Chapter Text
The morning meeting at NEMS was supposed to be a routine post-weekend debrief. Brian Epstein sits behind his desk, pen poised over his diary, while Neil Aspinall leans against the wall with a lukewarm mug of tea. Across the room, the four of them are sprawled on the leather sofa in various states of Monday morning recovery.
"Right then," Brian begins, adjusting his tie and offering a crisp, professional smile. "Before we review the afternoon radio schedule, did everyone have a productive weekend?"
George shifts, leaning back with a satisfied smirk. "Quiet one for me. Went down to the West End, saw a play. Proper highbrow stuff. Quite good, actually."
"Nice one, Geo," Ringo chimes in, grinning. "I met a bird at a club in Soho. Proper brilliant, she was. Might see her again Thursday if Neil doesn't book me solid."
"Duly noted, Ritchie," Neil drawls without looking up from his clipboards. "I'll leave your Thursday night open for romance."
Brian smiles, making a brief notation in his diary. "Splendid. And John, Paul? I assume you two rested?"
"Oh, direct opposite, Eppy," Paul says brightly, sitting up with an alarming amount of energy. "Full-on educational weekend for us. We took a specialized course."
Brian raises an eyebrow. "A course? What kind of course?"
"Well, technically it was a couple's course," Paul explains casually. "They tried to turn us away at the door, but we signed a waiver. The instructor said our synergy was standard once we got going."
Neil’s tea mug pauses halfway to his mouth. Brian blinks once, slowly. "I see," Brian says, his voice dropping an octave as he tries to process the sentence. "A... couple's course."
"Yeah, it's all about getting deep inside your partner," Paul adds, nodding with total, earnest confidence.
George’s head snaps toward Paul so fast his hair whips across his forehead. Ringo’s grin instantly vanishes into a look of sheer, unadulterated shock. "Pardon?" Brian whispers.
"Oh, he's not joking, Eppy," John puts in, stretching his arms over his head with a long, cat-like groan. He slouches so far down into the sofa cushions his spine is practically horizontal. "I was a complete wreck on Saturday, but Paul got right in there. He really got all the right spaces."
Neil slowly lowers his mug to the filing cabinet. He looks at John, then at Paul, then at the door, as if calculating the quickest exit strategy.
"You were just so tense and tight before I got my fingers in you, though," Paul smiles, turning to John with a clinical, caring expression. "You have to really work the tissue until it gives way."
"Dead right," John agrees, closing his eyes with a dreamy, utterly peaceful sigh. "Felt so nice I almost went right under. Leg muscles completely turned to jelly. When he was finally done, I could barely walk."
Silence descends upon the office. It's a heavy, suffocating silence, the kind that usually precedes a natural disaster. Ringo slowly backs himself deeper into the sofa armrest, staring at the floor as if hoping the rug would open up and swallow him whole. George looks back and forth between John and Paul, his mouth slightly open, utterly speechless. Brian’s face has gone through three distinct shades of pale. His pen remains frozen an inch above his diary, a tiny blob of blue ink bleeding into the paper. In his head, he's already writing the press releases, calculating the damages, and wondering if the Vatican could issue a formal statement.
"You... couldn't walk," Brian repeats, his voice cracking slightly on the last word.
"Not a step," John purrs, completely oblivious, his eyes still closed. "Had to drag myself up. My whole body just surrendered."
"Well, that’s the science of it, isn't it?" Paul explains enthusiastically, turning to address the horrified audience. "If you hit the right pressure points, the release spreads down the whole nervous system. Clears the sinuses right out, too."
George blinks, his brain desperately clinging to the only non-terrifying word in that sentence. "The... the sinuses?"
"Yeah," Paul says, finally tapping his own jawline and making a light kneading motion against his cheek. "John was blocked up something terrible, but soon, he was loose as a goose."
"He got in both of 'em," John adds helpfully, opening one eye to smirk at Paul. "Proper thorough job, mate."
"Always happy to help," Paul beams, checking his watch. "Right, what's that radio schedule looking like, Eppy?"
Neil lets out a breath so long and shaky it sounds like a slow puncture. He covers his face with one hand, his shoulders sagging against the wall. Brian slowly sets his pen down, placing both hands flat on his desk to steady himself. He closes his eyes, takes a deep, agonizingly slow breath, and ages approximately five years in five seconds.
Shortly after, the door clicks shut behind John and Paul, their cheerful chatter fading down the hallway toward the studio. For nearly ten seconds, nobody moves. The NEMS office is dead silent except for the faint hum of the radiator and the quiet tick of Brian’s desk clock. Neil is the first to react. He slowly brings both hands up to rub his face, uttering a long, gravelly sigh that seems to drain the remaining life out of him.
"I'm calling in sick," he mutters into his palms. "I don't know what for, but I'm calling in sick."
Ringo is still pressed flat against the sofa armrest, staring blankly at the door handle as if it might turn again. "I thought..." He clears his throat, his voice jumping an octave. "I thought we were going to have to cancel the tour. I thought Brian was going to have a stroke right in front of us."
"I was," Brian whispers. He hasn't moved an inch. He's still staring wide-eyed at the blue ink stain that's thoroughly ruined his diary page. Slowly, deliberately, Brian lays his pen flat on the desk, removes his reading glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I was calculating the legal cost of buying out every newspaper in the Western Hemisphere," Brian confesses, his voice dangerously level. "I was contemplating which country would grant us political asylum."
George, who has remained frozen the entire time, finally blinks. He slowly turns his head to look at Neil, then at Brian, and finally at Ringo. "Cheeks," George repeats in a whisper, horrified. "Which cheeks, Neil? Which cheeks?!"
"I am not answering that," Neil says firmly, staring at the ceiling. "I am a tour manager. I manage logistics. I do not manage... whatever that was."
"'I got my fingers in you,'" Ringo quotes, shuddering visibly. "And then he mentioned his cheeks. Who says that?! Who says 'I got deep inside John' to their manager on a Monday morning?!"
"Ritchie, please," Brian groans, holding up a trembling hand. "I beg of you, do not repeat any of it."
"I'm just saying," Ringo mutters, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "I met a girl in Soho, right? Nice conversation. Normal. I come in here to brag a bit, and instead I have to hear about Paul getting deep into John's cheeks until he can't walk!"
"I need a drink," Brian announces.
He doesn't wait for agreement. He opens his bottom desk drawer, pulls out a glass and a bottle of scotch, and pours himself a heavy splash—at ten-fifteen in the morning. Neil walks over, picks up the bottle without asking, and takes a direct swig straight from it before passing it over to George.
"If any reporter asks about their weekend," Brian says, taking a sharp sip and pointing his glass at the three of them, "they went fishing. They went to the countryside and they fished in total, dead silence. Do you all understand me?"
"Crystal, Eppy," George says, taking a sip from the bottle and wincing. "Though if Paul comes near my cheeks, I'm throwing a drum kit at him."
"Fair," Neil agrees, picking up his clipboards. "Now, who's going to go tell them they've got ten minutes until the BBC car gets here?"
All three men in the room immediately turn and look at Brian.
Brian looks at his scotch, then back at the door, and takes another long drink. "Tell them I've succumbed to an sudden and severe illness."
The drive over to the studio is a nerve-shredding exercise in silent vigilance. Neil drives with both hands gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles were white, while Brian stares fixedly out the passenger window, taking slow, measured breaths like a man practicing deep-water survival. In the back, George and Ringo sit like sentries on either side of John and Paul. Every time Paul shifts or John makes the slightest movement, George’s left eye twitches. But John and Paul are completely insulated in their own world—muttering to each other about harmony parts, sharing a single crumpled pack of Woodbines, and leaning so close their shoulders have been pressed together from the moment they left NEMS.
Inside the BBC green room, the atmosphere is suffocating. Brian stands near the tea urn, pretending to review the broadcast script, but his eyes never leave the pair. Neil hovers by the door, clipboard held like a shield.
"Look at him," George mutters to Ringo, leaning against the far wall and nodding toward the sofa. "Look at the way John’s sitting."
John is sprawled out across Paul’s lap, his head propped on the armrest and his boots slung over the far cushion. He looks like an discarded rag doll, completely limber, devoid of his usual restless edge.
"Proper loose, isn't he?" Ringo observes, his eyes wide. "Like he hasn't got a bone left in 'im."
"Because Paul got into his cheeks, Ritchie," George says grimly, shuddering as he takes a sharp drag of his cigarette. "I’m telling you, I’ve never seen John that relaxed in my life. It’s unnatural."
Across the room, Paul is leaning over John, whispering something directly into his ear. John laughs—a low, husky sound—and reaches up to lazily pat Paul’s shoulder.
"They’re not even hiding it," Brian whispers to Neil, his voice laced with quiet panic. "They’re in a public broadcasting facility, surrounded by BBC staff, and they’re behaving like..." He cuts himself off, taking a sharp, painful breath. "Neil, if a photographer comes through that door, I want you to tackle them."
"Right-o, Eppy," Neil mutters, his gaze fixed on Paul’s hand, which is currently resting near John’s collarbone.
Meanwhile, Ringo slowly edges closer to the coffee table near the sofa, pretending to look for a spare lighter. He isn't trying to pry, but the heavy, charged silence in the room is magnetic. As he leans down toward the table, John sighs softly, tilting his head back to look up at Paul.
"Felt incredible, though, Macca," John murmurs, his voice dropping to a low, confidential rasp. "Proper cleared me out. You’ve got to get deep inside me again tonight."
Paul smiles down at him with immense, affectionate pride. "Told you, didn't I? Just gotta let me get my hands back in there. We’ll do another round after the session."
"Good lad," John mumbles, closing his eyes again.
Ringo freezes, his hand hovering two inches above a box of matches. His heart hammers against his ribs. Tonight, he thinks. They're doing it again tonight. It's not a one-night thing. He glances at John—so completely at ease, so utterly unbothered by the world—and then at Paul, who's looking at John with a warmth that could melt a glacier. They don't care about the radio show. They don't care that Brian is practically sweating through his suit across the room, or that George looks like he's about to jump out a window. They're completely, unapologetically themselves.
Slowly, a strange, warm sensation washes over Ringo's chest. It hits him all at once: John and Paul don't share this stuff with just anyone. They don't talk about getting deep into each other's cheeks in front of the press or random fans. They said it here. In front of him. They trust him. They're letting him see the real, unfiltered, deeply bizarre truth of their bond. It's a terrifying truth, certainly—one that involves a terrifying amount of flexibility and whatever horrifying couple's technique they've mastered—but it's their truth.
Ringo slowly stands up, matchbox in hand, a soft, solemn smile spreading across his face. He feels a profound, almost sacred sense of honor. He walks back over to George, who's still practically vibrating with nervous tension.
"How are they looking?" George hisses under his breath. "Are they still... talking about it?"
Ringo places a gentle, comforting hand on George’s shoulder, looking at his bandmate with deep, emotional clarity. "Leave 'em be, Geo," Ringo replies softly, his voice full of reverent respect. "They’re just being authentic. It’s a beautiful thing, really, if you think about it."
George stares at Ringo as if he's just sprouted a second head. "A what?"
"An honor," Ringo corrects gently, turning to look back at John and Paul with a fond, protective nod. "We're the only ones who really know 'em."
In the corner, Brian watches Ringo’s sudden emotional shift, then turns Neil. "Neil, I think we’ve lost Ringo."