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John takes a long inhale of smoke as he watches Paul talking to one of the camera guys outside.
His breath fogs up the bus window a bit, the evening air causing a cloud of condensation to spread, blurring Paul and the camera guy to nothing. When it shrinks back to dribbles of moisture, Paul’s hands are moving—explaining a shot, or a scene, or a fucking dream he had that he’d like this poor sod to turn into reality.
John feels a bit bad for the camera man. They’re stopped for the night—the crew given a bit of rest for the evening. The unfortunate fucker got caught in hurricane McCartney while he was on his way for a drink, probably, and now he’s just standing there nodding along like Paul has a clue what he’s talking about.
Only that thought sends something jagged and unpleasant curdling in John’s gut. An uncomfortable tinge of shame.
John likes the idea—the whole film bullshit—when Paul’s talking about it with him; when Paul’s making promises of what they can achieve together just because it’s them. John even believes in it, most of the time. He certainly believed it enough to end up sitting on a bus watching this sad display.
It’s just that Paul moves so fast. For weeks—since Brian, his brain unhelpfully supplies—John’s felt like he’s been out of sync with the world; his dialogue coming in too quick while his mouth’s not even moving. He feels alright when there’s someone there to ground him, or something in his system to lift him above it, but while he’s here—present—he’s not sure he knows what’s going on. And it would be alright if he wasn’t in it alone, but Paul keeps working; powered by whatever shit he’s snorting these days, and that relentless McCartney drive—fluttering about like a hummingbird, his wings moving so fast John can’t even see them—like maybe he does know what’s going on. Like maybe his present and John’s present are completely different things.
And there’s some small, generous part of John that knows Paul’s only like this for the same reasons John’s like that; Brian, Brian, Brian, knocking about heavy and unbearable in their hearts, and someone’s got to do it, but.
Well. Paul’s out there hassling the camera guy, and John’s alone on the bus.
The poor bastard nods at Paul; says something that sets Paul smiling, eagerly, all proud of himself and proud of the camera guy, and proud at a goal achieved. It shoots a pang through John’s chest.
Like he felt it too, Paul looks up, meeting John’s eyes through the half-fogged window, surprised to see him there, having not noticed before. At once, John thinks both he’s here and he’s miles away. Paul smiles—plainly happy to see him.
John’s resentment ebbs. Morphs into pathetic, needy, loneliness.
John thinks, come on the bus, and Paul shakes the camera guy’s hand and comes on the bus.
John wonders for a moment if maybe they are in the same present, but once Paul’s climbed up the steps he asks, “What are you up to?” And though he can’t see them, John can hear the muted hum of his little wings—flap, flap, flapping away in an effort to solve John. Another in a long line of responsibilities someone’s got to do, though Paul doesn’t seem to give two halves of a shit when John’s not in his immediate line of sight.
John wonders did he ever. Shakes the thought away. He did. He does.
Some craving, miserable part of John almost makes him say it. I was brooding, Paul. There’s something wrong with me, Paul. You care, don’t you?
But he doesn’t.
“Smoking,” he says, and then takes long drag of his cigarette, as if to demonstrate.
Paul lurks up the bus aisle; slides into the seat in front of John, hugging the head rest in front of him and resting his chin on top, peeking down at John all doe-eyed, like the shy child he must’ve never been.
“It’s dark in here,” Paul notes, like he heard the brooding comment, anyway.
John makes a show of blinking dramatically, as if he’s only just noticed. In the blurred frenzy of his vision, he misses Paul’s mouth swooping into a smile, but it’s there when he opens them again.
“It’s part of the mise-en-scène, Mister Director,” John says, pointing his fingers and the cigarette at Paul like he knows what he’s talking about.
The corners of Paul’s eyes wrinkle with his smile. “Mister Co-director,” Paul corrects, softly.
“Co-co-co-director,” John agrees.
“Scored by Lennon-McCartney,” Paul adds.
It catches in John’s throat for some reason—invoking their partnership in the middle of it all. John’s written fuck all in weeks. Not that Paul’s noticed—apart from needling him about the film. He’s not been asking John for much help on his stuff, either.
“Yeah,” John agrees, quietly.
Paul must hear something in it, because stretches up from his timid perch, and turns to stare out the same window John was watching him out of, like he’s uncomfortable watching John any longer.
John takes in the lines of his profile. He’s still cocaine skinny, despite seemingly doing less of it these days. Too busy working. He looks elfin and elegant; like a porcelain doll. Unattainable, John thinks. Distracts himself from the thought by taking another drag of his ciggie.
“And this is great, isn’t it?” Paul says, apropos of nothing. He turns from the window to scan the empty seats around them, a self-satisfied softness in his expression.
John looks around. Realises what Paul must mean. “What, the bus?”
“Yeah,” Paul says, emphatic, turning back to John with an easy smile.
It’s so Paul—without pretense or artifice. A fleeting glimpse of who he was in the beginning of all this, before he’d learned how to play Beatle. Loves a bus, does Paul. Affection unfurls inside John’s chest, pushing out the low current of resentment. It’s only Paul.
John huffs out a laugh, amused. “D’you get your first wank on a bus or something?”
Paul’s nose scrunches with happy humour. “No. It was at the pictures, actually,” he tells John primly. “Under me coat.”
“Bet the lads thought you were dead cool,” John says, because he can see it as if he was there. Pudgy Paul in his Inny blazer, relaying the whole thing with that curl of a smirk he gets when he’s pleased with himself.
Paul says, “I didn’t do it for the glory. I did it for the love of a good woman.”
John laughs around an inhale of his cigarette, despite himself, coughing, a little. Paul preens with validation—the smirk appearing, just as John predicted.
“Nah, they’re good—buses,” Paul continues, the daft lad. “Can make a film out of a bus,” he says, giving John a pointed look.
There he goes, John thinks. Gone as quick as he was here—his wings thrumming with purpose.
Like roiling, crashing waves suddenly gone still, John feel his affection stop dead. Held in stasis.
“Can you?” John says, because he has nothing else to say.
He’s not sure he quite meant it as a dig, but it lands like one—the clear implication of all the disorganisation they've bumped into through all this; the glaring mistakes Paul's made as he's lead them, and the fact that they're all just playing pretend here; the knowledge that none of this would be a problem if they had Brian. Paul shifts and blinks away, again, shuttered behind his usual impassive mask.
John feels guilt, quickly followed by self-righteous irritation. Paul could just say something—if John upset him; if he wants John to care as much as him; if he wants John to help.
“Wouldn’t have minded it on a bus,” Paul says, idly, like John hadn’t spoken at all.
It confuses John for a moment. “What?”
Paul makes a lazy wank gesture in the air. Then, his arms slide forward over the seat, hanging loosely in John’s space. His embroidered sleeves hiding everything but the tips of his fingers. John's hyperaware of them. His hand is on his thigh, holding loosely to his almost-gone cigarette. Inches away, if they wanted to—
John lifts it and takes a drag. He knows wishful thinking with Paul's never gotten him anywhere.
Paul leans his chin on the head rest again, and when he looks back at John, it’s not with his big-eyed, boyish stare, but with a wry hint of mischief in his expression.
“Did you ever try to get a bird to give you a blowie sitting in the back?” he asks, in that quiet voice they’d use on tours, when they were surrounded by people, and Paul had something unseemly he wanted to tell John. Too filthy to come out of Beatle Paul’s charming little mouth.
John knows Paul’s trying to lead them away from his moment of bitterness. John’s comment didn’t happen. Not to Paul. And if John doesn’t say anything, then it didn’t happen at all. There’s a split-second where John considers turning it into a fight, but he sees it play out before he’s even thought of how to start: he’ll snap, and Paul will pretend he has no idea why John’s annoyed, and John will say something cruel about the film or his music—because all Paul cares about is the film or the music—and Paul will disappear into himself, and neither of them will talk about the reason they’re acting like this in the first place, and John is exhausted.
“Can’t say I’m that sort of pervert,” John says dryly, turning to stare out the window, again. It’s fogged up now that it’s the two of them in here, warming up the bus.
“It’s a delicate art form, you know,” he hears Paul tell him.
John watches two wet drops, parallel to each other, racing down the glass at the same pace. The one on the left crashes into another, and diverts into a wild slant. The first disappears into the seams of the window. “Is it?” John says.
“Well you have to get an empty bus,” Paul continues, and then his voice drops, low and soft—coaxing. “You know. ‘Don’t worry, baby. No one’s gonna see.’”
The air around them shifts. John feels a familiar pull; feels Paul’s eyes on him, hot like a branding iron. He doesn’t turn back to face Paul, but he lets his eyes wander over to meet his, intrigued, inspite of knowing better.
Paul’s got his thumb in his mouth—his gaze dark. It thrums quietly through John’s veins. He’s aware, suddenly, that his neck is hot, and his ears are hot. His body reacting to the sense of anticipation, regardless of whether John wants it to or not.
“Then you get her worked up a bit,” Paul says, his voice still low. His hand drops from his mouth, and hangs, his fingertips brushing faintly against John’s knee. John looks at it, and feels Paul look at it, too. Paul’s fingers walk up John’s leg, marching one finger-foot in front of the other up his thigh, keeping a steady rhythm. He stops at John’s pocket. He’ll need to turn get to anything important, now.
To get John worked up.
It’s a lazy seduction—smug, and presumptuous. It shouldn’t cause John’s breath to bottleneck in his throat the way it does. But of course, it does. Paul’s fingers having the same effect as a fork in a plug socket—sending a sparkling current running through John’s veins.
Then, in a blink, Paul snatches the cigarette out from John’s fingers.
John waits a beat to look up at him—not ready to give in yet when Paul hasn’t given him anything real.
“Have to make it worth her while,” Paul says, as his cheeks hollow around an inhale, his eyes never leaving John’s.
“Liable to make bad decisions,” John says, matching Paul’s quiet tone without meaning to.
Paul’s lips curl up, and then, just as quickly, uncurl. “Only good decisions with me, love,” he says evenly, holding the cigarette out in front of John.
John reaches up to take it back, but Paul pulls it out of his reach. There’s a gentle patience to his movements—like, no, John, that’s not the way. Like he wants something from John. It swoops low in John’s navel.
John pulls his hand away, and Paul holds the cigarette in front of him again.
John hesitates a moment. If he’s gonna go through with it, he may as well go through with it. They could just get off. It’s not like—
Well, he doesn’t even know what he wants, really. Wants Paul and doesn’t.
He leans in, pressing his lips to the filter poking out between Paul’s fingers, his mouth brushing against Paul’s warm skin. He sees Paul’s chest rise slowly, with his inhale, like Paul’s trying to breathe it with John. Feeling it by osmosis.
John exhales in Paul’s face. This time, when Paul’s lips curl into a smirk, he can’t seem to tamp it down. He’s excited now.
“You know, John,” he says, as he brings the last dregs of the cigarette back to his own mouth. “Doesn’t seem to be anyone else on this bus.” He blinks at John—all innocent-like. John wonders how many birds he managed to sway in the end; or if the routine is just for him.
“Fancy that,” he says.
Paul smiles. He slides out of his seat, dropping the cigarette and crushing is as he goes. John watches him saunter down the thin bus corridor—his mop of black hair, and the round swell of his arse disappearing and reappearing in the shadowy gaps between windows. He stops halfway, glancing back over his shoulder, curiously—aware that John’s not following. And it’s that that knocks about John’s chest—the crack in Paul’s confident seduction. John feels something unfurl in his belly. He feels an itch in his fingers—a desire to touch. John swallows. He gets up and follows.
Paul sits in the middle seat at the back, his thighs sliding out wide and inviting. John stops in the gap between them, his hands on either seat next to him, looming over Paul. Decides not to make it easy for him. There’s something about Paul needling for his attention—focused on John and only John.
Paul’s eyes roam slowly up his body—from his thighs to his waist, up, up, up, till he meets John’s eyes. It feels heavy—tingling up John’s skin like Paul’s gaze is physical. Paul leans forward, reaching out to wrap a loose hand around the back of John’s knee, urging John forward gently.
“I first saw you on a bus, you know,” Paul tells him, quietly.
No. John didn’t know.
“Did you?” John says, hating how desperately he wants Paul to tell him every detail.
But Paul only hums idly in response. His hand slides slowly up the back of John’s thigh, leaving a ghostly sense of warmth lingering in the fabric of John’s trousers. He slides up, over John’s arse, up to his waist, dipping two fingers behind John’s suspender and tugging it until John feels it slide over his shoulder.
“What did you think of me?” John asks. His cheeks burn in embarrassment, even if Paul’s too distracted by his other suspender to notice. He sounds so eager to know. Begging for scraps of vulnerability, when it was Paul who brought it up.
Paul moves his hands to undo the buttons of John’s trousers. He glances up as he untucks John’s shirt, exposing John’s navel to the cool air of the bus. John shivers as Paul leans in. He feels the hot cloud of Paul’s breath brushing against his skin, over the waistband of his underwear.
“I liked your sideboards,” Paul murmurs, and then he kisses John’s stomach.
Even with all the anticipation, it still makes John gasp, the sharp heat of it blooming through his organs, firing up his prick.
He feels Paul’s smug smile against his skin, and it only makes him harder—knowing Paul’s proud of himself for turning him on; knowing Paul’s looking to get his cock in his mouth.
Paul pulls down John’s trousers and his underwear with them. John only vaguely registers the brush of them against his legs, as Paul kisses his naked hip, his thigh; his mouth opening as he goes—the soft, wet press of his tongue poking out to meet John’s skin.
John feels Paul’s fingers gripping his arse, a little tighter than his lazy exploration of John’s legs had been. He kicks his trousers off his feet as gracefully as he can manage with Paul trying to urge him even closer, pelvis first. He tightens his grip on the bus chairs to keep himself balanced—thank fuck, because Paul decides it’s time to suckle gently at his’s balls.
“Jesus,” John hisses out, shoving a desperate hand into Paul’s hair. Paul doesn’t go smug against him, this time, though—too captivated with licking his way up the underside of John’s cock, his nose bumping gingerly against John as he goes up.
John closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the intensity of it; the lightness in Paul’s touch.
It’s been a while for them—since Brian, since Brian, since Brian, and John swallows down the lump in his throat like swallowing glass. Focuses on Paul’s strong, callused fingers, and the burning heat of Paul’s mouth. Paul who's here.
There was a quick stretch there—during the summer—where they couldn’t keep themselves away from each other; Paul’s mind going double-time—buzzing off whatever shite he’d been snorting with Groovy Bob—and so carelessly hungry for John.
They used to be a bit relentless about all this stuff when they were kids—wanting it hard, and fast, and delirious enough not to have to think too hard. But they weren’t thinking much this summer. Or they were thinking differently. Thinking in new ways with new drugs, and new music. And Paul was so happy to just explore a bit, for once; to take his time touching John, tasting him; pliable under John’s hands, like it wasn’t just a thing that happened, anymore, but something he actually wanted. Smiling at John—intentional.
Like this.
It aches in John’s chest. He wasn’t aware, until Paul touched him tonight, that he missed him so much.
John opens his eyes. Looks down to find Paul already looking up at him. He feels an odd relief, at that. He feels an inexorable desire to touch Paul.
He lets his knuckles brush gently against Paul’s cheek. Paul’s lashes flutter in response, but he doesn’t look away. John trails his thumb down Paul’s face, over the soft pillow of his bottom lip. Paul opens his mouth for him, letting John dip into the wet heat of it. His tongue brushing against the pad of John’s thumb. The thrill of it sinks slowly through John.
Paul chases it for a moment when John pulls out, and then seems to decide John’s cock is probably a better target, taking the tip in his mouth.
John sighs. He brings his hand back up to Paul’s hair to ground himself, rubbing his damp thumb against Paul’s hairline. Paul makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, like he likes that.
He takes more of John in—enveloping John’s cock in heat—and licks John’s slit as he pulls back, kissing John’s tip for good measure before he swallows him again.
A choked off noise breaks out from the back of John’s throat. “That’s it, love, just like that” John breathes out, because encouragement always makes Paul keen. Another little moan slips out of Paul, vibrating against John’s shaft—a chain reaction that travels up John’s body, cresting like a shiver through his skill.
The flaming heat inside John licks at him, setting his skin feverish against the chill inside the bus. He’s still got his shirt and tie on. He can feel the sweat at his neck; down his spine. He pets loosely at Paul’s hair, watching himself disappear and reappear out of Paul’s inviting mouth; cataloguing the breathy, sloppy sounds Paul makes.
He was the one who taught Paul how to do this. Even when Paul was shit at it—over-eager, with no stamina—the sight of him on his knees for John, with those ridiculous lashes fanning out over his cheeks, was enough to get John weak.
John reaches his other hand forward, gripping the seat-back behind Paul, so his trembling legs don’t send him collapsing. He keeps sliding further and further down Paul’s throat, not that Paul seems to mind. Relentless when he sets him mind to something, Paul is. Paul’s fingers press hard into John’s thighs. His tongue dances against John’s shaft. There’s spit dribbling out of his mouth with every pump of John, making his lips glisten in the dim light of the bus. Debauched and enjoying it. Debauching himself for John.
Like earlier—like he can feel John watching and wanting—Paul’s eyes turn up to look back him. He slide back to suck as John’s tip, wrapping a fist around John but not doing anything with it. Leaving teasing, mouthy kisses against the length of John’s cock. Glancing back at John after every one, to make sure he’s watching.
John feels like he’s imploding inside his skin. He moans, close and shivering; everything about his body too tight—too tense.
“Come on, Johnny. I’ve got you. Come on,” Paul urges, pulling him forward. John’s knees bracket Paul’s hips on the seat. Paul sits back, head against the head rest, giving John’s cock a couple of slow, loose strokes, before taking it in his mouth again. His hand—still slick from being wrapped around John—pushes John’s arse in, getting him as far as he can go into Paul’s mouth.
John bucks into him, gasping out at the pleasure of it. Paul chokes on it for a moment, but he makes a low, encouraging noise, kneading John’s ass with his knuckles to make him continue.
“Paul,” John gasps out. Conscious of not actually making Paul gag on it but still wanting to. God, Paul’s mouth.
Paul leans his head forward, as much as he can with a mouthful of John, already. He makes a slurping, needy noise, like if John’s not going to suffocate him with it then Paul will do it himself.
John feels like he’s being slowly sucked out of his body. Dizzy with it. He grips at Paul’s hair, roughly—to hold him back, or stave off his orgasm, or keep himself from going radioactive with the power of it. Paul pushes forward, moaning and gurgling as John hits the back of his throat, only pulling back inches before diving back in for it—John helpless to stop him. And he comes gasping and shaking into Paul’s waiting mouth.
This time Paul does push him back as he chokes, swallowing down as much as he can—the rest of John’s come steaking down his chin. He takes a quick, gasping breath, as if preparing to dive under water, and puts his mouth around John’s again to lick up the rest of it, until John’s twitching away from him—so oversensitive that it feels like Paul’s mouth is burning him.
John sits in Paul’s lap, and Paul doesn’t wait before launching for his mouth, pushing his tongue—filthy and frenzied—against John’s. John feels his glasses pressing, painfully into the bridge of his nose, going lopsided. He pulls them off and drops them behind himself, onto his trousers, not caring at the state of them when he has Paul wild like this. He licks up the taste of himself off Paul’s lips. Lets his mouth roam over Paul’s jaw, making him sigh.
“Want to fuck you,” Paul hisses out, desperately; trembling under John’s kisses.
John huffs an amused laugh against his skin. “Why’d you wear me out then?”
“You were liking it,” Paul murmurs—his jagged, bitten fingernails digging into John’s thigh, as John nips lightly at spot where his jaw meets his neck. “Looked good,” he adds, quieter. And then: a whining, “God, John,” when John kisses behind his ear. John feels Paul’s hips cant up. He feels the hard bugle in Paul’s trousers pressing up against his naked arse.
“Alright. I’ll get you there, baby. Alright,” John soothes him, kissing Paul’s temple, lightly, before climbing off his lap. He lays Paul out, across the seats, yanking off his trousers, feeling his heart flutter at the sight of Paul’s cock, pink and stiff and leaking, just from that—from blowing John. Christ, how in the fuck did John find him?
John kisses his way up Paul’s thigh, as Paul makes breathy little whimpering noises. When John glances up at him, his eyes are screwed shut like he’s in agony; his hands curled into fists, on his stomach—clearly desperate to touch himself, but not allowing it. Saving it for John. It sends muted tickles of pleasure, buzzing down John’s body again.
John goes slow, nipping and mouthing at him, lightly—getting him close and then pulling away to kiss his hip, his thigh, his stomach, as Paul catches his breath. John wants to keep him on the cusp forever—wanting and wanting and wanting. So needy for John he can’t do anything but squirm and moan at the faintest of touches; tugging desperately at John’s hair like he’s trying to fuse John’s mouth against his skin. Bring John into him. Swallow him whole—or maybe have John do it—until there’s finally release.
John doesn’t. He kisses his way up Paul’s body. Kisses Paul’s mouth, slow against Paul’s frenzied state. He slides his hand under Paul’s shirt, over Paul’s racing heart, feels Paul’s fluttery breath when he flicks lightly at Paul’s nipple. He wonders if he could get Paul to come just from this, but Paul has better ideas; gripping tightly at John’s hips and pulling him close so he can grind his cock against him.
“Please,” Paul whines.
“Yeah,” John sighs out, suddenly aware of how desperate he is for it, too. He wants to see Paul undone. Wants to feel it fill him up as Paul spills helplessly inside him.
John sits up, aware of Paul’s eyes on him. He gives Paul’s cock a slow stroke, collecting up his sticky precome, and smearing it against his fingers. He reaches back to open himself up for Paul. His prick’s only half-awake, still, but Paul hands travel up his body—under the shirt he’s still wearing, and then yanking it off, along with John’s tie—and the sensations are nice. Warm in his stomach. When Paul gives his cock a tentative stroke, the blood rush feels like a comforting wave, filling John out pleasantly, instead of uncomfortably.
He realises Paul’s speaking—murmuring like he’s possessed: “That’s it, John, fuck, look at you, want you.” And it rings out in John’s head. Want you, want you, want you.
John’s hand grazes again Paul’s cock as he fingers himself, and Paul makes a sound—his eyes closing from the heady sensation, but John wants him looking. John angles Paul’s cock, and sinks down on it, watching Paul intently as his back arches off the seats, Paul’s hips pushing up to meet him.
They stumble their way into a rhythm—both of them too high on the feeling of it to do anything but bump into each other, at first. John bounces on him, keeping his hands pressed to Paul’s ribs to keep his balance, his cock smacking, hard, against Paul’s stomach. Paul’s hands still on him, gripping at his hips, baring his neck for John as he moans. Eyes closed in ecstasy.
John feels a frustrated pang in his chest. He grabs at Paul’s shoulders; yanks him to sit up; yanks his shirt off; presses Paul’s naked chest to his. It works for a moment, Paul’s eyes opening lazily to meet John’s.
“Stay with me,” John whispers.
“Yeah,” Paul sighs and kisses him, his arm winding around John’s back. His cock hammering up into him. They’re too frantic to hold it, though. Their mouths keep misaligning—Paul trying to chase him and missing, his lips and tongue smearing against John’s chin and jaw.
Paul makes a frustrated noise, grips John’s hips again, pulling him off. John goes reaching for him—a startling panic suddenly shooting uncomfortably in his chest—but then Paul pushes him down, and enters him again, fucking him hard into the backseat, kissing him like he wants to imprint the taste of John on his tongue.
John gets lost in the sensations: feels the rough fabric of the seat scraping against his spine, and the tight press of Paul’s fingers, and his arse full of Paul’s cock, pumping relentlessly into him—hitting his prostate like a punch, making John shake.
Paul won’t stop moaning. He face is buries in John's neck. John can feels Paul’s ragged gasps against his pulse; can feel Paul’s heartbeat knocking against his, rabbit-quick, where their chests are pressed together. He’s surrounded by Paul—the musky, sex smell of him, and his searing hot skin, and the clumping, curling strands of his sweaty hair, and his cock piercing into him—but Paul’s buried in his neck, and John wants him here.
“Paul,” John pleads.
Paul looks, and this time his eyes stay locked on John, his eyebrows frowning down from the intensity of it, his eyes hungry and desperate. His left hand leaves John’s hip, and he trails a line of sweat streaking down John’s temple with two of his fingers—scratching faintly at the hair there.
John hears him in his head, earlier—I liked your sideboards—and the feeling floods inside him—fierce and immense. He comes spilling into the bare gap between the sweaty press of their bodies. He hears Paul cry out, as he follows him—together, together, together.
Paul collapses on top of him, panting like there was no air in his lungs to begin with. John lets his heartbeat settle with the rise and fall of Paul’s chest. They lie there, stuck together, for a few minutes, until the cold of the night starts to seep into their sweaty skin.
Paul pulls out of him, and reaches a hand down to the floor, rooting around blindly until he finds what he was looking for—John’s trousers, apparently. He pulls John’s ciggies out of his pocket, and lights one up, before dropping the pack and lighter back to the floor, paying no mind to where they land.
And it's like before—so Paul that it only makes John feel fond.
“Help yourself,” John says, dryly.
Paul smiles around the cigarette, and lays himself on top of John again—chest to chest. He holds the cigarette over John, in offering. John stretches up to smoke it from between Paul’s fingers. Paul grins, as he takes it back. He glances up to the window above them, taking another drag, looking up at the diffused light of the moon through the condensation in the window.
His mind’s going, John knows. He’s thinking now. Despite everything, he’s still floating away right in front of John. His presence, as mercurial as the moon.
“Let’s stay a while,” John blurts out, and hates it, and hates himself, and hates Paul for making him like this. He wills the burning in his cheeks away, before Paul can look back down at him.
“On the bus,” John continues, anyway, pushing through it, because the alternative is being alone again, and that’s still worse. “Think I understand your bus fetish now,” he tries, because Paul loves his jokes, no matter how stupid they are, and if he’s presented with a joke, he won’t look past it.
Paul smiles down at him, like John knew he would—cherubic, and glowing under the muted moonlight.
“Roll up, roll up,” he says, holding the smoke up to John's lips, again. John kisses his fingers as he inhales.
“Satisfaction guaranteed,” John agrees, as Paul pulls it back for his own drag.
Paul giggles quietly, his nose wrinkling with laughter.
John feels a heavy fondness unfurling inside him. He holds it close. Swimming in the feeling of it—while he has Paul here.