Archive of Our Own ^beta

"It's terribly sad," Ringo says, in December.

For a moment, John thinks he's talking about the song, although it isn’t anything more than a series of chords he and Paul have been tossing back and forth.

Then Ringo uncurls himself from his chair to set down a newspaper on the table between them. 

"Oh," says John. "That."

He passes the chord back to Paul, E minor, speculatively. Paul doesn't say anything. He picks out a little tune, his head tilted so far down that John can't see his expression but that's not so very odd. He has a guitar in his hands; he might well not realise George and Ringo are even still in the room.

"Yeah, it's very sad," George agrees. 
"Weird, thinkin' of a bloke our age and dead," Ringo adds. "Not even our age. Even younger than you, Georgie."

George hums. He's been sprawled across two cushions on the floor since the joint burnt out but he sits up now, tugging the paper towards him.

"Yeah, but you know, it was an accident and all. S'not like he was sick."

Paul's fingers catch, almost imperceptibly, on his tune. John picks it up for him, leads them into easier territory until they're picking out Please Please Me together and Paul is almost smiling.

"Shut up, George," John says.

Perhaps it's been too long since George said anything because he looks over at John, surprised or hurt, and then makes a point of snapping the paper up to cover his face. 

"I didn't mean that," he mutters, from behind a black and white photo of the Chancellor. "You know I didn't mean that."

"He was a nice kid, weren't he, Paul?" Mal says, later. He's peering at the TV where a newsman is grim-facedly explaining that Tara was the young heir to the Guinness family fortune and his family, over in Ireland, had yet to make comment. 
"Yeah," Paul says. He touches his mouth, the pad of his thumb against the scar above his top lip. That had been a motor accident too, John thinks.

He tries to imagine what Mal would have said if it had been that – if they'd been sat around here watching a news report try and make sense of the death of a Beatle.

Well, they wouldn't be here, would they? This is Paul's house. 

"Turn that off," John says, sharper than he meant to. Paul says,
"No, it's alright, Johnny."
"Turn it off," John says. "Turn it off."
"Sorry," Mal says. His accent gets thicker when he's upset. He fumbles for the remote in his big hands until George takes pity and takes it from him. "Sorry," he says, again, into the silence. 
"It's alright," Paul says, again. "Have you got a cig on you?"
"Yeah," Mal says. He comes over to pass it and light it. Paul takes a long drag before he sits back.
"D'you want one, John?" like it's his to offer.
"I'm gonna go home," John says. “Merry Christmas, all.”

On New Year’s Day, he goes with Paul and Martha up to Primrose Hill. It’s a thin, grey day; it smells like rain. At the top of the hill, they smoke their way through two cigs each as Martha bounds around after pigeons. Paul’s nose is bright red, but John’s probably is too so he doesn’t make fun. Paul, at least, thought to bring gloves; John’s hands are so cold it’s painful.

“Nineteen-sixty-seven,” Paul says. He coughs. “What d’you think it’ll be like?”
“Long,” John says. “More than three hundred days, ‘parently.”

Paul grins around his fag.

“Christ.”

John can’t tell what he’s thinking so he asks:
“What are you thinkin’?”
“I dunno,” Paul says. “My dad wants me to propose.”
“To Jane?”

Paul frowns at him.

“Right,” John says. Paul’s eyes are almost grey in this light, flat and cool. He’s very beautiful. If he and Jane have children, they’ll be shocking. Head-turners. Heart-breakers. “Well, I s’pose you’ve been steady for – What? Three years?”
“Almost four,” Paul says. “I s’pose. I’ve been thinkin’ about it. I want him to be there, y’know?”
“When you propose?” John says. He thinks that’s a bit weird, even for Paul.
“No, you bloody tosser, when I get married. At the wedding.”

John nods. He knows what Paul means but he doesn't like to think about it.

“Is he going somewhere? Off to Australia? Has he had enough of you?”

Paul rolls his eyes. He flicks his cigarette to the ground, to crush it beneath the heel of his shoe, cups his hands around his mouth and calls for Martha.

“Shall we go back?” he says, as she races back towards them. “I want a cuppa.”

He wrote out the lyrics in a few minutes, sat alone by the window in his music room. When he gives them to Paul, slides them over the table in the canteen above the studios, Paul reads them once and says,
"Yeah, that's good."

John was expecting more than that.

"Very good," Paul says. He finishes his sandwich. 
"Needs something else, I think," John says. Paul rolls his shoulders, eases his head one way then the other.
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe in the middle? Break it up. Is there music?"
"Yeah," John says. "I'll play it for you later."

Paul nods. 

"Cyn's got it in her head that it's the drugs that did it," John says. “Tara.”
"Well," Paul says. "It probably was."
"He was a terrible driver," John says. "Don't you think that had something to do with it?"

Paul scowls. John pushes it.

"You went drivin' with him once and you cut your face up."
"Yeah," Paul says, chin up. "That was the drugs too."

He collects up his plate and his Coke before he shoves his chair back and leaves but it is undeniably storming out. John meets the wide eyes of one of the young engineers, gaping at him from across the room and makes a face at him.

"Close your mouth," he snaps. 

It's beginning to be difficult to pretend that there isn't something obviously wrong with him. He says this to Paul once, when pot has made it warm and kind of funny, and Paul laughs too. 

"Don't be daft, Johnny, you're just you," he says.

Paul doesn't seem to realise that this is the problem. John is beginning to think Paul doesn't know him very well. Maybe he's gotten preoccupied by the John he's made up in his head. Maybe that's okay - Isn't that what everyone does? Nobody really knows anyone, right, except the version they've made up in their heads. 

John doesn't really remember Tara already. He's convinced he had a slight gap between his two front teeth but he says it, offhand, to Ringo who frowns, no he didn't, John, I dunno who you're thinking of.  

When Paul moves, he is suddenly in John's space, where before it had only been sunlight and a rippling, purple-ish haze. He tries to call out, to warn Paul that there are other people here too, that they have to  be quiet to be themselves, but he realises it won't make sense to Paul because Paul is on the other side of a window.

"What are you doing?" Paul says, without opening his mouth.
"You know," John says, and Paul nods because he does.

“Tara would have loved this,” Marianne says, one night at the Piccadilly. She folds herself down into the seat next to John, one ankle tucked beneath her. “Don’t you think?”

There’s a murmur of assent although it seems, to John, like a daft thing to say. Tara would have loved anything with alcohol and loud music and interesting people in brightly-coloured clothes.

“Has anyone spoken to Suki?” Mick asks. He half-turns towards Paul, but Paul clearly isn’t listening. George elbows him.
"What?"
"Tara's girl," Mick says, slowly. "Have you spoken to her?"
"No," Paul says. He sounds offended. "Why would I have spoken to her?"
"I dunno," Mick says, slightly abashed.

John does sometimes think that of all Paul's natural gifts, it's his ability to shake Mick Jagger's confidence with only a mildly scathing eyebrow that John is most jealous of.

“Well,” Brian Jones says. He sits up very fast from where he’d been slumped against Anita’s shoulder – slumped at such an angle that John, even John, had thought he must be asleep. “She might be lonely."
"Lonely," Paul echoes, like it's the first time he's ever heard the word. 

“Why do you think Paul tripped with Tara?” John asks. George sighs but he doesn’t open his eyes. “George.”
“What?”
“Why do you think –”
“I don’t care,” George says. John scowls at him.
“Do you think he trusted Tara more than he trusts me? Or you?”

George does open his eyes at that, fixes John with a particularly unimpressed look.

“No,” he says, flatly. “Of course not.”
“Then why –”
“It’s not about trust, is it? It’s about control.”
“Control,” John echoes. George closes his eyes again. “What does that mean? Control?”
"You know" George says. "He's always gotta be in charge of a situation, he's always gotta know what's gonna happen."
"He smokes with us."
"Pot's different."
"Is it?"
"You're doing too much of it if you don't know that."

That's probably true.

"Why do you think - I mean, what does he think's gonna happen, that he's gotta be in control all the time?"
"I dunno Johnny," George says. "I s'pose, maybe, he's just felt that way so long he doesn't know how to stop. Maybe he thinks if he gives in on one thing, everything else will go too. Or maybe not, I dunno, it's Paul, isn't it? Sometimes he's bloody mental."

John rubs his eyes. He supposes Paul's always been a bossy sod, that taking charge came so naturally to him that John never really minded it, except when he needed putting in place. Still, it feels like an insult, that Paul's exploring the world with other people, without them.

"But why -"
“John, mate,” Ringo says, appearing very suddenly over the side of the coffee table. “Give it a rest.”

It’s not right, that it's so often just the three of them .

“Do you still think about Stu?" Paul asks, one evening.

He's accumulated half a dozen weird lamps since John was last home with him - squat little things with fringes round the shade and bright, bright bulbs - and he's turned them all on, so the room is lit up in yellow stripes and the rest of the room is deep in midwinter darkness, the vague shapes of familiar furniture, half of Paul's face. 

"Course," John says. 
"Often?"
"I dunno," John says. "What's often?"
"A lot," Paul says. 
"I know what often means, you git. I mean, it's relative, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Well, I think about him less often than I did. There's less that reminds me of him."

Paul doesn't say anything for a while. 

"Tara reminded me of him a bit," he says. "Sometimes."
"Of Stu?" John says. He hadn't seen that at all. 

In the lamplight, with half his face in shadow, the little line where he's growing in his moustache makes Paul look like a kid playing dress-up. John feels very fond of him and very sad for him all at once, although he can't work out why. He doesn't feel sorry or Paul very often - there isn't much about him that invites pity, and there's always been something hard about him, something brittle and angry, that seems like he'd take it very personally if John tried. 

He does think about Stu. He looks round at his friends, friends who largely haven’t changed since John was seventeen – Paul and George and Shotton, sprawled over John’s sofa to bounce Jules on his knee, subtract Pete Best and Ivan who doesn’t get down to London too often, add Ringo, cross-legged on the floor to flip through records, add Brian, crouched awkwardly beside him.

He can’t imagine Stu fitting, that’s the problem. He can’t work out how Stu would have grown up. Would it be long phone calls across the English Channel? John flitting over to Berlin for Stu’s art shows, Stu coming over to see them perform at the Palladium?

Stu had been twenty one too. Twenty one, the age of majority and fatal to associates of John Lennon.

He squints across the room at his friends, trying to imagine being with them in thirty years, or fifty. He can’t do it –

But that train of thought quickly lurches off its track and he has to go and make a big noise on the piano to shake off the cobwebs.

“John?” Paul says, when the bottle of wine between them is empty. “Tara asked me to sleep with him.”
“What?”
“Tara,” Paul says. He rubs his eyes. “Two weeks before the crash or something. He said he wanted to experience everything, at least once.” He half-grins at John, lopsided through his fingers. “He said he thought he’d have an easier time convincing a Stone, but he’d rather try it with a Beatle.”
“Fuckin’ cheek,” John says. He’s nervous. Imagine if it’s always been this easy, possible just to turn around and ask - “What did you say?”

Paul blinks at him.

“I said no, of course.”
“Right,” John says. “Of course.”
“But it was – Y’know, it was right before he died.”
“What,” John says. “You feel bad you weren’t his last meal?”
“Don’t be gross, Johnny, that’s not fair. He’s dead.”
“You didn’t know he was gonna die when you said no.”
“No, I know,” Paul says. He bites at his thumbnail. “It’s just that he said he wanted to experience everything, y’know? And I don’t know if he did.”
“Well, there’s other stuff that he didn’t experience,” John points out. “More important stuff than having it off with a bloke.”

Paul doesn’t say anything for a while. He picks up the wine and then realises they’ve finished it. John watches him heft it speculatively, his fingers around the neck.

“Don’t you want to experience everything at least once?” he says. “I mean that’s not a bad way to live.”
“No,” Paul says. He doesn’t look at John but his gaze on the carpet focuses, like he’s putting effort into keeping it there.

John leans back until he can rest his head against the nearest surface. Maybe Paul’s had his one experience with acid, wasted it with Tara, although he should have known that when John told him he had to try it, he’d meant, you have to try it with me.

“Here,” Paul says, one morning, as soon as John’s inside the studio door. “I got it, I think. The middle of that song with the car and the Albert Hall.”
“Oh, ay, go on then.”

Paul swivels back to the piano and plays it.

“And then it’d go back into the – Or we might need a bridge. What do you think? I just had it for something else, but it won’t work and I thought – Y’know, for this –”
“Yeah, that’s alright,” John says. He takes his coat off, tossing it to one side to get rid of it. “It’ll work.”

George Martin wheels out an entire orchestra for recording. Between the rest of them, they invite what looks like half of everyone John’s ever met – at least in London.

He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ringo, watching the orchestra tune up, their guests circle each other like so many brightly-coloured birds. Mick offers them a joint –
“I like the moustaches, boys,” he says, elbowing Ringo companionably. Ringo grins lazily at him.
“Paul looks like a detective,” Keith says, from somewhere behind them. “Pass it here, John.”

John does.

“You think, if something happened right now,” Mick says, when the joint’s back in his hand, “if a bomb fell on us, you know, most of British culture’s in this room right now. It’d kill us all. It’d just be a –” He gestures expansively and almost smacks Donovan in the face. “Total wasteland out there.”
“Christ, you’ve got a big opinion of yourself,” Marianne says, sourly.
“You lot do sure talk about death a lot,” Donovan says, removing himself to Marianne’s other side for safety. “It’s a party, man, don’t you know?”

“Hey, look at this,” Ringo says. He’s on his stomach on Brian’s long sofa and he almost falls off trying to pass John the magazine he’s been flicking through. “Apparently you don’t like peas.”

John laughs.

“Don’t I? Wish someone had told me sooner.” He flips to the front cover to squint at the title. “Eppy, why are you reading this shite?”
“I get them sent to me,” Brian calls, from the kitchen. “It’s good to know what people are saying about you.”
“Eppy’s actually a thirteen year old girl in disguise,” George says, from the armchair. “Didn’t you know?”
“No, but that does explain a lot.”
"I heard that."
“Give it here,” Paul says, holding out both hands.
“Please,” George says.

Paul scowls at him but John chucks it over anyway.

“He needs to check there’s actually an article that’s not about him,” he explains. Ringo chuckles. Paul doesn’t seem to have heard.
“This is a proper old photo of you,” he says. “Look how long your hair is.”
“Yeah, and how bloody fat I am,” John mutters, but everyone ignores that too.
“I liked the long hair,” George says.
“Me too,” Paul says. John watches him touch the article very gently, two fingers. Then he looks up and grins. “I like the short hair too though. Makes you look proper distinguished.”
“John Lennon, Scouse of distinction,” Ringo quips.
“Fucking hell,” John says.

“Do you think Paul’s still thinking about Tara?”
“Uh,” Ringo says, slowly, “maybe, man, I dunno. I mean, he was a mate, wasn’t he? So, I s’pose. And you’re still thinkin’ ‘bout him, aren’t you?”
“Do you think he seems sad about it?” John presses.
“Well,” Ringo says, “well, he never seems – I mean, he’s harder to read, isn’t he? That’s just his way, nothing wrong with it.”
“I don’t know if there’s nothing wrong with it. It wouldn’t kill him to be honest now and then.”

Ringo rolls onto his stomach, propping his chin up in one hand.

“He’s not dishonest,” he says. “That’s not fair.”
“But he doesn’t want anyone around him being honest either.”

Ringo frowns.

“You’ve lost me there.”
“He always wants everything to be a certain way. It's like George was sayin' the other week. If I – or you or Georgie, whoever – say something he doesn’t like, he just ignores it.”

Ringo hums philosophically.

“I don’t know,” he says, diplomatically. “I know what you mean, but I don’t think it’s entirely true.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean anything,” John says. He knows Paul better, anyway.

When he says the same thing to George, George scowls so violently that John thinks he might hurt himself.

“Why’s it so important to you that he’s sad?” he snaps.
“That’s not – Piss off, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Sounds like it,” George mutters, and that’s the end of it.

He does coke with Paul and Groovy Bob Fraser in the toilets at Abbey Road between takes of Fixing A Hole.

Paul rolls up the note and does it first, then he perches on the edge of the sink, long legs swinging as first John, then Bob crouch over the toilet seat to take it too.

He’s lost weight recently, from his face and his t-shirt hangs too loose off his shoulders.

“What d’you think of the song?” he asks, when Robert’s straightened up, brushing off his knees. “S’good, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it one of yours?” Robert says, peering amusedly at him. Paul shrugs.
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t good.”
“Peacock,” Robert says, half to John, but Paul’s the only one who laughs.

Had Robert put the question to Paul as well, when he took him off to Paris? Some version of whatever Tara had asked?

Well, John knows he did, whatever Paul says about it. Paul seems to have forgotten that John’s been whisked away to Europe as well. And, alright, so he and Brian are firm mates now, but Brian had done a lot more than put the question to John when they were alone together in Barcelona and John had been quite happy to let him.

It’s bloody annoying, is what it is, and Paul’s insistence that John’s only paranoid borders on insulting.

He imagines them wandering back along the Seine to whatever overpriced hotel Bob sprang for, Paul pressing in to kiss Bob hard on the mouth like he’d kissed John, their last night in Paris – “There,” he’d said, leaning back, “now you’ve pulled and you can bloody shut up about it.” His breath had been sweet with red wine and the rain had caught in his eyelashes, clinging shivering. John had completely forgotten to be annoyed, to point out he’d wanted to pull a bird, Macca, a French bird, not a pushy Scouse sod.  

He hadn’t said anything and by the time he’d thought of something, it was much too late.

In February, John and George find two hundred and eleven colours in George’s front room. When Pattie comes in, she brings the early evening with her, the palest shades of dusty blue, silver-sprinkled, the threads of gold in her hair and shot through her long dress.

When she leaves them, laughing, to go and make tea, she takes the hallway.

“Do you see that?” John says, wondrously, watching the shadows get longer and longer.
“I think,” George says, carefully making his way over. “I think the house might be magic.”

"Why'd you say no?" John asks. Paul presses down on the piano, holds an A. 

"'Cos it doesn't add anything and I think it just sounds like extra noise."
"Not to the song, you daft get. To Tara."
"Tara?"

They've spent the evening going over tracks for the album, locked in the room at the top of Paul's house. Ringo left first, then George, and now it's just the two of them, John and Paul, going over Paul's newest ballad.

"Yeah. Posh bloke. Irish. Blonde. Died right before Christmas when we were all trying to have a jolly nice time, selfish bastard –"
"Stop," Paul says. 
"It's only alright if you joke about it, is it?"
"I don't joke about it," Paul says, loftily, although John's certain that that is only true because Paul doesn't even talk about it. John still can't work out why, if i's Paul's odd brand of off-beat heartlessness or – Or what? "When did I say no to Tara?"

John peers at him over the rims of his glasses. Paul starts biting at his thumbnail. 

“Oh.”
"You're just proper not interested," John says. "Is that it?"
"Yeah," Paul says. "Kind of."
"Kind of?"
"Y'know," Paul says. He squirms. "He's a bloke."
"But you said you felt bad about it."
"'Cos he -" Paul says. "Y'know. He died."
"Yeah but it wasn't of a bleeding broken heart, was it?" 

Paul rolls his shoulders and launches, almost defensively, into a Fats Domino number on the piano.

"Has Groovy Bob ever put it to you?" John asks. He watches with a vague sort of horror as Paul's ears go red. "When you went off to Paris?"
"No," Paul says. "Piss off, John."
"When, then?"
"He never," Paul says.

John scoffs.

"Why does it matter to you, anyway?" 
"It doesn't. I'm just asking."

Paul and Fraser in Paris, drinking expensive wine, Paul with his big liquid eyes, Paul who sometimes watches Fraser when he's wandering around spewing shite with something that could almost, almost, be called interest.

Paul, nineteen, with his hands on John's collar and his mouth on John's.

"Sorry," John mutters. 
"S'fine," Paul says.

The way they're friends, John-and-Paul, has always been different. Paul is to John what nothing else is to anyone. 

They've never talked about it because part of understanding someone entirely is not having to talk about things but it's always felt as though nothing would be off-limits for them, nothing would be too far. And of course there are things they've never done but it isn't - It doesn't feel impossible that they could. 

Or it didn't, and they used to understand each other and things used to be easy, sub-conscious, but like a lot of things in John's life, it seems to have changed the moment he looked away from it and now he can't work out how to get back.

Or he can work out how to get back but Paul doesn't seem interested in trying it. It feels ridiculous that they can have weathered so many storms - Jim, Stu, Mimi, school, marriage, Jane, the unbelievable pressure of catapulting fame, the thirty-odd miles between Surrey and St. John's Wood, tours that don't end in Scotland and Japan and Detroit, ten hour gigs in Hamburg, fifty thousand screaming girls in Australia, Paris, Key West, the Philippines, countless petty arguments and five or six pretty serious ones - 

That they can have survived all of that, intact, and be faltering at this - Has Paul not noticed? Why does he not want to try and fix things? Or perhaps this has all been very, very ordinary for Paul and he's getting as much out of Tara and Bob Fraser and the pretentious saps at the Indica as he ever was out of John. 

The one thing he can't take about pills is the comedown, the horrible melancholy after a trip which sits in his chest like a balloon, past the sore throat and heavy head and his stomach in knots, so every time he breathes, he's inflating it. 

When he goes to visit Mimi for a weekend, she makes beans on toast for lunch and although it’s not Liverpool, although her house is by the sea now, although it would take John the best part of a day to get up there from here – Still, he thinks about Paul, beans and egg and chips at Forthlin Road, making faces at Mike over the table, Paul’s pinched concentration as they struggled with new chords, Paul sprawled on the grass in the garden, doing a piss poor attempt at studying while John messed around with – something, a harmonica, a guitar, George, maybe.

When Mimi goes to bed, he picks up the phone and dials Paul at home.

“’Lo?” Paul says. Sometimes he answers the phone in a weird accent, to confuse the girls who get their hands on his number.
“Alright, Macca?”
“Alright, Johnny. Where’ve you gone?”
“Poole.”

Paul laughs down the line.

“Why’ve you gone to Poole, you daft sod? Who goes to the seaside in February?”
“Well,” says John, “I wanted to get away from you, didn’t I? Had to go somewhere you wouldn’t get it in your head to follow.”

Paul scoffs.

“Mimi wanted a visit,” John says. “I think she missed me.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Paul says.

“Mick’s been arrested,” Ringo says, as soon as the door’s closed behind Cyn.

John blinks at him. The words float around his head for a while before settling.

“Arrested?” He thinks it might be the first time he’s spoken all day. “Why?”
“Drugs. They did a bust at his party, last night, just got off the phone with Georgie. Him and Pattie left seconds before, can you imagine? We’re lucky none of the rest of us went, in the end.”
“Christ,” John says. He scratches his head, trying to imagine Mick in jail.
“Mo’s convinced that they’re gonna come by ours. I thought I’d warn you.”
“They’ll never find anything here,” John says. “Have to hide it from the missus, don’t I? And Jules.”
“Yeah, well, be careful,” Ringo says, darkly. “Mick, Keith – George reckons Fraser will be in trouble, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”
“Huh,” says John. The idea of Fraser in prison makes him feel a little guilty; maybe he did this himself, somehow, between his new connection to the universe and his furtive, resentful thoughts when Groovy Bob drops round the studio, uninvited and confident of a welcome. “Has anyone told Paul?”

Brian tells them to be careful. 

"They'd love to nick a Beatle," he says. 
"Everyone wants something from the Beatles," John says, as nastily as he can. "Don't they, Brian?"

He goes home and takes as much as he can, mostly out of spite, to prove he's a person.  

John forgets Tara’s birthday until Mike mentions it, offhand.

“That’ll teach me to get someone a present four months early, hey?” he says. He means it as a joke but it doesn’t quite land; only Ringo chuckles, half-heartedly and probably only to be nice.
“You can give it to me, if you want,” George says. “Since you never got me anything for mine.”

That does get a laugh. Ringo reaches over John for the brandy.

“Shall we ‘ave a toast for him?”

He splashes uneven amounts into each of their glasses, then sits back and says,
“To Tara. Wherever he is.”

Sometimes, when he thinks about Stu, he misses him so much it hurts.

“You could’ve kissed him,” John says, and Paul bungles the chord he’s been playing and looks up.
“What?”
“Tara. You could’ve – It wouldn’t’ve made a difference to you, would it, if you’d done something. Given him something. Considering he died.”

Paul frowns.

“What?” John says. Sometimes he wonders how much it would hurt to punch Paul in his stupid mouth. “You already had your one experience? Didn’t fancy helping him get his?”

Paul’s gaze trips down to his bass.

“Something like that,” he says. “Yeah.”

They’d kissed in Hamburg once, as well. It was a joke, although John doesn’t remember why it was funny, just that it was at the time.

It didn't mean anything, is the point. 

Looking at the projected album list is difficult. There's something in his veins, simmering. 

"We just need a few more, really," Paul says. He's crouched down over several sheets of paper on the floor, rolling someone's borrowed fountain pen between his fingers. "Got any more up your sleeve, Johnny?"

The room smells like whatever's on offer from the canteen upstairs, or maybe Paul and Ringo had brought it in on their clothes after lunch. It's too hot and he slept awkwardly the night before, which has left him with a crick in his neck that's pissing him off. 

"Johnny?"
"What's that?"
"Got any songs you wanna use? For the last few spaces?"
"I'm sure you do," John says, icily. Paul scratches his head.
"Yeah," he says, obliviously. Fucking Paul. "Well, one or two ideas anyway. But I wanted your opinion."
"Did you now?"

Paul peers up at him. 

"Yeah," he says. He frowns. "You alright?"
"It's – " John says. There's too much to put into words. "It's – It's all shite, look at this, it's –"
"What?" Paul says. He almost topples over. "The album?"
"Yeah, the fucking album, it's all –"
"I thought you liked it so far," Paul says, so bloody carefully. "You said, yesterday, it was gonna be our best yet."
"What the fuck do I know?" John snarls.

Paul stands up. 

"Can you give us a minute?" he says, politely, to the technicians behind him. John throws himself into the closest chair as they file out, rips his stupid glasses off his face to knead at his eyes. When he opens them again, Paul's come closer. "What's wrong, mate?" he says. 
"It's all shite."
"No it's not."
"Yes it is," John says. He takes the album list so fast he tears the page. "Look – Granny crap, this one –"
"You like that song, John," Paul says, gently, although his smile is beginning to stiffen. "You've always liked it."
"No," John says, firmly. "Load of shite, really, isn't it? Cabaret shit or something, and what's –This one's stupid –"
"I think it's clever," Paul says. 
"And George's mystic shite's gonna be fuckin' awful, have you seen the draft?"
"Well –"
"And Henry's gone and camped up my Day in the Life, ruined it." He scowls at Paul. "Bet you asked him to, didn't you?"
"What are you talking about, John?"
"You, you poncy fuck."
"Have I done something?" Paul says, flatly. "Can you just tell me what it is and stop being such a prick."
"Ha," John says. He's furious and exhausted and he thinks if he tried to stand up, his legs wouldn't hold him. "You want me to talk to you? I thought we didn't do that anymore."
"Why would you think - What does that mean?"
"You're being such a bloody - Such a –"

Actually, what he wants is to curl up for a while and sleep, somewhere safe, beneath the slant of Paul's sternum or the space between the bridge and the chorus in the first song they wrote together.

“It's like you don't want to fucking know me any more."
"Johnny," Paul says, "come off it, you know that's not true –"
“Well, I do!” John shouts. “It’s true! You’re so closed-minded, you don’t listen to anybody, it’s like we’re – You know, we’re all accessories to the Paul McCartney show and it’s – It’s just crap, Paul, it’s – I mean, it’s not me, is it? When you talk to me, it’s not me, it’s just – It could be anyone, as long as you were getting what you wanted out of it –”
“John –”
“And if I went and – If it’d been me, instead of Tara, in that car – You’d prob’ly still be so – ‘Cos he was your friend, wasn’t he? And you don’t give a shit, you don't give a shit that he’s dead so if it was –”
“Shut up! Shut up!” Paul says. He’s gone very white. “Don’t – That’s the stupidest –  John, you cannot possibly think that is true. That’s just – You can't - That's - Horrible, John, it’s – And you know it's not true.”

John stares at him, jaw set. Eventually, Paul clears his throat.

"That's probably enough for today then,” he says, like he doesn’t know John wants him to stay and talk him out of it.

John thinks he probably won't remember much of 1967.

“He used to be cool,” John says, mournfully.

Across the room, Paul is holding forth to a group of floppy-haired dandies who look like they’ve rolled straight out of a Carnaby Street shop window. George follows his gaze.

“I think everyone else thinks he still is,” he says, mildly.
“Well, they’re wrong. They don’t know him like we do.”

George is silent, leaning over to nix his cigarette in the ashtray on the table.

“Remember Hamburg?” John says. Paul in Hamburg – now, there was a sight; Paul in leather, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat after a long set, Paul utterly himself for the first time since John had met him, Paul without his old man breathing down his back, Paul doing Little Richard until his voice went. “Now look at him. He’s a liar, that’s the worst part. He’s squarer than he ever was, pretending to be with it.”
“Alright,” George says. “I think you know you’re not being fair. Paul’s just careful, isn’t he? Takes him longer to get used to things than it takes you and me. He'll get there.”

John scowls at him. He hates Paul like this, he does; hates his friends, hates the whole bloody set of them, people like Bob Fraser and Pete Asher, Tara Browne, the speccy bloke who’s been hanging round, whatever his name is.

“D’you think, if we all met now, we’d still be friends?”

George scoffs.

“That’s not even worth thinkin’ about, mate. We wouldn’t be anywhere we are now, if we hadn’t met when we did.”

John has to work that one out. When he does, it’s not entirely satisfying.

“Don’t you ever feel like the only thing we’ve got in common anymore is being a Beatle? I mean, look at his mates, they’re bloody tossers.”
“You miss him in Hamburg?” George says, flatly. “When he was gagging for your approval and all? And he just wanted to be like you? Maybe this is him working out who he wants to be now, like you’re doing, or me, or Ritch. You don’t have a bloody monopoly on being misunderstood.”

John glares. Then he notices that, at some point, George has lost his beard. It seems like he probably should have noticed that earlier.

“Sorry,” he says. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Have you spoken to Robert Fraser recently, Macca?” George asks. They’re crammed into a car, rattling towards an interview.
“No,” Paul says. “Why?”
“Dunno,” George says. “Just thinkin’, he’s probably worried about prison.”
“They won’t convict him, will they?” Ringo asks, looking wide-eyed from one to the other. “Him and Mick and Keith? Surely not?”
“Well, they did break the law,” Brian says.
“Paul only likes his friends when they can help him,” John says. “Not when they’re on police watch lists.”
“John!” Brian says. George rolls his eyes and rolls down the window. Paul’s expression doesn’t change.
“I s’pose none of us are friends then,” he says, coldly. “If that’s true.”
"You wouldn't last ten minutes in prison," John says, because he wants Paul to be angry at him. 
"I'm alright with that," Paul sneers. "Funnily enough."
"Nobody's going to prison," Brian says, loudly. 

George makes a face.

"Well, Mick and Keith probably are."
"And Groovy Bob," John says. Paul's gaze holds his for a moment longer before drifting away to the open window and the houses flashing past.

John used to be so good at interpreting the minutiae of Paul's expressions but either he's lost the knack or Paul really doesn't care.

“Paul,” John says. Paul shoves the coke over to Ringo before looking up, squinting past the lamp by his head.
“John,” he says, mimicking.
“Why won’t you bloody trip with us?”
“Oh come on, John,” Ringo says, almost upsetting the coke.
“Fuck’s sake,” George says, one arm over his eyes.
“Well, it annoys you too,” John says, irritated. “You just don’t fuckin’ say it to him. Maybe he’d listen to you.”

George raises his arm to look disdainfully at him.

“Yeah, fat chance of that, if he’s not listening to you.”
“I’m right here,” Paul says.
“You put that shit up your nose but you won’t do a tab –”
“Yep,” Paul says, flatly. “That’s about it, yeah.”
“But if you’d tell me why –”
“Why’s it so important to you, though?” Paul says. He rubs at his nose with the inside of his wrist. “I don’t –”
“’Cos you’re making such a point of not doing it with us,” John says. “Fuckin’ off with Tara Browne and – I bet you’ve done it with Fraser. But you won’t with your closest mates. It’s weird.”
“It’s a bit weird,” George agrees. “Pass it here, Ritch.”

Paul throws him a filthy look but George doesn’t seem to notice.

“Right, ‘cos you’ve made it sound fun, hounding me about it constantly, bringing it up at every bloody opportunity –”
“It is fun,” John says. “It’s – You see the world completely differently, after –”
“I like the way I see the world now,” Paul snaps. “What’s wrong with that? Fucking hell. Keep the coke, Ritch.”

The door slams shut behind him.

“That better not’ve woken the baby,” Ringo says, into the silence that follows.

When they’re in the booth, listening to the playback of Lovely Rita, the rise and fall of Paul’s voice, John leans in and says,
“Don’t be a shit. You know I like the way you see the world.”

Paul barely moves. John sits back. He watches the back of Paul’s neck, where his hair is curling over the collar of his shirt. Then he leans in again –

“I only meant, I thought it’d help us get back on the same page. I thought it’d help you understand me.”

From the other side of the room, Brian gives them a stern look. Paul waits until he’s refocused on the song to shift towards John.

“Don’t I understand you now?” he whispers.
“Not as well as you could,” John says.

Paul’s eyes are almost grey in this light. John hasn’t been sober in maybe three days but there’s a good chance Paul isn’t real.

It can’t be possible for someone to be that beautiful, that untouchable, and still be sat here. The day might be coming where John wakes up and finds that Paul has been a very long, particularly vivid dream.

Paul drives all the way out to Surrey unannounced to drag John out of bed. Bundled up in the Aston Martin, they drive – west, Paul says, though John doubts he has any real idea where they're going.

They get ale and steak pie at a pub overlooking a river. There's an upright in the corner, lid closed; Paul's gaze flicks over to it but he stays at John's side, vaguely disguised by his flat cap and his odd little moustache. 

They leave the car parked outside the pub and Paul tramps ahead, whistling obnoxiously. 

"What are we doing?" John calls, after getting whacked in the face by a particularly prickly branch. 
"Walking, Johnny. Maybe you're familiar with it?"
"Wanker. Where are we going?"
"Dunno," Paul says, brightly. 
"Are you high?" John asks, interested. Paul apparently doesn't think this a question worth answering. 

John only puts his foot down when they get to a fence separating them from a field of grazing cows. 

"I'm not doing that," he says. Paul, one leg over already – of course – lifts the peak of his cap to frown at him.
"They're only cows, John."
"They're only cows, John," John mimics. "I know that, fuckwit, I'm not gettin' arrested for trespassing on a cow field. That's bloody stupid."

Paul swings his leg back over and perches on top.

"I've found a farm," he says.
"This is a farm?" John says, squinting at the cows.
"No, this is a field."
"What?"
"I found a farm in Scotland. Y'know, I told you, I'm sure I did."
"About Scotland? No, word's been out about that for a while now. Rainy place up north. Lots of heather."

Paul glares. John relents.

"Alright, you've found a farm."
"I haven't seen it yet though. My agent says it's proper remote, y'know."
"Sounds awful," John says. 
"You wanna come see it with me?"
"Sure."
"After the album, then," Paul says. 

He sounds happy about this, for some reason. John's sure he's been awful recently.

"You gonna marry Jane, then?" he asks, carefully. "Move to Scotland?"
"I dunno," Paul says. He scratches his neck. "Maybe. What d'you think?"
"I think it's all a joke, Macca, you know that."
"Yeah but it's my life, isn't it? It's not a joke to me."
"So why bother asking?" John says, irritated. 

Paul meets his gaze coolly, holds it. 

"Because when you're not being a massive fucking twat, you're my best mate."
"What am I when I am being a massive fucking twat?"

Paul rolls his eyes but his mouth twitches. He's always been an easy laugh, bless him. It makes it frustratingly possible to forgive him all manner of sins.

"Do you see that?" He has to hold tight to the side of the chair to remind himself it's real. "Georgie?"
"It's - Yeah," George says, somewhere around him. "Man, it's – Yeah, it explains it. I knew this wasn't all of it but it's – "
"Yeah," John says. He couldn't have put it better himself. "It must’ve been here the whole time."

Brian watches the session with a little smile on his face, head bobbing in time to the music. When they crowd around one table in the canteen afterwards, he says,
“So what’s the concept then, because I don’t quite - You are the band?”
“That’s right,” John says, reaching for some of Ringo’s toast.
“You didn’t want to be the Beatles?” Brian says, lightly. 
“We are the Beatles,” George says, blinking at him. George is high. “We can be other people at the same time but we’ll always, you know, we’ll always be the Beatles because the Beatles are us.”

Brian blinks. He opens and closes his mouth but he doesn't say anything.

“Pattie’s got him on a spiritual kick,” Paul says, patting George’s shoulder. “It’s turned his head.”
“Ah.”
“It’s not that we don’t want to be the Beatles,” Paul says, and he meets Johns eyes and falters for some reason. “Or - I dunno. I s’pose everyone wants to be someone else now and then, right?”
“Right,” John says, because Paul seems to want him to.

"Would you miss me?" he asks, or he means to ask, and thinks he does, but Paul doesn't answer for such a long time that John has to check. "Macca. If I went to prison, or if I left the country or - Y'know, if I kicked the bucket, would you miss me?"

Paul breathes out smoke and passes the joint back.

"Don't be ridiculous," he says.

Through the grey fug of smoke, Paul is only visible smudgily, a pale shadow, there, over the shoulder of some leggy blondes, there, closer to the band, now slipping alone out the heavy door at the back. John makes his excuses to The Who and follows him, finds him crouched against the wall with his head in his hands.

He shifts when John approaches. Maybe he can see through the gaps in his fingers because he seems to know it's John, only John, and he doesn't move for a few minutes. John leans his weight against the wall, breathes in deeply. He takes two cigarettes out of his back pocket and, when they're lit, offers one wordlessly to Paul. 

Paul takes his hands from his face. 

"Alright?" John says.
"Yeah," Paul says. "Course."

They smoke in silence. The door had closed behind John, muffling the noise of the club almost completely. Somewhere, a siren starts wailing. 

"I don't like the comedown, you know," Paul says. He pushes himself up until he's shoulder-to-shoulder with John. When he tilts his head back against the brick, John can feel him. Sometimes he's still surprised that Paul is taller than him, a twang of latent attraction. He thinks maybe it should have dulled by now, that it shouldn't be as shocking as it was when they were younger, but it is. "Feels heavy."
"Yeah."
"Might go home," Paul says. They flick their cigarettes to the ground at the same time. "D'you wanna –"
"Yeah," John says.

At Cavendish, they sit on the back steps although it's March and cold. The stone is chilly even through the fabric of John's trousers, and the space between the kitchen door is too narrow for them both to fit comfortably. 

He only has one cigarette left so he smokes it himself. Paul's eyes are closed, his head tilted against the door jamb. 

"What do you really think of Lucy?" John asks. Paul cracks one eye and then the other open. He stares at John for a moment and then smiles, sleepily.

"God, I thought you were talking about a person," he says. "Couldn't for the life of me work out who. You know it's fab, John. It's beautiful. And weird."

"Thanks," John says, dryly. Paul grins. He straightens up, rubs at his eyes. "Lucy MacPherson."
"What?"
"We do know a Lucy. Knew a Lucy. Lucy MacPherson. With the bloody enormous –"
"Sssh," Paul says, although he's laughing. "Jesus. Jane's upstairs. Yeah, I remember."
"How could you forget?" John says. 

Paul snorts. He drags a hand against his nose. John looks away.

“I think I’m gonna take that farm,” Paul says, after a while. “The one in –”
“Scotland,” John says. “I remember, yeah.” He can feel Paul watching him. “You snuck up to Scotland without anyone noticing, then?”
“No, I haven’t seen it. But, y’know, it’s not like the money’s an issue.”
“Wanker,” John says. Paul laughs.

The problem with change is that it’s always inevitable and it usually hurts. Losing Paul is going to hurt. John isn’t going to fit in to Paul’s family – his redheaded children, Jane with a wedding ring, their stupid farm and dozens of pets – the way Paul fits into John’s, bouncing Jules on his knees and making Cyn laugh.

He doesn’t know how long they can go on pretending they don’t know that.

“So that’s the plan, is it? When the album’s done? Whisk Jane up to your Scottish hovel so she can’t do the theatre scene anymore?”
“No,” Paul says. And then, slightly offended, “no. Just – Y’know, to have it. Me and Jane – I dunno. Eppy was talking about another film. I mean, with us, not with Jane. What do you think?”
“I like the Tolkein idea,” John says. Paul scoffs. Then he laughs, nudging John with one arm.
“You only like the idea of crawling round pretending to be Gollum.”
“Well, yeah,” John says. “That’d be a laugh. Anyway, I’m a major movie star now, me. I’m a box office draw.”
“Yeah, I bet you are,” Paul says, indulgently.
“What, you don’t wanna do it?”
“I’d do it,” Paul says, because he’s the vainest creature alive and can’t resist. “If you wanted to, course.”

John thinks about this for a moment.

“It’s like that, is it?”
“What?”
“You care what I wanna do? Enough to do it?”

Paul glares at him.

“Don’t ask me to trip with you, John.”

John grins, as shit-eating as he can make it, and Paul’s mouth twitches.

“No one knows how bloody annoying you are,” he says. “They think they do, y’know? But they don’t have a clue, how hard you make my life and all.”
“Oh poor Paul. Must be terrible, being so rich and handsome and having birds fawn over you and everyone thinkin’ the sun shines out of your arse and – ”
“What, unlike you?”
“Oh, yeah. The things they say about me, Paul, it’d make your hair curl.”
“My hair curl?”
“Yeah. Big, bad John Lennon. He scares children and mirrors crack when he smiles –”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yep, they say that too.”

Paul’s smiling at him, the big, helpless smile that seemed to have been getting rarer.

“Everyone loves you,” he says. “Daft get. You’re John Lennon.”
“Am I? I thought I was Harold Stubbes, of the Berkshire Stubbes.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Paul says. “You’re definitely a bloody Berk. How’d you think you ended up here, then, Harold?”
“Dunno. S’pose you took a fancy to my pretty face and brought me back to yours,” John says, batting his eyelashes. “You’re Mick Jagger, right?”
“That’s right, sweetheart,” Paul says, in a truly horrible attempt at Mick’s voice, which sets them both off laughing again and John kisses him.

John kisses him. He kisses him.

Paul sighs into it, deepens it, one hand in John’s hair. He lets John pull closer, closer still, sits back only briefly to take John’s glasses gently from his face. The muscles in his stomach jump when John touches bare skin where his shirt’s pulled up, untucked. When he’s got Paul back against his kitchen floor, Paul’s teeth and tongue and the hitches in his breath –

If it looks like a bad idea and walks like a bad idea, it’s probably a bad idea.

When they part, Paul follows him up for a moment, half a moment, before flopping back down onto the floor. His hands come down from John’s hair, to his shoulders, smooth down the line of his arm and then they’re gone.

John’s arm aches with the effort of keeping himself up. He rolls off, closes his eyes, inhales. It’s March and the door is open and he’s cold.

“John?” Paul whispers. John turns his head. Paul is barely visible – where did his glasses go? – but John thinks he’s smiling at him. He’s breathing heavily. John would like to see what he looks like, right now, kiss-reddened. But maybe it is better that he doesn’t know.
“Yeah?”

Paul doesn’t say anything else. After a while, he gets up and closes the door.

They arrive at the studio at the same time. 

“Sorry. After you.”
“No, go ahead.”
“It’s fine, you were –”
“Christ,” George says, behind them, and elbows past.

Paul grins, sheepish. 

“Sorry,” he says, again. He’s slightly pink. 

They feed the ducks at Hampstead Heath, John and Paul and Jules and Martha. 

“She’s ‘most as big as me,” Julian says. He’s got one hand tight in John’s trouser leg and the other buried in the bag of Hovis Paul had brought with him.
“She’s very friendly,” Paul says. “She likes a pat. Go on.”

Julian peers nervously up at John so John crouches down to Paul’s level and reaches out to let Martha headbutt his hand.

“See?” Paul says. “She’s very sweet, really. She just has a grumpy face.”
“Like George,” John says, and Paul grins at him. “And you’re not scared of him, are you? Go on Jules.”

Julian carefully wipes his crumby hand on his jumper and reaches out for Martha’s head. He beams at John, delighted.

“Well done,” Paul says, ruffling his hair. “You can play with her when you come round now, hey?”

Julian looks exactly like Cyn when he frowns, suspicious.

“What about you?”
“Oh, course,” Paul says, dead serious. “Can’t play Snakes and Ladders with John, can I? You know how he cheats."
"Oi," John says, mildly.

Julian giggles. He's gazing up at Paul in the starry way John is mostly familiar with on thirteen year old girls. Paul's gonna be a father someday, maybe soon. It'll be the last stage of chrysalis, the transformation into his old man - it's inevitable, that's the real story here, isn't it? The real story, the one that's grounded, sturdy, with a life expectancy of 65-plus, that exists in the world outside ephemera.It's too bad, for Jules as well. You get used to most things but being left behind, that's a killer.

"Right, what say we finish off the rest of the bread and then go home and wait for Mum, hey?"
"Yeah!" Jules says, reaching for the bag. 
"Give some to your Dad first, Jules," Paul says. He's watching John but he smiles when John looks up. "He's not allowed to be grumpy today, is he?"
"No!" Julian agrees and takes it upon himself to wrestle John's hand into the bag.

When they lay down vocals for Getting Better, John watches the dark fan of Paul’s lashes before Paul looks up and smiles at him. He doesn’t think about kissing him. He doesn’t think about Paul’s shoulders, or the way they move underneath his shirt. He doesn’t think about his hands, his long fingers, how he’d curled them into John’s belt loops or pushed them through John’s hair. He doesn’t think about the tip of Paul’s nose, bumping into his cheek, or the hot span of his breath against John’s ear; he doesn’t think about kissing him, he doesn’t think about never kissing him again.

“It’s just gettin’ – Y’know, I think we should take it personally, at this point,” he says, later, not watching Paul lean over the desk to talk to George Martin. “That he won’t trip with us.”
“With you, you mean,” Ringo says, grinning at him. “I don’t care, meself.”
“I think you should drop it,” George says. “You two bickering is doing everyone’s head in.” He hunches over his guitar. “Anyway, we do it with you, don’t we?”

John doesn’t say anything. Ringo elbows him.

“C’mon,” he says. “Wouldn’t kill you to drop it, would it? If it meant you two getting along the way you should.”

John thinks, it’s twice now he’s kissed Paul, three times if you count Hamburg although John usually doesn't. 

He wonders what way Ringo thinks they should be getting along.

He goes to visit Brian in his office. He's told to wait but he's scarcely sat down when Brian's door opens and Brian says,

"John! Come in! Sorry Tommy, you don't mind waiting a few minutes longer, do you?"

John hadn't even noticed the skinny kid sat by the window but he shakes his head no so fast he almost dislodges his ridiculous quiff. So Brian holds the door open and John files in.

"Is everything alright?" Brian says. They sit on the sofa. "This is a lovely surprise. I was just thinking how long it's been since I last saw you boys. I was planning a trip down to the studio later in the week. Well? Is everything alright?"
"Yeah," John says. He rests his head against the wall and takes his glasses off. "I'm just tired."
"Well, you've been very busy," Brian says. 
"Yeah," John says, although he didn't really mean tired (which he is) he meant tired of - What? Being a Beatle? Being himself? 
"I could organise a trip for you, maybe," Brian says.
"I take plenty of those," John says, making himself laugh. 
"Hmmm," says Brian.

He makes them a cup of tea, which is such a Brian-response that John isn't even irritated by it. 

"How's the talent comin' on?" he asks, when there's a mug warming his hands and Brian's sat back down. "Tommy."
"He's alright," Brian says, nodding. "He's no John Lennon."
"Thank God for that," John says. Brian frowns at him.
"I'm not sure you'll find many people agreeing with you there," he says, lightly.

Which is nice of him, even if it isn't true.

Nineteen-sixty-seven trundles on.

Groovy Bob meets them in Soho – a private room in a restaurant he chose, with plush velvet seats and dim lighting. John supposes he's trying to make the most of life before prison.

Paul doesn’t seem to notice that Fraser pulls out the chair for him, only him. He reads the menu out loud to John, the things he might like, although John’s got his glasses.

“I like the artwork idea,” John says, after dinner, when the conversation’s meandered round to the reason they’re here. “And we’ve worked with the Fool before, so we know they’re not out to cheat us.”
“Hm,” Fraser says. He has one arm around the back of Paul’s chair, although Paul doesn’t seem to have noticed that either. “Think of the quality of reproduction. And honestly, I think it will put people off. It’s a little too – Out there, you know. Look, it’s a splendid piece. But you’re selling for an audience, not your friends, people you know are on your level. You’re selling for children.”
“Not just children,” Paul says.
“You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover,” George says, lighting up a ciggie.

Robert laughs.

“Darling, you know as well as I do – people very much do judge a book by its cover. D’you mind?”
“Here.”
“I know a few very talented young men,” Fraser says, reaching for the proffered cigarette box. “And they suggested – I’ll show you a mockup if you like, because it’s an excellent idea – Some sort of collage.”
“Collage?” John echoes.
“Yes. On the theme, you know. A Lonely Heart’s Club. Only it's made up of famous people, dead people. You four could choose them. It would do very well.”
“Oh,” Paul says, sitting forward.
“That sounds good,” Ringo says. “Ties it together and all.”
“Yes, exactly.”

They all look at John.

“Well,” John says. “Fine, show us a mockup. But I don’t think I’m gonna like it more than the painting. Right, Macca?”

He vaguely wants Paul to agree, to derail the plan entirely. Of course Paul doesn't. He shrugs, props his chin up on one hand.

"What sort of people would we use for the collage?"
"Us?" Ringo says. 
"Well, yes," Robert says. "But you could have anyone."
"Hitler," John says. 
"Um, maybe not -"
"Elvis.
"Chuck Berry."
"The Queen."
"Bardot," Ringo says. John nods approvingly at him. 
"Bob Dylan," George says. 
"Burroughs," Paul says. 
"Alright Paul, we get it, you read."

John still thinks it's a stupid idea but he warms up to making as many stupid suggestions as he can. None of them rise to it but he's making Paul laugh and keep laughing, the sort of bright-eyed, breathless laughter only John ever gets out of him. It makes him as close to seventeen as he’s ever likely to be again.

John’s still got that, at least.

“Do you think he’ll ever trip with me? With us?”
“Good save,” George says, dryly. “Yeah, I do.”
“When?”
“Eventually,” George says. “Come on John, there’s very little Paul won’t do with you, is there?”

When it's so late that John's eyes have started to hurt and, really, all he wants is to curl up on the sofa and listen to Paul humming, he interrupts him, croakily:

"You know what happened with Tara?"
"Mmhmm."
"Nothing changed, did it?" John says. 

Paul doesn't turn round but he glances furtively at John in the mirror, and then away again when he sees John looking. 

"What do you mean?" he asks. John knows him, knows that if he's asking, the acid or the proposition, it's because his answer will be different, depending. 

He wishes they'd be honest with each other.

"I dunno," he lies, and laughs, reaching for a cushion to jam under his head. "I'm shattered, mate, I dunno what I'm saying. D'you mind if I -"
"No, course not," Paul says. "Let me just - Get this all together and we can head back to the studio together tomorrow."
"Great," John says, only half-sarcastically. He watches Paul rummaging around the stack of paper spilling out of his guitar case until his eyes close and then he can still hear him, muttering something under his breath. He's left one of his jackets over the arm of the sofa close to John's head and it smells like him. 

He was always a weird kid. John's forgotten what the world was like before him.

Is it possible Paul's forgotten? He’d never said anything after Paris, either.

Well, he’s made it pretty clear he’s not interested in blokes and John’s covered his tracks pretty well, establishing twenty six years of reckless, thoughtless, exhibitionist behaviour for a laugh.

He thinks that if they haven’t changed after this, maybe there’s a different sort of future after all, where they fall back in together, Paul doesn’t leave and John doesn’t have to relearn the world without him. Maybe everything between them, no matter how fragile it’s seemed recently, might actually have legs, might actually be strong enough to resist the shit John keeps throwing at it.

When Paul swings by Kenwood to pick him and Cyn up for a party, he sits in the front and when Paul puts the radio on and it’s an old Presley number, they sing along as loud as they can, each trying to be louder than the other, even though Paul keeps laughing and John doesn’t remember most of the words.

When he starts to look unwell, George takes him up to the roof with a glass of water.

"Come back down when you feel more yourself," he says, kindly. He has to push through the sky to pat John's shoulder. "Or if you need anything."

John nods. He thinks if he opened his mouth, he might throw up and he's afraid of what darkness would come out with it. He gropes for the wall and tries to slide down it. 

Later, Paul and George come toppling out one on top of the other. One of them grabs his hands, the other his shoulders.

"Fucking hell."
"You gave us a fright."
"Why didn't you say something?"
"You're a daft sod."

It's Paul who takes the weight of him as they leave the roof. The stairs go on for years; God, they might be old when they get to the bottom. That's a terrible thought – 

"What's wrong?"
"Age," John says. Paul squints at him, all eyes. 
"I'm gonna take him home," he says, to the tree they're standing under. The tree says,
"Do you want me to come with you? You might need help –"
"That's alright. It's only John, I can handle it. Can you get his stuff? Tell the others he's got flu or something."
"Right," the tree says and, quite suddenly, it disappears. 

Paul's hands are very cool against John's skin. 

"You alright there, Johnny?"

John thinks he might have done something wrong. At the very least, he might have done something stupid.

"Sorry," he says. Paul's hair smells very clean.
“Daft sod," he says, fondly. "Oh ta, Georgie. Come on, let's get you home."

Home means Paul's home, means the deep sofa in the front room where John watches the wallpaper crawl with fascination and somewhere, someone gently moves the hair from off his face.

"What can you see?" Paul asks. Paul is here, too, but of course he is. 
"That," John says. There's a little pause; only a little pause.
"Have you got any more of it?" Paul asks. 

He takes it on his tongue, hesitant.

"It'll just dissolve," John says. "Don't worry," he says, because Paul will. "I’m here too. I can take care of you."

They sit cross-legged, knee to knee, on the carpet and Paul has his fingers dug into the pile like he's trying to ground himself. His eyes get bigger and bigger until John's faintly concerned he might fall into them. It's only a faint concern, though. He knows there'd be worse ways to die. Blowing one's mind out in a car. 

"What's funny?" Paul says. "Oh God, John."
"What?"
"When I was with Tara," Paul says. "There was so much dirt. It got everywhere."
"That's okay. It probably wasn't real."
"Ah," says Paul.

He sees it when John's eyes start to get bigger too.

"Wow," he says, from somewhere in the glow. "Are you still there?"
"Course," John says, dissolving. "Are you?"

The world narrows.

"Course I am, I just asked you, didn't I? John?"
"Yes?"
"Is this in your head?"
"Well," John says. "Maybe. But you're here too."
"You said we'd understand each other again. Y'know, this is – Y'know, maybe this is the new level."
"Maybe," John says. 
"I might not be real anymore."
"You are real," John says.
"How do you know?"
"It's only the acid, Macca. Bloody lightweight."

Paul laughs.

"Oh, yeah." When his pupils contract, the world gets bigger and smaller again. "John?"
"Paul?"
"I might not be real anymore."

John sighs.

"No, 'cos I can see – Look, you're here."
"I know."
"And you're, uh, look, you're – I think you've made all of this happen. I think you're the – you're the –”
"What?"
"You’ll laugh at me."
"Only if it’s stupid."
"I think you're the centre of the universe. I think you created it."

John laughs.

"Why'd I fuck myself up so much, if I've had that much control over things?"

Paul's hands twitch nervously in John's.

"Daft sod," John tells him. "You’re real. Don’t fret."
"You'll stop thinking of me and we'll both disappear."
"That is definitely not going to happen," John says. He doesn't have to open his mouth. Paul gazes at him, dissolves, reshapes. 

He goes for a walk, although he's barely staggered out into the garden before he's folded himself down onto the ground, apparently too tired to go on. John has to go and fetch him back in.

He might have created this world, he thinks. Certainly, they've ended up somewhere he is capable of being strong enough for both of them. 

After a while, the universe remembers it exists outside of Paul's eyes and snaps open again, quite suddenly. 

"Look at that," Paul says. He reaches out and touches John's glasses, inexplicably, smudging the lenses. "I knew you were here, I could feel you." He touches John's nose, traces the swell of his mouth. "If you kissed me, we'd both disappear for good."
"Yeah," John says, because there's only so much that either of them have left to give, and if they gave it to each other – What then? “I thought that too.”
"I want to go to sleep," Paul says. 
"It doesn't work like that, Paulie."
"Let's try," Paul says anyway.

It's very stupid. John doesn't want to follow him but he does, because he promised he'd take care of it. He sits against the wall and watches it unfold outwards like a box. He only joins Paul on the bed when Paul's stopped shivering, stopped making faint, surprised noises into his pillow, stopped whispering John's name into the light. 

Paul is asleep, and he doesn't wake when John peels his socks and shoes off and joins him under the covers, and he's still asleep when John wakes up the next morning, the after-shocks of the acid sparking bright in his peripheral vision. 

Paul's asleep but he's holding tight onto one of John's arms, like he still thinks that if he lets go, they'll both disappear completely.