Royals - Rafe Cameron

Chapter Fourteen - Under The Map

I've spent my morning watching season two and JJ and Rafe are the lomls. Rafe might be... you know, but he looks cute as fuck.

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The Pogues easily snuck into the trailer. It wasn't much, rusted on the outside and on even worse condition on the inside.

JJ stayed with them while El took Rafe to the house. She couldn't begin to imagine him in a place like the trailer, crawling with rodents, spiders and other creepy crawlies. No, he was going to stay in her room for the night.

"Are you gonna stay with me?" He tried to whisper, still a little drunk. "It's not like I haven't seen you naked before, Ellllllllenor." His fingers were on her hip, under her shirt, warm against her skin.

El pushed him into her room and shut the door behind her. "If you wake up my dad, we're both dead, got it?! I don't know how much longer his drug induced nap will last but I don't really want him waking up to discover the son of his least favourite person alive sleeping in his daughters bed, got it?"

Taking her hand, Rafe kissed her thumb. "I got it." She turned to walk out of the room, but Rafe pulled her back. "On the condition that you stay with me tonight. I don't wanna be alone."

"You are impossible." She pushed him down so he was sitting on the bed. Rafe wiggled his eyebrows at her. "No, oh my God! My dad is sleeping in the other room we're not fucking in here!"

Rafe only laughed and laid back. "Fine. We'll sleep and that's it."

"No funny business?"

"No funny business."

***

Waking up on the Cut was nothing foreign for Rafe Cameron. Yes, he'd woken up from his drunken stupor in a ditch before, but never in a Pogues bed. It wasn't comfortable, not like his bed back home. But it was something. And she was there, which was a bonus.

The curtains were old and motheaten, which is what woke Rafe up. El was still fast asleep, her body half off the bed. The light coming into her room did nothing to wake her, but the moving body beside her did. "Stop," she groaned and elbowed him in the shoulder.

The next thing that woke El were footsteps. Heavy on the hardwood floor, but they were singular, only one person in the house. But the footsteps soon faded and the front door clicked shut. And then there were several footsteps, all of them thundering towards El's room. The door was thrown open, the doorknob hitting the wall, and the rest of the Pogues burst in.

"Wake up El! Come on!" They all shouted, jumping around the room like wild animals.

El turned away from them to face Rafe. "Good morning," she said quietly and lifted his head from the pillow. Grabbing it from beneath them, she jumped up and immediately began smacking the others with it. "Goddamn it!" She shouted, smacking her brother the hardest. "You little piece of shit! Wake me up like that again and I'll make sure you miss this little slice of Hell!"

But JJ grabbed the pillow from her and threw it to the floor. "We gotta go," he said with a grin. "We gotta go and find that stucture. C'mon."

They didn't take their time with breakfast, most of them didn't bother with it at all. There was too much manic excitement in the air. They wasted no time in getting ready, packing a bag with food, water and flashlights before taking off. They had no vehicle, no way of speeding to their destination, the other side of the Island.

"What's the plan?" Asked Kie as they set off away from the Maybank house. "Because walking there is going to take the entire morning, at least."

"We've got no car and we can't exactly take the van if we wanna go around without being noticed," said John B.

The Maybanks looked at each other. "No car, no van, whatever will we do?"

"It's not like we inherited the keys to The Phantom or anything."

Rafe looked at his girlfriend, eyebrows furrowed. "What's The Phantom?"

"Everything you've ever smoked has come to the OBX on The Phantom. The amount of Weed that's come here on that thing is... immeasurable. If anything can get us to the other side of the Island quickly? It's The Phantom."

And so, the Pogues changed their course, heading back to the Maybank house. Neither of the Maybank children knew where the keys to The Phantom were, but, to JJ, not being able to find it wasn't a big set back.

They went through their things, digging through every pillow case, looking in every jar of pennies, checking every hook on the wall, every coat pocket. El went through her jewellery box and through the pocket of every pair of shorts.

There was a jingle and El turned to the door. JJ was leaning against it, holding the keys up, grin on his face. "You brilliant son of a bitch," she said and took the keys from him.

***

"Is everybody in your family a criminal in some way?" Asked Rafe and JJ and John B pulled open the doors to where The Phantom had been kept in storage. It took all of them to get the boat to the water.

"Pretty much," said El. (It was no secret what her dad had done in the past. The drugs, the dealing. The only reason he wasn't locked up was because everybody felt too sorry to report him to the police). She climbed onto The Phantom and pushed the key into the ignition.

It struggled to start at first. After being locked into storage for so long, The Phantom wasn't gonna play ball.

"JJ!" El shouted and her brother came over. Boats were his thing, it was what he knew. She was almost envious of how easy he found it.

In no time at all he was steering them around the Island, to the other side. Rafe had a tight hold of the map, keeping it in his clutches as he tried his best to read it. "It looks halfway between The Cut and Figure Eight, but around the back of both," he said, almost sounding unsure. "What do you think we'll find?"

"Probably some shipwreck completely stages by Big John," said Pope.

"Or, like, some sort of secret tree house he bought to stash things away with."

John B was uncharacteristically quiet. No witty remark, no making plans. He was just staring at the water. El tapped his leg with her foot. "You wanna tell me what's wrong?"

He shook his head, dark hair falling in front of his face. "I just... I don't want to expect a lot and have it turn out to be nothing. He's been my hero since he was a kid, but really? He was a piece of shit."

"You can't deny that we've had a pretty wicked summer already, right?" She asked. "So, even if your dad left us a box with a three year old shit inside, it'll be worth it. For the journey alone."

He smiled weakly.  "Thanks." He turned his attention back to the water until Sarah put her head on his shoulder.

The rest of their journey to the other side of the island was just like the rest of their lives. They were drinking, JJ at the wheel, the rest of them pissing about in the back of the boat. The only thing out of place was the addition of Sarah and Rafe. It was out of place, but it was welcome. They wouldn't have gotten this far without them.

"Here... we are," said JJ. He pulled up and Pope jumped out to tie the boat off. 

Each of The Pogues jumped out. JJ stretched as the others looked around. Rafe had the map in his hands, trying to work out  where abouts they were and where they needed to go. El was handing out the snacks from her bag, a biscuit in her mouth.

"Everybody fed?" She asked as Rafe put down the map. They each nodded. "Right, lets go and find that three year old shit."