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The date is 12th July, 1956.
Paul and George are young. Thirteen and fourteen, respectively. And nothing bad has happened to them.
The night is one of a quiet summer, warm without being humid. Dry, and pink, and a sky that they think will go on forever.
A time that they think will last.
They are both children. Best friends.
Nothing bad has happened to them yet. And nothing ever will.
A few months later, Paul's Mother will die. They will never be the same again.
The next July, Paul will meet John Lennon.
Until then, George and Paul will be happy as they are. They are best friends, and that is all.
That is all.
George, for as long as he can remember, has been donned as the, 'quiet Beatle.'
George doesn't see himself that way, though. He always has something to say. But nobody ever listens - and he supposes that that was the entire problem in the first place.
Every single time somebody ignored him, he'd counted it in his head. Then, he'd lost count. And it'd been all he thought about - what will I say today, that doesn't get noticed? Or, rather, what will Paul or John say that will make them the stars of the room?
George was happy for them, sure. But he wasn't, not really. Richard never seemed to mind - though, that was different. Because Richard didn't know Paul before. Didn't know George before, either.
And he wasn't there when the supernova that was John Lennon came in and imploded their carefully crafted universe.
George can remember it. He dreams about it, how it all happened. When Paul's Mum had died, that'd been when it had all shot off. A chain of events, so to speak.
Paul had withdrew - become quieter, less easy to talk to. Then, he'd become a square; then, he'd rebelled. Then, he'd gone back to being a square, and so on.
George had always been younger, he'd always struggled to keep up with the older boy. After Paul's Mum, it'd become - quite frankly - impossible.
George hadn't understood what it was like to lose a mother. He was just glad it hadn't been his.
Nobody knew why Mary had been chosen. Some of the lads in George's year said that God chose people randomly, when it was their time. George hadn't been there for Paul.
He'd only prayed, every single night, that God wouldn't choose his Mum - like He'd chosen Paul's. And Paul never spoke about it.
George assumed they'd be back to normal. It never became normal again. Because George never understood Paul again - the way he had, back on that bus, the first time they'd met.
Music became their way of communicating, their way of maintaining a friendship that had become ill-balanced. George had relied on that, that tentative string connecting them. It was supposed to be their thing.
George was Paul's first. Paul was George's first.
Sometimes, when Paul laughs at something George says - George will forget all that is wrong.
Then, John'll chime in with something, and Paul will laugh even louder; and George will realise Paul was looking at John the entire time. Because Paul never looked at George the same way again - never looked at George like he had in July 1956.
Paul looked at John differently. July 1957.
George can remember Hamburg. Just seventeen-years-old, having more fun than he'd ever had.
He was seeing Paul every single day. They were playing brilliantly. The crowd loved them.
Sometimes, Paul and George shared a room. And Paul would lay his head on George's chest, and he'd love Paul more than anybody else in the entire world.
Because Paul was his best friend, and they wouldn't say or do anything. Summer returned to them.
More often than not, though, Paul would share John's bed. It kept them warm during the winter. George was fine with that. As long as Paul stayed near, and didn't vanish inside his head - with thoughts of Mary, Mary, Mary.
On an early afternoon, John and Paul cleared off. To write songs. Nobody disturbed them during that time, it was an unwritten rule.
George had been curious. He'd walked up the stairs, and paused at the door. Noting the lock turned firmly.
Paul said John's name. Moaned it, that's what George can remember - in such a breathy tone, one that George had never heard before. So loving, and so soft, and so full of adoration.
That George knew exactly what they were doing in that room. When they thought that nobody could hear.
George had gone back downstairs. He never spoke of it again.
George and Paul had broken long before the band, long before John Lennon.
There was something about George that Paul just couldn't seem to stand. Something that soured in his teeth, and curled in his gut; and made him wrong, wrong, wrong.
George had been so young, back then. He'd only wanted Paul to like him.
He'd been waiting for so long, that all he knew was how to wait.
George hates Paul. He loves him. So much, that he stays as long as he can bear it.
He leaves - when he realises the pain of being with Paul is worse than the pain of being without him. He comes back when he realises he is wrong.
George buries Paul along with all of the other things in his life.
With the alcohol, and John, and Pattie. And he buries the memories of a little boy who could only scream. To be heard. Not realising there were only deaf ears.
'I think I'll be leaving the band now,' - and what he really means is that he's leaving Paul. He means that he doesn't want to be George Harrison, and that he won't pretend anymore - and that all he wants to do is waste away his life in a meadow somewhere.
Thinking about Paul in the grass next to him. George knows that, in his mind, his Paul is always thinking about John.
In George's imagination, all he can hear is life. All he can hear is the summer of 1956, when Paul told him that he'd love George - or, well, Georgie, as he once called him - forever and ever and ever.
Kids believe in forever. George isn't so sure, anymore.
His life stretches out before him. He's not tall enough to see past the hills.
The band has been broken up for years now.
George can sometimes hardly believe that it's 1978- but, oh well. It is what it is.
He was alone tonight, as he seemed to be most nights. Olivia was busy with, well, George didn't know what it was. She'd told him before she'd left. He doesn't remember.
A sliver of pink graces the steadily darkening sky. The garden is quiet, and peaceful; as the birds have all gone to sleep. George shivers, and curls in on himself.
He doesn't feel lonely, not so much, not anymore. Paul is his friend again, though he never really stopped being that.
George is glad that Olivia has left, if only for the night. Because he gets to think about things that he wouldn't allow himself to in her presence. Things outside of meditating, and happiness, and love.
Things like hearing Paul with John, and how that has never left George's mind. Not in all the years since, not in all the years after.
George lights up a cigarette, only for it to illuminate a dark figure standing in the garden. He didn't startle, he just stared coolly at the outline. One he'd never be able to mistake. Paul.
Paul did that, sometimes. Turned up without asking. It always had something to do with John.
George sighed, exhaling the smoke, then stubbed out his cigarette on the arm of the deck chair. It left a dark, round mark; to match all the other ones lining behind it.
'Sit down, then,' George muttered, gesturing to the chair next to him.
George could tell Paul was smilingly weakly, even if it was steadily growing darker. And he sat down beside George with a pained grunt - courtesy of nearly being fourty - before he uttered a quick, 'ta'.
The sky was beautiful tonight.
George stared up at it, and heard the grass sway in the wind. Paul's sniffles interrupted, and George didn't say anything.
It went like this every single time.
Sure enough, Paul soon crawled onto George's chair, and snuggled up to him; laying his head in exhaustion on the younger man's chest.
'John - we…'
George didn't press Paul. They'd probably argued over the phone again. John had probably been the first one to act like a bastard, then Paul had probably responded in kind. Tale as old as time.
'Ye don't need t'say, Paulie. I know.'
Paul murmured his thanks, then clung to George tighter. 'You know I love you, George.'
George didn't believe Paul like he'd believed him the first time. He just nodded, and turned his head away when Paul began to leave tentative kisses on his neck. They did this, every now and again. They never spoke about it.
George wants to kill Paul, sometimes. He thinks Paul wants to die.
Then, Paul's kissing him, and all George can focus on is Paul's lips all over his - as soft, and as warm as he can remember. Paul smells like home, and everything George left behind, because he needs to change. Life is about change.
Paul remains the same. And he leans back, and leaves a kiss on George's cheek.
'I missed you.' Paul sighed, his hand ghosting George's stomach.
'Alright.'
'I miss you, George.'
Paul is beautiful. So beautiful that George finds it ugly, that it makes his body ache all over; because he can never really have Paul. Paul isn't his to admire, or to love, or to touch. Paul isn't his at all, and he never has been. And he never will be. No matter how much George dreams about being thirteen, when his only world was figuring out how to grow up, and Paul. Always Paul.
Sailing away, George watches the clouds above, opens his mouth for Paul's tongue. Lets Paul move his hands into his trousers, and he wanks Paul off. Paul is moaning, and gasping, and he's saying George's name over and over - but all George can hear is, 'John, John, John.'
Paul whimpers, and says - 'it doesn't mean anythin', yeah? Us - this, I - God, I mean. None of this matters…'
And George doesn't respond. Just watches Paul fall apart, crying and sobbing and eventually he does slip, and he does call John's name out loud. They don't talk about it.
Paul falls asleep before he can return the favour - but George doesn't know if he was hard, to begin with.
George continues to stare at clouds that aren't there. The sun has fully set, now.
It is 1978.
Paul and George will always be the same.
The same year John met Paul, George met John.
John hadn't seemed to like George. but George had worshipped him, idolised him, practically. He wanted John to like him as much as the older boy liked Paul. Because George and Paul were practically the same person - weren't they?
George followed them, and followed them. Until the dust left behind by their heels blinded him, and he couldn't see the way any longer. The soles of his feet were still blistered and sore. George still follows them.
Any newspapers that mention John or Paul - he saves the clippings. He calls Ringo, sometimes - just to ask ask him if he's heard anything from the two of them. He makes Richard promise not to tell.
George doesn't mean to cheat on Olivia, he never meant to cheat on Pattie, either. Well, he did mean to - he did mean to, and that's the very thing. He wanted to prove to himself that people wanted him. That many people wanted him, actually, and that he wasn't just the poor bastard Paul went to whenever John had had enough.
He just wanted people to want him. Wanted to be kissed, and held; and all he saw were big, red lips - and large hazel eyes, and legs that went on for miles. He let dozens of women - men, sometimes, even - waste his time, all because he wanted to prove that there wasn't something wrong with him. That he wasn't always second choice, because he could never be - well, good enough.
People don't always call him the 'quiet' Beatle, anymore. Sometimes, they call him the, 'spiritual' one. George doesn't feel very spiritual. He feels very much grounded, and very much the close-minded Liverpudlian he was always raised to be.
Paul is real, so real. George doesn't know about himself, anymore.
When the four all meet up for the first time in years, they go out to eat. George picks at, and plays with his food - and John tells him off. Paul laughs, and George can see from the corner of his eye that the two are holding hands under the table.
George looks at Paul and John looking at each other. Richard is looking away somewhere over the horizon.
Sometime in early 1980, when it's spring, and the daffodils are just starting to grow - Paul visits again.
He comes with John, this time.
They all find themselves drunk, and high, and revisiting old times. George laughs more than he has in months. Richard is nowhere to be seen, but they don't mind - even if Paul and John look weirdly at one another when George asks why he hasn't come.
When the clock hits quarter past, John and Paul start to kiss. George wants to leave. He strums at his guitar, uselessly, and looks out of his French windows.
He doesn't know when, exactly, but suddenly Paul's on him - and John's on Paul, and they're all together, as one big mess.
But George isn't there, not really.
He's thinking about the time he got a flat tire on his bike, and Paul fixed it for him. He's thinking about the time he impressed John with a particularly complicated chord, and John ruffled his hair. He's thinking about the time he had to claw, and impress, and work his way into the band - and all Paul had to do was look pretty, and be absolutely perfect.
He's thinking about the time he lost his virginity in Hamburg, and they'd all watched and cheered him on. He's thinking about the time Paul's Mother died, and George hadn't understood.
He's thinking about the time Paul came into class, with bruises all over his neck - and George hadn't connected it with Jim going to the pub the night before.
George is thinking about everything, and nothing, all at once.
He's thinking about how he could hardly wait to come of age, so the others could finally see him as an equal, but all that it'd done was make everything more complicated.
John kisses George for the first time that night. All George can do is kiss back - try to show him that he matters, too.
George thinks about his wife, and how glad he is that she's away for the weekend.
When they all wake up in the morning, Paul begins making them toast; with a light dusting of fried sugar. George's favourite.
He knows where all of the plates, and the cups, and cutlery are - and he sets them all out, and gives George a kiss on the cheek when he lays down the steaming plate. Paul asks if George has washed his hands - and George says yes, even though he hadn't.
The three of them eat breakfast together, then spend the rest of the day smoking pot and drinking in George's garden.
When his feet are dipped in the lake, John sits beside him - and Paul is nowhere to be seen.
John wraps an arm around George, then says - 'this was good, we should, uh…Do it again, sometime, like.'
'Uh-huh.'
They leave around midday. George waves them off. John smiles at George.
It's the last time George ever sees him.
John is killed later that year.
George's perception of time after John's passing seems to slow, considerably.
He smokes like a chimney, even more than before, and it helps scratch the ache that has rotted inside of George's chest.
Every night, George dreams about waking up to the sound of a phone ringing. When he picks it up, the person on the other end always says - 'he's dead.'
No name. George always knows who it is, anyway.
Every single time, George goes back to sleep. When he wakes up in the morning, John is still dead.
Paul comes around to George's more or less every week. They don't talk, they don't do anything.
Paul has lost weight, his hair has greyed, and he looks much older.
Paul has always seemed like a man with his whole life ahead of him. George doesn't think that, not anymore.
Richard brings the drinks. George smokes.
Paul stares off, not seeing. Or seeing everything. George isn't sure what Paul is looking at, anymore. He's not sure Paul knows, either. His eyes always seemed to have only one purpose - to look at John. They're directionless, now.
George feels weaker, and weaker, every single day.
Paul, for everything that has happened, is still his old self; a controlling bastard. Nobody comments on it, not really. John had always been the one that fought back, made an actual dent in Paul's tyranny.
George had tried, at one point. But, now, he's tired.
The birds chirp, and John's voice disappears as the years go by.
The last time Paul and George kiss is in 1994. It is full of anger, and resentment, and everything bottled up into one.
George thinks about everything that has happened to him - and he blames Paul for all of it. He's old enough now that it isn't just the 1950s he lingers on.
He lingers on what happened before the band broke up. How he tried to prove himself, only to be shot down, told he was less than the others.
It was made very clear to him that, whatever bubble John and Paul were in, he wasn't welcome.
The only song Paul and George ever wrote together, as credited, was - 'In Spite Of All The Danger' - and how ironic is that?
In spite of - in spite of everything, for old time's sake. In spite of everything, George was still kissing Paul, and he still hugged him when he left.
When Paul cleared off, George drank all night, and begged for forgiveness. From who, he didn't know. He'd stopped believing in his God a long, long time ago. Hare Krishna.
He cried for John. He cried for himself.
George is diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997. Olivia is by his side, and he loves her for it.
He tries to quit smoking. But, like Paul, it's an old habit he can't quite break free from.
George gets stabbed forty times in 1999, at the age of fifty-six-years-old. Paul visits him in hospital, and they don't say much of anything.
Paul only holds his hand, and George hopes it's love.
George feels as though the blade dug out parts of him that he wanted to hide - parts that he'd buried in his garden the night Paul had first kissed him. The night Paul had last kissed him.
Paul holds his hand, and he leaves a few hours later. George dreams about the future.
About what he would do - about how he would survive, or else everything would all have been for nothing.
His life was his. Not Paul's, not John's, not Richard's. He would live, and he would be more than just a foolish little boy that got in over his head.
In his dreams, he still screamed and yelled and scratched at empty air; in a desperate attempt to drag Paul back to him, and away from the world.
George would live.
The date is 29th November 2001.
Paul and George are old. Fifty-nine, and fifty-eight respectively. They are not alone, and George is surrounded by people he loves - including his wife, to whom he assures that it shall all be, 'fine.'
She cries, George doesn't. Because he isn't scared to die.
He has wanted to sleep for a while. And he misses John.
Paul holds his hand, and George brushes his thumb over Paul's palm. So warm, and beautiful - home. This is where George is meant to be.
The night is one of a quiet winter, cold without being frosty. Wet, and blue, and a sky that they think will go on forever.
A time that they think will last.
They are both together. Best friends.
Nothing bad has happened to them yet. And nothing ever will.
George believes in God, again. He believes in the next life - and that, in his next life, he and Paul will be together again. John will be waiting for them. Richard will be laughing at how silly they all are.
George smiles, because he is with everyone he has ever loved. And he hasn't ever been alone in his life; not really, not ever.
Paul leaves a kiss on George's cheek.
George says - 'love one another.'
Love one another.
And Paul has remembered it ever since.