Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Paul had hugged him, in their little hotel room in little beautiful mad Paris, all sunlight off the sheets blinding him worse, and Paul in close then gone after just a second, hesitant but so so alight with something John could feel in his every, every bit of his body and soul and mind; he'd pulled him in close again and they'd just stood there, and John's heart had thudded violently against his chest against Paul's pressed-up chest, so hard that he thought he could become their drummer too and save 'em the trouble, so hard that he felt like he was going to die from it from the wrongness of it from the wrongness of how good it felt and he wasn't supposed to want it but it was Paris and nothing was real for this while, for this little while, and dear Macca was so much more scared than him and he'd protect him from everything; so he let them both have it and pressed Paul closer and smelled him in and closed his eyes, and nothing was real again for as long as they could have it, breathing in the sun-lit dust.

He was knees-on-the-carpet, Georgie's smell all around him, pulsating rotating bright lights all rhythmic-like emanating from the man himself; he'd grown up hadn't he, cheekbones cutting sharper more distinct shadows on his face, big ears and quiff gone for longish hair and those same teeth, childish over-enthusiasm faded into a reticence beyond his years; oh how John wanted him, how he wanted to scream and sob himself silly about how he'd never seen it or how little Georgie'd grown so fast and so well and so irresistible; how he could feel him now, only two people in the house save for the acid, and the acid itself a bridge or connection between them, that allowed him to see; so selfishly he gripped George tight and felt gripped back and felt their minds melt first to the ground then into one another, then coalesced back inside their heads and now, now, they would both have some of each other with them forever, now they were forever connected in spirit which was really the most important, as George mumbled and rambled into his ear, while he ran his hands over the lad's warm back under his shirt — forever connected, for ever.

John rocked in his chair, arms tight around him — oh, god, if anyone knew; if he ever let himself free; if he couldn't control his disgusting fucking impulses and tugs to the heat of his guts and what-not — he was going to fucking kill himself, he was going to go to jail which didn't really matter that much or maybe some fucking asylum which was worse, he was going to vomit right over his nice clean white carpet, and then he was going to face-plant onto that and- and, and, and- (he remembered his mum, he remembered Aunt Mimi; worst of all he remembered how dirty fucking queers like him were made from shit like that, from no dads or uncles around, and for he could not hate either of them he only hated himself three times more.)