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part i.
Paul’s dad is acting strange.
He didn't cry that morning when he told him, both bands clasping around a steaming cup of tea, his voice hard and hushed at the same time. “Mum's gone. She's not coming back. Now, go upstairs and tell your brother. Make him understand, alright, Paul?”
It had felt to him as if the world was collapsing. He was climbing up the stairs, not able to hear his own footsteps. Heart in his throat. He blinked hard, and his father's face was wooden and stony, but his eyes was glimmering.
Mum's gone. Surely that is a very bad thing? She's not coming back. What would become of him and Mike? Go upstairs and tell your brother. Tell him — what? That they're without a mother, now, and make him understand, “we're a family of three, do you understand?” Of course Mike understands death. Paul, too. A father of a friend of a friend, died in a work related accident. “Mum's — well, Mike, you know she's been.” An aborted exhale. He swallows. “She’d been looking ill for a while.”
His brother had cried and shouted, confused: did you know she was sick? Why didn't you say anything? Mike was so loud, his dad must have heard him. But when Paul came down, the kitchen's deserted. On the table, the tea's cold and half drunk. He gulped the rest of it, moved to the sink, washing it, feeling the tiny crack hidden just below the handle, the yellow petals surrounding it. Mum must have painted it with his painting kit.
I didn't know, he'd told Mike. But he should have. If he'd paid more attention, he would know Mum's lethargy wasn't just a terribly long, long case of the flu. When she talked and her voice was dim and quiet and pained, and when she retreated more and more to her bedroom he should've seen it, should've asked. Are you very very ill, Mum? He realised he had wanted to ask. Only he was too terrified of the answering no, I'll sure be better tomorrow (he'd believe it even if he knew it to be a lie, and when the next day she's no longer here, then—) or the yes, but you'll be fine, won't you, Paul? You'll be strong for your brother. Must he be strong?
He remembers the next day. Of waking up with his chest aching. As his palm meets the rough fabric of his shirt he gasps, his heart throbbing. Remembers.
Paul clambers to sit up, clutching his chest. He shuts his eyes, tries to quieten his breathing, and listens hard. Any day before — before sickness took her mobility, Mum would already be up and about, he'd rouse to the sound of utensils being moved around, herself all alone, busy in the quiet of the morning. Can a house be mute? He didn't even realise his house used to sing.
His dad doesn't cry, though he's always misty-eyed those weeks after, nor does he let Paul cry. He squeezed his shoulder in a stern warning when it started to shake. Paul gritted his teeth as his mother's coffin was lowered to the ground. When Mike cries, it's his job to make him stop. “You're his brother. You look after him.”
Paul isn't allowed to cry, so he's angry most of the time. He sets down a plate of eggs he prepared for breakfast with too much force. It's clatter twang loudly in the house, silent except for Paul's feet, instinctively steps backwards as his dad's jaw tensed, but his mouth is bursting. “Aren't you his parent? I have to be Mum and Dad for Mike, too? And for you?” But Jim's already on his feet and Paul's hands gripped the counter behind him, bracing for an impact. When it comes, the sting feels good. He stares defiantly at his dad, hoping for another smack.
His dad hits him again, harder. And again. It doesn't stop, even though Paul's hiding behind his raised arms now, curled on the floor, eyes shut, ears ringing.
This, here, is strange. Paul can understand being slapped around for discipline, to teach a lesson, perhaps. The ache would be dull and his eyes would prick with tears, and his dad would send him to Mum, where she'd tell him what he did wrong, why his dad was angry, and what he should and shouldn't do. Jim's so much angrier, now, for what he thinks to be too little.
“You're in the way.” Jim says a few days later to Paul, sprawled on his feet, wide eyed.
“But you called for me.” He's cleaning his dad's sick, rubbing the stench clean with flowery chemicals that reminds him of Mum. His left cheek burns.
“Shouldn't have had to call you in the first place.” Then his dad sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don't have to lecture you about responsibility, Paul. You're not a child anymore.”
A whole list of new responsibilities and rules, now his to care for. She used to do this every morning. Everyone's asleep still, she kneeled and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. Was Jim ever good to Mum?
The doubt creeping in his mind is sickening, chokes him with a bitter resentment he can't really understand. His dad isn't home much but when he does he stinks of sweat and beer and he doesn't really yell, doesn't really raise his voice unless Paul's talking back, then he'll raise his, booming and accompanied with a backhand landing on Paul's cheekbone. It aches every time, but it feels good. He doesn't understand. Too angry to care. Did Jim ever hit Mum?
Paul can't stand to be around him. The sight of Jim makes his stomach lurch apprehensively. His voice grates on his nerves, drives his muscles simultaneously tight and tense and weak and jittery. If it's fear he feels he'd stay out his way. But Jim would call and Paul would always come. If he's angry he'd hit Jim back, hard as he can. Thinks he can do it, too, despite the hell it'd raise afterwards. Paul feels—something. Other.
He lets his eyes slide out the window of his room, holds his bruised hand on top of his folded knees, presses it, looking for a sensation known and familiar. He dreams for a giant hand to scoop him out of the universe. If he's big he won't be confused. Did Mum ever want to run away?
“Why d'ya have to be so stubborn, Paul? He'd only give you a harder time if you keep running your gob,” Mike says, standing in the bathroom's doorway, watching his brother wincing and hissing attempting to clean his bloodied nose, lips, chin. Brown stain on the collar of his shirt. Red slithering down his fingers, down the drain.
Paul scowls. “If you'd just go to school like a good boy, huh, instead of running somewhere being a nuisance, an embarrassment. This won't ever happen,” he scowls even harder as the echo of Jim's words comes out of his own mouth. Funny, that. Earlier when his dad was on him he'd defended Mike. Took a blow to his face for it. But now his head is pulsing with hurt and Mike is blaming him—
“Fuck off, Paul. It wasn't even about me. You think he doesn't hit me? Difference is I don't provoke him back, don't ask him to—”
“Really, Mike, must be so hard being a pushover,”
“—to beat me even harder.” Mike crosses his arms in front of his chest, looking away. When he continues, it's quieter, hurried. “You know he's never been like this, before. It's the drinking, isn't it. If you'd just… Stop making it worse for yourself,”
Paul breathes. Mike is scared, maybe. He'd imagine if it was Mike being difficult on purpose and getting beat to black and purple he'd want him to shut up, too. All the fight leaves him and he deflates. “Alright, Mike. Sorry.”
Mike uncrosses his arms, about to step back but stops. “Uh, yeah. Do you…”
“I'm alright.” He's quick to assure. “Don't—don't skip school, though, yeah? Don't make it a habit, at least.” Looking down, fidgets with the hem of his t-shirt. Ruined, now. Itches to shrug it off his skin.
“No, no. I was just. I'm sorry, too. Didn't mean for this to happen.”
Paul nods numbly, smiles.
It's somewhat easier after that. With time, Jim is gradually getting better. Mike doesn't act out anymore, busy with his group of mates and his growing interest in the subject of girls and dating and trying to look cool. Paul is dutiful, as long as his dad doesn't come back from work smelling like alcohol. Doesn't get hit much at all, with Jim choosing to relegate his admonishes to house chores now that Paul's generally amiable, if not distantly polite and cold. It still irks him when his dad tells him to do this and that, always controlling what he could and couldn't do, but then he remembers how good it could be, if he'd only let it go, let it pass. The house doesn't have to be so miserable, full of useless, drawn out arguments about nothing in anywise.
So he sits on the piano, when Jim doesn't let him get out of the house just because something unknown bothers him. Plays music he knows his dad likes. Looking up for a praise, a smile at least. Paul earns a pleased hum. It makes him happy nonetheless. The music or the approval, he's not sure. Sometimes Jim would stand behind him, play some tunes. Says it's mine when he asks whose song it is, whilst Paul tries not to seem too awed. Impressing Mike with music is not so easy. Especially if it's Paul who's playing. He'd only get a nonchalant shrug of not so bad.
Jim never acknowledges those terrible weeks where they barely get along. He pesters him about doing good in school, and making sure Mike is doing good, but hardly cares when Paul shows his grades after exams. Once, a teacher spanked him for dozing off. Didn't even want to hear his explanation: I wasn't sleeping, sir, my eyes were closed is all! Don't need your eyes wide open to be listening, do you know? Only for him to get punished more. He limped home with much difficulty. Told his dad about it when he asked. To this Jim said, “Well, son. If your teacher hit you, you probably deserved it.”
Did he? He can't dwell on this for too long. Anger melts a face, erases names and warmth shared. Let's forget about it all. Onward, we move.
Responsibility is okay. He finds he's good at it. Mike doesn't like to be fussed about and sometimes seems to be genuinely put out with it, but Paul thinks he must need it. Mum used to do this and Paul had liked it, needed it. And his dad needs some taking care, too, if he doesn't want him to start drinking heavily again, pissing away precious money that could be food. It's also important for Paul for them to be good.
Paul tries to make his own music. If his dad can do it, he probably can, too. The melody comes to him almost naturally. The lyrics aren't so much, but eventually it's done, though when he presented it excitedly to George, he said it doesn't make much sense.
“Bit dark,” he says, peering at him curiously. Paul feels his face contorts, and George presses their shoulders together rather inordinately. “But it's cool, that. Making your own songs. Maybe I'll try—writing with you.”
He nods encouragingly, middle finger finding its way to his mouth, nips at it. “We can write together. But, y'know,” Paul puts down his hand down the neck of his guitar. Wrinkling his nose funnily, he says to him, “It's not dark. Just a song, isn't it.”
George doesn't say anything, just blinks in a way that makes his eyes twitch. Paul ducks his head. Might as well say the song's bad, he thinks, fingerpicking absentmindedly. Should he change the title? Sucide might be too severe, indeed. He likes how strong it sounds, though. Simple and makes the point just fine.
George's house might currently be his number one favorite place, apart from his own room. His mum's especially always warm and welcoming towards Paul, more so now after Mary's death. Sometimes he'd come by just to have a chat with her, his heart grow fuller because she'd ask questions about school and he'd shyly exaggerate his excellence, and maybe she's exaggerating it, too, but she'd look real proud of it, of this boy she's got nothing much to do with but she offers kindness to anyway.
George can see through him, or he thinks he can see through him. His eyes are intense but soft, like he wants to be disgusted at Paul chatting up his mum, playing the perfect son, but can't help but be fond of it. Paul only raises his eyebrows high and bunches up his cheeks. That never fails to draw a smile on George.
He has to go back early, however, “have to buy some stuff for me da.” When George asks about their plan tomorrow, he tells him he can't come over, but maybe sometime later.
In the bus, a group of older boys crowded the back seats, talking and laughing loudly, demanding to be noticed. Paul does a swift scan for an empty seat, chooses to sit round the front just behind a flat-mouthed middle aged lady. Placing his guitar snug between his legs, he faces the window and lets his mind hear music to drown the group's raucous larking as the bus jerks forward.
At some point the bus slows, and his ears pick up scuffling from the back, coming nearer and nearer until it's right beside him. He looks up.
His gaze naturally fixes at the boy in the very front. An aquiline nose! Paul's never seen anyone with one of those before. He touches his own nose intuitively, pulls a face. He wishes his nose’s as nice as that. In the mirror his face looks too much like Jim at times. Though he'd stop looking like him when he grins big and stupid. Eyes travelling up abstractedly, he realises with a jolt down his spine the boy's already staring at him—blankly, if not inquisitively. Paul tears his gaze away, hides his face behind his fist. Face warm with embarrassment. How long has he been staring? How long has the boy been staring back? He shudders once, twice. Decided with finality to promptly forget about it.
part ii.
Meeting John isn't like falling in love or anything. The day he sees him playing up there on the stage, guitar wildly out of tune but brimming with confidence, he feels a spark deep in his pulse that doesn't feel new nor unexpected. It isn't fate, either. Doesn't trust it, does Paul. This is something he dreams for and makes happen, when in turn he plays for John and he tries to appear unaffected, but Paul sees a twin spark he's ignited as their eyes catch.
“I manifested it.” He proclaims, in response to John's anguished howl, screaming what'd happen to poor, ol’ me without you, Macca! All Paul's done is suggesting simple twists of words for their first Lennon-McCartney original. They're sitting across one another. Paul's perching on the edge of his bed, while John's cross-legged on the floor, back flushed to the wall, a rather abused and battered notebook balanced on his knee.
“What's that?” He fixes his glasses, as if it'd help him hear better.
Smiling, he says, “You. I manifested you.” At his answer John's only making funny faces, clearly dismissing him as cryptic and unimpressive. Paul leans forward, putting his weight on the guitar nestled in his lap. “No, I swear. I anticipated this.”
“Meeting me? Yeah, I knew it!” John snaps his fingers in aha! “You'd been tailing me all that time. Spying on me from busses to busses. Hiding behind bushes to bushes.”
“What? No!” He laughs. “I mean you, y'know. A long time ago I dreamed of you,”
“Are you sure? Could've sworn every time I looked back, there it is! A suspiciously Paul-shaped blur behind a tree.” John points an accusatory finger at him, wriggling it playfully. “Don't you lie to me, son. I'd recognize your blurred arse anywhere!”
Paul kicks John's shin, drawing a loud, indignant yelp from him. Under his breath, he mutters, “Prick.” He crisscrosses his ankles, looks down to busy himself plucking distractedly. John's taking the piss as usual, but the way he makes it sound—is it obvious? Paul was never stalking him. That'd be ridiculous. He bites his lips. “I've seen you around. That, I did. Small world. And you're loud, so I noticed you.”
“Well. I noticed you, too.” John chortles at the breakneck speed Paul's head snaps up. Gets his shin kicked again. “Ow, ow.”
“Really? What d'you mean?”
John only shrugs. “Hard not to.”
What does that mean? Paul ignores the way his heart skips a beat. “When's this?”
“Hm,” he's bunching his mouth left and right, making drawn out thinking noises, shrugs again. “Here and there. This kid in my periphery. O-ho! I saw you once at a store, thought you were a cardboard cutout. Standing stiff in the corner, bag of leeks up your nose, glaring at potatoes.”
Paul tries hard to remember, comes up short, looks at John helplessly. “I've seen you many times. Never when I was holding leeks.”
John shrugs again. “Point is: if seeing me now and then across the street's all that happened, then you don't manifest me, do you. Just means you've got working eyes. I don't come out of you, Paul. You're not me Mum.”
“What? Of course not. But that's not what I meant,” he trails off, tries to find words to explain, so he can make John understand. “It's like writing a song. Only for a long time—” He stops, then starts over, “It's like a melody I'd hear when I'm doing my chores—don't laugh! But the song's not yet written, you see, so it was just an idea. You were an idea I've had. I don't mean a dream like seeing you in my sleep. I dreamed of you when I was awake, like. Not you, but you. D'you get it? And then the song's written and you know it's done. The song's complete. It can't be more finished than this.”
John's gazing up at him candidly, not replying. Paul feels the beginning of a blush creeping up his cheek, ready to laugh it off. Then John asks, “And that's me?”
“Yeah.” Paul breathes, relieved.
“I dreamed of you, too.” John says a week later.
“You what?”
“I manifested you, too.”
Paul laughs. “No, you didn't.”
“I anticipated this, the whole scene. Me being funny and having you in stitches.”
“Try to be more original, Johnny.” He tuts.
Jim doesn't like John, predictably. His dad's inspecting him like he's trying to find a fault he can criticize to bits. Paul thought Jim's over smacking him around like a little kid. He's older now, taller and stronger. Less dependent and not helpless. But the anger's gone. He doesn't have it in him to defend himself. Mostly he talks back, tries to reason, reach an understanding. If he says the right combination of sentences and with placating enough tones he might be able to make Jim understand.
No, dad, John's not leading me astray. Or anyone, in that matter. We're in a band. We play music. Jim raises his hand. Lands quite hard. A dull shock, after so long. He goes on to warn him all about the perils that type of boy would bring. “Keep your head down and be good, Paul. Focus on your study. If music makes you happy, son, then do it. Only you stay away from the bad crowd. The things children these days up to…” He trails off, looks right at him — “You don't fit there.” — sees nothing.
Quietly, he keeps on doing what Jim forbids with almost utter abandon. Sneaking out when he shouldn't, doing other John related things when he should be doing some other things instead. When he's caught, it's better for everyone involved for Paul to clamp his mouth shut and bear it.
“Why'd you let him do that to you?” asks John, fingers ghosting over his reddened cheekbones.
“I don't.” He shies away, picks up a pen from the floor.
“But you did. You gotta hit him back. Tell him to bugger off.” John suggests, his voice tight though he tries not to let it show.
Paul shakes his head. “It's no good, that.”
“What'd he do that for, then?” he asks, pulling back and reclining semi horizontally on the bed. “Nothing worse than all I've done, I bet. Mimi's a terror, but she never does that. If she even tries I'd fight back. I'd win, too.”
“Yeah, you see. That's where it's not the same. Dads are like that.” At John's unconvinced stare, he looks away. This is a thing he doesn't care for much. “It doesn't even hurt, really.”
John doesn't seem willing to drop it. He's got his thinking face on, like he's mulling over it, not understanding but perhaps wanting to. Paul brings his fingers into his mouth, gnawing at the calluses smattering the pads of it. He smiles, makes stupid faces to show how not worried and not bothered he is.
John snorts. “You're daft.”
“You're daft.” Paul jumps to burrow himself beside him, knocking John's side with his elbow.
“Ow!” John curls up, holding his abdomen like he's been stabbed.
Paul rolls his eyes, laughs.
Julia's death is sudden, and Paul watches as John spirals. He searches and searches for ways to make it better, all the while his arm aches to reach out and touch, hold. Does John want to be held? He shuts him off. Sends Paul away when he visits sometime after the funeral, feet shuffling and fingers twiddling on his doorstep. I don't want to see you, he says, staring him down. Which almost brings him to tears, but Paul knows John's hurting. He doesn't want to see anyone. Not him especially. Does he need more time?
The band comes to a standstill without John's maneuvering. Paul huddles close to George meanwhile and they talk about taking it more seriously, to start looking for more consistent gigs that pays, like a real job. He nods, thinking about John. Wonders if he's still into it — still into Paul and writing and performing with him.
When he gets back home that night, it was Mike who tells him John's called. “You're lucky dad's out and I was there to take it.”
Paul waves him off, demands urgently, “What'd he say?”
“Practice tomorrow at his house.” Mike says distractedly, tinkering with his new, flashy camera.
“In his house? Not Pete's?”
Mimi's house is empty when he gets there the next day. John looks—fine. Clean. He's wearing his glasses and his eyes look tired, but isn't dim like he's sick, or sad. Instead, he seems calculating, scanning him up and down, appraising. There's a question behind his gaze. But John only gestures for him to come in, follow me. He adjusts his guitar nervously, watching John's back as he leads them upstairs. John's room is neat, if not sparser than he remembers. Did you clean your room, he wants to ask, but doesn't. He notices John's guitar isn't even there.
“Where's Mimi?” he settles for what he perceives to be a safe question, only to be drowned by John's louder voice, asking: “Do you think the band's got it?”
Paul hums, taken aback by his intensity. He places his guitar on the wall, steps further inside the room, already nodding and shrugging. When he looks back, the expression on John's face is searching. He's studying him like he can read Paul's mind, noting the gap between what he thinks is up there and what comes out of his mouth, his body.
“I—yeah? We're getting better and better, aren't we?” he replies quite uncertainly. It's really only John and him and George who seem to be interested in going into the right direction, he thinks. But he can't say that.
John's face hardens, then angles it away as he sits down on the bed. He scoffs, eyes set on Paul. “It's shit, though. No better than the rest of them wannabes. And the songs shit, too.”
“No, they're not.” He says automatically, frowning.
“No, yes, they are.” He insists, tone scathing. “So bad I don't even want to sing them. Rubbish, all of them. If I were you I'd be ashamed, singing all that nonsense. Looking like a real right moron,” John barrels on, looking up at him with an air of challenge, as if he wants to convince him, making him agree.
Paul worries his lips, tries to gauge where John's going with this, ignores the way his stomach twists into knots uncomfortably. He can hardly stop his next words to sound a tad too defensive and snappish, when he only means to be assertive. “The songs’ alright. Even George thinks so. I don't know what you're getting at, but—”
“Does George. That's where you've been going, then. Trying to start a band with him now, did you?” John interrupts, glowers unhappily as he hears himself.
“Already in a band together,” He flatly reminds John.
“Without me—” Now he's full on pouting, before he shivers it off and squints up at Paul, accusative, shaking his head all the while “All that talking and planning and dreaming but you're not even serious about it.”
“About what?” Paul breathes, slow and deliberate.
As if talking to a small, stupid child, he says, “The band.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he looks straight at John and states, “I'm serious about the band. I've said that only a million times over.”
“Yeah, talk,” John mutters, turning to stare daggers at his bare wall.
Paul scowls, glaring at John's profile through panic and confusion, feeling relieved to have his scrutinizing eyes off him and not liking it at the same time. He wants to sit down, so he does. Making a point by boldly plopping himself right next to John, the sharp point of their knees touching. That John doesn't move away feels encouraging. He lets go, smooths his face to an inoffensive blank and thinks for something to say.
“Don't see your guitar anywhere,” he decides to mention, somehow sounding more composed than he feels.
“Smashed it to bits.” John scoffs, hands start to gesture the motion, but drops halfway. His eyes dart at Paul and quickly skitters away. The next words rush out of his lips seemingly very painfully. “Sorry. This isn't even what I planned to do when I called yesterday. Forget all about what I've said.”
“Alright.” He accepts, happy to oblige. Nudges John's arm lightly and gets nudged back, ever so gently. John's openly staring at him now, thinking who knows what. Paul wishes he can read his mind. He asks. “Is it really in bits? Your guitar,”
“Clobbered. Destroyed. Whacked. Can't be fixed.” But John's looking at Paul in this certain way. Like he's asking for a fix.
Paul blinks, smiles. “So the practice's only a bit to lure me in, eh?”
“Had to. The perfect bait to fish Macca out the cage,” then he grins, impish. “Thought if your da's picking up, I'd've a bit of fun selling stylish bikinis for his ripe teenagers.”
“You wish,” He tries not to giggle at the resulting image popping involuntarily in his mind's eye. Clearing his throat, he adds, aiming for sincerity. “But, y'know. I'd come anytime. If you call.”
“I don't want you to come when I call,” is John's answer, fast and without thinking.
At John's words he senses in his chest a burn that begins to become familiar. John's a complicated boy. What he says and what he means are often conflicting and contradictory. The more he knows, the more he wants, the more it aches. But perhaps in time, it'll turn benign, and everything will be just fine.
John winces in guilt as he tentatively glances at Paul to assess his reaction. Paul wonders what John sees. But he's only thinking about how great it would be, if they can see through the same pair of eyes, speak from the same honest, open heart, touch to feel not only the other's skin but their own. He wants to sew and fit himself into the yawning space just there inside John's bosom. Paul turns slightly and lifts one of his legs up the bed. John immediately does the same. Now they're a mirror of each other. This should be enough.
“You don't mean that.” He tells John, who nods and shrugs.
“What I mean is that I was waiting for you to come, but you didn't.” He explains, not making sense.
“You said you didn't want to see me!” He balks.
“I didn't.” John agrees.
Paul doesn't know what to say, really. “Well. So,”
John doesn't offer anything else. Just scoots backwards until his back hits the wall and settles there, both knees folded up in front of him. Pulled by his motion, Paul follows, crosses his legs. “So, what'd you originally plan to do today?”
“Mm?” John tilts his head in a curious manner. “Ah. Nothing in particular. Been thinking about the band… You really think we're good?”
“Yes. We're good, the two of us. And George. But we can only get better. Why?” His eyes flicks down momentarily as John wets his lips, taking a moment to consider his answer. With more difficulty than what's acceptable, Paul looks away, fiddles with the blanket he's sitting atop, and focuses on the texture of it.
“I don't know about you, but I'm—” John stutters, then continues, “I'm getting out of here. I’ll be on top or I'll be nothing, that's the only way I'll have. No other. I dream about this: you were singing to thousands, who screamed back at you. I reckon I must be there, watching you, maybe singing with you, or living through you. I want that.” A harsh exhale from John's mouth, like saying that has burned his tongue to ashes. He's staring ahead almost religiously and his shoulders are tense, refusing to even spare him a single glance.
“Oh. That's…” Paul catches melody when he loses words. But he can hardly serenade John out of nowhere. His mind is all static besides.
John looks tormented. Tries and fails and tries and fails to steady the tremor in his pupils, eventually gives up and meets Paul's.
His face goes slack. “Christ. Your eyes,”
Paul is being very stupid. He is going to get socked right in the head by the one person he likes and trusts the most. What happens next is that Paul lets himself fall. The rest is up to John.
Later, they're laying on top of each other, John's head cradled securely in the crook of his arm. The light isn't on, but the moon finds the beautiful line of John's nose, flaming his cheekbones with a golden glimmer. Paul nuzzles closer to the luster, dazzled and happy to be here at all. That John has allowed him this. They've been talking and kissing for hours, mostly doing the latter, with one obligatory toss off in the dark, hands straying farther and farther until they connect in the middle. They can't help the laugh that bubbles up after, at once giddy and embarrassed as they clean themselves.
I'm famished, he announces as he holds his stomach, limp hand brushing his temple theatrically. John runs downstairs to procure what sustenance is available and comes up with an extra bottle of vodka. They drink and talk some more. Occasionally John'll curl his fingers to poke at his sides, flick his nose, tickle his ears. Minimal reaction from Paul doesn't deter him at all, but he's busy eating while John's busy staring and playing.
Later, driven back to bed, he asks, carefully and with the gentlest voice he can manage, about Julia. John's quiet for a long time, eyes bouncing swiftly to the ceiling and back to Paul—ceiling, Paul.
“Does it get better? With time.” John chooses to ask right back.
Paul drops his gaze, feels John watching him. “Yeah. You get used to it.” Knows that isn't enough. That he ought to give more, although John seems ready to let it go, also doesn't much want to talk about it. He forces himself to carry on, arranging his words attentively. “The worst are the mornings, I think. When I'm not awake enough, and I can still see the afterimage of my dreams. It's all good and well, but then I remember, and it's a—um, a surprise, every day. Less and less now, but some days it caught me, still. Don't know if it'll ever…”
He's mortified to hear his voice goes thin and wobbly by the end, tries to clear his throat but it catches. It's catching.
John gathers him between his arms as shiny tears start forming heavier and heavier, thick and dragging, falling. Paul ducks his head down, shuts his eyes as he presses himself into John's neck.
Feels John's body shaking around him.