Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The phone goes in the hallway whilst Paul is in the living room brooding.

“It’s for you!” Mike shouts. As Paul approaches him Mike slips a hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s John, he sounds drunk.”

Paul feels the usual kick of excitement at John’s name then remembers it’s not like that anymore – there's something else shot through it these days.

“John?”

Mike wanders off back into the kitchen and from down the end of the phone line Paul can hear voices chatting, the clink of glasses, the call of a barman. John takes a minute to speak. “Where are you?”

Paul leans against the phone table.

“I’m at home, soft-head,” he says gently. “You just rang me here, remember?”

More shouting in the background then John’s voice crackles through. “Oh yeah, sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?”

More radio static – Paul wonders if it’s a bad line or if John’s just that drunk his synapses are shot.

“You’re not here.”

Paul smiles sadly into the phone. “No, I’m not.”

“Oh.”

“Want me to come? Where are you, The Grapes?”

John coughs, his slight nervous reflex. “Yeah, if you want to.”

“I’ll just stick a jumper on. Stay there, ok?”

“Ok.”

The line goes dead. Paul sighs more heavily than should be warranted for an eighteen year old and calls through to Mike. “I’m going out!”

When he’s halfway up the stairs Mike appears from the kitchen eating a butty. “Dare I ask why you’re miserable and John’s drunk again?”

“Piss off, Mike,” Paul replies, but without any venom. He drags himself up the stairs, pulls a jumper on, grabs his jacket and is gone and out of the front door in less than five minutes.

The bus into town takes about half an hour and this is the fifth time in the last two weeks he’s taken it for this very reason. John has started phoning him from various locations, usually drunk and Paul can’t do anything but go to him when he does. He might be dealing with this better than John is (hasn’t taken to drinking on his own in the afternoon at least) but he’s still not learned how to deny himself this response.

His own reaction to the current situation has so far consisted of several aborted walks up towards Menlove Avenue - only to turn around again halfway there and walk back home shivering in his coat - and ringing John’s number when he knows he’s in just so that they can sit there on the line in silence with each other until Mimi advises John he’s cluttering up the hallway and the call has to end. Well, that and sitting around over-thinking and snapping at his dad and Mike whenever either of them pluck up the courage to speak to him.

He’s thoroughly miserable. And feels like he’s walking around with his own little raincloud over his head.

Paul gets off the bus and pushes his way through the throng of post-Christmas shoppers all the way up to Mathew Street. He’s drawn like a magnet along the road towards where he can just picture John hunkered down in some far corner of the pub. And there goes that usual spark of happiness at the thought of seeing him mixed with a new tinge of sadness in his stomach as his feet take him there.

Inside The Grapes it’s busy, Friday evening factory kick out meaning there’s a huge swathe of bodies around the bar and an all-pervasive plume of cigarette smoke in the air. Through the noise of chatter and laughing Paul ducks towards the back of the pub and there – as expected – finds John in the corner at a table by himself. All the stools have been repurposed by other pub goers nearby so Paul has to join him on the bench.

“Nursing that, are you?” He asks, dropping down beside the all too familiar body, nodding to John’s pint glass which is going untouched on the table.

“Got no more money,” John shrugs. “Can’t stomach any more, anyway.”

His words are slightly slurred but Paul knows the varying degrees of drunk John and assesses in seconds that we’re currently at ‘melancholy’, not yet at ‘misery’, ‘anger’ or ‘blind self destruction’. Which is good, but he’s seen a lot of melancholy over the last two weeks.

“How come you ended up here, then?”

John shrugs again, eyes still down on the table and says, “Started walking to yours, got halfway there and then didn’t have anywhere to go. Decided on here.”

Paul winces internally. At least when he’s done the same thing recently he’s buggered off back home to the warmth. He supposes Mimi’s general frostiness since John rolled back home from Hamburg doesn’t offer a pleasant alternative to retreat to.

“You could have rung earlier, we could have met up at George’s or something.”

John glances at him briefly and something flares in Paul’s stomach then settles to an ache. “Don’t particularly want to see George.”

“The girls then? We could have all met each other somewhere, gone to the cinema.”

John raises his eyebrows tiredly. “Don’t want to see them, either.” Paul knows how he feels - they really only want to see each other, which is the problem. And why they keep trying to avoid each other and yet inevitably end up calling when they can’t stand it any longer.

It occurs to him he hasn’t even had anything to drink and is already at melancholy too.

“Besides,” John mutters. “Cyn’s not fucking talk to me.”

Alarmed, Paul leans forward on the table to catch John’s eye and says, “What?”

John won’t look up at him so underneath the table Paul knocks him with his knee. John reluctantly meets his eye. “She says I’m giving her the brush off.”

“And are you?” Paul asks, his heart suddenly hammering wildly inside his chest. He has no idea why, it’s not like it changes anything.

John shakes his head. “Don’t know. She reckons I’ve ‘gone distant’.”

Paul feels a rising tide of guilt about Cynthia in his chest but pushes it down again. “Why’s she saying that?”

John looks briefly sheepish, rubs a hand over his eyes and Paul gets an almost irresistible urge to touch him, pull his hand away from his face just to ease the frown creasing the soft scatter of freckles on his forehead.

“I’ve stopped...” John doesn’t really do blushing, the armour he wears is of someone too cock sure of himself for that but Paul thinks that if he did, now would be the time he’d start. “Haven’t been able to – y'know... sleep with her.”

Something Paul isn’t going to put a name to sparks in his stomach. “Bloody hell, John!” He looks covertly around, checks no one is listening in to this all-too-telling conversation. “Why not?”

John squints almost sarcastically at him through the poor lighting of the pub. “Why the fuck do you think, Paul?”

He tries not to feel anything about that question but unfortunately it rumbles through him anyway – pleasure, triumph, satisfaction that he’s not alone in this misery. Paul hates himself just a bit.

“Shit,” is the only thing he can think of to say, looks down at the sticky table in front of them, beer glass rings etched into the grooves of the wood. Not for the first time over the past couple of weeks he feels an unstoppable flare of panic.

He must be silent for a little bit too long because John eventually says, “You finishing that?” and nods at his own half drunk pint glass.

Paul considers it, sitting there going flat. At the next table over some bloke and his girl have started kissing and at the spike of jealousy Paul grabs it, downs the contents and looks at John. “Let’s get out of here.”

The air outside is fresh and clean after the stuffiness of the pub and Mathew Street is just starting to rev up for the night, girls out giggling in their heels and jazz music already spilling out of the Cavern. They walk aimlessly along until they hit Stanley Street and turn right, out into the busy shoppers.

The milling of people against each other doesn’t do either of them any good because eventually they end up jostling into each other and the fourth time it happens - causing all of his nerve endings to light up where his arm has just brushed John’s - Paul decides he’s had enough. “Look, let’s go home, yeah?”

John looks briefly alarmed. “We can’t go back to yours.”

Paul rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, Mike’s there and Dad will be home in a bit.”

They’ve stopped in the middle of the street and some old woman behind John walks into him, sighs loudly and then steps around him. It’s testimony to their current, dire situation that John doesn’t even notice this. “No, bad idea. Let’s go to another pub.”

Paul sighs, starting to border on angry. “Neither of us have got any money. And we can’t keep avoiding being in the same house.”

“Yes, we can,” John replies, stubborn.

Paul’s new default mode changes briefly from wanting to kiss him to wanting to punch him. “So what are we going to do for the rest of our lives, only meet in public places? Only talk on the phone?”

John shrugs. “Yeah, probably.”

“Oh, for god’s sake.”

Paul breaks the brand new ‘no touching each other’ rule to grab John’s arm and pull him out of the crowd back towards the bus station. As soon he can, John tugs his arm free and pats down his jacket where Paul touched him like he’s trying to brush the feeling away.

“So what about the band, then? Giving that up now, are we?” Paul can hear the anger in his own voice, feels suddenly guilty for it because John’s not matching it with his own anger, which is both unusual and unnerving. He’s too lost and miserable to be angry, which is worrying if nothing else.

“The band only plays in public places, it’s fine.”

As they reach the bus station Paul realises he’s pushed his own hands firmly into his pockets to ensure that he doesn’t either grab John or punch him.

“Great, so we work hard, become millionaires and we only ever bump into each other at the gigs, do we? What about the song writing?”

Before John can answer their bus arrives and without waiting to see whether he’s being followed (knows he will be) Paul goes ahead and gets on. He takes a seat right down the back of the bus but when John joins him he chooses the seat in front, turns himself sideways to talk over the back of the chair. Like they need the protection of at least one bus seat between them.

Paul grits his teeth. “Have you always been this fucking stubborn?” He asks, getting up and removing himself to the seat right next to John, who shifts himself away swiftly so at least they’re not touching. “I’m starting to feel like a bloody leper.”

“That’d make it easier actually,” John mutters, turning miserably towards the window.

It’s been like this for the last two weeks, since they had what Paul is beginning to refer to in his own mind as The Conversation. Whilst in Hamburg – well, probably before that too, if he’s honest with himself – the lines between them had started to blur. Touching each other started to mean something else, sharing a bed started being a thrill instead of just a convenience and Paul realised that everything else had stopped mattering, actually. John was all that mattered. Being with him was all that mattered, and this wasn’t just mates. Mates don’t feel like this, like you want to pin them down on your bed just to feel them beneath you, warm and solid and real.

But then the German police had turned up and Paul had been ripped unceremoniously out of the new and warped life he’d started living. And it was only when he was back in Liverpool without John that he realised actually, he didn’t miss him as a friend, he missed him as something else entirely. Wanted to do things with him that weren’t very platonic at all, in fact. And he’d had two terrifying weeks to ruminate on that before he’d heard from George that John was back in Woolton.

Which was when The Conversation took place, in the strange setting of Mimi’s neat and tidy front living room whilst everyone else was out. It had started out as Paul’s anger that John hadn’t told him he was back and somehow mutated into them shouting at each other about how they really felt. He can barely recall it without arousal and embarrassment, but there was an all-too-dangerous moment when John had him pinned up against the wall and it became more than stark what they both wanted and what they were really arguing about. The memory of John’s face so close to his and that fierce, almost impossible-to-stop desperation to kiss him both terrified and nearly broke Paul. He’d realised he had never wanted anything this much in his life, and sensed John felt that same thing too.

And the second they both realised that, they agreed it needed to stop. All of it; the touching, the bed sharing, the spending every waking hour together - otherwise something would happen that neither of them could allow. It didn’t matter what they’d seen existing in Hamburg, in the real world this was dangerous.

John had needed some serious persuading that things could continue as normal with the band but Paul knew beyond words that he couldn’t lose that otherwise he’d lose him. And the thought of that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. So they agreed to this, this stalemate.

Avoiding each other. Being strictly bandmates. Which was so far failing completely.

Back on the bus Paul watches the city start to give way to the suburbs outside as they flash past women pushing prams, men heading home in overalls and some kids playing in the bombed-out pub in Old Swan. He sees several sets of couples heading in the direction of the cinema and finds himself thinking of Dot.

“I haven’t even phoned her,” he finds himself saying. John twitches out of his stupor.

“Who?”

“Dot. She’s called twice this week and I’ve got Mike to tell her I’m out.”

“Great,” John replies. “Mine’s about to dump me and yours is getting the silent treatment.”

Paul considers for a moment, trying to find some easy way out of the problem. “Maybe we just need some Hamburg working girls to sort us out?”

John idly shoves the empty seat in front of him and mutters, “Trust me, that’s not what I need.”

Arousal kicks warm in Paul’s stomach at the implication of those words. He tries not to think about what that means but the images start forming in his mind anyway and he starts to feel warm and uncomfortable.

He glances down at John’s hands fiddling with the lighter he’s pulled out of his pocket and feels another spike of that panic though - about the fact that the only person he wants to touch right now is John, to the point where it’s like a constant itch under his skin. He thinks about just reaching out and taking hold of his wrist just to be in contact with some part of him.

“Don’t even think about it,” John says.

When Paul looks up he realises he must have been staring. But John looks sheepish, which means he must have been thinking about it too.

“Look,” Paul says. “Just come back to mine, we can do some writing – we'll stay in the front room with Mike.”

“Not a good idea,” John replies.

Paul tries very hard not to lose his temper. “What, you think I’m just going to jump you?” He asks angrily.

“No,” John hisses, looking around to check there’s no one nearby listening. “I don’t trust myself not to jump you, you twat.”

That sits in the air between them for a moment, the fact that John still wants this so much he doesn’t trust himself. Their eye contact hangs on just a little bit too long but Paul doesn’t care much about anything right now other than the image of that, of how much he wants that too, doesn’t really care about it making him queer anymore or any of the other reasons they agreed not to ever touch each other again as long as it happens, so he gets some relief.

“Well if that’s what I want too,” he says, feeling a blush of shame starting at his neck, “Then why won’t you just bloody do it?”

John’s eyes still tell the story of how many pints down he is but he sounds more sober when he speaks. “What, and then both end up inside for buggery? Great idea, Paul.”

“That doesn’t - “

But John cuts in, sounding quietly furious now. “What, that doesn’t happen? Of course it does, it’s fucking illegal and never mind that, if anyone finds out we’ll get beaten to a pulp or end up in the fucking docks.” John looks suspiciously around the bus despite no one being near by. “This shit gets you hung, drawn and quartered around here, Paul.”

It’s like a bucket of cold water sluicing over him so Paul looks away, down the end of the bus where a couple have got on, holding hands and both dressed up like they’re off on a date. He suddenly feels not only angry but sick.

And yet there’s still that fucking itch under his skin.

When Paul glances back at John he’s drawing stick figures in the small patch of mist on the window. Even the stick figures look miserable.

He hates himself for saying it but feels desperately like he’s got no choice.

“I think I’ve got to leave the band, then.”

John turns towards him so quickly that their thighs are suddenly pressed together in the small space. Paul wishes he wasn’t aware of it but he is. And it feels a lot nicer than it should.

“What the fuck are you saying that for?”

He shrugs. “Because that gets me out of your group of friends, doesn’t it? And you out of mine. We just won’t see each other.” John’s face is unreadable, but Paul is aware that means nothing. The deer is still in the headlights inside that complex brain of his. “You’ll still have Stu, I’ll still see George.”

“Stu’s in fucking Germany, Paul,” John replies, like that’s the big issue here.

“Well Pete and Ivan then, they were your mates before I was anyway.”

John stares him down for a moment. “Are you trying to be a bastard?” He asks coldly.

But of course Paul knows that John thinks everyone leaves him, people either die or just plain old fuck off, told him once when he was flat out drunk that he thinks he’s got some sort of taint on him. And the last thing Paul wants to do is leave him, but what other choice do they have?

“So what, just carry on like this?”

“Well,” John mutters, “At least when you’re acting like a twat I feel less like jumping you.”

Paul smiles, but it doesn’t last long because it’s not funny, not in the slightest.

Realising it’s his stop coming up he tries again. “Please, just come to mine, yeah? Mike’s there.”

“No,” John says miserably. “Just forget it, I’m sorry I rang you.”

Something hollow and aching opens up in Paul’s chest. “Well, I’m not. It’s shit, not seeing you.”

John is scuffing the back of the seat in front with his foot. “Feels like I’m going out of my fucking mind.” Paul wants to reach out and take his hand, or something less poncy than that, just to touch him in some way. He hates being miserable himself but somehow John’s misery is worse. He’s had more than enough for a lifetime, Paul resents being the cause of any more. John’s voice, quiet and barely-there snaps him out of it. “Are you really dropping out of the band, then?”

The bus stops for Allerton at that moment but Paul doesn’t make any move to leave. Maybe they’ll just stay on the bus all night together, it’s a public place after all.

“Course not,” he replies, and at least John stops looking like he might break. “It’s just torture this, isn’t it? Wanting something you can’t have.”

They stare at each other for a moment and Paul realises John is looking at his mouth. Oh, he wishes they just could. It would be hard and fast and fucking brutal and Paul already knows it would be the best of his life.

A group of kids getting on with their parents jog them both out of the moment and Paul resolutely looks away. He wants to be little again like that, when things were simple and mates were just mates.

When they finally get to Woolton, Paul knocks his knee against John’s and stands up to press the bell on the handrail in front of them.

“Thanks,” Paul says to the driver as they both jump off a moment later, then stand suddenly freezing on the pavement as the bus roars away in the distance.

“You can’t come in,” John says, “Mimi’s gone to the flicks and the student still isn’t back after Christmas break.”

Paul shrugs. “Didn’t expect you to let me in, just wanted to walk with you.”

Normally, of course, this would be the perfect opportunity to stick Elvis on loud in the living room and sit drinking beer with the unexpected peace of Mimi being away, but now empty houses mean something different. Now they seem like temptation.

So they wordlessly trudge off into the January evening, through the cold and the dark. Paul half wishes John would say something, change his mind and invite him in but of course he doesn’t. Because John is nothing if not stubborn.

“Right,” he says awkwardly outside 251. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

Paul just stares at him, willing him to break. But deep down he knows he’s the weak link in this agreement, knows that given just half a chance he’d forget it all. He wants far too much to care, really.

“When will I see you next?”

John shrugs. “Next week I guess, we’ve got a gig at the Casbah, haven’t we?”

Paul just nods. He’s trying to string out the time. “Yeah, course.”

But neither of them make a move to leave, just keep standing there in the freezing cold until Paul starts to feel his toes going numb inside his shoes.

“Paul,” John says eventually, “Go home, you’re shivering.”

And he is, of course he is but he doesn’t want to be anywhere but here. Where John is.

“Right, ok.”

They look at each other in the darkness and John sighs. “I fucking hate this.”

“Me too.”

And yet Paul still doesn’t want to go, would quite happily stay here losing sensation in his limbs from the cold just so they’re together.

“Well one of us has got to go first,” John says. “And you’re a dozy twat that would stand here all night so I’m going in.”

Paul finds himself laughing. He’s been with him for the last hour or so and yet he still misses him. “Yeah, alright.”

“Night,” John mutters, then opens the driveway gates and heads in.

Paul doesn’t torture himself any longer, just turns and heads down to the golf course, on his way home.

He leaves it go a full twenty four hours, then Paul caves. It’s felt like dragging his nails down a blackboard all day and he can’t take it much longer so when Mike goes upstairs to get ready for his date, Paul goes to the phone and rings John’s number.

The line rings out so long that eventually it disconnects. The sharp disappointment makes him dial again but the same thing happens, a ringing tone until eventually the telephone exchange decides he’s a sad wanker and disconnects the line.

Of course his first thought is to go up there, but John is probably out somewhere with Pete or Ivan, begging pints off the others whilst slowly getting sozzled.

Or worse he’s out with Cyn, and Paul feels horrible at the spike of jealousy that creates in his chest. He stews about it so long in the hallway that he almost calls Dot out of spite but – no. He doesn’t want to see her. The only person he wants to see is the person he’s not allowed to. And it’s driving him mad.

Paul phones again half an hour later without reply and then once more just before ten pm and eventually goes to bed when he can’t stand the horrible ringing tone any longer.

He sleeps fitfully, if at all and then first thing the following morning – even before Mike is up - Paul tries again, barely making it through the dialling tone with his nerves intact.

He thinks he’s just going to get another dose of ringing out until -

“Hello?”

“Fucking hell, where’ve you been?”

Maybe that was a slightly abrupt reply because a silence is the only thing that follows it until Paul realises the mouthpiece is being muffled by a hand whilst the person on the other end of the line coughs their guts up.

Eventually the silence on the line becomes clear and he hears the clearing of a throat. “Paul?”

“Yeah, are you alright?”

John coughs again. He sounds terrible. “Feel rough, think I’ve got some lurgy.”

Paul frowns. “Right, well is Mimi looking after you?”

There is a brief huff that might be a laugh or another cough. “She’s gone on some day trip to North Wales with the woman from next door.”

“Then I’m coming round.”

“What? Paul - “

“No, I’ll see you soon.”

And with that he puts the phone down.

Paul gathers some Alka Seltzer, orange juice from the fridge and some biscuits from the cupboard and throws his coat on. It briefly occurs to him that John might just resolutely refuse to answer the door but he honestly doesn’t care. It’s bad enough staying away from him, but knowing he’s there alone when he sounds like he’s dying is something different. He can put all that other shit aside and just be a mate for an hour, he’s not incapable of that.

The journey seems to take half the time it usually does and soon he’s knocking on the front door – he usually goes round the back but somehow that seems too intimate. If John wants to turn him away here he can.

Paul waits so long he thinks he’s going to have to throw stones at John’s bedroom window but just as he’s putting the orange juice down to go and do that, John appears at the door. He’s in his pyjamas with a thick jumper on top and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders – he’s so pale it’s almost frightening.

“You look like shit,” Paul says.

John just shuffles aside to let him in and even if he wasn’t shivering from head to toe, that alone would tell Paul he’s feverish.

“You look like you’ve got a temperature.”

“It’s freezing in here,” John mumbles, then heads through to the living room, stops as though he’s confused and then turns around. “I think I need to go back to bed.”

He sounds so spaced out that Paul finds himself worrying. “Yeah, you do. Go up and I’ll bring you some tea.”

Almost bumping into the telephone table, John eventually gets up the stairs. Paul feels something that these days he only ever (thankfully) feels very infrequently – he wishes his mother was here. She always knew what to do when he was ill, she used to fix everything and he always felt wrapped up and safe. In comparison he looks down to the few items he’s brought with him and realises he has no idea what to do.

Pulling himself together, Paul makes tea and fills a glass with cold water then takes them upstairs with the biscuits he brought and finds John – still shivering – in bed.

The fact that he’s not telling Paul to get out and insisting they need to stay several metres apart worries him most. Technically he shouldn’t be allowed in the bedroom, never mind with the rest of the house empty.

“Here, sit up and drink this,” Paul says, dropping two Alka Seltzers into the glass of water and listening whilst they fizz. John drags himself upright and takes the glass, still shivering so much the water shimmers against the sides. “How long have you felt like crap?”

John coughs. “Started yesterday morning. ‘M alright though.”

“Bollocks,” Paul says, throwing caution to the wind and joining him on the bed. It’s a relief to be able to act naturally around him for the first time in weeks but he feels guilty for thinking that whilst sitting there watching John suffer. “Where were you last night? I rang twice,” he lies.

“Spent the whole day in bed,” John replies, and the damp curls of hair stuck to his neck attest to this, giving him a soft and vulnerable sort of look. It’s sort of wrong really, Paul thinks, seeing him so unguarded against his will.

“Why didn’t you ring me?” Paul asks. “I could have come round.”

John takes a sip of the still fizzing liquid and for a moment his eyes hold some clarity. “Not supposed to be seeing you.”

Paul doesn’t reply to that point, worried he’ll be sent home. “Drink up, it’ll make you feel better.”

John just coughs miserably, his whole body shaking with it but does as he’s told. Once the glass is empty he pulls a disgusted face. “You trying to poison me?”

“Yeah,” Paul replies, “I’m hoping to take over as leader of the band. Lie down.”

He kicks off his shoes so he can shuffle back behind John on the bed and once he lies down beside him he realises just how warm he is. “Fucking hell, you’re like a bloody radiator!”

John just burrows himself under the covers. “I’m freezing, Paul.”

Aware he might get told off for it, Paul moves himself under the covers and pulls John’s shivering body to him, trying to give him some more warmth. The shivering abates slightly and Paul throws an arm over John’s waist, dragging him as close as possible. Somehow it feels effortless to just be a friend in this moment, just a mate worried about a mate.

“I feel sick,” John mutters, but Paul just presses his forehead against the familiar shoulder in front of him.

“You won’t be, just go to sleep.”

There’s silence for a moment until John says, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Well I am, and I’m not going anywhere. Sleep, John.”

Burrowing down further, John finds Paul’s hand under the covers and pulls it up, onto his chest so that he’s clinging onto it, still shivering from the fever. Paul feels an overwhelming rush of something he doesn’t want to name at this moment, he knows John doesn’t take comfort from many things – in fact probably only from Cyn and from Julia – so this feels strangely fragile. He lifts his head slightly, kisses John’s shoulder through the thick wool of his jumper and thinks of Hamburg and a thousand other nights forced to share beds and knows actually, what he’s felt has never been normal, not really. They’ve always been something else to Paul.

John falls asleep fairly quickly, but the grip on his hand doesn’t lessen.

He lies there for a long time listening to John snore lightly, glad to be with him but resolutely not thinking about what that means.

Paul opens his eyes and realises that at some point, he must have fallen asleep too. His arm feels slightly dead where it’s still wrapped around John but he doesn’t mind because John is finally still, the shivering gone. He’s also a damn sight cooler, both of which means his temperature must have come down.

The light from outside has almost disappeared and glancing across at the alarm clock on John’s night stand he sees it’s nearly five o’clock, meaning they’ve both slept the day away. Paul puts his forehead back on the soft wool of John’s shoulder and drops another kiss there. He hears the quiet mumble John makes in his sleep in response and listens to the clock tick.

Paul thinks that actually you could set him up with a guitar and some food for snacks and he could stay here forever. Right now he doesn’t need anything but this.

He doesn’t want to move at all but eventually his bladder is telling him he has to so he moves his arm carefully out of John’s grasp where he’s still holding on vice-like in his sleep and manoeuvres himself carefully out of the tiny bed.

John’s snoring falters but his even breathing tells Paul he’s still asleep.

It’s only when he’s out on the landing heading to the toilet that Paul realises there’s noise from downstairs. After heading to the loo he checks in the mirror that he doesn’t look too sleep-rumpled then goes down.

Mimi nearly jumps when he walks into the kitchen.

“Oh, Paul!”

“Hi Mimi, I didn’t realise you were home. Did you have a good day out?”

She frowns, almost looking behind him. “Yes, thank you. Where’s John?”

“Upstairs in bed, he’s slept all day.”

She immediately looks worried and Paul thinks of all those times John has claimed she doesn’t love him and treats him just like the lodgers. It’s all shite, of course. She adores him.

“Is his cold worse?”

“I think it’s ‘flu, to be honest. Can I get a drink?”

“Of course you can,” she says, ever polite and steps away from the sink. “Does he need anything?”

“He’s still asleep. I gave him some Alka Seltzer when I got here this morning.”

“Well then he’ll need some more,” she says, bustling into action and Paul wonders briefly how Julia would have handled this. She’d be upstairs curled around John herself, of course. He feels a stab of something painful. “And what about you, have you eaten?”

“Ah no, actually.”

“Then make yourself a sandwich, there’s ham in the fridge.”

For a while they both move quietly around the kitchen, Mimi preparing tea and Paul making both himself and John a butty which he doubts will actually get eaten. The fever might have broken but he probably won’t want food.

“Should I make him some soup?” Mimi asks, and Paul realises she’s deferring to him.

“Probably not, he felt sick this morning.”

She nods, still a frown line of worry on her forehead. Together wordlessly they take the food and drink up, a very unlikely duo Paul thinks as they climb the stairs. He pushes the door to John’s room open and sees the dishevelled mess it is, though thankfully it’s not obvious he was in the bed curled around her nephew. She doesn’t need to know that.

At the sudden influx of people into his room, John stirs and opens his eyes. “Paul?” He says, still half asleep and Paul tries not to feel embarrassed at the way he says his name.

“The cavalry's here,” he announces cheerfully, hoping he sounds normal.

“John, you silly boy,” Mimi says, stepping aside to put her palm to John’s forehead to feel his temperature. He pushes her brusquely away. “Why didn’t you say how ill you were this morning? I would have stayed at home.”

"’M fine Mimi,” he says. “Don’t fuss.”

“Well you look terrible, young man.” Paul stands aside as she starts tidying and glances at John, who grimaces.

“Lovely, thanks,” he coughs, and Paul is glad to hear him sounding more like himself. “You can stop buzzing around, Paul’ll tidy up, won’t you Paul?”

“That’s no way to treats guests John,” she says but finally gives up with picking John’s things up off the floor. There’s no keeping him tidy anyway, it’s a losing battle. He’s too chaotic for that.

“We’re fine, honestly.”

There’s an awkward moment whilst she just frowns at him in concern and Paul eventually steps in. “I’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry. I don’t have to be home for a bit.”

This seems to satisfy her and eventually Mimi goes, closing the door behind her. John spends a few hacking moments coughing then eventually sits up. “My head’s banging,” he says, and Paul passes him the Alka Seltzer.

“She’s right though, you do still look terrible.”

John scowls at him. “Not you an’ all. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“Oh sod off,” Paul says, grabbing the rest of his uneaten sandwich and sitting down on the bed. “Reckon you’re too ill to jump me, anyway.”

John just raises his eyebrows at him but then ruins it by falling into a coughing fit that almost has Paul laughing.

“That’s your butty, by the way – you should eat, it’ll help.”

“Are you practising being Mimi?” John asks, but takes the sandwich anyway.

“Reckon that’d solve our problem at least.” John looks so entirely disgusted that Paul can’t help himself from laughing.

“Did I really sleep the entire day?”

Paul nods. “So did I though, and I don’t have ‘flu.”

John scrunches up his nose and Paul tries not to find it adorable. “Jim not letting you sleep by nagging you into the early hours?”

He realises he’s shrugging before he does it and then Paul hopes he’s not going red. “Haven’t been sleeping properly lately, that’s all.”

Their eyes meet and John swiftly looks away. Maybe it’s best if they stop referencing it entirely, Paul thinks.

After eating almost the entire sandwich (leaving the crusts) John says, “Need to piss,” and escapes to the bathroom. It occurs to Paul that he should probably go home, but it’s just too nice being properly in John’s company after so long. He suspects he’ll probably stay until he’s turfed out.

When John comes back he throws his jumper and pyjama top off, leaving him in just a t-shirt and his striped pyjama pants. Paul feels a kick of something warm low in his belly and thinks maybe should go home after all.

“Feeling a bit better?”

“Maybe,” John yawns. “Could still go back to sleep though and nearly passed out standing up long enough to piss.”

Paul frowns. “Want me to get Mimi?”

John laughs which turns into another hacking cough. “What’s she going to do? Worry me healthy again? Anyway, come here.” He pulls the covers back over himself and Paul almost frowns. That sounds like an invitation, but he’s not complaining so he crawls back up the bed, sliding under the covers beside him. They lie there still for a moment until Paul curls up, puts him arm over John’s waist and burrows down. He hears John sigh and realises he’s just made the same noise. At which point Paul gets a terrible stab of panic.

Actually, this doesn’t feel like lust at all, does it? Not mates unfortunately wanting to kiss each other, not sex addled boys who have been in the red light district so long they now want to screw each other because it’s mixed them up so much.

This feels like something else entirely, something considerably more dangerous than lust, felt like it earlier too. At least lust is easily explained away by hormones. He tries to still the fluttering feeling of anxiety in his chest.

He realises his arm across John’s waist must have tightened when John says, “This doesn’t feel like the no touching rule, does it?” He yawns and his voice is sleepy and warm, on the edge of dozing.

“Shut up Lennon,” Paul hears himself whisper, voice calmer than he feels. “Stop worrying.”

John drops off to sleep pretty quickly after that, Paul feels him go soft and relaxed against him, his breath evening out. It’s almost seven now and his dad will be wondering where he is so when he’s sure John is safely asleep he goes downstairs and sits by the phone. Mimi has the wireless on fairly loud in the living room so he picks the receiver up quietly and dials home.

“Hello?” his dad’s familiar voice says.

“Hi Dad, it’s me.”

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d left home,” Jim replies. “Where are you?”

Paul braces himself - “At John’s, he’s not well and he’s on his own.” A little white lie won’t hurt, anyway. “I’ll probably stay here tonight, make sure he’s ok.”

Jim tuts audibly down the line. “You spend too much time with that boy.”

Paul thinks back to the moment upstairs when he watched John take his jumper off and realised he was getting hard just from that. Pushes it out of his mind. “Sorry dad, I’d better go, I can hear him calling me from upstairs.”

“I suppose I’ll see you in the morning then,” Jim replies, his tone pointedly saying how disappointed he is.

“Yeah, see you.”

Not bothering to stay on the line any longer, Paul replaces the receiver and retreats back upstairs. He doesn’t need to worry about his dad being pissed off with him on top of everything else, anyway. And at least he’ll be able to sleep properly tonight now he finally feels like he’s in the right bed.

John wakes him up the following morning with a sharp, “Right, you need to get out.”

“What?” Paul mumbles, still blurry with sleep.

“Out, now. Get out of the bed, Paul.”

He rubs a hand over his face and frowns. “Feeling better, are we?”

“This is not ‘no touching’,” John says, and Paul realises that during the night they somehow got tangled up together and his leg is wedged between John’s. He can’t feel it but he suspects John is hard, if the red flush over his cheeks is anything to go by. Feeling his own body immediately reacting in kind, he untangles himself and sits up.

“Alright, alright, I’m going.”

Where he ends up is the floor, yawning widely. “You feeling more yourself, then?”

“I’m feeling fucking something,” John mutters and Paul tries not to smile. “How long have you been here?”

“Were you that out of it yesterday? I’ve been here about twenty four hours.”

“That’s too long,” John replies. “We’re supposed to be avoiding each other, Paul.”

“Don’t get pissy about it, you were ill.”

There’s silence until John grits out, “We’re making a complete fucking mess of this.”

Paul catches his eye, “We’re mates,” he says. “I can’t stop being your friend.”

“But we’re not, are we?” John asks, pushing a hand through his hair. His eyes are completely clear now and he stares up at the ceiling. “This,” he says, gesturing vaguely at his crotch, “Is not just mates.”

Paul risks a glance and realises John is still rock hard. But then so is he. John looks fucking sexy first thing in the morning, and the ease with which he thought that frightens Paul a little bit.

“So we’re not mates. Well, thanks for that.”

John looks over at him. “We’re fucking more than mates, aren’t we?”

The fact that it’s been voiced like that, spoken openly, causes Paul to drop his head into his hands. He has no idea what they’re doing here, or how to stop it.

“Paul,” John says, “Look at me.” He looks up and meets his eye. “How do we come back from this?” He’s finally got those sharp edges back that Paul knows so well but his voice betrays him a little bit. He sounds as scared as Paul is.

“I don’t know,” he replies honestly. “This has never happened to me before.”

John squints at him. “I should fucking hope not.”

Paul laughs, “Are you choosing this particular moment to get possessive?” And yet the thought of it thrills him. That John feels that fiercely about him.

From downstairs the noise of Mimi up and about and making breakfast reaches Paul’s ears. It strikes him that 6 months ago they’d probably both still be curled up together in bed – whatever state of entwined they had become – because back then it was still unrecognised enough to be ok. To be classed as just them, pushed into too small a bed. And then they’d fight it out between them, half asleep and lazy, who was going to go down and retrieve breakfast from Mimi’s clutches before returning to the soft warmth of the bed.

The worst thing is they would have carelessly touched each other too, John playing stupid and walking his hand up Paul’s arm just to steal his toast or shoving one another down on the bed for the last piece of bacon.

But cast into this new light that looks like... flirting.

All the time, just to touch each other. Just to look at each other.

And the thought of that, that that’s what they’d been doing all along leaves Paul torn between horrified and wanting John more.

“Do you want me to go?" He asks, defeated.

“No, I don’t fucking want you to go," John says, sounding almost furious now. “I want you to come up here and finally put your hand down my pants.”

Possibly out of shock, Paul laughs. “The ‘flu’s gone, then.” He realises he’s not only blushing but his dick feels over sensitive in his jeans, desperate for some contact. After a moment of battling with himself not to just give in and go over there and do exactly what John wants, he sighs. “I’d better go.”

“Yeah,” John mutters.

It feels horrible, that this is what it’s come to. The warmth of yesterday, of finally just being able to be normal again, has vanished and left things feeling colder than ever. Paul finds his shoes amongst the debris on John’s bedroom floor and pulls them on, grabbing his jacket from over the chair.

“Right, I’ll see you on Friday then.”

John’s got his hands over his face and Paul suspects he’s not getting a reply. When he’s proven right he makes his way miserably to the door. “At least I didn’t want to shag you when you were coughing your guts up.”

One hand comes up off John’s face to flick him the Vs and against his will, Paul smiles a bit.

If he avoids Mimi on the way out it’s only because he doesn’t want her to see how utterly broken he looks.

This time they actually do make it through the week with no contact.

Jim has been on at Paul about getting a job so he makes some effort to at least go down to the job centre, but then spends the rest of the week with George or lying on his bed trying not to think about John on his bed and definitely not thinking about him when he gets himself off.

By Friday he’s somehow more fucking miserable.

“Cheer up,” Mona says when he enters the Casbah, “it might never happen.”

“Already has,” Paul mutters as he gives her a wave.

Pete is already there teasing out a less than perfect drum beat and when George arrives a moment later they’re all instantly reminiscing about Hamburg. Rory and the gang are still out there and George has had a letter from Ringo telling him all about the Top Ten and where they’re going next. But Paul can’t really concentrate because his eyes are always flicking back to the door, waiting for the one person he really wants to see.

And when John finally arrives he looks so good that Paul feels an instant stab of arousal. There goes that itch under his skin again.

“Alright?” John asks the room in general once he’s put down his guitar case.

But Paul is already listening to his lust addled brain and going to him, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him through the back door out into the little courtyard they usually use to get some air between sets.

“What the fuck are you doing?” John asks, yanking his arm away. “Are you going mental?”

“Yes,” Paul replies, and realises he’s backed him up against the wall. He’s being careful and not touching him though, playing by the rules. “I thought you weren’t turning up.”

John squints at him in the darkness. “I’m only five minutes late.”

“Yeah, well...” his argument dies on his tongue. It’s piss poor anyway. “You feeling better now?”

John glances behind them to where Pete and George are still talking inside. Paul hates how twitchy he looks. “Yeah, thanks. And this is standing a bit too close, isn’t it?”

And this time Paul pushes him, hands on his chest as he steps closer. “You’re such a...” but that dies on his tongue too, because all he wants to do is to kiss him, like his whole body aches with it. He’s so close he can feel the warmth off John’s body and mercilessly John doesn’t switch to angry mode with him, just leans across and closes the door beside them a little more. Paul feels a jump in his chest.

“I thought we weren’t doing this?” John asks, voice quiet, but his feet are between Paul’s now as he readjusts his place against the wall.

“We’re not, I’m just...”

John looks like he’s smiling against his will. “I hope the ends of these sentences are good.”

“Piss off,” Paul says again, reaching forward to brush a hair off his jacket, just to touch him.

“Are you alright?”

And Paul realises John is asking because he’s almost shaking with anger, or something else like it that he doesn’t want to name. Realises he’s over heating too despite the freezing January night. His body feels like it’s on fire. “Fine. I just thought you’d ducked out.”

“You look a mess,” John says, and then reaches out to straighten his jumper, touch hanging on far too long. Paul takes some satisfaction that at least he looks like he’s effected too. He crowds himself a little closer, no excuse this time other than that he wants to be stuck to him like a magnet.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says quietly, and John looks back over to the door again to make sure George and Pete are still busy then lowers his voice as he looks back at Paul.

“You think I’m fairing any better?”

“You seem fine,” Paul mutters, his fingers itching to touch.

“Well I’m not,” John tells him quietly. “I want you.”

Paul feels his resolve – what there was of it – weakening. “I need to get off,” he says. “With you. Over me, on me, whatever.”

John’s leg brushes against his and he raises Paul’s chin with the tip of his finger to pull eye contact back from where Paul has been staring at his neck, thinking about kissing him there. “Hey,” John says, pulling his focus in. “It’s alright, yeah? I feel like that too.”

Paul realises he’s stepped closer without meaning to so that they’re almost flush against each other now. John’s hand is on his chest, though whether it’s to push him away or just touch him, he’s not sure. Can feel the heat of it through his jumper, distracting him. “Feels like I’ve gone feral with it,” he hears himself say and is briefly embarrassed about how broken he sounds. His blood feels like it’s turned to lava in his veins.

“Well, you look fucking edible to me.”

John’s voice is barely a whisper and it’s that that causes Paul to move forward, his body desperate to be against John’s. He’s resisting the temptation to kiss him but he can’t resist this, his hips moving messily against him so that for a second they’re just touching each other, bodies hot against one another in the dark. Paul feels the tight knot that’s been held inside him for the past couple of weeks start to blissfully unravel until there’s a loud noise from inside the club and John pushes him away.

But Paul felt how hard he was in that brief moment that they gave in to it, knows John wants this too.

John physically pulls himself together, steps out of the space Paul’s feet had trapped him in and looks – rabbit in the headlights – at him before vanishing through the door. Paul hears him a second later saying, “What the fuck’s gone on here Pete, you dickhead?”

Paul takes a second to let the chill night air cool him down, tries to even out his breathing and wills his achingly hard cock to go down. He was embarrassingly close for a moment and now he can’t seem to remember how to be calm. He goes to the wall and leans his forehead against it, letting the stark cold of the brick cool him down, shock his system back into rhythm.

“Paul!” John eventually shouts, and he can’t ignore him, even now. He runs a hand over his face, hopes he doesn’t look too far gone and goes back inside.

Chapter Text

Their set is terrible - twice George looks over at him and frowns at his missed note. Paul keeps falling out of time with them and each time John realises he catches his eye and turns his guitar towards him so that Paul can catch his finger placement, pulling him back in line.

By the time they’re packing their stuff away he’s barely able to concentrate on anything at all, which is why it takes him a second to catch up with what the others are saying in the background.

“Maybe we just need an extra practise,” George suggests. “Can everyone do tomorrow night? We can meet at mine.”

“I’m up for it,” Pete replies. But then John speaks and he sounds – even to Paul’s ears – vaguely guilty.

“I can’t, I’m seeing Cyn tomorrow night.”

“What?” Paul asks, the words breaking through the fog of his brain. He realises that not only was that too loud but also that his tone was clearly snappy.

John fastens his guitar case then looks up to meet his eye. He looks for all the world as casual as ever. “I’m taking Cyn out.”

“You never said,” Paul hears himself say. And yeah, he sounds angry now, his voice sharp and accusing.

“Didn’t know I had to check,” John says, trying to sound jovial and glancing across at George who is simply giving Paul an odd look.

He realises the atmosphere has gone suddenly very tense and – worst of all – there's still some people milling around the stage, not yet gone through for the end of set coffee rush.

“Since when did you start putting birds before the band?” Paul asks, his blood running hot but for a very different reason than a few hours ago.

But John’s demeanour has slipped from fake joviality to annoyance. “She’s not just a ‘bird’ Paul, she’s my girlfriend. Or haven’t you noticed?”

Paul wants to ask – loudly – if he’s suddenly able to fuck her again but knows that would be an act of suicide.

“You don’t see me turning down practises because of Dot,” he spits and realises his posture has changed. He’s fronting up to John which never, ever happens.

“Alright lads?” Mona suddenly asks, appearing from nowhere. Maybe one of the punters told her two of the guitarists from the band are about to kill each other. When no one speaks she looks between them. “There isn’t a problem here, is there?”

Paul eventually drags his eyes away from John, not even guilty or embarrassed, just aware that whatever this is shouldn’t happen here. “No,” he says, giving her a quick smile. “Everything’s fine.”

Looking like that’s the last thing she believes, Mona casts one last look at all of them and turns back in the direction of the kitchen.

When Paul looks back at John he sees his own stubborn anger reflected back at him.

“Right,” George says, cutting through the tension. “Once you two have finished being weird with each other, we’d better go.”

Paul tries to snap himself out of it – George is openly frowning at him now and Paul knows more than anyone that he’s as sharp as a tack, it won’t take him long to figure out what’s going on here.

Ditching Pete with his mum in the kitchen, they make their way out onto the street. Paul feels himself still vibrating with jealousy (anger, he tells himself, righteous anger) and he doesn’t make it far along the quiet leafy street before he grabs the back of John’s jacket, pulling him to halt.

“You go on George, I need a quick word with John.”

Underneath the trees in the dark January night Paul watches as George turns around and eyes them both carefully.

“Whatever it is,” he says, “just get it sorted out, yeah? It’s started to affect the playing.”

With that George turns around and heads off up towards the bus stop and away into the night. John waits until he’s out of earshot then turns on Paul.

“Oh well done, dickhead! Did you want to start wearing a jumper with it written on, as well?”

“Oh... piss off,” Paul replies, throwing down his guitar case and dragging his ciggies out of his pocket. He’s still fumbling for his lighter when John bats his hands away and leans in with a light. Paul tries to ignore the fact his hands are shaking.

“And what’s it got to do with you that I’m seeing Cynthia, anyway?”

He’d hoped that he might get a minute to let the nicotine calm him down but obviously they’re just ploughing straight into this.

“You said...”

“What?”

“You said you were giving her the brush off.”

John glares at him in the dim light from his ciggie. “No, I said she thought I was giving her the brush off. I’m fucking trying to make things right.”

“Why?” Paul hears himself shout, louder than he should in the quiet of the street. “Why are you bothering?”

John looks at him for a minute like he’s gone mental. “Oh, I see – I can’t have you so I should just become a monk then, should I Paul? Go and join the orders? Mimi’d be proud, at least.”

“I never said - “

“What are you saying, then? Anyone but Cyn?”

“No...” Paul feels his fury start to deflate. “I just...” he grinds out his ciggie butt underneath his shoe out of frustration and pushes a hand through his sweat damp hair. “I don’t really want to think about her touching you, that’s all.”

There’s a horrible silence until John says, “Fucking hell, Paul. Are you listening to yourself?”

He’s got that cold, cutting edge to his voice that usually makes Paul batten down the hatches. It’s never good when he turns that particular tone on you.

“I just - “

“What?” John spits, suddenly right there in his face, a shove to his chest sending Paul stepping backwards. “Can you hear what you’re saying? She’s my girlfriend. Did you think I was going to ditch her for you?”

The venom with which he says it causes Paul to wince internally. Never, he reminds himself, get in a fight with John Lennon. You will not come away unscathed.

“Of course I fucking didn’t,” he hisses, which is fine because they’re close enough now to whisper. And quite against the mood of the conversation he realises his traitorous body is reacting to John being this close. “I just thought we were in the same fucking misery here! But stupid me, obviously not.”

And before he does something ridiculous like hits John just to touch him or worse gives in to the unrelenting desire to kiss him, Paul shoves John gently away and picks up his guitar case.

He’s marching off up the road, shoes loud against the pavement in the quiet of the night when he hears, “Paul!” But he doesn’t stop, just keeps going because he’s no longer angry – when he was angry it was easy, he could hide behind it. Now he’s just miserable and jealous and has just been acutely reminded of how good it feels when John’s body is intimately close to his. “Macca, stop storming away like a daft tart!”

Paul is hardly even surprised when he feels a hand grab his shoulder and forcefully push him – hard – off course and up against someone’s garden wall. His back hits the bricks and then John is on him, pressed against him like they were back at the Casbah. Paul’s guitar case slips out of his hand and he doesn’t even care when it hits the floor because suddenly John’s hands are on the waistband of his jeans, fingers digging painfully into his hips.

They’re so close he feels John’s breath on his mouth. It goes straight to his dick.

“Do you have any idea,” John hisses, “What you fucking do to me? What you make me want?”

But it’s ok, because Paul can feel it anyway, and it’s turning his bones to treacle. “I don’t - “ he stutters, but doesn’t quite know what he’s saying because John is resting his forehead against Paul’s now and his world has shrunk down to this one tiny moment, inches away from John’s mouth. “You can have me,” he says. “Anything you want, you can have it, John.”

And he means it. All of it.

Paul realises his hands are now on John’s, trying to drag them forward to the aching hardness in his jeans, to show him he means it. But John is fighting him.

“We’re in the fucking street,” John pants, mouth so close that their noses are brushing against each other.

“I don’t care,” Paul hears himself say. And he sounds gone, totally. He’s never felt like this before in his life. He’d be embarrassed if he was even halfway sensible.

But the sudden blinding glare of car headlights turning into the road wrenches them apart, John moving like he’s been scalded. Paul watches as he puts both hands in his hair, arms up in some bastardised form of surrender and starts walking slowly away down the street, his back all Paul can see for a moment.

And as for him, he just stands there, unable to move and panting like he’s been running. The car has gone now, right down near the end of the street where it’s pulled into a driveway and voices float aimlessly on the cold winter night accompanied by the slam of car doors.

Paul gets the overwhelming and sharply embarrassing urge to cry. He screws his eyes shut to force it back, horrified at the thought of it.

John is still wandering aimlessly, pacing as slowly as possible and it hurts to watch him. He looks worse than Paul does.

Gathering some strength from somewhere, Paul goes to John’s guitar case, picks it up and takes it to him.

“Here. We’ll miss the last bus if we don’t get moving.”

John stops but doesn’t move to take the case, still staring at the pavement like he’s held in some sort of statis. Paul gently reaches up for his hand, pulls it down from where it’s gripping at his hair and wraps it carefully around the handle of his guitar case.

“John, come on.”

It takes a minute from him to start moving, but eventually he does. Paul then grabs his own guitar and slowly they both start up the road, breath misting in the cold of the night air.

The bus arrives mercifully quickly when they eventually get to the stop and this time when John leaves an entire row of seats between them, Paul lets him.

Paul is writing and then scribbling out lyrics whilst the ten o’clock news plays in the background. It’s been yet another strange and restless day after what happened the previous night on the road outside the Casbah and his nerves are still slightly frayed. At first he’d thought sitting and watching the tv in the evening with his dad and Mike would help – a bit of normality – but he’s not sure now whether that was true. Maybe just nowhere feels right at the moment.

When the phone rings he glances across at Mike who says, “Not my turn,” and goes back to something he’s sketching for his homework. Paul sighs. When he walks into the hall and picks up the receiver, he almost drops it again at the voice he hears.

“Hello, Paul!”

Shit. For some reason he suddenly feels guilty. And sick with dread.

“Oh, hi Cyn. How’re you?”

He can tell she’s smiling by her voice. “I’m really well thanks, how are you?”

“Oh, y’know,” he says. He refrains from adding, ‘I’m going mental from not kissing your boyfriend.’

“You sound like John,” she says. “Is it the post Hamburg blues?”

He tries to laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Anyway, I’m trying to find something to cheer him up – there's a party on tomorrow night round at Ivan’s. I thought you might want to come?”

Paul falters. Does he say yes? What exquisite kind of pain would that cause? And does John know she’s asking him?

“Ah... I’m not sure I’d be much company at the moment, Cyn,”

She waits a beat and then says, “Is this about you falling out with Dot? She won’t be there, you know. And I know John would want you come.”

How she could ever know that, he doesn’t know. He doubts John is telling her the truth about anything at the moment. But he feels an irrational jab of jealousy at the thought she ever knows how John is feeling better than him.

“I’m not sure Dot and I have really fallen out,” Paul says, sitting himself back against the phone table. “And I’m not sure John would want me there.”

“Oh?” She says. “He was saying you might come along earlier tonight, if I asked.”

So they had been out. He tries not to feel bitter at that. And worse, they’d talked about him. Paul also tries to ignore the fact that John clearly didn’t want to ask him himself, instead got Cyn to do it for him.

“Alright then, what time does it start?”

“People are turning up from about seven. It’ll be good to see you, it’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Paul replies, his own fondness for Cyn – who is wonderful, and puts up with John’s moods like no one else does (besides him) - warring with his current irrational feeling of rivalry.

She goes off the phone entirely unaware that she’s torpedoed this mood even further and Paul slinks off to bed.

It’s not until he’s entirely under the covers that he lets himself replay last night in his head. He’s avoided it all day but in the quiet of his room he can no longer do that.

It’s not that he doesn’t know just how scathing John can be, God knows he’s seen it more times than he can count – Paul has often, shamefully, joined in – but somehow in amongst his current confusion and vulnerability last night it particularly stung when aimed towards him. Usually when he turns that unique sort of hurt on Paul, (which granted is less than he does with others and often set off at strange times by unexpected and innocent comments) he feels able to be hurt but also see it for what it is – John's armour coming up. But when his own armour is currently down and he feels vulnerable in a way he hasn’t for a long time, it stings more than usual.

‘Did you think I was going to ditch her for you?’

Of course he hadn’t thought that, there could be no ‘John and Paul’ in the way there is a ‘John and Cynthia’, spoken of as a couple. Accepted amongst their friends and the rest of the world around them. But the ‘for you’ had made him feel like nothing to John. Which hurts especially when suddenly John is everything to him, completely against his will. He didn’t choose this - who would choose something so unaccepted, something that makes most people disgusted, something that would make you an outright target? And for a moment in that conversation he’d felt like the only one, like he’d exposed his belly to John and admitted to this terrible shame only for it to not be reciprocated.

But of course it was reciprocated. Twice last night that had been painfully obvious.

Because God, Paul had been able to feel the want rolling off John in waves. They’d both briefly slipped into that place where actually all that matters is touching each other, now. He’d been there with girls many times before of course, around the back of some club somewhere or even with Dot, when they’d first started going out. But nothing had been as powerful as this, as feeling it with John. Because he’s a fucking force of nature – their relationship has always been a force of nature. Now desire has been added in he feels almost powerless to stop it.

Paul realises that he’s hard inside his pyjama pants. He’s so far avoided getting off to thoughts of John – has been resolutely thinking of Bardot or some other nameless blonde girl, forcing other images in front of his mind but tonight that seems less possible. Now he knows how it feels to have John’s breath ghosting against his lips and the press of him hard against his hip it feels impossible not to remember that. What had he said? Do you have any idea what you do to me - the way his voice had been low, rough against his senses like gravel, the way he used to sound in Hamburg after giving it his all on stage all night in a loud, too-busy club.

Despite being aware that doing this whilst thinking of John is like crossing a significant line, Paul pushes his hand down his pants and wraps it firmly around his cock. He turns his face into the pillow slightly to muffle the groan he can’t help but make and imagines John doing the same thing at home, in his own bed. He remembers the sound of him panting last night against Paul’s mouth, unable to pull himself back under control. And all the times he’s heard him with girls, either in bunk beds in Hamburg or just in shared rooms – he knows what John sounds like when he comes, the fact he’s never able to be quiet, like the feeling is just far too much. He knows the precise litany of swear words he uses when he’s getting close and how desperate he sounds when he speaks in that moment, and now somehow knowing all those things are just like a torment.

Paul slips his palm up to the top of his now leaking cock, uses the threads of pre-cum there to slick the rest of his shaft and screws his eyes closed tightly, trying to imagine that it’s John touching him rather than himself. Imagining the warm brush of his lips on his neck, running up under his jaw to his pulse point. He’s seen girls leaving the squalid little back room of the bambi kino with red flushes there where John has marked them in the night. He wants that to be him.

Pushing his face further into his pillow to hide how hard he’s breathing now and embarrassed at how little time it’s taken for him to get to this point because he’s finally thinking about John, Paul twists his wrist and palms over the head of his cock. He wants John doing this, wants to do this to him, wants to finally put them both out of their misery. He plays over again the sound of John’s voice up close to him in the darkness last night, the feel of him unmistakably turned on, fired up just by their proximity.

When he comes Paul realises that he’s saying John’s name into his pillow, whispering it until it’s swallowed up by a moan he can’t stop in the silence of his bedroom.

Afterwards he lies there, feeling a mixture of relief and shame. If there really is a hell then he’s probably going there, getting off to thoughts of his best mate after nearly begging him for it in the street last night.

He needs to make a fucking effort to get over this. And he’s never, ever getting off whilst thinking of John again.

Paul arrives at Ivan’s house just after half past seven. He hadn’t meant to be late but at the same time hadn’t actually wanted to go either, causing some aimless dithering at the front door and then Mike taking the piss out of him until he left.

Rod lets him in, already pissed on some sort of home brew that he thrusts into Paul’s hand the second he gets over the threshold.

“I wouldn’t drink it unless you want to go blind,” he hears a familiar voice say and when Paul looks up he realises John is leaning against Mrs Vaughan’s expensive-looking china cabinet in the front room with a bottle of beer in his hand.

He tries not to think about how good he looks but realises with some shame that he’s gone all warm. He knew last night had addled his brain in some way.

“Where do you get the non-blinding drinks from, then?”

John nods over to a table in the corner and Paul gets himself something bottled instead.

“You came then?”

He frowns over at John. “Would you prefer I hadn’t?”

John just raises his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

Paul goes to stand with him but leaves a safe distance between them. “Honestly?” He looks up and meets John’s eyes. For a second he gets a thrill of that electricity they always seem to have when they’re focused only on each other like this and it unseats him. “I’ve got no fucking idea anymore.”

A frown that looks something like hurt flits across John’s face and he goes to speak but the arrival of Cynthia from outside in the hallway stops him.

“Paul!” She says, bright and cheerful, high spots of colour on her cheeks that say she’s probably been in the packed parts of the house where the party is truly taking place.

“Hi Cyn.” He leans over and kisses her cheek as John watches on, his look inscrutable. “You look like you’ve been busy.”

“Oh!” She brushes away a small dusting of icing sugar from the sleeve of her jumper. “Ivan’s sister has been baking, we’ve just been decorating her cakes.” She goes over to stand by John who instinctively slips an arm around her waist. Paul watches with something akin to misery as she leans in to him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve tried the home brew?”

Paul fakes a laugh, “Oh god no, your boyfriend warned me off it.” He pointedly doesn’t meet John’s eyes when he says it. “How’s college?”

“Oh, so-so, you know? We’re on work placement at the moment, it’s been really interesting.”

Paul tries to listen as she tells him all about the reality of life inside a classroom full of children but all he can really focus on is John’s hand resting on her waist. His thumb is rubbing idly up over her hip and back down again and the tiny movement threatens to fire up the green-eyed monster lurking in his chest.

In hindsight it was a huge mistake coming here, he thinks – he’s been in their company quite happily for years but suddenly just the sight of it, of him touching her, makes Paul feel like he’s going to throw up.

“And what about you?” Cyn asks. It takes Paul a second to realise he’s been asked a question and he tries to hide his late reply with a swig of his beer. She’s smiling at him warmly - just sweet, lovely Cyn. He feels a stab of misery and disappointment in himself.

“Oh, you know, just the band and stuff. Getting some song writing done.”

Paul realises John is focused directly on him but purposefully doesn’t make eye contact.

“Actually,” he says, putting his beer down beside John’s on the sideboard, “I think I’d better go and find Ivan, say hello.”

Giving Cynthia a smile that he hopes doesn’t look too much like a grimace, Paul escapes out into the hallway. The sound of Elvis is spilling through from the dining room and there are bodies everywhere, people dancing, couples kissing and suddenly it all just feels like too much. This was a giant mistake.

Paul tells himself he’ll find Ivan, say hello and then get out. He’ll go over the back wall if he has to, just to avoid heading out through the front passed John.

“Macca!” Someone shouts, and then before he knows what’s happening Ivan is on him, enveloping him in a decidedly drunken hug.

Paul laughs properly for the first time in days. “I take it you’ve been on the home brew, then?”

Ivan grins at him. “Please say you’ve tried it? Eric made it in an old bathtub in his Dad’s shed.”

He realises he’s laughing again but Ivan’s drunken joy is infectious. “You’re not exactly selling it to me there, mate.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone as grumpy as bloody Lennon? Come on, I’m going to get you some.”

After being dragged through into the warmth of the kitchen, Paul has a glass thrust into his hand. “There, the stuff dreams are made of,” Ivan grins.

But from the near-by table, his sister laughs. “Drinking out of a bathtub isn’t in anyone’s dreams, Ive.”

With the kind of good-natured grin of the drunk, Ivan turns to Paul. “You know my sister Carole, right?”

“I’ve known him I was twelve, you wally,” she says, then grins at Paul. “Hi Paul.”

“Hi Caz.”

He doesn’t know her, not really – Ivan has been his mate since the Inny but he’s never spent much time with Carole, she had a scholarship to the local all-girls grammar school and was never much of a figure in their friendship. She wasn’t a tag-along sibling like Mike has always been. She’s pretty though, and currently grinning at him so that’s enough.

“Come here,” she says. “Help me with this. It’s an excuse not to drink the moonshine, at least.”

Resigning himself to the fact that he’s not going to be able to sneak out of the back yard any time soon and reasoning that if John’s doing it through there with Cyn then why shouldn’t he, Paul smiles politely and joins her at the table. She’s mixing icing to spread on top of the cakes and unceremoniously passes him a mixing bowl so he can do the same.

“What’s with the baking?” he asks, watching Ivan flit away back into the dining room where someone has struck up a rendition of It’s Now Or Never and voices warble throughout the house.

Carole takes a second to laugh at the singing and then glances back at him. Her dark fringe falls a little into her eyes and she reaches up with sugary hands to push it back. “My mate just passed her driving test so we’re throwing her a little do. You done yours yet?”

Paul shakes his head, trying his best to mix the frosting without getting the ingredients all over this shirt. “No, never quite got round to it.”

“Me either, but I suppose if Ive’s going to poison everyone with home brew one of us is going to have to learn, aren’t we?”

Paul laughs, quite without meaning to. He hasn’t been able to forget about John and their situation for the last few weeks so it’s nice to actually hold a conversation with a real human being without feeling miserable. And of course it wouldn’t hurt if John came in here and found him laughing with a pretty girl.

Carole is still grinning at him, her dark hair falling into her face until she pushes it back up again leaving a smear of icing sugar on her cheek. “So tell me about Hamburg then, Ive says you were living in the red light district or something?”

He doesn’t remember much about Carole, but it does come back to Paul how different she always was from other girls their age – never afraid to speak her mind, smarter than most too.

“Let's just say it wasn’t Woolton,” he laughs. “Playing for ten hours straight doesn’t leave you much time to enjoy the night life, anyway.”

She laughs knowingly, eyes creasing at the corners where her eyeliner sweeps upwards like a cats. “Oh, of course not! Don’t tell me, it was all bed before ten and saying your prayers like good little rockers, I suppose?”

Paul grins. “Bloody hell, it’s like you were there!”

They’re both laughing at this when Cyn steps into the kitchen, John just behind her holding her hand. Paul feels a perverse kick of pleasure of how this must look.

“What the fuck’s this? The Women's Institute?”

Paul glances across at John, his face unreadable. “Caz is teaching me the joys of home baking,” he says. Because if John’s going to be there hanging off Cyn’s arm then why shouldn’t he?

“He’s actually a very good student,” Carole says, dipping a finger into the bowl Paul is holding and taking a taste of the icing. “Not quite done yet though.” Her eyes flash with something warm and very recognisable when Paul smiles at her.

“At least I don’t have sugar on my face,” he replies, then purposefully swipes at her cheek with his thumb.

Far from embarrassed, she laughs. “All in the good name of baking.”

And really, Paul should have expected it when John says, “Christ, it’s like shit porn for the elderly.”

“John!” Cyn laughs admonishingly, touching his arm.

But it’s ok because Carole is laughing too. “You should be enjoying it then, Lennon.”

And Paul realises that given how long John’s known Ivan she’s probably put up with him since she was in primary school. She certainly doesn’t look intimidated in any way, meeting his gaze head on.

“Besides, it’s not just baking, Paul was just telling me about Hamburg.”

“Oh yeah?” John asks, meeting Paul’s eye. “And what was he saying?”

“Well, it was just getting good when you two came in actually,” she replies. “And now I’ve got to go and get ready to meet up with the girls.”

“That’s a shame,” Paul says, sending her is best winning McCartney smile. “Maybe we can catch up about it another time?”

As game as he hoped she’d be, Carole takes the mixing bowl back off him and puts it down on the table with a smirk. “I tell you what,” she says, taking off her apron. “How about I let you take me for a drink on Thursday night if you finish icing these cakes for me?”

Paul actually laughs, startled by how cool she is and just about to reply when John does it for him.

“He’s can’t, he’s busy.”

They all suddenly look to John, including a very confused Cynthia.

“Am I?”

John looks at him and just nods. “We’ve got practise.”

Paul feels an overwhelming urge to say that actually they were supposed to practise last night but John went off with Cyn but Carole gets in before him.

“Good to hear you’re managing Paul’s diary for him, John – maybe you’ll let me know when he’s free and you can pencil me in?”

Paul guesses that it must be due to respect that she’s Ivan’s sister and that he’s known her since he was in short pants that John doesn’t spit something rude back at her. In fact he just shrugs. “I’ll keep it in mind, Caz.”

She smirks at him, and even if it wasn’t for the current situation Paul decides he likes her, very much. If she can hold her own with John then she can’t be bad.

“Right, well then lovely people, I’m going to get myself made up. Good to see you, Paul.”

He smiles at her. “Yeah, you too,” he says, and means it.

As she leaves the kitchen she shouts, “Don’t forget to finish the cakes! And keep in touch about that date, Lennon!”

Paul avoids catching John’s eye. “Right, I’d better get going too, told Dad I wouldn’t stay long.”

“Oh Paul, really?” Cyn asks. He wonders if she’s thinking about being left alone with John in a grumpy mood.

“Sadly yeah, he’s been in a right one since I got back from Hamburg. Good to see you both though,” he says, taking some perverse pleasure from addressing them as a pair. If John can be a dick, he can too. “Night.” He flashes them his best smile and then he’s gone, down the hall and out of the front door.

Paul lets the cold night air wash over him, tries to let it calm his racing pulse. If John thought they were handling this badly by innocently spending the day in bed together when he was ill then what kind of car crash is this? At least then he felt like they were on the same side – this just feels like all out war mixed in with a good helping of spite. And how dare he turn down a fucking date for him? He can barely believe it happened, and in front of Cynthia too.

He’s just turning out of Ivan’s road when he hears shoes on the pavement behind him. Paul turns already knowing who he’ll see following him.

“You’ve got a fucking nerve,” he says, not stopping but ploughing on. Because if John wants him to stop he’ll have to manhandle him again. “I don’t need you policing my diary, thanks very much.”

“Oh,” John replies, catching up with him. “Enjoying yourself, were you?”

“Actually, yes.” Paul stops, even though he doesn’t mean to. It jars John into stopping too, cheeks pink in the sudden cold winter night after the heat of the kitchen. “Since when are you in charge of who I see?”

“Since you started arranging dates behind Dot’s back.”

Paul actually laughs, loudly into the silence of the street. “Oh, so this is about Dot, is it?”

“Yes,” John says, though he looks well aware how ridiculous this is.

“You’re just trying to keep me on the straight and narrow, are you? Protecting my honour? How very noble of you, John.”

And with that Paul starts walking again, the anger starting to thrum through his veins needing an outlet of some kind.

“She’s just... some tart,” John says, catching him up again.

“I’ll tell Ivan you said that, shall I?”

“I was trying to stop you making a fool of yourself.”

Paul stops again, pulling John up short a second time. He looks suitably unseated. “A fool of myself? By getting a date with a very pretty girl? Yeah, a complete arse it would have made of me.”

“Look,” John says, reaching out and touching his coat. “I just couldn’t stand...”

“What?” Paul asks, restraining himself from being petty and shrugging John’s hand off to fulfil the ‘no touching’ rule. “You couldn’t stand the thought of her touching me? I thought that sort of thing was laughable the other night?”

John exhales, his frustration evident as he messes up his hair for something to do with his hands. “I just couldn’t see her flirting with you, alright?”

Paul feels his anger kicking in again. “You don’t get to do that possessive shit you do with Cyn on me, John. That sort of shit is reserved for people who are actually touching me.”

And he starts walking again. This time there is no sound of feet following so against his better judgement he stops and looks back. John is just stood there where he left him, a silhouetted shape on the pavement.

“I just don’t know what to do, alright?” He eventually says, after Paul has waited several beats. He sighs heavily and then goes back to him, meeting him in the dark.

“You could kiss me, that’d be a start.”

John looks up at him and shit, that electricity hasn’t eased off at all.

“I can’t be... we can’t just start being queer, Paul. Do you have any idea about how - “

“- dangerous it is, yeah – you keep saying.”

“Do you want to get shived down some alleyway? Or worse? No one would ever speak to us again, not Mimi, not your fucking dad.”

“I’d speak to you,” Paul says. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Doesn’t it fucking terrify you?!” John asks, suddenly sounding more afraid than Paul has ever heard him. This is why he does the hard man act, Paul knows. Because that’s not John, not at all when you get to know him.

“So?” Paul asks. “We’ll leave, live somewhere else, run off to Paris or something.”

John laughs. “On what fucking money? Do you really think I don’t want...”

“What?”

His voice when he speaks is barely audible in the dark. “Everything. Do you really think I don’t want that?”

Paul shrugs. “God knows, John,” he says, although of course he does know, the other night told him that. “I’m going out of my skin here, thinking about you whilst I - “

“No,” John says, visibly stepping back. “If you keep going you’re going to break me, I swear Paul.”

And he realises that John is breathing fast, the sound of it upsetting the night. He still looks scared, which is such an unusual thing to see on his face that some part of him gives up, backs away.

“Alright, alright,” Paul says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry.”

“Shit,” John says, hands flying back to his hair again. “I think I’m fucking losing it.” He starts pacing again like he did that night outside the Casbah.

“Who knew I’d handle feeling queer better than you?” Paul laughs, because it is ridiculous that he’s the one pushing at the boundaries - his desire is winning out here.

“Me!” John says, and he looks almost manic now. “Don’t you realise I’ve always...” He stops walking. “It’s one of those things I’ve always worried about myself. Some new and fresh way to fuck everything up.”

Paul realises with surprise that this is probably more than John has ever said to him. About anything, including Julia. And he wonders if this would be different if she was here, nothing shocked her and she loved John so fiercely, he’d never not have anywhere to go.

“I didn’t know - “ Paul stops himself. “Look, you don’t go round feeling like this about blokes in the street, do you?” He tries to ignore the fact that he’s almost afraid of the answer.

“No,” John says, and Paul tries not to think about whether that sounds like a lie.

“And you still fancy Cyn, don’t you?”

“’Course I do.”

“Well then, you’re not queer. Neither of us are. This is just...”

“What?” John spits. “What is it, Paul?”

He shrugs, aware of the way it’s going to sound. “It’s just us, isn’t it?”

John almost laughs. “That doesn’t really help me,” he says.

Entirely against any rules they’ve ever set up, Paul grabs his hand and pulls him into the shadows created by a row of garages behind the main houses on the road. For once John doesn’t push him away, though he does let their hands drop. They’re sheltered from the road here, and from any prying eyes.

“There’s just something there between us, alright?” Paul says quietly, sounding more like he knows what he’s talking about than he does. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always just wanted to... be with you, since I met you.”

John huffs out a laugh that sounds strangely self-disgusted. “Yeah, well... every time I look at you, I want to crawl out of my skin just to get into yours.”

And shit, Paul thinks, if that isn’t the perfect way to describe it.

“Me too, right? So it’s fine, it’s normal, it’s ok.”

John coughs. “Normal?”

“Alright, maybe not normal,” Paul concedes. “But normal for us. Yeah?”

He’s taken entirely by surprise when John steps closer to him and rests his forehead on Paul’s shoulder near his neck, slipping his hand onto Paul’s back. They’re not hugging – they don’t really hug much – but Paul’s right hand goes up and buries instinctively in John’s hair whilst his left goes to John’s waist and draws him in as close as possible. The moment feels delicate and fragile, and Paul firmly resists the urge to turn his head slightly and kiss John’s hair, even if that feels natural. He’s just glad to be against him, like that roaring monster in his chest finally settles down. He can feel that John is hard which does nothing to help his own issue and for a second he imagines it might be like this, slow and unhurried. He could do that, he could very, very much do that.

Paul is about to ask very quietly – as not to spook him – if John will come home with him when suddenly he steps away. Even under the cover of winter darkness Paul can see John looks flustered and embarrassed.

“I need to get back to Cyn.”

Paul tries not to feel like he’s losing him. “Right, yeah. And I need to get home.”

John just nods, awkward and steps out of the darkness back into the orange glow of the streetlight.

“Look, I’ll sort that date out for you with Caz, alright? I’ll tell her you can see her Thursday night, if you like.”

Paul frowns. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m with Cyn, aren’t I? And this - “ he gestures between them, “isn’t going away, is it?”

Paul can’t work out from his tone if he means that as a bad thing or a good thing. “Right, yeah.”

“So I’ll tell her Thursday night’s on?”

“Yeah,” Paul nods, and he really feels like he’s losing him now. Something like panic trickles down his back.

“Eight o’clock at The Derby, alright?”

Paul just nods, unsure if John can see him.

“Night, Paul.”

And with that he’s gone, back up the road to Cynthia.

Paul spends Wednesday morning at the job centre after his father walks him down there, reminding him that whilst he agreed to let him go to Hamburg, he’s now eighteen and should be responsible for helping support the house. In Paul’s current frame of mind, nothing could be less important to him and he spends the entire morning wondering what John is doing, sure that no matter what it is it won’t be letting Mimi drag him to the job centre.

Then in the afternoon when Jim has gone to work he mills around town, his stupid half-hopeful brain telling him he might bump into John somewhere. He even finds himself looking into pub windows as he passes them and if he goes into NEMS less to listen to the records and more to check if John is in the listening booths or surreptitiously nicking the records, then that’s neither here nor there.

He feels oddly like he left some part of him behind somewhere and when he gets back just after six o’clock Mike devastates him with, “Oh, John phoned for you earlier, by the way.”

“What?” Paul says, dropping his mug in the sink. “When?”

Mike shrugs, “I dunno, about an hour ago?”

“How did he sound?”

He shrugs again. “Fine, I think.”

“Was he drunk? Did he say he wanted me to call him back?”

“Bloody hell, Paul!” Mike shouts, “I’m not the bloody operator, alright? He just rang and asked for you, that’s all.”

Paul doesn’t reply, just pushes past Mike into the hallway and grabs the phone, fingers impatient as he pulls back the numbers on the dial and watches them whirr slowly back around.

“I think Hamburg might have addled your brain,” Mike says, shoving him slightly as he goes past, taking a cup of tea up the stairs with him. Paul barely acknowledges him, listens to the phone painfully ring out until eventually the line cuts out.

Great, there was him dicking around town looking into every pub he passed whilst John was ringing his house. He’s thoroughly pissed off with himself.

Paul spends the next hour debating whether to go up there, but it’s tipping it down outside and if John’s not answering the phone that suggests he might not answer the door, either.

He wonders when his life turned into this strange ball of torture.

Wednesday night slips into Thursday and after calling Mendips again with no reply, Paul sits down with his guitar and spends some time learning the new Everlys song, teasing at the notes and managing to only glance at the phone every hour or so. He feels like he’s going mad.

It’s only when Mike gets home from school and reminds him that he remembers he’s got a date with Carole.

“She’s bloody good looking you know,” Mike says, getting some milk out of the fridge. “Why did she ever agree to go out with you?”

“John arranged it actually.”

Mike stops stirring his tea and raises his eyebrows. “John’s getting you dates now?”

“No, it wasn’t like - “

“What’s going on with you two? He hasn’t been round here in weeks and you’re skulking around and jumping any time someone mentions his name.”

“No I’m not,” Paul says, but think it’s a pretty accurate representation of the situation, actually.

“Did you fall out over a girl in Hamburg?”

Paul suddenly remembers one very telling evening when he and John had talked about sharing a girl one night after a gig – he’d been so excited about the idea that eventually he’d backed off, just because he was aware no one should have that level of interest in a thing. And that somehow he kept picturing the event without any girls in it at all.

“Something like that,” he mutters.

“Oh, and Dot called again on Tuesday when you were out at Ivan’s, but I didn’t bother telling you that because I didn’t reckon you’d be interested.”

He goes upstairs barely registering that and gets ready for his date with Carole who – when she arrives at The Derby just slightly past eight – looks pretty damn good. Paul considers how lucky he’d think himself, if his mind wasn’t one street over on Menlove Avenue.

The date goes well, she’s as effortlessly easy to talk to as she was on Tuesday and she seems genuinely interested in the band and where they’re going. Paul tells a heavily edited version of their life in Hamburg but she’s no fool so recognises it as such, both laughing together when he quite obviously omits some damning piece of the story he’s telling and after all of the soul churning misery of recently it’s actually partially a relief not to be sitting miserable in his room or waiting for the phone to ring. She’s clever and funny and when he gets up and goes to the bar for their fourth round he turns and catches her watching him, giving him a quick grin before she turns away.

Of course the thing hanging over him is whether he goes in for the kiss on the way home or not – under normal circumstances it would always be on the cards, especially with someone as pretty as Carole but... Paul can’t help but feel like he’s doing something he shouldn’t, like he’s betraying someone he shouldn’t. And he doesn’t mean Dot.

But of course it’s all ridiculous – he's not with John. Can never be with John. And even if he was John is probably currently somewhere kissing Cyn, he’s never done a great line in monogamy.

So then he starts to wonder if he should do it as an experiment - he’s not kissed anyone since this realisation about John dawned on him, so maybe he should find out if it’s killed him forever? Just in case he’s doomed to die alone a repressed queer whilst John goes off and marries Cyn and has several babies?

Eventually it comes to last orders and they decide to ditch out, heading into the cold winter night. When she looks at him on the corner outside the pub, Paul has already made his mind up.

“I was wondering if you were going to do that,” she says when Paul breaks the kiss.

“Oh? Did I seem like I might not?”

Carole smiles. “Ive warned me you were seeing someone else before you went away so I wasn’t quite sure.”

Paul has the good grace to blush. He tries not to think about the fact that if he hadn’t kissed her it would have been because of John, not because of Dot. “Well I hope it wasn’t too unwelcome, especially if you weren’t sure whether to expect it.”

She laughs, “He also warned me you’re charmer, so if you’re expecting an ego boost from me McCartney then you’ll be waiting for a good while.”

Paul finds himself grinning. “It seems my reputation proceeds me.”

“Well I’m going to let you walk me home,” Caz says, “So you must have done something right.”

They meander down Vale Road, Carole talking about the gossip from the party on Tuesday night whilst Paul thinks over the kiss – he was pleased to find he felt an instinctive wave of arousal from kissing a pretty girl in the street, however as the thing went on he found himself wondering how different it would be if it was John. He had embarrassingly tried to imagine a scrape of stubble against his chin, considered what she’d taste like if she was John instead, less like wine and more like beer or coke. And as he’d started imagining these things he’d found himself getting more into it – it wasn’t that he couldn’t still enjoy kissing a pretty girl apparently, just that imagining one was John was far, far better. The fuzz of arousal in his brain by the end of it had been less to do with the kiss and more to do with the person absent from it.

By the time Paul leaves her at number 24 he realises it’s nearly half eleven. He feels like a shit for using her as some sort of experiment and slightly terrified that this might be how his life is now, a muted version of something he can never have. Like a ghost life living alongside his real one, never fulfilled.

They say a polite goodbye at the gate but Paul doesn’t say that he’ll ring her. He’s not sure that he will.

When he turns out at the end of Vale Road and onto Menlove Avenue he realises he has absolutely zero reason to turn left towards Mendips, despite it being right there. And what is he expecting to happen if he did that anyway? For John to be watching from his window and call him inside? Paul feels a pang of acute stupidity – John is probably out with Cyn somewhere, or worse he has her up there in his bedroom.

So he cuts across the road and heads down towards home, trying to put together all the pieces of his want for John and his constant desire to be with him alongside the now added complication of Carole and his other pressing issue of Dot. The problem is there’s still only one of them he ever really wants to see, and it’s neither of the girls.

Paul is turning into Forthlin Road when he realises that there’s something been dumped on the pavement outside number twenty and he squints at it through the darkness. He almost jumps out of his skin when the bloody thing moves and he realises it’s John.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, then remembers it’s nearly midnight and glances at the house; all the lights are off so hopefully his dad and Mike are asleep. But something pathetic and instinctive kicks happily in his chest – he's here. Waiting for him.

John is sitting on the pavement just by the gate in the darkness, leaning on the privet hedge. Paul realises pretty quickly that he’s drunk.

“Bloody hell, how many have you had?” Paul asks, squatting down. John looks freezing, even with his big coat on. In his hand is an empty beer bottle and his eyes look soft with drink.

“Not many,” he lies, squinting through the darkness at Paul’s face. “How was your date?”

“Jesus, is that why you’re here?” Paul reaches out to touch his hand. “You’re bloody freezing, most people just use the phone, you know.” But having it confirmed that’s why he’s here causes Paul to fill with some unnameable thing.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“It was some drinks in The Derby, it wasn’t exactly a night on the Reeperbahn.”

“Did you kiss her?”

Paul drags his hand over his face. “For fuck’s sake, John.”

“So that’s a yes,” he replies.

“Look,” Paul says, standing up and offering John his hand. “If we’ve got to have this conversation can we at least do it in the house where it’s warm?”

As though to prove a point, John ignores his hand and stands up himself, albeit unsteadily. “I’d better get home.”

But this time Paul grabs hold of his coat. “No, you’re not walking home like this, Mimi will kill you. You can stay here.”

“Can’t,” John says, trying to shrug him off.

“Oh don’t be so stupid, Dad and Mike are both in there, you can have my bed and I’ll take the floor.”

“Dangerous.”

“You’re not going to jump me,” Paul says, steering him easily in his drunk state along the path. “You’re so pissed you couldn’t get hard anyway, come on.”

John stops and turns to him. “Is that a wager?”

Paul can’t help laughing loudly into the quiet of the night. “Only you could see that as a wager.” He gets his key out to open the front door but John pulls away properly this time.

“I can’t, Paul. We said we weren’t doing this.”

“I know, but it’s past midnight and you’re drunk. You can’t walk all the way home just to wake up Mimi. I promise I won’t touch you if you don’t want.”

John holds his eyes for a moment too long. “I do want though.”

Paul waits a beat and then sighs. “I know, me too.” And it seems truer than ever now after that kiss with Carole.

The sky which has been threatening rain all night finally starts to spit so Paul makes the executive decision for them – heading inside quietly he just holds the door open. “Come on,” he says.

He senses that it’s only the considerable quantity of beer he’s had that gets John over the threshold, but he doesn’t care much because finally they’re both standing in the hallway out of the cold and the rain. Something that has been tense in him since leaving John after that day they spent together curled up in bed at Mendips finally relaxes.

“Wait here,” he whispers, then goes through to the kitchen, fills two glasses with water and returns. John is still standing at the bottom of the stairs like a guest rather than someone who’s practically lived there for the past two years. “Oh relax, will you? We lived together in Hamburg and kept our hands off each other, come on.”

Paul heads up the stairs and feels John following him before they both step into his bedroom and click the door quietly closed behind them.

For a moment they both just stand there and maybe, Paul thinks, maybe this was a bad idea.

“Paul...” John says, but at the sound of him wavering and at the thought of losing him, Paul shrugs it off, bustles over to his bedside table, puts the glasses down and clicks his bedside lamp on.

“Right, I’ll go to the loo and get changed, you just get in bed. I’ll be back in five minutes.” And before he can argue, Paul goes out, taking his pyjamas with him.

In the bathroom he stands stupidly with his head in his hands. This is going to be absolute torture. Last week John was ill, which changed the situation entirely and back in Hamburg neither of them had acknowledged this so yes, it was different. He’d been sure that John was overdoing it by calling it dangerous but actually it does feel that way now. A bed and privacy seems like something that might tip him over the edge, despite how fine about it all he felt before.

Swiftly cleaning his teeth and getting into his pyjamas, Paul goes back to his room fully prepared to go and sleep downstairs but what he sees stops him in his tracks.

John is in his bed, curled up on his side and just underneath the blankets Paul can see that he’s changed into a spare pair of Paul’s pyjamas. He opens his eyes when he realises Paul is back and just from that he knows he couldn’t leave now if he tried. He’ll have the floor, just so he can look at him.

“Alright?” Paul asks.

“What do you think?” John replies, leaning up on his elbow. His hair is falling down onto his forehead and he looks soft and surprisingly sober. “Everything smells like you.”

He tries not to laugh. “Sorry.”

Paul grabs some blankets from underneath the bed and lays them out in something like a bed shape on the floor before sitting himself down. John is just watching him in the orange glow from the bedside lamp, his eyes never leaving him.

“Ok,” Paul admits, his voice seeming loud in the silence. “You were right, this is dangerous.”

John just nods at him. “About as bad as it gets,” he says, and Paul watches the movement of his throat as he swallows.

“I thought it would be fine.”

They just stare at each other and Paul realises that electricity he usually feels between them has ramped up and is now something akin to a power surge.

“It’s not fine,” John replies. “And you lost your wager.”

That breaks the tension a little bit and Paul finds himself laughing. “Only you - how much beer did you have?”

“Enough to stop me thinking about you kissing Carole Vaughan.”

Oh. Somehow Paul had forgotten about Carole entirely.

“Did it work?”

“Not really. So come on, how did it go?”

Paul pulls one of his blankets around him and sits back against his bedroom wall. He can hear Mike snoring loudly on the other side.

“It was just a date,” he shrugs, “She talked about trying for her driving test, I told her the edited version of what life is like in Hamburg and then I walked her home.”

John looks down the pyjama top he’s wearing, pulling at a loose thread on the trim. “She’s pretty,” he says, then looks back up and holds Paul’s eyes.

“Yeah, she is.”

“Reckon she’s a go-er, too.”

Paul grabs a sock off the end of the bed and throws it at John’s face, who just laughs quietly. It’s a relief to see him smile though. They just grin at each other for a moment until John casually picks up the sock and flings it back.

“So... do you like her?”

His face when he meets Paul’s eyes is softer than he’s ever seen it and something he’s still not naming rushes into Paul’s chest. He wants desperately to touch him, if only just to put his hand in his hair like Tuesday night, or curl up to him the way he did when he was ill. Paul’s whole body feels heavy with it; all this want with nowhere to go.

“Not like I like you, no.”

The weight of it sits between them, the bittersweet sharpness of it, something they can somehow never get over now. It’s happened and there’s no way out but through.

“Come here,” John whispers, and Paul doesn’t even think twice about it, is up and moving across to the bed before he knows what he’s doing, kneeling at the edge so they’re level.

John reaches out and pulls him close, resting their foreheads against one another. Paul has no idea what’s about to happen, wants to close the gap and kiss him but the thought of that threatens to overwhelm him and he knows that if they do that then afterwards nothing will be off limits. John can have any part of him then, anything at all. Crossing that means no way back.

“Fuck, I want you,” John whispers against his mouth. Paul can smell the beer on him; wishes he’d had the same amount so that they could just blame everything on that.

Paul nudges his nose against John’s. “You’ve got me,” he says. “This is definitely not the no touching rule.”

“Can we have a ‘crawling into bed and fucking’ rule?” John asks, his voice low and gravelly in the quiet. Paul actually moans at that and John laughs. “I should have gone home.”

Paul reaches out and grasps at John’s (his) pyjamas. “No. I can just sleep, I can make myself sleep.”

John laughs again and it’s just a rumble in his chest up this close. “Not sure I can.”

“This is your fault for not drinking more beer.”

John moves back just enough so that Paul can see his one hundred watt smile and it’s fucking delightful. “You made the bet.”

“It wasn’t a challenge,” Paul says, flicking him on the nose.

“You gonna let me have my pyjamas back?” He asks, looking down at where Paul’s hands are still clasped around his top.

“I think you’re going to have to make me.”

John raises one eyebrow at him then puts his hand on Paul’s, prising him away one finger at a time. Once he’s done he just sits looking at Paul’s mouth for a long time. “I’m not going to tell you what I’m thinking,” he says, voice barely audible and Paul drops his head onto the edge of the mattress, another cut off groan escaping him.

“It can’t be any worse than what I’m thinking.”

He’s trying to erase the images playing out in his mind when he feels John’s hand slip into his hair, tugging ever so slightly before moving away and doing it again. Paul feels like his whole body is on fire now and looks up to meet John’s eyes, head still bowed.

“That’s touching.”

“Yeah well,” John says. “I’ve decided this is fine.”

Paul realises he’s smirking at him. Someone tugging at his hair has never melted his bones before. “There’s other things I could be doing whilst you do this, you know.”

John’s eyes flutter closed, “That’d be more than touching.”

“I’ve decided it’s fine,” Paul parrots.

When John opens his eyes something has changed, he’s stopped looking playful. “I think you need to lie down and sleep before I come in your pyjamas.”

Paul can’t help but laugh though. “I think we ought to have a wager on that too.”

“Paul...” he says, and it’s a warning this time.

“Ok, I’m going.”

He reluctantly moves himself away from where John is now cradling the back of his head and fingers slip out of his hair reluctantly. But Paul can’t bring himself to go far, moves his makeshift bed over so he’s closer and once he’s lying down he reaches up to the hand still resting just over the edge of the mattress. He locks their fingers together.

“I’ve decided this is fine,” he says again.

This time it’s John’s turn to bite back a moan as he flops down onto Paul’s pillow.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, his voice raw and very far from soft.

“Please don’t die before I shag you.”

He looks over the side of the bed. “That’s not going to happen, remember?”

Paul just shrugs. “I’m going to wear you down.”

“You’re a twat, McCartney,” John murmurs, disappearing again.

But Paul just leans up and turns the light off. He keeps holding onto John’s hand until he falls asleep.

In the morning it’s easier because the noise of Mike and Jim moving around outside diffuses the atmosphere just enough that Paul can grab some fresh clothes and escape to the bathroom and change. When he gets back, John is back in his jeans from the night before but is wearing one of Paul’s jumpers from the pile of fresh clothes at the end of the bed. It’s maroon and Paul tries not to think how good he looks in it.

“Technically that’s touching,” Paul says, combing his hair in the small mirror on his desk. John just meets his eyes and holds them in the mirror until he turns around. “What?”

“We need to go back to avoiding each other.”

“Do we?” Paul tries not to feel the sinking disappointment in his stomach.

“I’m easy to wear down. And I’m a believer you should try everything at least once.”

“Just once?” Paul laughs. “Thanks.” He goes back to sorting his hair, if only so John doesn’t see his misery.

“Oi, dickhead,” John’s face is soft, despite the name. He waits until Paul glances over his shoulder at him to speak. “Last night was too close.”

But Paul’s feeling angry now. He was brought to the edge of something too, he’s just choosing not to be a child about it.

“Not for me. But whatever you want, John.” He goes back to combing his hair.

Paul feels before he sees John come up behind him then suddenly there is a chin resting on his shoulder and a warm body pressed against his back. John’s got his hands in his jeans pockets though, away from temptation.

“I’m going to try,” he says quietly, and their eyes meet in the mirror again. Paul can’t look away from how good he looks in his jumper and pressed up against him this close. They look good together.

“I thought we agreed it’s just us.”

“It’ll be just us with each other’s dicks in our hands next.” John’s squinting because even from this distance he can’t see Paul clearly.

“Good,” Paul says, defiantly.

“I told you I can’t do that,” John replies, moving himself back enough to rest his forehead against Paul’s shoulder. “I can’t let that side of me out.”

Mike chooses that moment to barge in without knocking and finds them standing like that. John moves away but it’s not quick enough.

“Made up, have you?” He asks, casually going to Paul’s pile of fresh clothes and going through them.

John, who usually has all the time in the world for Mike says, “What happened to fucking knocking, you twat?”

Mike stops, visibly shocked. “S-sorry John.”

“Get out Mike,” Paul mutters, leaning past John to physically push him. He looks devastated as the door shuts behind him.

“Wanker,” John mutters. “I need to get out of here.”

But Paul stops him, hand on his arm. “He didn’t see anything in it,” he says quietly. He wants to reach out and touch him but senses that wouldn’t go down well at this particular moment. He looks closed now in a way he looked soft before. Paul tries to roll with the mercurial atmosphere, tells himself he should be used to it by now, but with this new side to their relationship it’s harder because he feels closer now, seems to feel the shut down more keenly.

“Where’s the gig tonight? I forget.” He moves around the room, throwing John’s clothes from yesterday in with his own in the washing pile. Paul gets a sharp pang that he wants it to always be like this, their things mixed up together.

“Aintree,” John replies, voice short.

“Great, sounds good – public place.”

John meets his eyes. “That sarcastic?”

Paul frowns. “No, why would it be? No need to jump down my throat.”

He feels John’s foot hit his backside. “Don’t mention throats.”

Glad of the change in mood, Paul starts laughing and turns to him, stuffing his own hands in his pockets as a sign of obedience but stepping forward so they’re in each other’s space. He just wants to get closer all the time, it’s like it’s all his body knows how to do now. “Any other words I should avoid?”

John smirks and whether subconsciously or not, widens his stance so Paul can step forward and fit inside. “Ah, ‘deep’? ‘need’ ‘come’?”

“Bloody hell,” Paul says, moving until they’re flush together. John keeps glancing down to his mouth like he can’t look away. “That’s most of the English language. Should I start up in German?”

John smirks. “Maybe not, you only know the dirty words.”

Paul can feel that John’s hard through his jeans. He is too and it drives something powerful through his veins and makes him brave enough to swoop in quickly and place a barely-there kiss against the side of John’s neck. He moves instantly back but he feels John shiver anyway. “Ok, I vote ‘neck’ too.”

John inhales shakily like he’s trying to keep himself together. “This is why we need to go back to avoiding each other.”

“What, so I don’t kiss your neck? If I agree to stop can I keep seeing you socially?”

John laughs, loud and short. “You’re a tosser,” he says, but he still keeps staring at Paul’s mouth. And he said at least ten minutes ago that they need to stay apart but he hasn’t left at all.

“Just us, remember?” Paul says quietly, then steps away, not wanting to keep pushing his luck. And at least this way he gets to take his hands out of his pockets like a normal human. “D’you want to go somewhere for breakfast?”

John frowns. “How is that avoiding each other?”

“Public place,” Paul shrugs. “Same as bumping into each other there.” But he knows he’s on borrowed time really so lets it rest.

“Thanks but I think I’ll eat somewhere without any sexual tension,” John mutters, grabbing his coat and shoving it on. “See you later, yeah?” And with that he’s gone, leaving Paul reeling slightly. He needs to find some armour of his own for this because he’s currently not doing a good job of it.

He realises John leaves without shouting goodbye to Mike, which he usually does. Paul braces for the result of that and goes downstairs.