Eric Cartman was a natural. At everything he wished to accomplish, he did. What had possessed him to become a pilot, however, was the look. The appeal of a man in a crisp uniform, beautiful men and women in his cabin. Flying the rich and famous across the globe and spending the nights with stewardesses in hotel rooms paid for by the company. To walk through airports with your head held high, bars on your shoulder and envious or amazed looks by normal people and their normal lives, wishing they could be you or be with you.
Well, it sure as fuck didn't turn out the way he thought it would.
Instead, Cartman had landed this job immediately out of school. An old fool desperate for young, handsome crews to carry around idiots with too much money to spend. Cartman was basically an Uber driver, the way their clients acted. And as for bagging stewardesses? Well, Kenny was far from Eric's type. No, Eric didn't get the dream. There was no glamour, no envy. All there was was a polyester uniform. He got his stripes, but he got three. Cartman had been going for the commanding position that was open, fully expecting to get it. Mr. Donahue had fallen for his charisma and confidence. But the day he'd gotten his call back to say he'd gotten the position was also the day that he was told it was for First Officer. He'd take a five grand pay cut, but the job was there if he wanted it. Eric's other job option was flying cargo to and from the arctic circle for research groups studying thermonuclear bullshit or something for a fraction of the salary.
Of course he took it. At least this way, he'd make a name for himself. The idea? Save up for his own jet, eventually. Start his own company and steal Mr. Donahue's clients out from under him. They'd go with Eric, of course. Everyone adored him. The charismatic pilot who took them to Dubai. The clients wouldn't have an attachment to Mr. Donahue, but they would with Eric by the end of it. The only issue was; they loved Stan more. He was smart, he was funny, he was so good looking even Cartman had to agree with them. He was good at his job, and was a stickler for safety. Which meant Stan had to come with him, when Eric's plans for starting his own charter company became reality. He was an alright guy, and over the last couple years, Eric figured they could call each other best friends.
Sounded juvenile, but it wasn't as if either of them had anyone else.
And then there was Kenny. The other closest thing Eric could call a friend. Out of the three of them, Kenny had been working for Mr. Donahue the longest. Since he was twenty, ready and willing to do grunt work. Kenny had said that Mr. Donahue had hired him purely on his looks. Eric would be hard pressed to argue. While Kenny was the last person on the planet Eric would be attracted to, he couldn't deny why others would be. Blonde, bronzed and over all beautiful to look at. Until, of course, his body parts were flung across the airfield because he'd walked into a propeller.
Stan liked him, though. That much was clear just sitting by and watching them. It was almost sickening. But Eric highly enjoyed the hours he could spend watching his captain grow flustered from the teasing. Entertainment was hard to come by in the cockpit.
All in all, Eric enjoyed his job. From taking bachelor parties to Vegas, in which Kenny had decided that rather than hire strippers for the flight he'd do it himself in a tight blue dress and a rendition of Toxic, to Stan discharging the fire extinguisher on a woman and her ankle biting dog for refusing to put out her cigarette.
He didn't, however, expect to crash the fucking plane so early in his career. And yet, here he was, entirely sure he had died and gone to hell.
Eric woke in pain, every ounce of his body aching and bright light shining in his eyes. Wherever he was, Kenny had joined him, judging by his stupid voice nattering in his ear. Eric wanted to push him away, but there was no way he was moving his arm. "Screw off, Kinny," he whined, just wanting to go back to sleep.
But when he opened his eyes, Cartman concluded that he was absolutely in hell. Some pointy nosed ginger stood over him. Absolutely great. Cartman heard him talk about his dislocated shoulder, how he was gonna fix it, and Eric pitched a fit that rivaled any toddler he'd ever seen.
All that had happened in the short minutes he'd had since he woke up was him screaming at some Jew that took it upon himself to sit on him and pop his shoulder into place. Fuck, the pain was unreal and made worse by it being popped back into place. Eric pushed him off, the two of them screaming until the ginger twat went off to join his stupid little rich friends.
But Kenny sat beside him, smacking him on his injured shoulder. Eric swore, flipping Kenny off. "You're such a fucking asshole," Kenny said, and Eric ignored him in favour of looking at Stan. He was laying back in the sand now, staring up at the blue sky. He looked miserable. Hell, Eric supposed they all did. "Gonna just lay there and wait for the tide to come in?" Eric asked him, kicking at Stan's leg to get him to move a little. "Some captain you are." Stan just threw an arm over his face, groaning in pain as he did so.
"Pretty sure I'm out of a job now, dude," Stan moaned. "Captain's don't crash their plane."
Wendy and Bebe had walked the perimeter of the island. They'd estimated it had taken about two hours, start to finish. It wasn't large, and there weren't a chain of other islands that they could see. But most certainly, there wasn't anyone else on the island but them. She and Wendy had found s few traces of humans, of course. Plastic bottles, some old netting, a few other useless debris that had washed up on to a small coastal shelf several hundred feet away from where they'd landed. But that was the closest sign of human life. They'd gathered it, of course. They could collect water in the bottles. Use the net for fishing or rope to build something to keep them out of the sun and rain. Surely they'd be here for a few days at the shortest, until they died at the longest.
But Wendy was never one to give up, and Bebe had loved her for it since the day they'd been partnered to work together years ago. On their walk, she and Wendy had discussed a game plan. The coconut trees would offer a source of fluids, a bit of food. Craig and Firkle were smokers, and one of them would have at least one lighter in their pocket. They'd get fire, easily. Coconut husk was a good source of tinder. Bebe's dangle earrings would make a decent fishing hook or two. Her long decorative necklace of beads and stones were held together by a thin plastic string, and Bebe didn't have a problem pulling it over her head and pulling the clasps off for them all to fall off. Wendy had let her store them in her hat, maybe to be of use later or to repair if they got home and Bebe wanted to do something with them.
With a stick, Bebe fashioned an earring and the string into a rudimentary fishing rod. Wendy had stood on her toes to give the girl a quick peck. "Perfect," Wendy said. "One thing we don't have to worry about. We should be able to grab something to hook on to it as bait."
Bebe wished that Wendy wasn't here with her, that Wendy had done what she hadn't wanted and spent spring break in Paris. Instead, after much begging and bikini shopping slash modeling, Bebe had convinced her to throw her Europe money in the pool to book the jet and rooms down in Turks. But she couldn't help but be thankful that Wendy was here with her now, a security blanket in this shitty situation. The boys were her friends, but Bebe knew that an island full of boys wasn't an ideal situation to be a part of. Bebe squeezed Wendy's hand, stopping their walk to look down at her. "I'm really sorry," Bebe said, voice soft. "You wouldn't be here if I hadn't begged you to come."
Wendy gave a sad smile to her girlfriend, the sadnesses not directed at Bebe, but at Bebe's guilt. "It's not your fault, you couldn't have planned this. No one could have." Bebe supposed that was true. Unless the pilots had done it intentionally, but when they'd left them on the beach, they looked like a couple of sad potato sacks. Continuing on their walk, Bebe swung their arms between them, one hand clutching her makeshift fishing rod. "I hope they're not worried about me," Bebe sighed. She left school a few years ago, focusing fully on her beauty and fitness blog. What had started out as instagram fame turned into a nice little following on YouTube. She wasn't nearly as big as some of the others, not having even hit eight hundred thousand subscribers. But the money from ads and sponsorships were enough to not only pay her out of her student loans, but to cover Wendy's. It had been a horrible fight when Bebe had done it behind her back, but it was more money than Bebe had enough sense to do with at the time. And she loved Wendy, would give her the moon on a string if she could. If Bebe had the capabilities to take every worry away, she would have and Wendy would have done the same for her in a heart beat.
Call them uhaul lesbians, but Bebe had known she was the one from the first night together.
"No doubt. I wouldn't be surprised if we're on the news already. It's pretty clear when a plane goes missing. And the pilots must have called a distress call. They'll release our names and the internet will explode. You'll probably go home to triple the subscribers, wondering where you are and what happened." Bebe nodded, not thinking of it that way. Trust Wendy to see the advantage in a horrible situation, making the most of it. If they made it out alive, Bebe's story would bring in millions of views. If they didn't, people were morbid and would flock to her old videos to see the girl who died in a plane crash days before it happened. Her family could use the money. "True. Not all bad, I suppose. I still feel guilty though. I wish you weren't here, but I'm also incredibly happy you are. I don't know what I'd do without you."
Upon reaching their initial landing point, Bebe and Wendy decided to head to the three cabin crew still seated on the sand by the bright yellow life raft. It reminded Bebe of Kenny the Steward telling her to remove her heels, lest she pop the boat. They'd been Louboutins, and Bebe mourned them silently. Now she was stuck, bare footed, nothing pretty to look at except Wendy.
"You alright, guys?" Bebe asked, and Kenny looked up. "They'll survive. They don't know how to deal with trauma, apparently." It seemed true, both the pilots laying in the wet sand. "In their defense, they're pretty banged up," Kenny continued, running his hand through the captain's sandy, sweaty hair. "He's got some fucked up ribs, a cracked head and concussion, and fat ass has a dislocated shoulder and I'm thinking a sprained wrist. And an attitude problem," the blonde said, as the first officer reached his hand up to flip him off.
"This is Stan, Stan Marsh," Kenny gestured to the one whose head was in his lap. "Otherwise known as Captain Marsh, Skipper, or Skip if you prefer. He's Eric Cartman, first officer. On behalf of all of us, we're really fucking sorry." There wasn't much to say to it, really. Bebe couldn't very well say 'it's okay.' Because it wasn't okay. None of this was okay. There was not certainty that things would end up okay.
"What happened, anyway?" Wendy asked, and Bebe had been wondering it herself. She hadn't thought it polite to ask, since surely they were sensitive of it. But in Wendy's defense, they deserved to know. Stan, the captain, opened his eyes and stared up at them. Bebe would initially be slightly offended that he was looking at her chest, but he wasn't. He was looking at Wendy. Bebe subconsciously pulled her petite girlfriend closer to her, fully intending to send signals that the ravenette was hers. The pilot didn't seem to notice, or care. Perhaps Bebe was paranoid, then. But she held firm, nonetheless. "I..," he said. "I don't know. I really don't. We got warning of engine failure, from fires. Then then second one went, as well. We radioed an emergency, and got Flordia once. They have our call sign and make, how many of us are on board. But after that, nothing. Then the altimeters went, followed by every other warning and instrument. The avionics stopped working... Everything did. There wasn't anything I could do..."
Bebe's heart sunk for him. The poor thing sounded genuinely heart broken, his voice cracking as if he was about to cry. And Bebe couldn't handle seeing a grown man look so helpless. "Oh, honey..," she said softly, letting go of Wendy's hand to crouch down beside Kenny. "I'm sorry, ladies. I really, really am. I had one job, and I failed." Bebe gave him a small smile, and patted him on the cheek. "It's okay, sweetheart," she said. "We've got a group of bright little bulbs here. I'm sure we'll be just fine. Like you said, they heard your call. They'll find us any day now. Why don't you come up with us, hmm? I'll have some of the boys bring that raft up, it'll make a good shelter for all of us."
"I want the blonde to help me," the first officer whined, and Bebe couldn't help but roll her eyes. She supposed out of the three of them that were able, she was the strongest. Unless Kenny had some wiry strength to him. Wendy was small, and strong in her own ways. But Bebe? She hit the gym five days a week, ran every morning, and had a rather impressive set of guns on her, if she did say so herself. "It's Bebe, not blonde," she said, voice haughty but she went over nonetheless. "You guys help Captain Marsh, I'll take care of this one." She slipped the fishing rod into her pants, moving to go help the first officer by taking his good arm over her shoulder and hoisting him up. Christ, he was heavy, even for her. But she could handle it, so long as he didn't put all of his weight on her.
"What kind of name is Bebe?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes.
"A beautiful one," Wendy called, where she was helping Kenny lift Stan to his feet as comfortably as possible.