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“Christ,” Paul gripes, another pothole passed over getting on for halfway to Wallasey. He tightens his white-knuckle grip on the handle of his guitar case. “Clapped-out old bus like this really isn't where you want to be when you, uh. Need to go, you know.”
“Yeah?” John says as if he's about to laugh, but he looks down at Paul's crotch, perfectly innocent like but it still makes Paul keenly aware of something, whatever that something may be, between them.
Already close to trembling, Paul feels a keen prickle at the back of his neck as John leans in to whisper right in his ear.
“Whsshh,” says John, imitating the sound of a waterfall, warm breath ticklish.
“Oh, piss off,” Paul grouses, shoving John off him.
“Aye, if only you could.”
The bus’s brakes screech in a sudden halt for the traffic lights. Paul closes his eyes as he grimaces.
Their next booking’s a few days later. The gig’s storming and Paul’s been generously necking the beers John brought over for them all. Him and John were on the same mic and the applause from the last number’s finally dying down.
“Leave off, I need the jacks if we’re going to break here and then we'll start up again. Come On Everybody?”
“No,” John says.
“Okay, skip ahead to Teddy Bear if you insist, like, but–”
John grabs him by the arm to stop him heading off, and for a heart-stopping moment Paul thinks he's done something to seriously annoy John. Mind you, John’s anger could be less perilous than what he says next.
“No, I mean stay up here. Don’t need a break. We'll be all done in fifteen minutes, anyway. They're screaming for it. You can go when we're done.”
“It's not a negotiation,” Paul says coolly, although within him something hot and keen tightens. “What's got into you?”
“Go on, show me. We'd do anything for the band? Our songs? Do this. For me.”
“You've gone wrong, you have,” Paul says, but he says it softly, John’s arm still holding him in place, their eyes locked onto each other. He can't imagine going another quarter of an hour as he is, but he wants to rise to the challenge. Do well.
It must all be getting mixed up in his brain, both urges using the same instrument, because down there he's getting…
“You're just as wrong as I am,” John says. Turned away from the crowd, Paul’s standing too close, he belatedly realises, to John’s thigh. He’s suddenly all too aware of the sweat covering him. Behind him, the crowd stomp and shout for more. From across the stage, George scowls at them both to hurry up and get on with the next tune.
They break apart and get on with the next tune, Paul’s insides twisting. Between the end of that number and the start of the next one, he sidles back over to John again.
“I mean, I’m well in the band by now I trust. This how you initiating the latest drummer and all?”
“No,” John says, shooting Paul a mean little grin. “Just like watching you squirm, don’t I.”
It's just a silly game, right it's not really anything. So why does John saying that make Paul’s face flush all over, why does it make him feel like he's about to vibrate out of his own being?
“I'll ruin my kecks,” he protests, but the thought doesn’t seem to put off John at all.
Paul feels sick. Last song of the set. It's impossible to think of anything else but needing to piss, and of John, looking looking looking at him, won't stop bloody looking. It hurts. He wants to scream. He sings instead. Somehow he hits most of the right chords in the right order at the right time.
In the bogs straight after, Paul rests his thudding head against the cool tile wall behind the urinal, closes his eyes, and wills himself to calm down enough for him to be able to go. When it comes – messily, because he’s couldn’t get himself entirely soft – he groans, near-sobs, from the relief of it.
He stands up, starts doing his best to do up his flies, and startles. One turn to the side and he sees John, who's been watching the whole time.
Paul swallows.
“Wanted to see what I'd done to you,” John says, and Paul fumbles the lowest button on his fly. “You really needed it.”
“Right,” he says stupidly.
“Next time you misbehave I’ll tell you stop when I say.”
Under his hand at his flies, Paul’s prick jerks. Why would anyone reasonable go along with this; doesn’t matter how cool or fearless John looks, does it, it’s not on. Paul looks down at John’s belt. Just below that it could be fabric, or a trick of the light, but John sure looks–
“Want to make use of a stall?” John says.
“But I’ve just been,” Paul says, feeling his mouth forming words as if it’s happening to another person entirely. “You watched me.”
“Christ you’re dense sometimes, McCartney. Or maybe something’s made you stupid, eh? Come back with me, then,” John says, and suddenly Paul’s back on the bus a hair's breadth from bursting out of his skin yet again. Turns out there’s still a few more things about being in a band with John for Paul to learn.