Work Text:
1957
"Just up here. C'mon, before we miss it."
Paul followed Ivan through the crowd, the summer sun hot on his back. He didn't know what to expect from the fete; Ivan had lured him in with talk of beautiful girls and good music, both of which, so far, had been average. Not worth the trip to Woolton.
"You promised me birds, Ive," Paul said as they rounded a craft stall. His eyes lingered curiously on the back of a girl with long brown hair, wearing a skirt just short enough to draw his attention. She turned around to reveal a plain, sisterly face.
Paul sighed and looked away. Average.
Ivan grinned. "The good ones will be watching the band, won't they?"
The little stage was empty save for a drum set when they arrived. A handful of people lingered nearby, though there wasn't much of a crowd to speak of. No girls, Paul was quick to notice.
"They'll come when the music starts," Ivan said, nudging his ribs. "Can't resist it."
"'Course they can't," Paul agreed, though he wasn't fully convinced. The band would have to at least be decent to draw in the caliber of girls Paul was looking for, and based on what he'd heard from Ivan—who readily admitted he didn't know what he was doing and sometimes played with the band anyway—Paul didn't bother getting his hopes up. Maybe they'd all be fumbling beginners; the thought made Paul's skin prickle with secondhand embarrassment.
The feeling only grew when he first caught sight of the band. Mismatched and sweat-shiny, they carried their instruments onto the stage like a bunch of schoolboys forced into a class play, awkward and amateurish, their instruments merely props that they didn't know how to hold. A boy with a guitar seemed to be bossing the others around, his back to the sparse crowd as he directed the others to their places, his nasally accent just barely reaching Paul's ears. He was the one who pushed the others into this, that much was obvious.
Once the boy had everyone where he wanted them, he turned to face Paul and the other curious onlookers. He had a face like a rock 'n' roll star, all sharp features and a square jaw, squinting in a way that shouldn't have seemed cool. He had his guitar positioned high on his chest—too high, Paul thought—but somehow that suited him, too. He stepped forward to speak into the microphone, and Paul heard his voice clearly for the first time.
"Right then, we're The Quarrymen." He sounded detached and pissed off, a tone that matched his carefully styled Teddy boy hair and checkered shirt. Still, Paul thought he could detect a note of excitement in his voice.
"That's John," Ivan said.
John, apparently finished speaking, looked over his shoulder at the band and counted them in to their first song: "one, two, three, four!"
"Dum, dum, dum, dum…"
Paul felt a jolt of excitement. It was a song he recognized it from the radio. John's voice melded nicely with the other singers' for the intro; the harmonizing was hit and miss, but it wasn't horrible. John picked up the slack.
"Not bad," Paul commented. The compliment was for Ivan's benefit; he might not be playing with the band today, but he'd take any criticism personally anyway.
Ivan pointed to the boy playing tea chest bass. "That one there's called Len. He's the one I fill in for sometimes. There's Pete with the washboard. Colin back there on the drums." He mentioned the names Eric and Rod, but Paul didn't see who he pointed to. John had launched into the first verse and Paul was captivated.
His voice was smooth and commanding, a few damp strands of hair hanging in his face. He was different from the others, who merely stood there plucking dutifully at their instruments. John seemed to be feeling the music in every part of his body, bending his knees and tapping his foot in time, a smile melting through his rough exterior. He was living for this. He took pride in his music, enjoyed every second of it.
Like Paul.
Paul was so swept up in the song that it took a moment for his ears to register the lyrics. "To the penitentiary?" Was that what he'd just said?
Paul looked up at John, astonished. All the words were wrong. He was just stringing together pieces of other songs and plugging in "so come go with me" where it fit.
John should look nervous, worried, but he didn't. He wore a teasing little grin that never faded from his heat-flushed face, as if he was doing this on purpose. As if this was the way the song was meant to be played all along.
"He's wrong, isn't he?" Paul asked Ivan, just to be sure. "The words are wrong."
Ivan laughed. "Does this all the time, our John. Memory's shite."
Paul looked back up at John, the edges of his hair glowing red in the sunlight, and Paul found that it didn't matter at all. John looked good. He sounded good. The song captured Paul's interest in a way that it never had before, thrumming through his bones, John's voice wrapping around him. Paul never wanted it to end.
"Want me to introduce you after?" Ivan asked, nudging him.
John sang out another invitation to come go with him, aching and beautiful, and something stirred in Paul's chest.
"Yeah. I do."
1960
"I've a future at Massey and Coggins, y'know." Paul fiddled with the latch on his guitar case, never quite committing to opening it. It was driving John mad. Hope swelled inside him every time Paul's finger slipped under the latch, but then he'd release it, letting the latch click back into place. "Said I'm management material."
"Come off it," John scoffed, strumming through a chord progression just to give his trembling fingers something to do. "Starting to sound like Jim, you are. There's a future in this too, you know." He lifted his guitar for emphasis. "What about Hamburg—"
"What about Hamburg?" Paul met John's eyes for the first time since he'd joined John in his bedroom. His face was perfectly blank, a cold mask of indifference. "It's over, John. We haven't had a single decent gig since we came home. No one knew you wanted to be in the band anymore. You didn't even tell me when you got back."
John looked away, an angry pressure pulsing in his brow. "So it's my fault, then. I get trapped in a bloody foreign country and everyone moves on. Guess ol' Lennon got murdered by the Nazis, boys, time to settle down and get real jobs."
"Stop that." Paul's hand moved from the latch entirely, fist clenching on top of his case. "Stop twisting it—you were there with Stu and Astrid, not out on the bloody street. Could've left when you wanted, but you didn't. What else were we supposed to do?"
"Wait for me!"
The bed creaked as Paul stood, yanking his guitar along with him. He looked too big for John's childhood room now, out of place. His sheer presence was too powerful to be contained, forged and perfected on the Hamburg stage. He'd be wasted in a factory.
That wasn't his future.
It couldn't be.
"Paul—"
"I can't spend my life waiting for you, don't you understand that? You weren't here to make a decision, so I had to make one of my own."
They were talking about the band, John knew that, but it didn't feel like it. All he could think about was Hamburg, how they slipped into each other's beds when the mixture of drink and prellies wouldn't let them sleep. They didn't talk about it. They didn't think about it. It was nothing more than clumsy touches, just mates helping each other out, and if they ended up tangled together, breathing against each others' mouths, what did it matter? They were out of their minds.
But maybe Paul had started smiling at him more. Maybe John smiled back. Maybe neither of them wanted it to stop.
"So you decided to leave me," John said finally.
The corner of Paul's mouth twitched downward, his defenses falling for the barest fraction of a second, but long enough for John to notice. "It's not always about you, y'know. I've my own life to worry about."
John reached out on impulse but stopped short, his hand landing on Paul's guitar case instead. "I'm part of your life, aren't I?"
Paul looked away, a soft silhouette in the waning sunlight. "Are you?"
A low burning anger simmered just beneath John's skin. "What do you want from me? An apology? I can't apologize for something I had no control over."
"Never mind." Paul gave his case a shake to dislodge John's hand.
John let out a breath through his nose and clenched his teeth, holding back the tirade building in his throat. He wasn't a fucking mind reader. How was he supposed to know what Paul wanted when he acted like this? But he couldn't just hurl abuse until Paul got fed up and left, not this time, because Paul no longer had a reason to come back. If the band was over and John pissed him off, that was it. He'd go off and be a bloody factory manager and John would just be… John.
Alone.
But Paul had been alone too, hadn't he? Had he expected John to follow him home after he'd gotten deported? Wasn't it obvious that John couldn't?
Maybe Paul couldn't read minds either.
John sighed. "It was hard, you know, being in Hamburg by myself," he said, quiet. "I wanted to leave after you did but… I didn't know if I'd ever have the money to come back home, I had to sell my stuff, I—" His throat went tight, stopping him before he went too far, made himself too vulnerable. It was almost a physical pain, doing this, but at least he had Paul's attention.
"I was scared," he admitted, hating the way his voice wobbled. "I didn't think I'd ever find my way back, and when I did, it was in the middle of the night and I had to go back to Mimi, and even she didn't want me. Not at first. Made me wait in the fucking garden and throw rocks at the window." The words were spilling out of him so fast they all ran together, one long breath that made his head ache. It should have been humiliating, and with anyone else, it would have been. But Paul's head was tilted curiously, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time.
"I wanted to see you. Everyone," John amended. "You. I should've stopped by, I just—" he raked a hand through his hair "—it felt nice, being in bed. My own bed, without smelling German fuckin' toilets or worrying about my stuff being stolen. I got in bed that night and didn't want to get back up again. I only wanted to feel safe for a while." He hesitated, then offered quietly, "I'm sorry."
"Oh Johnny," Paul sighed. He set his guitar down, and that was all the forgiveness John needed. "You're bloody thick sometimes, you know that?"
"Mimi tends to remind me."
"Good." Paul took his spot on the bed once more, leaning back on an arm. "Someone ought to."
John set his guitar on the floor, drawing his legs under himself. "Stay in the band. With me. There's a future in this, I'm telling you."
Paul looked away, color rising in his cheeks. "I told you—"
"I know, I know," John interrupted. "Listen, Paul, the band is going to make it. I don't want to leave you behind."
"You're that certain you'll make it without me, then?"
John shifted closer, his fingers grazing against Paul's. "We're going to the top, like we've always said we would. To the toppermost of the poppermost, baby, and I want you to come with me."
"Maybe if we planned the gigs around my work schedule," Paul mused, and John knew he had him. The door was cracked, now all he had to do was barge his way in. "I couldn't just quit, but maybe…"
"Come with me," John pressed, singsong. "Come, come, come, come. Come go with me."
Paul laughed, soft and melodic, and it fluttered in John's chest. "That's not how it goes."
Paul drew him in like a magnet; John couldn't stop himself from leaning in, his fingers walking up Paul's arm in time with the next verse. "Yes, I need you. Yes, I really need you. Please say you'll never leave me…"
"So dramatic, John."
"I need you, darlin', so come go with me."
It came out wrong.
It didn't sound like a song; his voice had been too small, almost shy. He shouldn't have been looking into Paul's eyes, shouldn't have been leaning in so close, but it was too late to pull away. Paul's eyes were locked on his, a soft, curious expression on his face that John had never seen outside of their bed in Hamburg. It looked even better in the light.
The gentlest of smiles pulled at Paul's lips and the air left John's lungs in a rush. "Okay," Paul said, soft, his fingers brushing over John's. "I'll go with you."
John didn't know whether or not they were talking about the band, but he'd figure it out later. For now, he had his forehead pressed against Paul's, watching the color of his eyes shift and glow in the fading sunlight.
Nothing else seemed to matter.
1967
"You won't sleep."
"I know." Paul was already in bed by the time the words made their way past his lips, echoing as if he'd shouted them into a metal pipe. John sat at the end of the pipe, a million miles away, backlit by golden rays of sun.
The house was alive, swelling and moving with each deep, slow breath, and this was the heart of it. John was the heart of it, the light radiating from him pulsing soft and steady.
"You won't sleep."
"I know." It'd been years since he'd last spoken, and the words crumbled out of his mouth like cigarette ash. The embers made his throat burn and he reached toward the throne, his arm stretching like heated plastic and curving past the horizon. "C'mere."
John caught his hand and rose from the throne, the distance shrinking between them until John stood at Paul's bedside, watching over him. Paul's fingers skittered up John's arm, each bump and hair and imperfection in John's skin like a topographical map, a mystery of lush forests and clear blue lakes; a whole world beneath Paul's fingertips.
Paul tugged his hand, rivers flowing over their fingers. "Lay with me."
The noise that escaped John was a mix between a laugh and a sigh. He looked over his shoulder with wide eyes; the nervousness that had gripped him back at the studio rising up again, radiating from him in spindly black waves. "I won't sleep."
The rivers ended in waterfalls that cascaded over their joined hands and disappeared into the floor. Paul tightened his hold, keeping John steady against the current. "Please."
John's hand turned to water in Paul's grip, sluicing between his fingers, and he flowed against Paul's side like a gentle wave. His head came to rest on Paul's pillow, their eyes inches apart, and Paul was lost.
It was if he'd never looked at John's eyes before. They drew him in, swallowed him in brown. The color was alive; warm and breathing, rotating and changing, swirling flashes of green and soft notes of amber, until it was no longer John's eyes he was looking into. They'd swapped somewhere along the way, and Paul stared into his own eyes on John's face, could see himself looking back.
John's lips parted in silent amazement, sucking in a breath, and Paul felt himself mirroring him. They'd become one person; Lennon-McCartney as an entity rather than a concept, but Paul had always known that.
Paul had a song in his head, a whole album just from this; he hummed a few bars as John's fingers traced over his cheek like warm velvet, sparks trailing in their wake. Paul could see them out of the corner of his eye, shimmering blue-yellow-red, his skin ablaze. John watched him carefully, squinting to focus, an unguarded fondness softening his features. Paul's whole body opened up under his gaze like a flower in the sunshine, awake and blooming after a lifetime of dormancy.
Music flowed from Paul uninhibited, a mix of hums and scattered words. His fingers rested on John's lips, touching his breath.
"I'm in love for the first time."
John's eyes slid closed, a smile warming his face. "Me too."
The bed groaned as Paul shifted closer, pressing his lips against John's. It was more of a touch than a kiss, igniting Paul's hypersensitive skin, his mouth tingling and numb. John sighed against his lips; a hot, overwhelming gust that trembled down Paul's spine and made his nerves sing. He pulled back, hummed another verse, and he could still feel John's mouth in the vibration.
"So tell me, darling, we will never part."
John's eyes fluttered open. "That's been done."
"S'pose it has," Paul admitted, smiling. He stroked John's hair, fingers falling through billowing clouds. "Reminds me of you."
John's hand trailed down Paul's arm, soft as the breeze, and when Paul closed his eyes, he saw a sky sparkling with diamonds. He could hear John's voice calling from far away, back on the ground, wrapping around him in a cool blanket of sound.
Paul drifted back down like a leaf on the wind, falling back into John's arms.
When he opened his eyes, John was looking past him, gaze fixated on something over his shoulder. The nervousness had built up around him again like smog, blurring Paul's view of him, and a distant panic prickled at the corner of Paul's mind.
"Is it alright?" John asked, quiet, uncertain.
Paul reached through the haze, pulling him close. "Yes, love. It's alright."
The house settled around them with a peaceful sigh, shadows drifting and dancing along the walls. He cradled John against his chest and began to hum again, the tune of "Come Go with Me" slowing into a gentle ballad.
1970
From his place in bed, Paul could just make out the sound of the door opening downstairs, Linda's cheery voice greeting their guest. It had to be a friend for Linda to allow them in at all; she'd become downright vicious when it came to reporters trying to drop in unannounced. Paul turned over, pulling the blankets around himself more securely. It didn't matter who it was. He didn't want to see them.
Linda's voice grew louder as two sets of footsteps clunked along the floor, fragments of conversation drifting through the walls: "—glad you came—," "—been so hard on him, you know—," and "—maybe you could talk some sense…"
Paul let out a breath, massaging his aching eyes with his fingertips. It was George, then. He reached over the side of the bed to grope for a bottle, only to knock over a bunch of empties. The glasses clinked together loudly, echoing inside his skull, rolling hollowly across the floor. How had he ended up like this? The Beatles were never going to last forever, he'd known that from the start. They'd been asked about it from the very beginning: What would they do when it ended?
Keep writing songs, that had always been his answer. Keep writing songs together.
He made another grab for a bottle, his fingers scrabbling at one just out of reach. There wasn't more than a stale sip at the bottom, but it'd have to fucking do.
He had his head tipped back, the bottle vertical, when Linda let herself in—not too long ago, he would have been ashamed. Ashamed of his rough cheeks, unkempt hair, and slept-in shirt, but it didn't matter anymore. She'd seen him at his worst; why bother?
Linda bustled straight to the window, yanking at the curtains. "We're keeping these open, remember? Light helps."
Paul turned his head away, bracing himself for the piercing sunlight, and that was when he noticed his visitor.
His father stood in the doorway, stern as ever, frown lines deepening as he surveyed the state of the room. He carried an old box under one arm, his free hand holding a cigarette aloft.
"Oh," Paul managed. "Would've cleaned up, if you'd rang."
Jim waved him off. "Nonsense." He wandered into the room, stepping over the bottles without batting an eye, until he reached Paul's bedside.
When Linda finished faffing with the curtains, she smoothed Paul's hair back with her fingers, kissed his forehead. "I'll leave you two alone."
She let herself out, closing the door behind her with extra care, and an uneasy feeling squirmed inside him. They were being too kind to him, treating him like he was dying. Maybe he was. There was no other reason that Jim would sit himself on the edge of the bed without griping about the mess, without grabbing Paul by the ear and telling him to get up, get dressed, and be a man, for god sake.
Paul shook the thought out of his head and reached for his cigarettes. "What's that, then?" he asked, nodding toward the box as he lit up.
Jim set the box down between them on the bedspread. "Some old things I thought you might like to have. Meant to hand it over to you after we moved houses. Slipped my mind."
Paul's heart lurched. "What? Lyrics? I don't want them." The pieces started falling together. Linda had planned this, had called Jim up herself and asked him to bring some things over to cheer Paul up, things that would remind him why he loved music in the first place. It was something they'd been talking about lately; she told him over and over, "You cared about music before The Beatles. You just have to find your passion again."
Jim put his cigarette between his lips for safekeeping and lifted the lid off the box. It looked like an odd assortment of things, records and knickknacks, some of Mike's photography. A few old papers were tucked along the sides, though at a glance Paul could only see his own handwriting.
"Now let's see here," Jim was saying as he lifted a record out of the box. "What do we have—ah, that Little Richard fellow, you were always fond of him." He laid the album on Paul's blanket-covered lap. "Elvis. Heard a bit too much of him when you were growing up." He stacked it on top of the Little Richard one. "Looks like we have some lyrics in here, too. You can throw them out if you like. Nice photograph of Mary, here, see?"
Paul took the little black and white picture from his father's hand. He and Mike had been photographed with her, sitting in the grass, all smiles. He blinked away the stinging in his eyes and set the picture aside. "It's great. Ta, dad."
He didn't think to look in the box again until long after Jim had left, an impromptu nap leaving him in a groggy daze. He hoisted the box back onto the bed, pawing through it with one hand as he rubbed at his eyes with the other. There was nothing of any great value—few things he couldn't live without. He fished out the remaining family photos and stacked them carefully, purposely avoiding Mike's artsy shots. Most of those would probably be of Paul himself, as he had often been the subject when Mike wanted to practice with light and shadow, but he didn't want to see the band, young and smiling, unaware of lawyers and managers and contracts that would rip them apart.
He lifted out the stack of records and flipped through them. It was the usual fare—Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent—old and so well loved they probably wouldn't even play anymore. A record single, free from its sleeve, slipped out from behind a Fats Domino album; Paul recognized it immediately from the faded black label, the fancy bold script reading LONDON across the top, and his throat seized like a fist.
He remembered going to the record store for this, because suddenly waiting for it to come on the radio wasn't good enough. He remembered the way he'd run home to listen to it, closing his eyes and remembering the boy at the fete. Come Go With Me.
The record snapped between his hands with a deafening crack, a wayward fragment popping him in the cheek. He threw the remains against the wall with a yell that ripped his throat raw, pieces of vinyl clattering to the floor.
1971
It was about him.
On his first play through, he'd only picked up on a couple of lines: "Too many people preaching practices" and "you took your lucky break and broke it in two." Now, three plays in, John had four of the songs listed on the back cover circled in angry red marker, and had scribbled over the image of fucking beetles until the sleeve began to weaken and tear.
He needed to let Yoko listen. He needed to call George and Allen Klein and maybe Ringo, anyone who might have heard the album, and get their opinion. He wasn't hearing things. This was a deliberate attack on him, a mockery of him.
And the beetles—what a fucking cunt.
He snatched the vinyl off the turntable and flipped it back over to the A side, stopping himself just short of placing the needle. Moderation, an inner voice reminded him—a voice that was beginning to sound a lot like Yoko these days. He needed to channel his rage into something positive, but that was fucking difficult when he had acid in his throat and thick, dark storm clouds in his mind.
Setting the vinyl aside, John drew in a deep breath, forcing his eyes closed. Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. Had it really been that simple for him once? He crossed his legs, straightened his back; that was the easy part.
He could write a response. A letter.
Turn off your mind.
What would he even say? Too many people preaching practices—at least he was fucking trying. What was Paul doing? Sitting on his throne while his fans worshipped him, nothing better to do but criticize him and Yoko for trying bring some good into the world? And he had the audacity to act like John was the one who was lost, the one who'd thrown away his opportunities. John had plenty of artists to collaborate with; who was Paul working with these days?
Relax.
The image of the beetles flashed through his mind. Did Paul want the whole fucking world to know about them? The things they'd done together? It wasn't even subtle; anyone could figure it out if they bothered to think about it. And of course Paul had to come out with it first, make it out like he was the man. Lennon-McCartney? What a joke. So what if John's name was first, he was Paul's bitch.
Turn off your mind.
Nothing was off-limits; that's what Paul was trying to tell him. Even the most private, intimate details that they should have taken to the grave were fair game, free to be twisted in order to suit their agenda. John could make him regret it with a stroke of his pen.
Relax.
John's eyes popped open. His mind was too loud. Someone needed to knock Paul down a peg, and who better than John himself? Ideas were roaring through his head, making his insides shake. He had to start writing before he exploded.
He stood, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants, and switched on the radio to get Paul's crooning voice out of his head. He found a scrap piece of paper and a pen, settled himself at the breakfast table, and got to work.
"Dear Paul," he started. The radio played in the adjoining room through a haze of static, left on some old 50s station he'd tuned it to one day when he'd been feeling nostalgic. He stared down at the paper, tapping the tip of the pen in the margin and leaving a smattering of dots.
Paul was the one who made this public in the first place—why should John give him the courtesy of responding in private? The point of this was to put Paul back in his place, after all. If Paul thought he could say whatever he wanted about John in front of the world and get nothing but cowardly little letters in reply, that would only empower him. John needed to hit back, and he needed to hit back hard.
He flipped the page over and began writing down anything that came to mind, his hand flying across the paper as if possessed. Everything he'd ever thought about Paul for the past fourteen-or-however-many years. It felt like a lifetime—a lifetime of little things that had never annoyed him but now seemed like the perfect ammunition. Paul's Little Richard "ooh"s, his pretty face, his accent—as if he was better than anyone else from Liverpool just because he sounded posh.
A wicked grin curved onto John's face as another thought hit him, and he jotted down, "you sound better with a cock in your mouth." When he leaned back to look at it, triumph thumping through his veins, the sound of the radio crept back into his consciousness.
"Please don't send me
"Way beyond the sea;
"I need you, darlin',
"So come go with me."
The chair clattered to the floor as John stormed over to the radio. He yanked the plug from the wall and stood there, pulse pounding in his ears, a vague sense of guilt niggling in his skull. Paul himself might as well have walked in on him writing those things.
But what did it matter? Paul started this.
John set the chair back up with methodical slowness, brushing away nonexistent dust before sitting. He scooted back up to the table, decided he was too close, then shifted back. The pen felt heavy in his hand; he spun it between his fingers indecisively, sweat making his grip slick.
He scribbled out the line about Paul sucking his cock, scribbled over it and over it until it was nothing but an ingrained splotch of black that bled through the paper. When he was satisfied that no one would be able to read it, he positioned his pen to write another line, but the blinding rage had left him.
He'd wait until Yoko listened to the album. If she agreed with him, then maybe he'd take his notes to the studio and they could make something out of it.
For now, he just wanted to forget.
1976
"The Beatles aren't getting back together."
The words dropped from Paul's lips like lead, the reality of them permeating the silence. That period of his life was over. They were never going to work together again, the four of them. As for him and John... He still didn't know. So much had happened between them that it was hard to imagine spending time together, enjoying each other's company without their history tainting it. Sitting down together and writing again, nose-to-nose like they used to, was a pipe dream.
So why was he here? It was torture, that's what it was. Linda might even say he was punishing himself.
Maybe he was.
When the elevator came to a stop, Paul had half a mind to ask to be taken back down. But the attendant was fumbling his way through an apology—"I'm sorry if I offended you, sir, I should have never brought it up"—and Paul found himself stepping out into the corridor just to get away from him.
His feet carried him to John's door on their own accord, and then he was knocking before he could think better of it. He didn't even know what to say. What could he say? Not that he missed John, not that it had been too long since they'd sat down and talked—really talked. The conversations they'd had over the past few years had been little more than small talk; Paul didn't know how to fix it. Maybe it couldn't be fixed.
The door creaked open only the barest inch, then a little more.
"It really is you, then," John commented in his familiar lilting accent, and Paul's breath caught.
The door swung open the rest of the way and John propped his hip against the frame, folding his arms across a chest that was narrower than it had any right to be. He looked almost… frail. When had he stopped being the big, formidable Teddy boy Paul had grown up with? Long before the band had broken up, he supposed.
"I was in the neighborhood," Paul lied. "Thought I'd drop by."
John's lips quirked, though his eyes were guarded behind his glasses. "I suppose you'll want to come in?"
"Well, y'know, I wouldn't want to intrude…"
John looked at him, eyes flicking side to side as if reading something written on Paul's face. "Yoko's out," he said finally. "Suppose I could do with the company."
He stepped aside to allow Paul into the foyer. Paul's skin prickled with the weight of John's stare.
"You look good," Paul offered.
John's face was the same as it had always been, just older, the skin settled around the ridges of his nose, jaw more prominent than ever. It was the hair that changed him—had his forehead always been that big, hidden beneath the mop top? Or was his hairline beginning to recede?
John turned a narrow eye on him, looking him over briefly. "You look fifteen."
"Rather fifteen than fifty."
Paul felt fifteen, meeting the enigmatic John Lennon for the first time, eager to impress but unable to read his reaction. Somewhere along the way, he'd learned how to read John better than anyone else, and facing John's defenses now threw Paul off balance. The wall John had built around himself was supposed to protect him from everyone else, not Paul.
John led him to the kitchen. "Tea?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Oh—yes, thank you."
Paul explored the adjoining dining room as John filled up the kettle, every clink and clatter too loud in the silence, John's bare feet padding along the floor. It was uncomfortable, but there was nothing to say. It was hard to imagine that their moments of quiet had been meaningful once, another plane of communication all together. Sometimes, in distant memory, they'd only stopped talking when their lips were locked together.
Paul cleared his throat. "How's Sean?"
"Good." John leaned back against the counter, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded. "How's the herd?"
"Good—great." Paul hesitated. "Linda sends her love."
"How could she? Doesn't know you're here, does she?"
Tension was building inside of Paul, tightening across his shoulders. He wanted to scream, wanted to grab John and shake him, rip apart this fucking charade. This wasn't how they were supposed to be, but Paul couldn't remember how they once managed to spend hours talking to each other. How could they have had that much to say?
He turned away, letting himself get distracted by a radio on the mantle. "D'you mind?"
John turned his attention back to the kettle, checking the water, though they both knew it hadn't been long enough yet. "Always loved hearing yourself on the radio, didn't you?"
An angry flush rose on Paul's cheeks. He wouldn't take the bait, he refused. His fingers trembled as he switched on the radio, twisting the dial before giving the current station a chance to play. He sifted through the channels as quickly as he could, fragments of words and hisses of static melding together in a discordant jumble of noise. He'd never dreaded the sound of his own voice like this; John was right, he liked hearing himself. It had been years since the first time he'd heard himself on the radio, but he still felt that same rush of excitement, of disbelief.
Now he felt sick at the very thought of it; they needed something neutral.
He caught a hint of a single note, unmistakable, and he backtracked to find it, twisting the dial until Elvis's smooth voice came in clearly.
"This alright?"
John had picked out two Japanese style teacups and was placing them on the table. "Feeling nostalgic, I see."
Paul ignored him, taking a seat as John brought the tea over. "Never learned this one, did we?"
"We weren't ready to sing about our mums," John said as he joined him. He hesitated, running a finger along the rim of his empty cup as Elvis sang about his mother and her roses. "I wasn't, anyway."
Something twisted in Paul's chest. He examined his own cup, turning it from side to side so he could examine the elegant blue symbols that had been painted onto the ceramic. "What does this say, y'think?"
"It's kanji," John replied, and the accented word sounded so strange in his voice. "It's a lifelong thing, you know, learning to read that. You'd have to ask Yoko."
Paul set the cup down. "You've learned a lot from her."
"There's a lot to learn." John filled Paul's cup and then his own, then leaned back in his chair. "So what is it you want? You didn't come here for small talk, surely."
"Just following a whim." Paul smiled. "Linda's taught me a lot, too. Straying from the path, getting lost—"
"Fucking 'Two of Us', I know, I was there." John sat forward, forearms braced on the table. "I'm not the fucking countryside for you to get lost in, Paul. If you're working out your control issues, go somewhere else."
"Parts of that song were for you, y'know." He didn't know why he said it, but it couldn't have been a secret. John knew him better than that. "Everything I do, it seems. Some part of it is for you."
John huffed. "Let go of the fucking Beatles."
"I have," Paul said, soft. He didn't want to, he'd never wanted to, but he had. They couldn't go back. "I'm not talking about The Beatles, or—or Lennon-McCartney. We loved each other before all of that." It was the wrong word; Paul knew it as soon as it slipped out. John's jaw tightened. "We were friends," Paul amended. "I miss that."
There it was. The closest to 'I miss you' Paul dared go; he could still save face if John shot him down. And he might—his expression was stony, his eyes focused past Paul's shoulder. Paul searched his face frantically, looking for a shred of warmth, anything to let him know that he wasn't alone in this, that John couldn't live without him either.
Through the speakers, the host announced that they were "lightening the mood with a hit that peaked at #4 in 1957," followed by the inimitable "dum, dum, dum, dum…"
The blood drained from Paul's face. Across from him, John only exhaled sharply. It couldn't be that Paul was the only one who felt a connection to this song. He couldn't remember the last time they'd listened to it together, but it was their song. It always had been.
Paul scratched at the back of his neck. "Always loved this one."
John plucked a cigarette from the pack on the table, lighting it and inhaling deeply. "Never really cared for the lyrics."
Coming here was a mistake. Paul had known that before he'd stepped foot off the elevator. His John was gone and there was no getting him back; maybe he just needed to see that for himself.
John slipped his glasses off, looking at Paul unguarded for the first time since he'd arrived. There was something glimmering in his eyes—an offer.
"I never quite liked them either," Paul said tentatively, the vise in his chest loosening when John's lips quirked. "Heard a better version a long time ago."
John smiled, lifting his head in mock pride as he raised his cigarette to his lips. "Was always a lyrical genius, now that you mention it."
The relief that flooded through Paul's veins was palpable, coming out in a shaky laugh. "Genius—is that what they're calling it these days? All this time I thought you had a bad memory."
"It was enough to impress you, wasn't it?" John rocked back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. "Down, down, down to the penitentiary."
"Down, down to the floor is where you're about to go. Not sixteen anymore," Paul reminded him, grinning. "Might break a hip."
John merely tilted his head back in response, exposing the long line of his neck as he took a slow drag of his cigarette, the music washing over them. His free hand was splayed across his chest, fingers tapping absently along with the beat. Paul let himself look at him, chin in hand; John had always been beautiful in a way that made Paul's heart ache, all long lines and sharp edges. Being married to someone else didn't make Paul blind to it; it just made the ache a little worse.
"Christ," John sighed, leaning forward and bringing the chair safely to rest on all four legs. "It does bring back memories, doesn't it?"
It might have started at the fete, their connection to this song, but it went so much deeper than that. Looking into John's eyes, Paul could tell that he was remembering it too; hesitant brushes of fingers and warm beds, the softest of kisses. John carefully replaced his glasses, his gaze lingering on Paul's mouth, flicking up to Paul's eyes and back again. Paul's heart kicked, a warm burst of want followed immediately by an aching regret. If they started that again, it would never stop. He couldn't do that to Linda, to his kids, but god he wanted to.
John looked away, finishing off his cigarette. Brow furrowed, he smashed the remains into an ashtray, consumed by a quiet battle of his own. "What a mess we've gotten ourselves into, ey?"
"One of our bigger disasters," Paul agreed, sighing. "And that's saying something."
John looked up at him. "Would you change it?"
"No." He didn't have to think about it. Every moment he'd shared with John was special, cherished; he wouldn't trade it for the world. "Would you?"
"No. Never."
They looked at each other from either side of the small breakfast table, worlds apart. They had families now, lives of their own; tree limbs branching off in opposite directions, but always connected at the source. Even if they couldn't be together, they'd always have their memories. Their music.
That would have to be enough.