Chapter Text
Day 1
1966
Paul was exhausted as he drove down empty streets. The pink hue of morning light had barely graced the cloud strewn sky as he flicked on his turn indicator. Everything in him had told him to not answer the phone just an hour earlier but he had anyway. After a long night of drinking and only 2 hours of sleep, he couldn’t really tell what John had been on about in his call but he sounded frantic, to say the least.
With his mind slowed by sleep, he searched himself for his cigarettes. He fumbled with driving and lighting his smoke for a moment before finally being able to take a steady drag. The nicotine rushed through him and he pulled for another hit. A semblance of alertness was trying to take form in his mind. He cranked up the radio to help it along. The station was playing one of their songs. An old one. Off the first album. He didn’t bother to change it.
After a second cigarette was lit and he was almost to John’s place, his brain was somewhat functioning. A new Rolling Stone’s song was pouring through the radio. Something he’d heard just six hours earlier. It pushed forward his memory of the night out with Mal. He remembered it vaguely but fondly. The recollection was ushered away in favor of trying to wrack his brain for what John had said. Something about “hurry” and “I need help,” but there was no context to any of it that Paul could remember. Anyways, John had hung up so quickly he couldn’t have asked for clarification if he had been conscious enough to think to.
On his third cigarette, he pulled on to the proper road and arrived at a wide-open gate. He hummed at one of the wings of the gate, giving it a curious stare before going up the rest of the drive. He parked beside a colorfully painted Rolls Royce, snuffed his cig, and made sure the ends of his button-up were tucked in his pants properly. Eyes fixed in the rearview, he gave his hair a light tossle.
When he finally got out, he didn’t make it more than a few steps towards the door before John padded out of the house with pajama pants on and Julien at his hip. His face was pulled down in a frown, the soft light giving a delicate tinge of pink and orange to his features, simultaneously highlighting his freckled chest. The little ball of excitement that was Julian smiled at Paul, giggling, and grabbing the air between them.
Paul pulled on a smile and met John halfway to take Jules in his arms. As the kid pulled at Paul’s ear, he looked his friend up and down and found he was an absolute mess, from his hair to his missing shirt and single sock. He wanted to poke fun at him for it but there was a delicate tension he was afraid to disturb.
“You won’t believe it of him now.” John was staring at his child with amazement and exhaustion clear behind the black rimmed glasses perched on his nose. “But he’s evil.”
“Not evil,” Jules shouted in shock.
There was no holding back the burst of laughter that left Paul at the absurd statement. He felt the tension dissolve as he looked at John’s reluctant smile. “He’s three, John.”
“How many more years does he need, then, to be properly evil? Are these just his practice days?” John eyed his son carefully, leaning forward and scrunching his nose. The accused Lennon was giggling and babbling about evil pirates.
“Where’s Cyn,” Paul chuckled, peeking into the still opened door. “Your gates open, y’know.”
“That’s why I called you.”
“To close the gate?”
“Actually, yes, would you close it on your way out? Ta. See you at the studio.” John put on a mocking voice, waving for the driveway. “No, mate. Cyn’s gone and she’s left me with Jules.”
That sobered Paul immediately. He froze dead in the middle of making a mess of Julian’s hair to stare at John, mouth hung open. There had been arguments between him and Cynthia, sure, but her leaving and without Julian? That couldn’t be right.
“She what,” is all Paul could manage.
The shock must have been clear on his face because John rolled his eyes and shoved Paul by the shoulder. “No, git. She hasn’t left me . She’s gone to her mother's.” He wrapped his arms around his stomach and shivered. “Let's go inside.” The cool morning air was proving too much for his bare skin.
Something like relief, but not as calming, deflated Paul from his statued state. Julian, babbled happily, pulled at Paul’s fingers as he followed after John’s trail and into the kitchen.
“And she left him?” That still made zero sense in Paul’s mind. He didn't think Julian had ever been left with John, all alone, for more than half a day.
“Obviously,” John said, busying himself with beginning breakfast. The tension between them was building up again, brick by brick. Paul needed to stop it.
He sat Jules down to run to his toys on the floor. There was no helping his fixed stare directly at John’s back. He surveyed his friend from the top of his head to the base of his spine before quickly looking at Julian. “So?” His eyes flicked back to John as he squatted down in front of the fridge before going back to stare at the orange toy Julian was fiddling with.
“So,” John drawled, “I might have told her I can handle him alone for three days. And she might have left last night. And I might have not slept at all.”
Paul gapped, no longer able to keep his eyes off John. “Seriously?” He thought John might take offense to his tone but he only sighed, turning to Paul, and draped himself over the square island Paul sat at. His cheeks cast newly formed shadows and Paul made a note to make sure John ate his breakfast too.
“Well,” John began, exacerbated. “We had a row about parenting and I wanted to prove a point and-”
“And now you regret it?”
“No! I- I just need some… assistance.” He pulled himself from the island and began to make scrambled eggs on a hot pan. “You’re good with kids, good with Jules. So…”
“Is uncle Paul- Is, um, staying?” Julian mumbled out, his words awkward with young age and his focus on the fireman’s truck.
Paul’s eyes shot between Julian and John’s back. He noticed that John had stopped moving, spatula halfway through scraping at the eggs. Another brick was ready to be laid on the mounting tension.
“I- Well, I can, yeah.” He stared at the red-tinted head of hair, waiting for a sign.
But all he saw was John go back to scraping the eggs, his shoulders drooping. “You don’t have to.”
“No, mate. Yeah, I can, um, stay the day… and night. Jane won't even be back for a week, anyway.” There was an awkwardness making Paul a little uneasy and unnatural.
“Really!” Julian perked up, dropping his toy.
Paul turned to Jules and pulled on a big smile. “If your daddy will have me here. You might have to ask really, very, kindly, though.” He scooped up Julian and let him sit on his shoulder. They marched goofily to John’s side and Paul bent his knees so John and his son were somewhat close to eye level. “Well,” he prompted Julian.
Julian was giggling and grabbing at Paul’s hair. “Can he stay… please?”
John huffed a laugh, his focus staying on dividing three portions of eggs onto decorative plates that looked fit for a proper dinner, not an egg and toast breakfast. “Oh, if it pleases the tyrannical evil.” A smile tugged at John’s mouth but he still didn’t look at Paul, instead moving further away to put some bread on to toast.
Once John had placed the plates of egg and toast on the table, pouring tea for him and Paul- a bottle of juice for Jules- there was light banter and talk of work in the studio and a new song. After a while, Julian finished his breakfast and ran off after a cat Paul couldn’t recall the name of. Silence fell between them as John stared at the seat Julian was no longer in. His eyes were soft and focused, a ray of light highlighting a fleck of green amongst the brown.
“You guys are alright, yeah? You and Cyn,” Paul asked, shifting his gaze to a cat laid out in the sun. He hated how awkward everything felt. It was maddening.
At the loud huff from his friend, Paul looked to see John had barely eaten and was only shoving his food around his plate, toast untouched. “I don’t know. ‘Suppose.” His eyes didn’t meet Paul. “Just a lot of fighting, ‘course. About touring… my whoring.”
Paul nodded, not knowing what to say. He realized John wasn’t looking at him and finally hummed a response before asking, “Aren’t you hungry?”
John shook out his messy hair, looking to Paul. “The kids got me a nervous wreck. Was crying the whole time before you got here.”
Paul had watched his eating habits deteriorate over the course of this year and knew it was more than that. “Well, I’m here now. Eat something, son. Get some energy.”
John took Paul’s almost empty plate with his to the bin to scrape out. “It’s fine. I’ll have a proper lunch.”
Not knowing how far to push it, Paul decided to not pry further unless he neglected his lunch too. He looked to his thumbs, twiddling them and staring at the tile. Julian’s laughter was echoing in the background, just audible over the clanking dishes. The two men stayed quiet as the dishes went into the sink and John didn’t yet turn around. Paul stared at his back, looking over the shadows under his shoulder blades and the flex in his back muscles as he stretched a bit.
John turned the faucet off and huffed out a deep breath that made Paul’s spine go rigid. “What if…” There was a deafening silence. John turned around, his hands holding the edge of the counter behind. The act defined his biceps. Paul snapped his eyes to lock with John’s. They only stared at one another. But something was off. It wasn’t like before. It felt forced and painful. John’s gaze broke first, leaving a coldness to shiver through Paul. “Let's work on a song, yeah?”
Music would be better, Paul thought with assuring resolution. That was something they could always fall back on. They could wash the wound clear with melody.
The thought put a bit more pep in Paul’s step as he went to his car. Though he still felt stuffy. He unbuttoned a couple of buttons on his shirt as he walked out into the cold. Popping the trunk he grabbed a beat up acoustic, damaged from all its travels. The instrument almost fell from his hands when a clashing bang of metal on metal cracked through the atmosphere.
He spun on the spot, instinctively holding his guitar tight to his chest. Residual clanks sounded until it was barely an echo of a sound. Paul sighed deeply, falling back to sit on his trunk. A brisk breeze blew by, catching leaves from the ground and sending them airborne. The gate must have been caught in the same wind, forced closed by a stiff breeze.
Finding his reaction a bit dramatic, he scoffed at himself. With little thought left to the situation, he closed his trunk and hurried back into the house and directly to the living room. The warmth was now welcoming and calm.
John was not.