Work Text:
December 29, 1980
When George opened the front door of Friar Park, he expected many people who could have been on the other side. But he didn’t expect Paul McCartney, alone, the dimming light of evening doing nothing to hide the expression that George remembered so well. He was holding something in, except, as his eyes flickered up to George’s, it was coming out even now, just barely, but there was a leak.
Paul turned his shoulders forward and seemed to pull himself together enough to try and explain, voice uneven and uncertain. “Sorry I didn’t call first. I just had—I was sort of in town.” George felt numb or frozen at the weepy sound of his voice. Wordlessly, he stepped aside, and with a sigh and eyes downcast, Paul came in.
Paul slipped off his shoes and George led the way to the kitchen. After seeing from afar some of the styles Paul had gone through since they had parted ways, he now looked surprisingly like a clean-cut Beatle, save for the day-old shave and the small details of his outfit that had been ignored, like the crispness of the corners in his shirt and the bunching wrinkles behind the knees of his well-worn pants.
George immediately put on the kettle and began preparing their tea while Paul sat and was quiet. He didn’t observe his surroundings and comment on them like George knew he usually did whenever he was at someone else’s house. Paul liked houses. But no. George looked over and saw Paul zoned out on the tabletop. It was weird, him being here. They hadn’t spoken much at all. Sure, they had met since, called a couple of times. But Paul, here at his house, looking emotionally exhausted?
George prepared the cups, putting cream in his and cream with two sugars in Paul’s. It didn’t take long for the water to boil. He poured the cups and set them down at the table, taking the chair beside Paul’s and putting one hand around his cup. The other hand he put on Paul’s shoulder. He wasn’t afraid of touching anymore. He knew it was good.
Then it was all silence, while George offered what he could.
“It’s always, ‘What can we do to help?’” Paul said when he picked up his tea a minute later and took the customary half-smell half-sip you had to do when it was too hot. He stared into the cup. “People always ask that. But you just know what to do to help.”
George was a bit surprised that his cuppa was that profound, but Paul looked up at him now with thanks in his eyes. George supposed he understood. He had gotten much of the same recently.
Paul looked away again, like he was undecided. He was still holding back, not meeting George’s eyes for more than a second. Frustration tinged his sad sigh. “I’m sorry I came. Is Olivia out?”
George nodded. Paul glanced it but didn’t say anything. Then, George could see him taking several big gasps for breaths. He was working himself up inside. Up to something. Then he exhaled and didn’t breathe for a long time. George blinked and watched, feeling his numbness start to fade and reveal a familiar old pattern behind it. Of course, he knew what Paul was on about. But he didn’t know how.
Paul gave a final, defeated breath, still moving his gaze back and forth, not knowing whether to hide his feelings again or commit to revealing the mess inside. George could see tears shimmer, catching just in his eyelashes. The familiar pattern.
“Linda hasn’t had any friends like John. Sh-she doesn’t understand.”
Oh. Paul didn’t have anyone to talk to.
George turned his knees in to face him straight on. Paul didn’t look. George could see tears falling before he could see or even hear the crying. But then there was that choking breath that said Paul was losing it. George pulled Paul forward and hugged him, holding Paul’s head to his shoulder.
It was just like the two of them again. Before John, when Paul’s mother died. They hadn’t known how to deal with grief then—like you ever got used to that—but they had tried to ignore it and though it had helped in some ways, George knew that was worse. It was part of the reason why Paul and John had bonded so much when Julia had died and they didn’t ignore Mary’s death. Now, George knew he wanted Paul to let it out. Even if George was no good at doing the same thing. Really, he was trying not to open his mouth in case something like “just stop” came out. But that made the probably vain words of comfort difficult to come out too.
Paul was trying to control his breathing, though the tears were slipping into George’s shirt. “It’s just senseless,” he said in a small voice.
George could fill in the rest. It was all he’d thought for the first few days. Senseless to die that way. Their friend. Even though he’d not been wanting to, George was getting teary too. But more than that, he was torn up inside. What could he do? He didn’t want to cry today, and here was Paul, showing up to pull it all up again.
Then there was a shrill cry from the bedrooms. Dhani.
Paul lifted his head. George turned his head too. Dhani usually didn’t cry anymore unless he’d had a bad dream.
“Oh my god. I totally forgot. I’m sorry,” Paul said, unable to get much more out between sniffles.
George peered into Paul’s eyes to see if he would be okay being left here, though he obviously needed to go get his child. His worry was parted evenly between them. “Of course,” Paul answered the unspoken question. It was still so easy to read each others’ faces.
Paul got up as George did, wiping his eyes and finding something to occupy himself for the moment.
George went back to Dhani’s room, turning on the light and seeing the round, wet face. He picked up his son. Everyone seemed to be crying. He stood there for a moment, holding Dhani and bouncing him gently. “Shh. Hush, Dhani.” He hoped Dhani couldn’t somehow feel the ache in his own chest. He got the toddler to little half-hearted sobs quickly. That would be okay. He had to get back to Paul.
He walked back out with Dhani held against his side, and finding the kitchen empty, went to the living room, where he found Paul leaning his head back against the couch with his eyes closed, doubtless trying to get some drainage and pull it together. Dhani squirmed in his arms, so George let him down. He had seen Paul and that was enough to make him stop crying and run to him. Apparently, from the couple of times they had met, Dhani remembered him. He usually didn’t want to look at strangers.
He didn’t look at Paul’s face but toddled as fast as he could to Paul’s leg and then tried to crawl up into his lap. “Hey, little guy.” But Paul always made a good impression on kids. George smiled wryly. He could attest to that himself.
Paul lifted Dhani up and into his lap, still trying to wipe away tears, voice shaky but glad. “Come here. Uncle Macca’s got ye.”
George sat down on the chair across from them and could see Dhani’s eyes shining, smiling a soft, mouth half-open smile as he breathed heavily out of his mouth the way babies do when they’re concentrating. It matched Paul’s.
As Dhani clung to Paul’s arm, Paul looked up, eyes still wet not to mention red. “How old again?”
“Almost two and a half,” he said matter-of-factly but yet unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice.
Paul looked down at Dhani fondly. “I love two.” Then he switched to a mild baby talk, which, for Paul, was quite high-pitched. “Two and a half! That’s pretty good, Dhani.” Paul punctuated that with a little tickle and Dhani giggled. He buried himself into Paul, as if he could get any closer, and yawned. “Wasn’t done with his nap, eh?” Paul said quietly.
“No.”
Paul cradled Dhani a bit better to make him comfortable. He was rewarded with closing eyes and a grumpy mumble. George felt strange and fatherly seeing Dhani so trusting of someone he loved.
“Babies are… hopeful. They speak of the future,” Paul said aloud, ever the poet. But there was an empty lack of conviction in his voice, all hollow, like it was a thought from the past. That hurt George more than the crying. Paul always had conviction. He’d muster it out of nowhere, even if things were really bad.
“Paul.”
But Paul didn’t reply. He gently stroked Dhani’s hair, but George could sense that he wasn’t really aware of what he was doing. He looked lost in thought. He looked just plain lost, too.
Paul swallowed half a breath, voice more even now, though no less sad. “I thought I’d find closure or something. Stupidly. I’m a mess, George. And poor Linda’s practically takin’ care of the kids by herself.”
What did you say to that? At a loss, George got up and sat right next to him, their shoulders touching. But Paul was still.
“There were so many things I didn’t—”
“Me too.” George didn’t know which of them had cut Paul off. It didn’t matter what was on the end of the sentence. It could have been a million things. All cut off, just like John’s time. Just like their time with John.
George chewed his lip as they sat in silence. Something was forming in his head. Things he realized he had thought to Paul but never told to Paul, that had been storing up in his head for the last three weeks.
“Look, we have a past. Right? All of us. You with John, me with John, with each other.” Here came the ‘just stop it.’ He tried to reroute it, be helpful about it, the way he knew they both needed even if it didn’t seem true now. “We were fighting. It didn’t mean I didn’t love him. Even if he hurt me.” Paul looked at him with surprise. “And I hurt him. I don’t know what you two talked about. But he loved you, and you loved him too.”
Then there came a fresh wave. “That’s just it. It hurts so bad ‘cause I love him.” Paul was getting upset again.
“Paul. Ye wouldn’t have to hurt if ye didn’t get to love him. And he knew you loved him.” George swallowed. “Just like I know you love me.”
It was hard to say, even though he truly knew it to be so. But all of the honesty was just coming out of him now. Paul looked at him with a bit of wonder, and his eyes filled with the gratitude that he didn’t have to say it himself and sound like he was trying to make it true. That George knew you could get messed up and hurt people but still love them.
“So, I guess, I’m sayin’,” George breathed. “I don’t know why we have to wrap up this chapter with John, and I wish it were longer, but… it wasn’t unfinished.”
Paul’s lip trembled as he looked at George’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he squeezed out between restrained sobs. He grabbed George’s hand and squeezed, as if to help it sink in for both of them. George pulled some tissues out of the box that had been left beside the couch after Olivia’s cold just before Christmas. There were only three left, unfortunately, and they went through them all immediately. It was enough that they weren’t a complete mess of snot and tears when they slowed up.
There was camaraderie in the silence, punctuated by loud nose-blowing. Dhani groaned in his sleep and turned completely over top-to-tail without waking. George was glad. He didn’t think he could explain their tears enough to satisfy a frantic confusion. And he didn’t want to interrupt this conversation. Not now when they’d talked—truly talked—more than they had in the last ten years combined.
Paul’s hand gripped his tightly, too tight for Paul to be consciously controlling it, before he let go. He looked sideways at Paul’s profile. His expression was pinched in the forehead. There was still something the matter. So George thought for a bit.
“Hey. I’m working on a song,” he said. “Didn’t like the way the lyrics were going, and I think I want to rewrite them for John. About him, you know. To say things I… didn’t. To set the record straight, too. Tell the world how I loved him.” To say the words so directly, aloud, past tense and everything, brought an unexpected pressure behind his eyes, and he had to pause for a moment to regain control of his voice. “I was wondering if ye wanted to play it with me.” Paul looked at him with something like a smile. “Ringo’s already told me he’ll kill me and bury me bones in India if I find another drummer.”
“Ah, Rings.” Paul smiled softly. “Yeah. That would be good. I’d love to.”
George smiled quickly in lieu of nodding. He didn’t know how it would go, but he knew he wanted Paul there. It would be right that way.
George could see a weight lifted off his shoulders at the prospect of something to work on. Paul looked out to the room. “Told you you knew how to help.” He smiled in a way that looked a bit crazy through the sadness. “Giving me a song of yours to mess up.”
George snorted at the bad joke on a sensitive topic, shaking his head and closing his lips in a tight, disbelieving smile. They could always address it that way, thanks, probably, to John. It was an apology, in a way.
Paul put his head back on the couch, letting out a wet sigh that seemed to release a lot of what was held inside him to the air, even if it spoke of still more. Now he just breathed, exhausted. George studied him a little curiously. He took a break too, looking up and laying back, but eventually just leaned into Paul, feeling too tired for merely the couch to support his weight.
He watched Dhani sleeping peacefully while he sniffed to clear his nose and Paul wiped at his face with a sleeve.
In a few moments, Paul slumped into his side, for once releasing all the weight he was carrying, and put his head on George’s shoulder. A second later, George returned the gesture, resting his ear on Paul’s head.
He yawned, and it spread to Paul. Neither of them made to move. Neither of them felt like moving at all.
George closed his eyes, listening to the three of them breathing, mind blanker than he thought it should have been, but unable or unwilling to dredge up all the pain at once. But he had Paul here beside him, who had come to him for help and who was finally not crying—the first George had seen him like that since that horrid interview that had caught him just after he’d heard the news—and he had Dhani between them, and they finally had some quiet. Some quiet together, around them and between them, for the first time since 1961 probably.
And George fell asleep enjoying that.