our necks!!!” John yelled, a sadistic part of him getting pleasure from the reactions that he was igniting in the people around him. John drowned himself in their anxious murmurs for a second before he turned to his manager.
“And now I’d like to ask. So, Brian, how much money did you pay the airline to fly this plane!?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Brian Epstein and, for his part, he looked absolutely outraged.
“John! You can’t honestly believe that I bribed the airline into flying this plane!!” Eppy spoke with a shaky voice.
“Who the fuck else is traveling with ‘important people’!?”
“No!” Brian shook his head repeatedly, “I would never put people at risk like that!!”
“Bullshite! You don’t care about these people!!! You just wanted to make sure that we got to the concert in time so that you could fucking make your money off of our show!! All you care about is your thick wallet!!” John screamed, despite the fact that he didn’t know where these words were coming from. He derived pleasure, though, from the way that people were staring crossly at Brian, and from the way that that Nicole bird inched away from his manager inconspicuously.
“John, can we talk about this later!?” Eppy asked stiffly, doing his best to uphold his stuffy demeanor. Fucking arsehole. John hated him.
“You’re the reason why our plane crashed!!!! You’re the reason why everyone’s dead!!! You’re the reason why Neil’s dead!!!” John shouted blindly, spit flying from his mouth.
After the words filtered around the air, Brian’s face turned to a ghostly pale shade and he let out a surprised gasp.
“John!” Paul yelled, his body shaking, “Go fucking cool off, alright!?!” Eppy looked at him gratefully, Paul having saved him from responding to John’s cruel words, but Paul just looked back at him with evident mistrust. For his part, though, John was fucking livid. He wasn’t going to accept Paul talking back to him like that, especially not in front of everyone.
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that, you filthy queer,” John growled and he didn’t have time to process the look on Paul’s face before he was being dragged off somewhere. He could only assume that it was Mal, since he was the only one on this island strong enough to haul him off like that. Aggravated and humiliated, John kicked and swore loudly, trying to escape from his grasp, but Mal just continued to pull him away easily.
And soon he was being thrown against a tree, far away from everyone else. John looked back at Mal’s face and immediately noted the hatred and anger in his friend’s eyes. He glared at John with an icy stare and a tense frame, almost as if he were about to hit him. But John was weak from his previous struggles, emotionally and physically, and he wouldn’t have fought back even if Mal had hit him.
But he didn’t. He just shook his head in something resembling disappointment and walked away.
“Fuck you,” John mumbled feebly, his chest rising and falling pathetically. Looking around, he examined the dirt underneath him and they sky above him, the setting sun being eclipsed by the trees. He breathed deeply, inhaling the aroma of the forest, and wished that he hadn’t dropped his bottle of whiskey. He wished that he hadn’t done a lot of things. But it was all over now. He couldn’t go back in fucking time and stop himself from making a gigantic fucking scene in front of everyone. Anyroad, he never would have been able to ignore the bubbling anger that had manifested inside of him when he had watched Tim die. Even if he could have changed everything, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He still would have attacked Paul, he still would have attacked George and Ringo, and he still would have attacked Eppy. Because he was angry, and because they deserved it.
Reaching in front of him, he picked up a rock and tossed it numbly in his hands. He had been too stupid, too inexperienced, and too afraid to save Tim. He had just wrote him off, declared him a goner without even trying. And now, even though Tim’s blood was washed away from his hands, it was still there. Forever singeing his skin with the blame. Just another person dead because of him.
He threw the rock against the tree weakly before he covered his head with his hands and fell onto his side, wishing that the earth would just hurry the fuck up and swallow him.
To be continued…