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John had finally found a foolproof way to calm Paul down. Sure, sex worked fine, usually — especially when Paul was angry and worked up, needing some way to channel all of that pent-up frustration. Although that kind of sex was typically quite athletic, John was hardly one to complain, and afterwards Paul was always as sweet as sugar, clingy and pleasure-drunk.
Music worked too, sometimes, but only when Paul was feeling particularly down, pensive and melancholic. He would muddle his way through his emotions, beat by beat and chord by chord, and then suddenly reappear as chipper as ever — and with a new song under his belt to boot. The bastard.
Although smoking pot had also used to help mellow him out in the past, it unfortunately only tended to give Paul insomnia nowadays, which John thought exacerbated the problem entirely.
So it was only on those rare occasions when Paul wasn’t in the mood, or when music was conversely the source of Paul’s misery, that John resorted to more drastic measures to get him out of a strop. He had stumbled upon this new method by happenstance, on a day when he was lying horizontal in front of the telly, watching a programme about walruses in Canada. Or at least, he would have been watching the programme, if not for Paul’s incessant pacing in front of the screen.
“Cut it out, Paul, would you?” John grumbled, craning his neck to try and see past Paul as he rambled to and fro. His old man slippers were making irritating shuffling noises against the wooden floor, drowning out the drawl of the BBC announcer. John sighed with mounting annoyance. “You’re doing my bloody head in with all of your pacing.”
Paul didn’t spare John a second glance, instead bringing his hand to his mouth to nibble on a fingernail. John could feel anxiety radiating from him in waves. At this rate, Paul’s little finger was likely to become a torn and bloody stump by sundown, and so despite himself, John heaved himself upright.
“You’re flogging a dead horse, worrying yourself sick like this,” John tried, a last-ditch effort to get Paul to settle down, to see reason. John wasn’t a very patient person by nature, but with Paul, he had learned to try.
He patted the settee cushion beside him in what he hoped was an inviting manner. “Come ‘ead, there’s a swell documentary on right now. Goo goo g’joob, and all that.”
To John’s immense satisfaction, Paul finally cracked a sidelong smile. “There we are!” John crowed. “Now come and give us a cuddle.” He flung his arms open dramatically, nearly bouncing clear off of the settee with the force of it, and after a moment’s hesitation Paul crawled over to curl up beside him.
Nestling his head into the curve of John’s shoulder, Paul confessed: “I’m dead worried about this new album, Johnny. The critics are always out for my fucking blood.” He brought his hand to his mouth again, biting at a hangnail. “It’s stupid, I know, but we’ve worked hard on this new record, together, and I would hate to bring you down with me. You deserve better than that. Our music deserves better than that.”
Ah, the new record. Of course. John gently drew Paul’s hand away from his mouth, lacing their fingers together and giving what he thought was a reassuring squeeze. “So sod the whole bloody lot of them, Paul. We don’t need them. You and I both know that the new album is fucking brilliant. And you and I are the only people who matter.”
When John kissed the top of Paul’s head, Paul looked up at him, little divots appearing between his eyebrows the way they always did when Paul was upset. Gazing back, John noticed that the setting sun, steadily leaking light through their sitting room window, painted the tip of Paul’s nose a delightful yellow. To John’s dismay, Paul was wrenching his hand away and clambering to his feet before John could study the play of the light further.
He resumed his fretful pacing with renewed vigour, now ensconced in shadow. John suppressed a sigh.
“I just hate it, John. I fucking hate it. I hate that they slag us off, just because we’re not living up to the Beatles' legacy.”
“Let it be, love, remember? Christ, you know it ain’t easy…” Without warning, John promptly threw his head back and began singing, “But life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing, my dear.”
“Come off it, John, and be serious for a second.”
John rolled his eyes, feeling his patience wearing thin in the wake of Paul's obstinate worrying. “Christ, Paul, who says I’m not being serious? We’ve had this out before. You know we can’t control what they say or don’t say. We’ll make the music that we want to make and they’ll write what they want to write. That’s all there is to it.”
“Easy for you to say, when you have half of Rolling Stone bending over for you.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake —”
“I’m just saying —”
John groaned, loudly. He dragged his hands over his face. Watching Paul spin out in front of him, John was just about to resign himself to dealing with a full-blown McCartney meltdown when, like lightning to a kite, he was struck with a sudden idea.
Looking up at Paul, flushed and irate before him, John thought that it just might work.
“Take off your trousers, would you?”
Paul looked at him as if he had just grown a second head. “You what?”
“Take off your trousers.”
Paul was really scowling now. “Thanks, John, but no thanks. I’m not in the mood. Something that you would have surely picked up on, if you were actually listening to me.”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Paul, I’m just asking you to take ‘em off.”
Paul’s mouth fell open in protest, but John preemptively cut him off. “Look, love, don’t you trust me?” At Paul’s answering, albeit reluctant nod, John smiled indulgently. “Good. So do as I say and take your trousers off. I’ll be right back.”
John returned from looting around in the loo to find Paul perched on the settee, cross-armed and pouting, but mercifully not wearing his trousers. John spotted them on the floor beside the settee, folded in that fussy way that Paul was prone to, and he tried to hide his smile.
“There, now was that so hard?” John teased.
The look that Paul shot him was distinctly unimpressed.
Unperturbed, John pressed onward, circling the settee to sit beside Paul. “Now, lay back, with your eyes closed, and rest your legs on my lap. That’s it.”
John watched serenely as Paul did as he was told, muttering and thrashing about on the settee until his head was resting on one end and his long legs were stretched neatly over John’s. Despite the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the window, there was still a slight chill in the air, and John noticed that Paul’s bare skin had erupted in goosebumps. John yanked at the blanket from where it was thrown over the back of the settee and draped it over them both. Paul glared at him balefully from beneath the heap.
John scoffed at him. “This is hardly torture.”
“I just don’t see how this fixes anything.”
“I never promised any fixing, did I? Now shut up, close your eyes, and let me enjoy the telly.”
Paul squirmed about for a bit, still grumbling, but eventually his eyes fell closed. His lips remained pursed in a petulant little frown, and John grinned at the sight. Slowly, so as not to disturb him, John slowly brought his hand to Paul’s leg. At the first brush of the comb against his skin, Paul nearly jumped a mile into the air.
“What the bloody hell was that?” He demanded, gathering the blanket around himself like an affronted maiden.
“It’s a comb, you twit.” John was about to laugh himself silly. “You’ve got quite the forest on your legs, y’know.”
“Oh,” Paul said, regarding the comb John was holding with an air of suspicion. “I suppose that’s alright, then.” He settled back down against the settee, although his posture was still tense and mulish.
John ignored him in favour of turning up the volume on the telly. Paul truly did boast an astonishing amount of hair on his legs — and on his arms, too, for that matter — and John stroked it with an absent hand as he turned his gaze back to the programme. The hair was soft under his hands, thick and dark, a stark contrast to the paleness of Paul’s skin. It felt nice to run his hands down it, especially when John could feel the tension slowly draining from Paul with each slow caress.
Carefully, and with more gentleness than John knew he was capable of, John brought the comb once more to Paul’s leg, brushing it leisurely down the length of it. He repeated the motion, combing through the dark hairs again, and again, and again, until Paul was stretched slack and languid beneath him.
John felt his heart spill over with bubbling satisfaction, proud of his idea and more than a little bit smug. Just like a cat, Paul was, terrifyingly aloof and independent, choosy about affection yet unabashed once he got it.
John soon fell into a rhythm, dragging the comb softly over Paul’s legs, the peaceful motion of it lulling him into a sort of stupor. An indeterminate amount of time had passed before John realised that the tension and anxiety that had filled the room had long since bled away, leaving behind nothing more than a thrum of quiet contentment.
He looked beside him to find Paul gazing at him with half-lidded eyes.
“I had a girl who I was going steady with, Iris Caldwell, back in Liverpool. Her mum used to do this for me, y’know.”
“I know,” John said to him, lips twitching into a smile. “George told me. That’s how I thought of it, anyroad.” John continued to brush the comb down Paul’s leg, smoothing down the thick hair, before tacking on as an afterthought: “He reckoned it was a bit ridiculous.”
“Didn’t care,” Paul murmured, stretching languorously. His hair fell unkept and messy across his forehead, a subtle shade lighter than it was everywhere else. “Felt nice.”
“I don’t have any competition, do I?” John teased.
Paul hummed noncommittally. “Always liked ‘em a bit older.”
“More like the older ones always liked you.”
“Well that’s neither here nor there.”
Paul smirked at John, looking rumpled and boyish in the muted light. John’s mouth went dry at the sight. John felt his cheeks flush, enough that he was overcome with a surge of blinding heat as Paul rose up to kiss him, fisting the hair at the nape of John's neck and angling him downward. John moaned into the pressure, opening his mouth and letting Paul lick his way inside.
John felt dizzy with the heat coursing through him, almost as if he were floating away, higher and higher with each press of Paul’s lips. It always felt this way with Paul. John shuddered against him, clutching onto Paul’s arm to keep him close.
When they finally separated, parting with a wet sound, Paul peppered kisses to his nose, cheeks, eyelids. John sighed happily in the flurry. He opened his eyes to find Paul already staring back at him, near enough that John could pinpoint the flecks of green and gold amidst the brown of his eyes. He felt the urge to look away, but found that he couldn’t: after a couple of beats, John let himself dissolve.
“It’s going to be okay in the end, y’know, Macca,” John said, finally finding his voice after a few minutes of silence. The words fell low and gravelly into the space between them. “You needn’t worry so much about the album. If it’s not okay…”
“Then it’s not the end,” Paul finished for him. He gifted John with a toothy grin, then collapsed back onto the settee. “Thanks, Johnny. I’m sorry for going barmy. It’s just the music, y’know — it drives me a bit mad.”
“I think we’re all mad here.” John brandished the comb, waving it obnoxiously in front of Paul’s face. “I’m mad, you’re mad. Otherwise, why would I be fussing over you like you’re the bloody Queen Mother?”
Paul stifled a laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling further with merriment. “Aye, and you ought to get on with it, you lout.” Paul wiggled his leg in emphasis. “I’m not getting any less hairy, here.”
John snorted, but resumed brushing the comb down Paul’s leg nonetheless. Paul closed his eyes, the space between his eyebrows smooth once again, humming with pleasure. From across the room, John spotted one of their cats, Thisbe, watching them with jealous eyes.
“Get in line, Thisbe,” John told her, rather rudely, and Paul dissolved into giggles.
John stroked Paul’s legs until Paul fell asleep, absently watching the telly flicker soft and muted in the background. John took pride in the thought that although they couldn’t control a lot of things — critics and Canadian walruses alike — he could control the smoothing of the comb against Paul’s skin, settling them both as the day gave way to the night.