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Elton John had it right when he sang Saturday night’s alright, alright, alright, Paul often thought on those very nights, to the tune that couldn’t leave his head—he’d end up humming it all the way to whichever club he and his mates decided to head to, in drastic contrast to the electronic music he’d dance to inside. The sentiments in the song were relevant even after all the years since its release—it was a welcome respite, for at least one night, to leave behind his responsibilities, every duty that piled up with only three people in the house—one with several jobs, another younger than himself who should be the one to carry the least amount of weight—and feel like he was actually seventeen, rowdy and drunk on life. It was a short-lasting intoxication—Sundays spent churning in his bed with his dad’s disappointment hanging over him were nothing if not shameful—but it was a Saturday like tonight, when Paul turned his head and saw that familiar silhouette, the one burned into his brain, that same leather jacket, jean and boots outfit Paul wouldn’t admit he’d started copying in his daily life, that he couldn’t care less about anyone else.
John had an uncanny talent for being at the right place, right time, no matter the club. Paul didn’t leave many things up to chance anyway but it was still convenient.
He contained his elation but it was like it magnified his awareness of John, his every step in relation to Paul seismic. The temptation to glance over every so often wasn’t easy to ignore, and John was never quick to notice him, unfortunately, which only prolonged the tension in Paul’s shoulders.
Finally, after an eternity, he felt that definite hair-raising chill up his spine—John could only be a few steps away from him. I’m insane, he thought, as he ignored his entire nervous system screaming danger, danger, probably like it did for most prey. That’s what John’s eyes locked on him were, focused like a lion about to pounce, trying to catch Paul just unaware enough.
The thumping in his chest felt too loud, the adrenaline maintaining it, but he kept his poker face and waited. And then—
“Alright?” John asked, passing by, bathed under the purple lights coming from the dance floor.
“Alright,” Paul replied, as charming as ever. A tremble ran down his arms, which he masked by putting his hands in his pockets, but John hadn’t even been looking at Paul, instead focused on his drink, and then on the people dancing.
That was the extent of their conversation. John left to dance with some girl, or multiple girls, and Paul went around with one of his mates for a while, drinking.
An hour must have passed like that, neither giving in, until John caught his eye, gestured to the entrance with his head while he swallowed the last of his new drink and Paul started following along as they made their way outside, with only a fleeting goodbye to his friends.
Their night, like every other time, started easy, almost innocently. They walked in a somewhat random direction, not really noticing what turns they took, knowing they never strayed too far from whatever busy street they were closest to, choosing the lanes and passageways less frequented by the crowds but always winding back towards them, walking in circles time and again.
John patted his trousers, looking for his cigarettes, finding the pack in his left side front pocket. He showed it to Paul, raising his eyebrows in question.
Paul nodded—he had taken it as a bit of a habit around John.
John put both cigarettes in his mouth, lighting one, passing it to Paul. He caught Paul staring just then, but Paul held his look for a moment before turning his eyes down. John lit the other while Paul inhaled.
He grimaced at the taste of ash and blew out the smoke, turning his face in case John saw. He’d thought about refusing, the first time John had tossed him a cigarette, but the look on his face had said he’d never give a rat’s ass about Paul unless he wholeheartedly embraced whatever John threw at him.
There was no room for shyness with John and Paul quickly learned a lesson in confidence.
The conversation wasn’t exactly overflowing—they pretended to catch up, but they’d never been forthcoming about their lives. He knew John was almost in his second year at uni, working a minimum wage job that he didn’t care all that much about somewhere in the city, and that he lived with his aunt.
(He knew John loved his cats, which were far too many for a small house, that he played the harmonica and was learning the ukulele, that he liked the blues and Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan, that he liked making poems but that he felt they were rubbish, that he deflected with silly faces when he felt on the spot, that he took the piss out of anything but protected everything he cared about, that he felt he only had his mate Stu to talk to but that he feared Stu could only grow tired of him, that he wanted something and he didn’t know what. Those were the things John didn’t know himself, that he let on in the black of night when he didn’t realise he was saying them, would never admit them otherwise. Paul worried sometimes about what John might know about him that he didn’t.)
Their pace, already slow, drew to a halt around the corner from a 24hs shop. They were brushing shoulders, pretending not to notice, and Paul was talking about the moon for a lack of subject, how clear the night sky was, until John turned his head and effectively shut him up a rough kiss, as Paul expected John would when he resorted to non-sequiturs.
So far their act was marching swiftly.
Nevertheless, an unexpected hitch—a sharp sound of metal clashing startled them apart, and they noticed passerbys coming their way. John pulled further away, and Paul looked to the side, licking his lower lip. He felt John lean on the wall, next to him, waiting.
Even if Paul didn’t care, John didn’t like kissing in front of strangers. It was no bloody secret what they’d been doing but he didn’t reproach John—it would only make him feel awkward, and in turn uptight about how that’s just how it is, throw an ultimatum, and then avoid him for weeks, give him the bloody cold shoulder. So, he waited. Looked up and saw the moon again, the only witness to their affair, and as easily as always, he started to sing.
“We were sailing along, on moonlight bay...”
It made John smirk, which only pushed Paul to ham it up a little.
“You have stolen my heart,” he sang as he put his head on John’s shoulder, putting on the biggest puppy eyes he knew he could make and fluttering his eyelashes. “Don’t go away...”
He continued on, until finally John turned his head and looked at him, which just made a grin burst into Paul’s face. “...on moonlight bay! ”
Paul’s smile didn’t waver even in the face of John’s less than impressed expression. Paul wasn’t fooled. John liked when Paul sang, even if it was granny songs that only he thought of. Maybe it was just because it gave him something to tease Paul about—though he doubted it—but if there was one thing Paul had never cared about, it was John’s disapproval of his more romantic tastes.
It had broken the ice anyway, and Paul pulled John away from the wall, off to another place before anyone else decided to walk by.
Walking north at a leisurely pace, it took a while before they found somewhere that wasn’t removed but otherwise remote—a small side path that was lit enough.
By this point most Saturdays, they were either getting off in Stu’s studio or already had, but tonight a wave of inertia covered them, and they hadn’t even got off the street, now much quieter. They’d ended up snogging outside someone’s house, and not in their usual rushed fashion. Their kisses went on for a long time, like with candy that one needed to let melt instead of crush. John moved lazily, holding Paul’s hip or hair gently, fingers grazing Paul’s skin, sending shivers all over his body. Paul always made an effort not to cling to John, but tonight he let his arms wrap around his waist, let his hands roam John’s back softly and without direction, encouraged even more when John didn’t tell him to stop.
Even breaking apart was a slow process, separating by degrees interrupted by further kissing, setting the whole affair off again—one step forward, two steps back—until there were no more limbs to detangle. They’d stayed the same practically all night, beginning the same as the end—with John smoking again. It’d been like they’d cheated and found a way to stop time, find hours where nothing changed, reserved only so they could be together and not waste a single moment of the day.
But it could never be that easy. Soon after, the sky began changing hue, dissipating the haze Paul felt under. Soon he’d go home. He looked at John from the side—he seemed pensive rather than tired, the cigarette fog a visual representation of his mind. He had been strange tonight, his affection unhurried, which only now gave Paul pause. It wasn’t like John wasn’t attentive, in a way, but he was impatient—no room for languid make outs without the promise of sex in his Saturdays, even less with what amounted to his fuckbuddy.
He thought about asking what was wrong, if something was wrong, and he felt his heart suddenly lurch in anticipation. Could he ask? Should he ask? They were never worried around each other. They kept their real lives at a distance, and with such a loaded question, he’d be testing limits, ones they hadn’t been willing to test for three months.
“You’ll make your finger bleed again,” said John in a monotone, stare still straight-ahead.
Paul startled, and then noticed he had been biting his thumb. He pulled his hand forcibly between his thighs, and stopped looking at John.
John sighed, rolling his eyes, and got up, crushing the remainder of his cigarette under his boot. “Get up, buses will be running now.”
As they made their way towards a stop, Paul was very much aware he was fiddling with his fingers, trying to not give in to the urge to keep biting. He’d hidden his hands in his pockets, the sudden chill of early morning a perfect excuse, but John saw through it. He took advantage of the fact no one was around and, using Paul’s distracted state, grabbed him and pushed him against the nearest wall, pining his wrists next to his head.
Paul yelped, his big eyes glued to John, getting even wider when John kissed his palms, almost sweetly. His cheek quickly caught on fire.
“Stop. Biting. Your. Fingers.” John punctuated each word with a kiss. Then, he moved to Paul’s neck, his lips grazing along the length of it, breathing over it. “I have better uses than chew toys for those pretty things,” he said and gave a small bite where Paul’s shoulder met his neck.
Then, as quick as he had come forward, John pulled back, letting Paul’s hands drop, and started walking again.
It took a minute before Paul reeled himself in and caught up.
He would have made it even, somehow, but they saw the bus coming before he got the chance, and Paul signaled it, turning around for a quick, “See you,” before stepping in.
John didn’t reply, which wasn’t unusual—by now he had been turning the corner the first times they met.
With a sigh, he sat and looked out the window, waiting ‘til he got home. He glanced back, and John was still standing there, and though he was too far to confirm, Paul thought he’d been waiting to see him off.
He bit his lip as he turned to face forward again, a strange feeling in his gut appearing.
He didn’t know how John possibly seeing him off made him feel. Or rather, he did know but he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know he really fucking liked John. Of course he knew, he’d known from the very moment they’d met, but it was more a question of how visible he wanted to make that fact.
His dad didn’t know he was gay. Mike seemed to suspect but he’d never asked and Paul had never said. In fact, the only person he’d ever told was George and that was purely because he’d seen him kissing Ivan behind the bathroom at the fête.
He had to be sure John was worth coming out for, in a way, much as that thought made him feel a little dirty.
After all, John was… something else, definitely. He was daring and cool and a bit of an asshole but in the way Paul sometimes wanted to be. He seemed larger than life in the middle of the street, pulling him along to whatever he considered an adventure.
George told him time and again that he was being daft, that his romantic sensibilities were blowing things out of proportion (the hypocrite—“Pattie said hi to me when she was passing by and she obviously didn’t need to, I think I’m going to ask her to marry me?”), but George had never met John, only knew the censured, filtered version of events Paul dared to tell him. What the fuck does he know, he’d think in his angrier moods. But there was a part inside of him that agreed a little.
John was also a bit of an asshole in the normal sense and he wasn’t exactly full of affection. He gave a mean punch, metaphorical or not. Was that the guy he wanted to come out for? When John probably wouldn’t come out for him either? Mimi didn’t know most of what John did, let alone who he fucked every Saturday night.
He sighed deeply and messed up his hair, not caring what the driver might think. At the same time, if John had been seeing him off, if tonight had been proof of anything… he really liked John. He wanted to see this through. But not if he was alone.
Nothing like a Sunday morning headache.