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“Cor, is he ever coming out of there?” John mumbled grumpily, glaring at the closed bathroom door, behind which Paul had been for the past ten minutes. He shifted a moment to look out the window; sheets of rain lashed at the glass as though trying to attack him personally. The storm matched the mood broiling inside his chest, all heaviness and drunken sadness and blunt, impotent fury. Limply, he hurled an empty bottle in the direction of the bathroom, but the throw was so weak that the bottle bounced harmlessly and rolled to a stop at George’s bare feet. George, bonelessly flopped against the wall, kicked the bottle away and stretched one arm out to pound on the bathroom door with an open palm.
“Oy, Paulie,” he shouted, far louder than necessary. “Did ya fall in? Johnny’s gettin’ antsy, you bein’ out of sight an’ all.” John glared, ready to haul himself up and put George back in his place for saying something like that, for even implying - but a small plaintive sound from behind the door stopped him short halfway up. George scampered clumsily out of reach.
“Someone ought to check on ‘im,” Ringo slurred from his precarious position lying on the back of the couch. When no one moved, Ringo cracked an eye open and sighed. “All righ’, don’t everybody jump up at once,” he muttered good-naturedly. He rolled off the top of the couch, landing quite gracefully for how much liquor he’d had. John watched the blurry silhouette of Ringo, small and willowy, weave unsteadily toward the bathroom and knock, quite politely, before entering.
John sighed and tilted his head back to lean on the couch’s nearest cushion. With nothing else to do, they had been drinking since early afternoon, methodically making their way through the hotel’s cache of liquor, and the more John drank, the more maudlin and angry he became. He rubbed his cheek against the scratchy fabric of the couch. Can’t even give the best band in the world nice couches, he thought, what kind of fucking hole in the wall is this? Thunder pounded through John’s eardrums in a momentary frenzy, turning his mood even darker. We’ll probably die on this godforsaken rock. The toppermost, my lily white arse. This is the end of the bloody world.
Suddenly there came a loud shout and a painful sounding thump from the bathroom, and George and John leapt up and stumbled toward it.
John nearly collapsed with laughter at the sight: Ringo, apparently, had tried to sit down on the lip of the tub, had overshot the distance, and fallen in, folded in the middle, legs sticking up crazily into the air. He glared up at John, but with his droopy drunk eyes he just looked vaguely disgruntled rather than angry.
“Ow,” he mumbled.
“Oy, you’re gettin' blood all over the nice white tile,” George said, and he pushed past John, still leaning on the doorframe weak with laughter. He grabbed Ringo’s hand and yanked, and John saw that George had been right; there was a bright smear of blood where Ringo’s head had cracked down.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” John cracked as he slid the rest of the way down to the floor, at eye level with Paul, who seemed not to have noticed any of the commotion going on around him. He was slumped around the toilet, staring miserably into the empty bowl as though it might give him the answers to life’s great mysteries.
“All right then, Paulie?” John asked from his new vantage point. Normally Paul might have glared, shot a sharp insult back in retaliation for John calling him Paulie, but instead Paul just shook his head, looking for all the world like he might burst into tears.
“It won’t come up,” he positively moaned, and John broke into peals of laughter again at how utterly pathetic Paul looked, their smooth beautiful PR man. He was the most meticulous of them by far, always spending extra time placing each strand of hair just right, straightening his tie for twenty minutes. But he had been drinking tonight with a determination that had raised even John’s eyebrows, and he looked it. John knew he’d be absolutely horrified if he were aware enough to see himself now: fall-down pissed, loose-necked, flushed and sweaty, sprawled on the floor of the bathroom like an old rug.
“Told you not to have that last one,” Ringo said gently. “And the one before that, and the one - sssss,” he hissed as George pressed a wet rag to the back of his head. They had settled on the floor as well, George’s legs bracketing Ringo almost protectively, and George held him steady with his other hand on Ringo’s forehead, looking a bit like a mother checking for a fever. The bathroom was small enough that all four pairs of legs tangled together. John felt his mood lighten a little, enough to offer Ringo a sympathetic nudge of his foot. Ringo nudged back.
“Force it, then,” George advised. “Like the birds do, you know.” John mimed the motion, wiggling his eyebrows, and Paul groaned again, thudding his head down on the toilet seat.
“Come ‘ead, then, luv, I’ll do it proper for ya,” John said, scooting closer so that his legs formed a V with Paul in the center. He waved two fingers in front of Paul’s bleary red eyes. Miserable and sick, Paul nodded dizzily, and his grip on the toilet rim went white-knuckled as John put a steadying hand on his back. Paul hated being sick, John knew, hated that they were all watching him. Best to just get it over with. “Count me in, Geo,” John commanded; George, ever dutiful, counted a slow “one, two, three, four” and John shoved his fingers down Paul’s throat. It was perhaps a little rougher than he meant to, but it did the trick.
“There you are, then,” John said, rubbing Paul’s back absently. Ringo and George cringed sympathetically at the retching sounds, and Ringo reached forward and patted Paul’s knee. The storm that was keeping them locked up seemed to rage anew in sympathy, battering the hotel with such howling force that for a few moments, it drowned out all else. John almost felt, in those moments, that he was dissolving, becoming a part of the raging hurricane himself.
Eventually Paul spat for the last time and sat back, wiping his mouth and runny nose with a wad of toilet paper. “You all quite finished watching me embarrass meself, then?” he rasped.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve got plenty more embarrassments hidden in those old bones of yours,” George muttered, half to himself, and John snickered. He loved George on nights like this: not pissed enough to black out, but well enough gone that he let that tongue strike at any target he could find. As long as it wasn’t striking at John, of course. “Lemme up a mo’, son,” George murmured kindly to Ringo, because no matter how gone he was, he never lashed at Ringo, always seemed to treat him - not quite gingerly, like Ringo was something delicate, because he wasn’t, but - like he cared. Like it never occurred to him that Ringo could ever be deserving of his cruelty. Love, John thought, maybe that’s what love is supposed to look like. The fury, helpless and burning, welled up in his chest again, fury at himself for being the way he was. His love was never a kindness. His love was a fist, a steel-toed boot in the ribs, a hard tug, ugly, brutal, breaking or pushing away everything it touched.
While John brooded to himself, George stood and stumbled to the sink to rinse the bloody rag. He wrung it tight under the tap; John watched dully as the blood made the water swirl into a bright reddish-pink color in the basin. “Still leakin’?” George asked. Ringo touched his wound and his fingers drew away freshly red. He nodded pathetically.
“Look at us,” Paul snorted sleepily. He had rested his head on the toilet’s rim, eyes fighting to stay open. “Not a one of us that can stand up straight. Best band in the world, we are.”
“Where are we going, boys?” Ringo shouted, one limp fist in the air, and everyone laughed, even John.
“To the bottom, Ringo!” John chanted back. As if to prove his point, he rearranged himself and lay down on the cool tile, resting his head on Paul’s bare ankle. George stepped over him and resettled behind Ringo with the clean rag. For a few comfortable moments, no one spoke, the only sounds to be heard the storm outside and Ringo’s fingers drumming out a soft lazy beat on the floor by John’s ear. John’s eyes began to drift closed; the bad feelings in his chest calmed a bit and he took a deep long breath through his nose and let it out nice and slow. His heart pounded loudly in his ears and he began to hum something broken up and disjointed, not even really a tune, just small musical noises. Notes seemed to seep from his skin, and he fancied for a moment that he could smell them, taste them as they floated away from him and into the ether, wherever it is that music goes when the silence swallows it.
Without quite realizing what he was doing, John reached around without opening his eyes and found Paul’s arm. He slid his fingers down to Paul’s wrist, over the bone sticking out, smooth underneath, warm where the blood ran right under the skin. Paul’s pulse drummed through the pads of John’s fingers, heavy and lovely, and John hummed a contented blue note: their heartbeats were in sync. John knew that if he were to touch his fingers to Ringo’s neck, to George’s chest, he would find them living perfectly in time as well. The anger and sadness settled enough that he dozed off for a moment, still holding Paul’s wrist.
When he woke enough to drag his eyes open, the others were talking softly.
“I miss Liverpool weather, you know,” George was saying. “It’s always so shit but at least it doesn’t swing back and forth so much like it does here.” He demonstrated by lifting his hand from Ringo’s forehead and weaving it back and forth like a bobbing boat over a giant wave. Ringo nodded slowly.
“I sort of miss Hamburg, actually,” Ringo said. They did this sometimes, when they got drunk or when things became too unreal - they named things they missed from the lives they could never go back to, just to remind themselves that the world still existed outside of hotel rooms and stages, and kept listing until the unreality passed. “It was grotty, but the Germans know how to have a good time, aye?” John ‘mmm’ed in agreement.
“I miss the Cavern,” Paul said, voice still a bit raspy. “Shit acoustics. Great crowd though. And the barmaids, you know. Lovely. Good girls, them.” The other three nodded, remembering the girls behind the bar with the fondness of those who have tasted and left satisfied.
Then John, with no idea what he was going to say until it was spilling out of his mouth with a bitter taste, said, “I miss my mum.”
The room went silent. Ringo’s fingers froze in midair, still inches from John’s ear. Paul’s body, previously limp and pliant, tensed up hard as stone where John was still touching him, ankle and wrist alike. George’s eyes scanned the room, anywhere but John’s face.
He never talked about her, not ever. Not with the lights on, not any place where he couldn’t deny it afterward. John had kept this part of himself closed for so long; even as he wrenched it open in front of his bandmates, he turned that embarrassing raw softness into a hard line, taut and tense like a violin bow. Sensing the pressure point, as always, he couldn’t resist needling, provoking, feeling for the weak spot. “Aye, she was a whore, but she always had an extra fiver to give me when I asked,” he said with a snarl. A horrible lump began to take shape in his throat, and the tension in the room sang like instrument strings on the edge of snapping. John pressed harder on the bow anyway. “And she was a right laugh, too. When she bothered to show up.”
“John,” Paul said softly.
“Juuuuuleeeeeaaaa.” John pronounced the name long and taunting. “What’s in a name, aye.” He flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. “Nowt but a flaky ginger bitch with more bastards than she had fingers.”
“Johnny,” Paul said, quieter but more forceful.
“Don’t ‘Johnny’ me,” John snapped, and he sat up like a sprung trap; the motion made his head spin, but he plowed on. “Don’t ‘Johnny’ me as if you know how it feels. You had your mum for fourteen bloody years, sweet Mrs. McCartney teaching you to brush your teeth and straighten your tie just so.” He imitated Paul’s fussy routine with biting malice. He could feel his face twisting into a despairing sneer, and he knew he was crossing a line, but he couldn’t help it. He was just too good at applying pressure and snapping strings to let up. “I bet you don’t have any half brothers or sisters larking about out there. Or maybe you do. Maybe Mother Mary was just a better liar-”
Smack.
Paul slapped his face so hard that the sound echoed around the tiny bathroom. The silence in the wake of the sudden violence rang terribly in John’s stunned ears. Paul’s chest heaved; his handprint burned across John’s cheek like a brand. Any other day, with any other person, John would have gladly jumped to fight back, drowning in reckless pointless rage - but this was Paul; and when John got a look at Paul’s face, the fight began to drain out of him.
Paul looked… Cold. Not angry, despite his chest heaving like he’d just run a marathon. His cheeks were still flushed with alcohol, but his eyes had never looked more sober as he gazed at John with a sidelong look, like John was just a bug he could squish and forget about. John withered under that cool stare, literally slumped to the floor, pressing his forehead against the tile, shaking, exhausted. Paul had been right to hit him. He had earned every inch of that slap and more. He didn’t deserve to be here, in America, in this hotel with friends as good as this. The wind howled loudly for a moment, and understanding flared in John’s chest that he was too much like that storm: flashes of beauty and brilliance in the maelstrom, but ultimately just a goddamned mess for everyone else to clean up. He stayed bowed over at the feet of George and Ringo and Paul, prostrating himself, silently begging absolution.
He didn’t know he was crying until Ringo, always the easiest to forgive his moods and outbursts, swept a quick gentle finger across his nose to catch the tears. John thought he could see Ringo’s eyes shining when he looked up; he caught George’s gaze for an instant before George wrenched his eyes away, bottom lip trembling. Only Paul remained stonefaced, still staring down at John with chilly hazel eyes. John pulled himself up and reached for Paul like a child, wrapped his arms around Paul’s stiff unyielding shoulders. He leaned his forehead against Paul’s, unable to stop himself. “I didn’t mean it,” John whispered weakly. “I didn’t, you know I didn’t… Come ‘ead, hit me again. I deserve it, come on.” He braced for the shove, the punch, but it never came. Paul held himself maddeningly still, his spine rigidly straight and unforgiving; the thought flitted through John’s mind that Paul was a little like partially thawed meat, warm and pliant on the surface but with any poking or prodding you discovered the solid frozen center.
“Macca, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The pet name stumbled out of his mouth on a soft sob. He was begging now with everything in him, pathetic and he knew it. But he also knew that nothing else mattered if Paul did not forgive him. If Paul stopped loving John, it was all over. John would never be able to get up again. He had known it would happen someday; he broke everyone eventually, shoved them out of his life some way or other, but he wasn’t ready for this, not yet. He suddenly felt dead certain that he would die here, in this bathroom on the edge of America in a bloody hurricane, his last memories the sight of Paul walking away from him, cold and final.
But then Paul dragged in a long breath and reached toward John - not to hit or hurt, but to comfort. He placed his shaking hands on John’s shoulders and, finally, leaned into him, pressing his forehead into John’s, nuzzling just a bit. His eyes fell closed and two tears spilled out. John watched in wonder as Paul’s lips trembled in a broken line. “You’re such a bastard,” Paul whispered, but it came out in shivering pieces, not a trace of cruelty in it. It was so rare to see Paul cry that John almost wanted to trap his tears, falling harder now with the all-consuming emotion of the very drunk, and save them in a tiny jar. He was still somehow beautiful like this, all flayed open and raw, and John stroked his thumb down Paul’s neck.
“I love you, Macca,” he breathed, and pulled Paul closer until they were wrapped around each other, until he could hardly tell whose arms were whose.
“I love you too,” Paul choked into John’s shoulder. Something in John cracked open and fresh sobs tore out of his throat. It was the first time they had ever said it, and John felt suddenly, immeasurably grateful.
After a moment, Paul sat back a fraction and reached out for Ringo and George, and they scooted forward together and joined the tangled hug, both of them crying freely as well. Before he knew what he was going to say, John was speaking in a wavering voice. “I love you all,” he said, still half buried in Paul’s neck. “I never said it, I know, I’m a bastard, but I do, you know.” He dragged his heavy head up and looked around their tight little circle. “I love you-” he planted a kiss in Ringo’s hair - “and you-” he kissed George’s temple - “and you-” he kissed Paul in the center of his forehead - “and I don’t deserve you. Never will.”
Ringo stretched his hand up and cupped John’s neck. He smiled, all wobbly and lovely, and said, very quiet and sincere, “Love you too, Johnny.”
“Aye,” George croaked. He sniffed and wiped his face with a clumsy hand, dark eyes darting shyly around the group. “I… You’re the best friends I’ve ever had,” he said.
Paul, seeming more in control now, lifted his head and announced hoarsely, “Well I think you’re all bloody terrible,” and they all burst into giggles, leaning heavily on each other, almost desperate to break up the heavy atmosphere. The laughter felt good, cleansing, like a summer downpour.
The laughter subsided into the occasional snort and chuckle. John’s eyes began to close, heavier than lead. The others murmured in occasional, disconnected half-conversation, and John let their voices lull him into a lovely doze. Eventually they quieted as well, resting against each other in drunken closeness. Just as John was about to cross the line that divides a drunken doze from actual sleep, his head rolled off of George’s shoulder of its own accord, jerking him rudely back to consciousness.
“Had enough, then?” George asked, voice softened and tired. Normally John would have disagreed and forced himself awake again just out of general spite, but he found himself nodding sleepily instead.
“Aye,” Paul agreed.
“Think me head’s stopped leaking?” Ringo asked hopefully with a giant yawn. George pulled the rag away from his head and studied the area with an appraising eye and gentle probing fingers.
“Got a good lump there but no blood,” he pronounced, and smoothed Ringo’s mussed damp hair down over the wound. “There. Can’t even see it.” He struggled to his feet, swaying a little, and dragged Ringo up by the hand with him. Ringo leaned heavily into George and wrapped his arms around his waist.
“Thanks, Geo,” he said in a small whisper. John felt himself smile as he watched them hug for a moment, George’s face looking more open and relaxed than John had ever seen it. Then Ringo turned out of the hug and pulled Paul to standing, and Paul took John’s hand, warm and strong, and pulled.
They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t have to. At the same time, they paired off and stood on the far sides of the two single beds in the closest bedroom, which happened to be the one Paul and George were sharing, and simultaneously shoved the beds together. Paul pulled the sheets and blankets out from the crack and Ringo grabbed the throw pillows from the armchairs and they all piled in, all four of them, like they used to do in the back of the tour bus on cold nights.
John knew this good feeling, this clean happy love he felt, wouldn’t and couldn’t last. He knew it like he knew the sound of his own name or the feeling of steel strings under his fingertips. It was as certain as breathing - nothing good stayed with him. His love always turned suffocating and cruel, went sour, broke its object like cheap children’s toys. Most of the time, that knowledge was enough to make him cautious, keep his guard up, to hold himself further away than this. But with Ringo already snoring sprawled next to him, George squirming into Ringo’s side, and Paul curled around his back, pressed as close as he could possibly get without physically crawling into John’s skin, that knowledge seemed far away and unimportant. He buried it and it stayed buried; and he let himself love them in fullness, snuggled deeper, and fell almost instantly asleep.