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John knows he’s been in this bathroom too long. He’s not even doing anything; he’d finished readying the final touches of his costume half an hour ago, and he knows he needs to get a move on or they’ll be even more late for the premiere than they already are, and he knows Cynthia’s probably already waiting for him by the front door, all equal parts patient and annoyed as she ever is, and he knows the longer he stalls the worse he’s going to be crawling in his skin by the time they finally amble into the party— but for the love of Chuck Berry, he just can’t stop staring at himself.
Christ, he looks— he looks—
The idea had come to him when he’d shaved off the Pepper mustache a few months back. Or rather, it had come when Paul had shaved his Pepper mustache off, the first of their lot to do it just as he’d been the first to grow it, and had come skipping into rehearsals looking a thousand years younger, bright-eyed and baby-cheeked, no longer self-conscious of the fading scar at his lip or the cap on his tooth. Paul had played with a renewed vigor that day, like it was bloody 1961 again and he was enthralled with a new tune that had come to him, and isn’t it funny, how many of their musical reinventions seemed to coincide with Paul’s makeovers.
Anyway, John hadn’t been able to stop staring at him the whole day, and twice had found himself absent-mindedly plucking out the chords to Saw Her Standing There, so, weeks later, when they’d come up with the idea for the Mystery premiere to be fancy dress, John had known immediately what he was going to go as. But he’d kept quiet about it, even as Ringo had tried to bounce ideas off him, not because it was a— a secret or anything, but he just— He wanted it to be a surprise, right.
He’d had one of the stylist girls from set go out and buy him the gaudiest leather jacket she could find, all oversized lapels and chains and zippers; the kind he used to admire on American rock record covers but could never afford for himself, back in the days before he even had his own first guitar. Then he’d scrounged up a black turtleneck and a long-neglected pair of jeans from his wardrobe, cuffing up the hems, and finished it off with a pair of Chucks that were a lot cleaner than any he’d ever worn while traipsing about Liverpool.
And then he’d set to work on his hair. His fingers moved on rusty muscle memory, only trembling a little as he cleaned up his sideboards and greased back the rest into a ducktail. His quiff’s a lot longer and wavier than it’d been back in his real Teddy boy days, flopping down onto his brow, but he doesn’t have time to trim it now, what with the clock ticking down the hour like a time bomb in sync with his heartbeat.
They could’ve been halfway to the party by now, he knows. But he can’t seem to unstick his feet from the bathroom rug, can’t seem to look away from this absolute ghost in the mirror.
He looks good. He looks wild and young and insatiable. He looks like he’s all of nineteen again, washing his face in the ice water of the ladies’ bathroom sink at the Kino, about to go onstage and sing cover songs to a bunch of pissed Germans till his throat’s raw and his fingers bleeding and the sun’s starting to rise in the watery Hamburg sky. He looks like he lives off cheap bratwurst and cheaper beer and like he hasn’t slept a good night’s sleep in a year. Even his eyes, with no specs to hide behind, are shiny and shifty like he’s stuffed full of prellies— but he’s startlingly sober tonight. He doesn’t know why that fact was so important to the naggy little voice in his head that sometimes sounds like Mimi and other times a bit too much like Paul, but it was. No pot or lysergic tonight to ease the way. It’s just nerves and that terrible, treacherous hope that has him twisted up, now.
He’d almost considered not even wearing contacts, to make everything all properly blurry the way it used to be before he’d found the circle specs, and let his near-blindness serve as a barrier between him and the outside world, but had ultimately decided against it. He didn’t want to miss a second of whatever reaction he was going to get out of Paul tonight.
Because that’s what this is really about, try as John might to tap-dance around the truth, even with himself. That’s what everything is about, honestly, since the day a mini-Elvis sauntered into the scout hut at Woolton fete with his ridiculous white sport coat and backwards guitar.
It’s all for Paul.
“John, honey? The car is here!” Cynthia calls from the living room, and the hot bright flash of panic that explodes in John’s heart is almost enough for him to yank the whole get-up off right then and there, and maybe send his fist into the mirror for good measure too, because what is he thinking? He can’t go out there dressed like this! What if Paul laughs him out of the building? Or— or worse, what if Paul doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand what John’s trying to do, what he wants, and it’ll just be John there holding all his shards of hope in his bleeding hands with a blank-faced Paul staring back at him, utterly unaffected, forgetting John even as he stands there right in front of him, like John can already feel him doing?
“John?” Cynthia calls again, and John yanks open the door before he can second-guess himself again. Because no: he has to do this. If only so he’ll know if it’s too late.
Cynthia’s standing in the foyer with their coats, all dolled up in a bonnet and lavender crinoline and clearly waiting for a compliment from John, but he’s too jittery to do anything but give her a nod. Her face falls and he feels a twinge of regret, but there’s no fixing it; he watches as she quickly schools her expression back into her patented good-Beatle-wife face.
“Gosh, don’t you look a sight,” she says appreciatively as she hands him his overcoat. “A Teddy boy! Just like the day I met you.”
Another pang, because this isn’t for her, but he can’t think of anything to say, and then she’s calling good-bye to Julian and the sitter, and they’re off.
John’s always liked London at Christmastime, even if he’s not a big fan of the holiday itself. But he’s a sucker for a good atmosphere, and London’s lights and chaos are so much different than Liverpool’s dreary slush.
But now the city’s a red and gold tornado outside the car’s windows as it carries them off to the venue, and he’s half-wishing it’ll sweep them up and toss them out somewhere else, somewhere far from what— who— is waiting at the end of this piss-yellow brick road.
Things with Paul have been— stilted, lately, to say the least. Ever since Eppy— well. Ever since then, things have been a half-step off in a way they’ve never been before, at least not with him and Paul. Maybe Sgt. Pepper really is to blame— Paul’s irritatingly brilliant brainchild that knocked them from boy wunderkinds to artistic doyens, a hush falling over every room they walked into, everyone’s eyes on them, always. Wanting to see what they’re wearing, who they’re hanging with, what and who the world should want to be. And under so many eyes, their already slim opportunities to see one another, to be with one another, dwindled faster than John could blink, and suddenly it’s been months since Paul looked at him with that particular gleam in his eye, the one that never fails to make John’s breath catch and his trousers tighten; months since they’ve stolen a quick fumble in the EMI’s bogs; months since they’ve had a night all to themselves and their music, lazy kisses and casual touches they didn’t have to hide under tables, able to undress completely, no wives or girlfriends on the other side of the door, no need to be quiet. John’s going out of his mind with the wanting of it.
And John knows he’s partially to blame, too, his restlessness and unease and grief making him snappish and rude, to not just Paul but everybody. But how to fix it? It wasn’t like they had a magical time machine to whisk them back to Paul’s twin bed in Forthlin Road, or their shitty annex in the Bambi Kino, or even just their fingers brushing on the seat between their thighs as they rode the bus back from the Casbah.
But then Paul had shaved the mustache and made time ripple around them, and John had thought: that’s how. They can’t rewind time, but maybe they could recreate it. Steal it back.
Their car arrives at the party all too soon. John follows Cynthia inside; there are a couple folks from the press still lingering out front, asking about the film, but quite frankly John couldn’t give a shit about the film anymore. He can barely remember shooting most of it, and wished he could forget the rest. Magical Misery Tour had been right on the money, their cut-short mourning and Eppy’s absence a thick black cloud hanging over every one of Paul’s efforts to keep them smiling for the camera like the dancing monkeys they are.
(John knows that’s too bitter, even for him, and that Paul had just been trying to do what he does best and move forward, full speed ahead, heedless of those dangling white-knuckled behind, but John’s age-old envy of that persistence and sense of purpose still makes his stomach churn.)
Inside the hotel, they’re ushered towards the music— thankfully none of their own— wafting from the ballroom as attendants take their coats. The party’s already in full swing, and they’re greeted by the flushed, cheery faces of friends and people from the label and other avant garde high society elite who have to be invited to these kinds of shindigs regardless of how well they know the four-headed monster at the heart of it.
He says a few bleary hello’s, someone hands him a wine glass— one of the perks of being a Beatle is things just appear in your hands before you even have to think to ask for them— and he loses Cynthia in the crowd quickly enough without even meaning to, as she goes off to find her girlfriends and John searches for one particular head of raven hair.
He finds Ringo first, and Ringo’s top hat, decked out in splendid white.
“There you are,” Ringo greets him. “Someone was just about to round up a search party.” He looks John up and down speculatively, and when his eyes raise to John’s again there’s something all too perceptive in them that makes John shift in his Chucks. There are no secrets safe from Ringo. “Though they would’ve had to gone to Hamburg to find you.”
John’s saved from a reply by the appearance of Maureen, looking every inch the Princess Tiger Lily, with Pattie and George right behind her.
“John! You look fantastic!” Pattie exclaims, and John gives her his best Presley-patented crooked smile.
“Why thank ya, darlin’," he drawls with an exaggerated American accent, and does the little noodle-leg wiggle that has them all laughing. “You all look gear,” he adds in his usual scouse, nodding to their costumes. Pattie’s a belly dancer, like from Help!, and George is— well, George is seemingly just George in a massive fur coat. He’s got red pirate boots on, too, whatever that makes the ensemble.
It’s noticeably three-fourths their quartet, so John hopes that’s the reason for George answering his next unspoken question, though he has a sneaking suspicion it’s their telepathy to blame. Just in case the connection’s still established, he tries to chase off all condemnable thoughts from his head, taking a long sip of his wine for a distraction.
“Paul’s off talking to Mal,” George explains, tilting his head vaguely to the crowd.
John hums noncommittedly into his glass. He has to ease off the wine: the sobriety’s making his hands shake, but he doesn’t want to ruin all his hard work too soon.
Ringo, ever the merciful one, must also pick up John’s wavelength because he smoothly changes the subject, launching into a story about the haunted origins of his hat, having supposedly once belonged to some great magician who vanished in mysterious circumstances. John keeps one ear trained on the conversation, but his eyes stay roving the writhing, schmoozing masses.
It shouldn’t be that hard to find Paul, really. Just look for the biggest cluster of arse-kissing bootlickers and he should be right at the center of it, holding court. But John’s eyes snag on the attendees’ costumes as they roam: it seems everyone took the fancy memo to heart, with glitter and feathers and bells and whistles galore. John wonders if he’s supposed to feel honored, instead of, well. Used.
Brian would’ve enjoyed the night, though, John’s certain— he always liked when they did the flowery to-do’s. If you want people to show you who they are, hold a masquerade, Bri had said one night, over too many scotches at some executive’s or another’s party. Everyone’s most themselves when they’re pretending to be someone else.
John shivers at the memory. He tries to focus back on the crowd, but for his sins he promptly spots Cyn across the room, seated next to some Shirley Temple-looking bird who is currently glowering John’s way like she could set his quiff on fire with sheer determination. John skips his gaze quickly by.
He’s just starting to scan the gathering at the bar when he hears that voice he knows better than his own call out behind him.
“Oi! Any of you lot seen—” John’s turning around by the first word, but the second his eyes meet Paul’s he can practically hear the tire-screech halt as Paul’s PR-ready grin falters on his lips, his words tripping over themselves, the last one barely escaping before he’s frozen still, “—John?”
A dizzying wave of relief, pleasure, and no small thrill of arousal all crash over John like a tidal wave as he watches the other man’s mouth fall open in a small o. It lasts only a moment before snapping shut again, but it still has John’s blood thrumming hot and excited in his veins, nerves all but melting away, because surprising Paul is a rare feat these days; startling him— even temporarily— out of his perfectly polished Prince McCharming veneer is a nigh impossibility.
And Paul is Prince Charming tonight. He’s the prettiest thing John’s ever seen, as he always is, done up in a Pearly King look, all checks and glimmering buttons, a kerchief at his neck and a newsboy cap pulled over his hair. Jane’s on his arm as his Queen, but John doesn’t spare her a glance as he takes in the stunned man.
He couldn’t smother the smug curve of his mouth if he tried.
“You alright, Macca? Y’look like ye’ve seen a ghost, son,” he says, proud of the lack of waver in his voice, and if he leans a little harder on the scouse, letters broad and licked like they were when he was a teenager and not always surrounded by quite so many posh London businessmen, that’s no one’s business but his own. But he can see the slight dusting of red that blooms high on Paul’s cheekbones as the accent worms its way into his ears, and that smugness zigzags all the way down to John’s toes, sending them curling in his Chucks.
Pattie steps aside to let the newcomers join their little circle, and George is speaking, John knows he is, can hear his voice as though muffled through a glass, but the only thing he can see is Paul. Paul, who is currently searching John’s expression for something. John forces himself to stare unflinchingly back, to let Paul see the clarity there, no haze of pot or sting of LSD, and the intensity of Paul’s gaze when he figures it out is worth every nail-biting second of sober paranoia.
After a perfect, electrifying eon, Paul’s attention is finally tugged away by Jane saying something that John doesn’t bother trying to catch, too fixated on the way Paul’s eyes almost have to physically drag themselves off John to face her. When the weight of them has lifted, John abruptly feels like he can breathe again; he hides his shuddery gasp for air in the rim of his glass as he takes a steadying swallow.
He’s not used to his plans these days pulling off so swimmingly. He tries not to brace for the other shoe to come plummeting from the sky and squish him flat.
“Blast from the past, isn’t he?” Ringo says to Paul, and the din of the party comes surging back to John’s ears like an orchestral crescendo. “Almost looked over his shoulder for Koschminder.”
Paul’s earlier impression of a fish has left his words a little hoarse when he agrees. “Yeah. It’s fab.”
“Are you Elvis?” Jane asks John, all sincere innocence. It sets John’s teeth on edge regardless, but it’s Paul— who has at last regained his composure— who answers for him.
“He’s a Ted. We used to go ‘round like this, if you can believe it, before the suits.” That’s right— the lovely Miss Asher hadn’t met them till Brian had got his hands on them, polished them up and ironed them out and made them presentable to Queen and country. Which means having her here doesn’t help John’s endeavor to send them hurtling back in time— and while John may not have a pair of scissors at hand this time, if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s chase off a girl.
So he tips his glass towards her massive feathery Pearly Queen hat. “What bird died on your head, then? Did I know her?”
There’s a snicker from George’s direction and Jane colors with embarrassment, but the expected “John” admonishment from Paul comes a beat too late— a beat noticeable enough that everyone’s eyes slide to Paul in curiosity, and John has to bite his cheek to stop his whoop of victory.
He’d forgotten how it felt, to wield this kind of power over Paul. It’d been such a common presence in their early years— long before the night of their mutual confession, spat at each other mid-argument in the grimey alley behind the Indra, and the frantic, half-fight of a first kiss that followed— back when they had first met and Paul was so eager to impress, to win John’s approval and attention over Stu or Shotton or Cyn or anyone, really. Back then, one well-timed innuendo could have the other boy tongue-tied, or even just a glance from John could have the usually flawless Paul McCharmly fumbling at his strings. The tables have turned dramatically in the years since, to say the least; its return is intoxicating.
So like a chuffed cat toying with a mouse beneath his claws, John lets the tension linger a moment longer before assenting. “Apologies, your highness,” he says, baring his teeth only slightly, and while it sounds like it’s directed towards Jane, he and Paul both know it’s for a different princess.
That look in Paul’s eyes sharpens like a blade, and John’s heart leaps— because while John might be a Ted again, this isn’t the blushing choir boy he’s teasing anymore. This is the Paul from that alley in Hamburg. The Paul that learned how to bite back.
“Pearlies,” John continues. “That’s clever.”
“I wasn’t sure my drainies would still fit,” Paul volleys.
“No shame in a little gain, son, so long as it fills the right places.” John arches an eyebrow suggestively; it’s a toe over the line of appropriate in the given company, but it’s like picking up the rhythm of one of their old verbal dances, from before they became vitriolic sparring matches or just weary eggshell silence, and trying to recall the steps. Right now it’s a tango: two steps forward, one step back.
Paul steps them back, redirects. Nods to John’s chains and buckles. “You raid Mimi’s jewelry box for those?”
“‘Cor not, love; I raided yours.”
“Jim would’ve caught you on the drainpipe in seconds if you’d rattled like that.”
“Aye, but someone had to go rescue Rapunzel, didn’t they? Otherwise ye’d still be stuck up there.”
“I’m not the one in need of a haircut these days, Johnny.” Or rescuing, Paul’s eyes say, and John’s too dizzily pleased with the resurrection of the old nickname to feel the sting of the accusation— true as it may be— because he’d forgotten that, too: the way Paul said his name like it was a dare, just dangerous enough to send sparks up John’s spine.
The rest of their group has been watching this interaction like a tennis match, perhaps expecting it to boil into an argument the way they so often do these days, and the ensuing quiet is painfully uncomfortable— or so John assumes it must be, for them. Right now he couldn’t give a toss about any of them, honestly.
“It really is a great jacket,” Pattie offers, awkwardly.
“It’s no haunted hat, though,” Ringo remarks, which earns some chuckles and diffuses the tension just a little, and then someone clinks a glass, somewhere, and everyone turns gratefully to find it, save for John and Paul, who keep locked on one another.
They could be anywhere, suddenly: at a party, in front of a camera, on stage in front of thousands, in a back alley on the Reeperbahn, sat across from each other on a twin bed in their childhood bedrooms, anywhere. The rest of the world could simply fall away, and John wouldn’t have a clue. It’s just the two of them, and Paul’s staring back at him. Paul sees him.
“Alrighty then, ladies, gents. Show’s starting,” Ringo says at John’s elbow.
Yes, John thinks, it is.
The hotel is right next door to the cinema hosting their premiere, so it’s not a long walk for their little troupe to lead the ballroom’s guests to the auditorium. Cyn reappears as a lavender blob in John’s periphery as they filter in, likely for the sake of the circling photographers— the vultures always fishing for fissures— but he doesn’t move towards her. And even if he had, he’d have been deterred by the sudden hand gripping his bicep.
The hand squeezes once, firmly— possessively, John’s mind supplies gleefully— and John glances up to find Paul, leaning into his space. The princely facade is back in place, but there’s still that something in his eye as he gives John’s arm a light tug.
“You’re next to me I think, Johnny,” he says, his grip unrelenting, and, knowing full well they don’t have assigned seats in the cinema, John lets himself be led. Paul keeps a hold on John’s arm all the way till they’re seated, and even then he pulls his fingers away slowly enough that John can feel their lingering warmth like a brand. In fact, his whole body is buzzing like he’s stuck his tongue in a socket. God, when was the last time Paul touched him, even casually?
They’re front and center, as usual, John on Paul’s left, Jane and Pattie and George on Paul’s right. Luckily Ringo somehow knows to take up John’s other side, a disgruntled Cyn choosing to sit further down by Maureen; sometimes their Beatlelepathy really does have its uses.
There’s little time for chitchat; someone from the cinema takes the stage and gives a little speech, kowtowing and thanking the Beatles for choosing their picture house and it’s such an honor and a privilege to host such visionaries yada yada yada, and then the lights dim and John tries to concentrate, he swears he does, but not five sightless minutes in and there’s a hand knocking against his knee.
“Sorry Johnny,” Paul whispers lowly near John’s ear, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all. The hand retracts.
Another five minutes, and Paul reaches up to scratch at his neck, his elbow knocking John’s on the armrest between them as he does. “Oops,” he whispers merrily, the mischief all but oozing.
John chances a glance at the other man, but Paul is barely visible in the darkness, his elfish silhouette lit only in intervals by the flashing lights of the screen. John is swept back to them on the dim second floor of an empty bus on the way to Allerton, well past their curfews, the street lamps blinking by like gold rocks skipping on an inky lake and lighting up Paul’s face, his lashes, his lips, as he’d grinned at John. The bus had hit a pothole and John’s heart had leapt into his throat and never came back down, and he’d known for certain he was well and truly lost.
John’s heart leaps the same way now as Paul’s fingers land once again on John’s knee, only this time there’s no apology, and they don’t move away. The world zeroes down to that point of contact as Paul’s fingers skitter lightly in a little spider-motion against the denim.
It’s their old code, from yesteryear, the one to meet in toilets and cloakrooms and dressing rooms and back alleys, and then Paul’s hand is gone as the other man pushes to his feet, politely apologizing as he climbs over Jane and Pattie and George’s legs and disappears off down the aisle. The tip-tap of his shoes echo the silent come along, then.
John knows to wait a moment or two before following, and he’s grateful, because he’s not even sure he could stand up at the moment if he tried, weak in the knees like a bloody bird. Which is absurd, because he’s the one supposed to be seducing Paul tonight, and yet it’s just like the bastard to make even those tables turn. Instead of anger, though, John feels mostly giddiness. Like when they would trade hurried handjobs in the cloakroom between sets in Hamburg, or when John would sneak down the drainpipe at Forthlin before old Jim woke in the morning, all but dangling from the windowsill as Paul would lean down for one last kiss, Romeo and fucking Juliet. There they were, a sordid secret just under everyone’s noses, and they thought themselves untouchable. John had never felt more invincible than he had in those honeymoon months.
He doesn’t feel particularly invincible now, but he does feel more than a little sordid. But, well. This is what he wanted, isn’t it?
When he finally does get up, ducking low so not to block the screen for those behind him, he heads the same direction Paul did, not wanting to pass Cyn. He does want to stick his tongue out at Jane as he goes, though, a look who won, me me me, but he refrains, keeping his eyes on the narrow space in front of her shoes so he doesn’t trip and draw even more attention than two Beatles slipping out of their own premiere already does.
He’s nearly successful, but he’s always lacked Paul’s grace, and just before he reaches the aisle his knees knock against George’s bony ones. Wide eyes flash up to meet the other man’s for a mortifying second. George’s stare is sharp and searing, and John can’t help the slight pang of guilt that just makes this seem even more like a scene stolen from the old days, the younger boy’s palpable envy whenever John and Paul would steal off into the night together and leave the other behind. He knows George will never admit it, and John himself will never ask about it, but John’s seen the growing schadenfreude on his face as Paul and John’s relationship fractured more and more with every passing day. We were talking about the space between us all, a voice sings in John’s head, but John shoos it away as he finally stumbles into the aisle, and tries not to sprint to the auditorium’s doors.
Mercifully, he finds the lobby empty, and there’s a giant sign pointing the way to the lavatories so he doesn’t have to cause a scene by asking directions. He slips down the hall, Chucks padding silently on the gaudy red and orange carpet underfoot, his heart racing in his ears.
This is what you want, he scolds himself, and he does want it, really, but— God, this is the longest fucking hallway in the world, isn’t it?
It takes him a century to reach the men’s room, but the second he steps through the door there are hands twisting in the fabric of his jacket and yanking him inside, the door being kicked shut behind him so the hands can shove him up against it, and then Paul is all John can see, swallowing up every corner of his vision as he swoops in to kiss him.
Before he returns it, John has enough wherewithal to spare a split second to wonder if they’re truly alone, all the stalls safely empty, but that little voice in his head reminds him— if a little bitterly— that Paul wouldn’t have kissed him without checking first, never one to risk something that couldn’t be easily explained away. He knows the later explanation of their disappearance to Jane and George and the others will be along the lines of Every film’s better with a bit of grass, isn’t it? or the like, accompanied by a charming wink, but then Paul’s tongue is dragging along John’s lower lip and John forgets to be bitter, and lets himself fall into the familiar, perfect warmth that is Paul McCartney’s fucking perfect mouth.
It’s just the way it’d happened that first time in Hamburg, really. John can’t remember what had even caused the fight, but he remembers the way they’d rounded on each other in the alley, and he remembers with crystal clarity the way Paul had been the first to crack— though only after John had pushed and pushed and pushed at every possible button he knew Paul had: their music, Stu, Paul’s dad, his desperate need to please the whole fucking world, all of it. Because John had wanted so fiercely for Paul to be the one to snap, so he didn’t have to do it himself and risk being shoved away. Because God only knows John could never shove Paul away. No, he’d pull the other boy all the way inside him if he could, bury him in his ribcage, right next to the heart that is Paul’s, only Paul’s.
And so he’d finally pushed just right and Paul had snapped, voice raw and furious as he’d hissed You fucking prick, why can’t you just— and shoved John into the bricks to slam their mouths together and John had felt like flying.
So John kisses back now just as hungrily as he had then, hands flying up to curl into Paul’s lapels, and thank God Paul is holding him so tightly because John’s knees are so weak they’ve disappeared.
It’s all too soon that they break for air and pant against each other, and John gets his first look at Paul since the lights had lowered in the cinema. He’s taken off his cap and his fringe is sweaty where it’s plastered against his forehead, his cheeks ruddy and eyes heavy-lidded like he’s just played for eight hours straight and is mile-high, only John’s shared enough joints and prellies with the man to be able to tell that he isn’t. No, he’s high on John, and John thrills, heat licking in his belly.
“Do you— do ye like it, then?” he asks, meaning the costume, and Paul huffs an incredulous laugh.
“Like it? Fuck, Johnny,” Paul breathes. “I saw you there and thought I was fucking seventeen again.”
“And how could you dance with another?” John can’t help himself from singing, and they share a silly grin between them, their breaths mingling in the air, before Paul’s surging forward again, kissing John deep and wet and insistent, bruising. John revels in the smooth slide of their skin, no bristles or stubble to snag the way, just like they really are teenagers again. Paul bites at John’s bottom lip and John can’t help the noise that tears from his chest, pleading. He half expects Paul to hiss in his ear, Quiet, you’ll wake Mike.
Because it is easy, all too easy, to imagine they are the them from years ago, and John wants nothing more than to melt into the fantasy, but as Paul shoves aside the flaps of John’s leather jacket to fumble at his belt buckle, the jingle of all those zippers is harsh and new in his ears. And when Paul’s hands ruck up his shirt to grope at John’s waist, there are callouses on Paul’s fingers that weren’t there before, and he’s murmuring Johnny, Johnny, Johnny in John’s ear as he pulls them flush against each other, but— but his voice is posher than it used to be, isn’t it. And all of a sudden John feels awkward and clumsy and overly large, all the earlier wit and electricity sapped out of him, the new weight of all the years between them that weren’t there before surging up like a geyser and his skin is too fucking small. He feels like an imposter, a fraud, as he realizes with a sickening lurch of his stomach that this— this Teddy boy veneer— is the version of John that Paul really wants, and John knows, he knows he can’t be that again, he doesn’t know how anymore, maybe he never did—
And this isn’t the old Paul, either: the Paul that gave as good as he got and always dared John to go further— musically, creatively— until his ideas outpaced John and John felt he couldn’t measure up, couldn’t compare—
God, Eppy had been right, of course he had. John’s been pretending to be someone he isn’t anymore, and in doing so had just revealed the fleshy, vulnerable underbelly of the thing that scares him the fucking most of all: himself.
His rhythm falters and Paul must sense it, because his fingers still at the waistband of John’s jeans. Then he starts to pull away, and even in his panic John grips at the other’s pearly lapels even tighter, not wanting Paul to see what’s probably written all over John’s face now. But Paul’s stronger than him, and gently extracts himself from John’s grasp.
“Johnny?” Paul asks. He steps out of reach just as John tries to yank him closer. No, no, no. Fuck, he’s ruined it, hasn’t he? Just like he always fucking does, fuck, fuck. “John, what’s wrong?”
Is this what it feels to be crushed by a thousand Beatle boots, falling from the sky?
“John?”
John’s hands feel so empty; they clench into fists at his side, and for a brief moment he wonders if he can fight his way out of this, the way he’s done so many times before, just send a punch swinging into the fragile glass between them so he can just chase Paul off once and for all, but— God, he can’t fucking do it. He’s too much of a coward, isn’t he.
When he speaks, his voice is embarrassingly small even to his own ears. Defeated. “I just— I just wanted to remind you.”
“Remind me? John, remind me of what?”
“Just—” He grapples for words, but the muse has long abandoned him. It left when Paul did. “Lately—”
That little crease appears between Paul’s brows, the one John was trying so hard to avoid tonight but there it is anyway, because John’s put his foot in his mouth yet again, and he wishes so deeply he could swallow those words back, rewind to thirty seconds ago when things had been so perfect. He squeezes his eyes shut, a child’s logic, of maybe if he can’t see it, can’t see Paul, it’ll all just go away.
But as he waits to hear bitterness or accusation or the you’re just as guilty as I am, when Paul finally speaks, John finds, instead, remorse.
“I know, Johnny,” Paul tells him. “Fuck, don’t I know it.” There’s a deep inhale, one John can feel in his own lungs, and then Paul’s saying, “I’m sorry.”
John’s eyes fly open, because whatever he was expecting tonight— a fight, a fuck, a devastation— it wasn’t an apology. But Paul just continues on, like John’s brain isn’t breaking in front of him. “I know what you mean, and I’ve felt it too, and I’m sorry you felt like you had to do,” he flicks at one of John’s zippers, the metal ringing like a bell, “this, to— to have us.”
John swallows. “I just— I thought maybe this John is what you might want,” instead of me, John bites back, but of course Paul’s in his head, and can hear it anyway. He watches in disbelief as Paul smiles at him, soft, if a little sad, and this is the Paul that John had missed most of all: the one only he ever got to see, in every hazy dawn in every nameless hotel room, once all the spotlights and bells and whistles had been stripped away.
“I know you’re not that boy anymore, John.” A hand reaches across the gulf between them to lightly scratch fingernails through the mutton chops at John’s jaw. “You’re hairier, for one,” Paul huffs. His fingers drift upwards to slide through John’s hair, nails dragging bluntly along his scalp, and John feels like purring.
Instead he summons just enough of his bearings to protest, weakly, “Oi, mind the quiff.”
Paul laughs, eyes scrunching at the corners, and he takes a step nearer again, but keeps enough distance that John can still feel like he can breathe, knowing what John needs intrinsically. “Yeah, yeah,” Paul says, tugging lightly at the curl over John’s brow like a boy teasing at a girl’s pigtails.
“I also know you know I’m not that boy anymore, either,” Paul continues, his hand falling back down to his side, and this time it’s his turn to drop his eyes to the floor. “And I know so much has changed, and we can’t fix all of it, not the way we’d like to. We can’t just erase the past five years, y’know? I mean, besides— they weren’t all bad, were they?” He trails off, that smile faltering, but he gives it his best replica as he glances back up. “We’re a long way from Hamburg, aren’t we?”
John can only manage a nod.
“But I’m still yours,” Paul says, and it sounds like a vow, and John’s heart is fit to burst in his chest as Paul’s palm— every new callous in stark relief against his shaven skin— cups John’s cheek, tilting his face until once more he can’t see anything but Paul, and there John finds nothing but love— burning, blooming, brilliant love— in the eyes he knows best in the universe. The love he’d feared was gone, and gone for good, but there it is, undeniable, just as bright as the day they’d met. “If you still want me.”
“Yes,” John says on an exhale, and it feels like the first deep breath he’s taken in years. “If you— if you want me. The now me, not the— the then me.” He’s tempted to make a crack— because the drainies don’t quite fit like they used to, or something of the like, but the moment feels too big, too important, and it’s okay, because Paul smiles at him fondly, like the sun through the clouds, the only sun John’s ever wanted to follow, eyes twinkling like he hears the joke anyway.
“Daft boy,” Paul says. “I love every you.”