Chapter Text
Remember Paul? You know, the man I'm going to marry
But I'm not, because I wouldn't ruin anything
As wonderful as he is
- Stephen Sondheim
It was all suddenly very clear to John as he was getting dressed. It was so obvious that he couldn't believe it had taken him this long to figure it out. The months of planning since the proposal, looking at venues and picking a caterer and having suits tailored and the joint bachelor party that was so good the police came twice, and he only now realized what he had to do. He had to call it off.
He wished it hadn't taken this long. The night before at the rehearsal dinner, he thought he was fine. He was fine, through the entire evening. He was fine at dinner, during the endless toasts, talking to the guests, and holding Paul's hand while his father talked about how proud his mother would be to see him get married. He felt great when he went back to his suite at the hotel with Paul to go to bed. "I'm getting up early, so I won't be here when you wake up," Paul said.
"Maybe I'll get up early, too."
"I know you well enough to say that you'll sleep until noon."
"Yeah, probably."
And he had. John had slept until twelve, when his best man, George, and groomsmen, Pete and Eric, let themselves in and woke him up. He laid around the suite with them in his pajamas for a while; George ordered up sandwiches for lunch, and they watched football. John felt good until George and Pete and Eric left to get dressed and then check in on the cocktail set-up. He showered, and started getting ready himself, and it dawned on him as he was knotting his tie. He couldn't marry Paul.
The cocktail hour before the ceremony was about to begin. It was Paul's idea, so the wedding party could take photos while the guests were getting lubricated and there wouldn't be any complaints about the wait. He was clever like that. Pretty soon someone would come to collect John for the photos. He would have to say something. It wouldn't be right to go through with it.
John was almost ready, except for his cufflinks, jacket, and boutonniere. He wanted a cigarette or a joint so badly he would have stepped over Mimi to get one, but Paul had asked him not to smoke anything before the ceremony, and Paul had promised that he wouldn't either. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror and didn't see a groom about to be married. He saw a pale, nervous bloke with no business getting married.
There was a knock on the door that made him jump. "It's me, mate," George said. "Almost ready?"
"Come in. And close the door when you do."
George came in and shut the door. "Party's off to a good swing," he said. "The photographers are setting up outside. I saw Ivan in the hall and he said Paul's almost ready. I'll do your cufflinks."
The cufflinks, silver with a mother-of-pearl inlay, had belonged to his uncle. "He'd be so happy for you," Mimi said, when she gave them to him. George picked them up off the dresser. "Give me your arm."
"I can't marry Paul," John blurted.
George stared at him. "This is the worst possible time to say that."
"I know. I just realized."
"What are you talking about? Of course you're marrying Paul. There's a hundred people downstairs drinking the alcohol you're paying for, the photographers are outside, and Paul's in his room down the hall getting ready to marry you."
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I can't."
"Come off it." George pulled on John's sleeve to lift his arm and attached one cufflink. "You're just nervous. We could send up a drink if that would help."
"It won't. I can't marry him."
George dropped John's arm and grabbed the other for the other cufflink. "Why the bloody hell not?"
"It would be a mistake."
"Because?"
"I'm not right for him."
"Rubbish. You can see it from space, how right you are for each other. I don't know if you remember your bachelor party but you were all over each other. The rehearsal dinner was yesterday and you were fine. What's changed?"
"I don't know. Nothing, maybe. I just can't. It would be a mistake for Paul so I might as well save him the trouble."
"By ruining the wedding you two spent so much time planning? He loves you but he might kill you for that, Lennon."
"Then he can go ahead and kill me."
George stepped back and looked John up and down. "You're a mess."
"I know."
"Look, as your best man, I've put up with a lot of shite over the past few months, but this is too much. You're marrying Paul in two hours, it'll be great, all the aunties will cry, and then we'll party until dawn and have a fabulous time."
"Sorry, mate. Not happening."
George let out a frustrated sigh and threw his hands up. "You're impossible. Well, if you won't budge, I'll have to get the others involved."
"If you like."
George let the door slam as he left the room. John sank into one of the high-backed leather chairs and contemplated his fate. He had two choices - call the wedding off, disappoint everyone, and break Paul's heart, or go through with it and end up breaking Paul's heart at some point in the future - and neither of them was any good. All he had was the ability to stall, and soon that wouldn't be worth anything. A few hundred feet down the hall Paul was with Ringo and Mike and Ivan, getting ready, still thinking he was about to be married. John wanted to melt into the floor.
There was another knock. "Can I come in?" Ringo asked.
"Go ahead."
Ringo closed the door behind him. "George told me what's going on."
"What did he say?"
"I'm not going to repeat it because it was pretty rude, but I got the idea. He also told me where he thought you could go and what you could do to yourself when you got there."
"Yeah, that sounds like George."
Ringo sat in the other high-backed leather chair. "So, what's your plan? You can't sit here forever."
"I'm trying to work it out. The way I see it, I have two options and neither of them are good ones. Get married or don't get married. Either way it's a mistake."
"John, if this wedding was a mistake, I would be offering to sneak you out right now. But instead I'm sitting here asking you to reconsider."
"You're a good friend, but it's not going to happen."
"At least put your jacket on. Maybe if you see yourself ready you'll feel better."
Ringo helped John get his jacket on and they stood in front of the mirror together. Ringo looked good, in his dark grey suit. John thought he still looked like a nervous wreck in black. He knew that Paul's ring was in Ringo's pocket at that very moment. "I was just in Paul's room," Ringo said. "He's ready. He's excited. He can't wait for the first look photo."
"We picked out the suits together."
"But you haven't seen each other in them yet. John, what's really going on?"
"It's Paul," John said. "I'd just hold him back."
"From what?"
"I'm a mess, always have been. He can do better."
"John, if Paul wanted to find someone, he'd have done it by now. He did ask you to marry him."
"There's no accounting for taste."
"Oh, now you're just being obtuse." Ringo brushed some invisible dirt off John's shoulders. "Come on."
"Can't do it."
"I have to warn you, John. If I walk out of this room and you haven't reconsidered, I'll have to bring in the big guns."
"You wouldn't."
"I would."
He wasn't kidding. John shrugged. "Fine. Go ahead. I can handle it."
Ringo started walking towards the door. "On your head be it, then."
John let Ringo leave the room, knowing full well what was coming. He sat down and waited.
Mimi didn't bother knocking. She burst into the room in a state of agitation. "John Winston Lennon, stop this nonsense."
"Hello, Mimi."
"You're telling people that you can't marry Paul? Why on earth not?"
"Because I'm a head case and a depressive type and Paul would be better off marrying someone else."
"Honestly, John," Mimi scoffed. "This has gone far enough. Stand up."
John stood up. Mimi went into the mini-fridge and took out the plastic container that held John's boutonniere, a red rose and a white bundled together, and affixed it to his lapel. "There," she said, straightening his lapels and smoothing his jacket. "You look perfect."
"You're not listening to me. I can't go through with it." John took Mimi's hands off his jacket and held them gently. "I can't marry him no matter what I look like."
"Why ever not?"
"Because I'd end up ruining his life and I might as well save him the trouble."
Mimi pulled out of his grasp and lowered her hands. She was looking at him with a kind of softness he had never seen before. "You know, John, in some ways you are so unlike your mother."
"What do you mean?"
"Julia married your father on a lark because she'd been told not to. Just took off for a weekend and came back with the marriage license. Our parents were livid but she didn't care. You know how that worked out. And she - well, we both know what came after that. And here you are, convincing yourself that you can't marry Paul because you'd ruin his life. You've swung to the other end from her."
John remembered very well how Mimi had referred to Paul solely as his "little friend," when they were younger, and the strength her conviction that John was a bad influence on him. He also remembered how tightly she'd hugged him when he screwed his courage to the wall and came out to her, and how she'd welcomed Paul into her home from then on. Her upper lip was far too stiff for her to say "I love you" but John could read the code, and he felt marginally better. "It's all a big unknown," he admitted. "That's the problem. I don't know that that's going to happen and it frightens me."
"It's not about knowing," Mimi said, incredulously, like she had just realized that he was an idiot. "It's about trusting. Do you think I knew that your uncle was the only one for me when I met him? I trusted that he was, and he trusted me."
"That was all?"
"We didn't need anything else. If he were here right now he'd tell you the same thing. Sometimes all you can do is hold hands and walk towards it."
"I've never done anything this serious in my life," John said.
"I know. But you'll be better for it."
John ran a hand through his hair. Through the window, he could see the photographers milling around on the lawn. "I need to speak to Paul."
'I'll fetch him for you."
Mimi let the door close softly when she left. John paced the room from the window to the door, working out what he wanted to say to Paul. After a few minutes he heard a soft tap on the door that he would recognize anywhere. "John?"
"Paul."
"Can I come in?"
"We're not supposed to see each other before the ceremony."
"I thought we weren't getting married."
"I haven't made up my mind yet."
"I see." There was a soft thump against the door and another one on the floor a second later. Paul was sitting against the door. "So you're covering your bases in either eventuality?"
"I suppose. Listen, Paul, I'm sorry that this is happening now."
"Don't worry about it. What brought you to the conclusion that we can't get married?"
"It's not that we can't get married, it's that I can't marry you."
"I don't see the difference, John."
John sat down with his back against the door. He felt more secure speaking to the empty air. "I think it would be a mistake. You know, you're the most incredible person I've ever met. You're smart, and you're talented, and you work so hard for the band."
"I could say the same about you."
"But it's not the same, Paul. Look, we go through with it, we get married, we go off on our honeymoon and you'll realize that you've saddled yourself with a nutter who spends all his time lying about and fucking around."
"First, you're not a nutter, and you do more than enough for me and the band. Second, I don't appreciate you assuming how I'm going to feel. I think I'm going to be so happy on our honeymoon that I'll spend every waking moment feeling like I'm going to explode."
"Evocative."
"Thank you. As soon as we get off the plane I want to go back to the café we went to the first time we went to Paris and I want to get a banana milkshake so I can enjoy the fact that we've come full circle. In fact, let's go there every year on our anniversary."
John looked at his hands. The night before, at the rehearsal dinner, he'd taken off the ring Paul had given him and given it to George for the ceremony. It was obvious that they would go to Paris for the honeymoon because Paris was where it all started, when they were kids and the birthday money from Aunt Elizabeth was burning a hole in John's pocket. Paris was where Paul kissed him for the first time, and where John said "I love you" for the first time. Waking up next to Paul in their soft hotel bed that first morning after the kiss gave John the greatest feeling of security he'd ever known.
"And then I'll spend the rest of my life being married to you, deliriously happy, and I hope we both live to be a hundred and we die at the exact same moment holding hands."
"You've spent a lot of time thinking about this."
"Well, we've been engaged for nearly a year."
Thinking about the proposal still made John's heart race. They had played a secret show at the Cavern that night, coming off a tour of Europe, and the energy was so electric between them and the crowd that John thought he was walking on air. After the show they went out to a nightclub, and then a bar, and then another nightclub, and pretty soon it was four in the morning and John found himself walking along the Mersey with Paul, hand in hand, talking a mile a minute about all the ideas he was having: a film, a concept album, an American stadium tour. He was so excited he didn't feel Paul's hand slip out of his, and only barely heard Paul say his name. He turned around and saw Paul on one knee, holding up an open ring box like it was his own heart that he'd pulled out of his chest, and a smile on his face. "Will you -"
"Yes, yes, yes," John replied, scrambling to the ground, putting the ring on his finger, and kissing Paul so hard they tumbled to the ground, laughing.
"I proposed to you on purpose," Paul said. "I didn't trip onto one knee and show you a ring for a laugh. I spent years thinking about it."
"How many years?"
"Hmm." A moment of silence. "Let's see, I was fifteen when we met, and I'm twenty-seven now, so...twelve years."
"Twelve - you've been thinking about marrying me since we met? Jesus, Paul, now I know you're having me on."
"I'm serious. I knew from the day we met that I was going marry you. I can't explain it, I just knew."
"We were kids, and I was drunk."
"I remember. But it's still true." Paul cleared his throat. "I have met my love today, I have met my love today...Doesn't really matter what we had to say, I have met my love today. That song was stuck in my head for the rest of the day after we met."
"We should have picked that for our first dance."
"I don't know, I'm happy with what we chose. Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you."
John felt his eyes well up. He quickly wiped away the tears. "I knew in Paris. That day we walked by the Seine, with all the book stalls, and I saw you trying to balance that stack of all the books you wanted even though they kept falling. I just knew that I was going to marry you someday."
"It's today, John."
"I'm still not sure."
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do."
"Then I trust you too."
It's not knowing, it's trusting. Paul trusted enough for the both of them. John loved him more than he could ever express, and if Paul would trust in him that much, the least he could do was trust him back. "Okay," John said. "Send my party back and give us a minute. We'll meet you outside."
"I can't wait to see you."
"I can't wait to see you see me."
"Love you, John."
"Love you, Paul."
John listened to Paul stand up and walk down the hall.
Five minutes later John's party was assembled in his room. "So it's still on, then," George said, regarding John with more than a little suspicion.
"Yes, it's on."
"It looked a little serious for a minute there," Pete said.
"We just want you to be sure," Eric added.
"I'm sure. I had my moment of doubt but I'm fine now." John put his hands in his pockets. "Well, what are we standing around for? Paul's waiting on me. Let's go."
John walked in front of the group down the hallway, down the stairs, out the door and onto the colonnade that stretched the length of the building. Paul was standing at the very end, facing the sprawling lawn ahead. John felt his chest tighten and then relax. It was all very clear to him now. He just had to keep walking.
As he slowly walked down to the colonnade, he could see camera flashes out of the corner of his eye, and Mike tracking him with his phone. His whole life had been leading up to this day, from the moment he took Paul's hand for the first time. Paul was standing with his hands clasped in front of him. As he got closer John could see that Paul was, almost imperceptibly, shaking. In an hour's time they would be exchanging vows and sliding their rings back onto each other's fingers. For the rest of their lives they would be married.
John stopped walking when he was a few feet away. "Paul," he said.
Paul turned around. He was wearing the same thing as John - black suit, white shirt, black tie, red and white roses - but John thought he looked incredible. Paul's eyes welled up. "John," he breathed.
They each took two steps forward and flung their arms around each other. "I made it," John said into Paul's neck.
"I knew you would," Paul whispered. "Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go."
Over Paul's shoulder John could see the assembled wedding party: the groomsmen, Paul's dad, Mimi, the assortment of aunties. The family they had brought together. They stepped back from each other to face forward, took each other's hands, and started walking towards everyone who was waiting for them.