Work Text:
Late January, 1971
John stirred from a pleasant dream to the feeling of Paul pressing kisses to the back of his neck. His mouth curved into a smile, and with a soft sigh, he pressed his body more snugly against the other man. Paul’s answering laughter trickled into his hair, getting swallowed up in the sleep-mussed strands.
“Morning, love,” whispered Paul. “Sleep well?”
“Mmm.” John stretched, then settled back into place. Paul’s arm around his waist tightened a bit, as if to keep him in bed indefinitely. Something he wouldn’t mind one bit, in fact.
“I should get up and make breakfast,” Paul mumbled.
“Mmm.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, breathing in near tandem. Paul’s mouth went back to John’s neck, leaving tiny little pecks wherever he could.
“Oh, but what about breakfast, Paulie?” he teased.
Paul echoed him with his own soft, unhurried, “Mmm,” and John couldn’t stop the giggle that slipped out of his mouth. He would’ve been embarrassed about such a noise with anyone else. But with his Paul, he’d grown more comfortable with many things about himself and his life. He didn’t want to go back to how things had been for the past few years — shutting himself off from almost everyone, the loneliness and anger that came with that, and missing out on many of the little joys that other people could bring.
John rocked his hips backwards now in invitation, earning him a pleased laugh.
“Want me to keep going, then?” Paul asked, notes of a lingering smile in his voice.
“Unless you have something else to take care of first, of course,” John said with the utmost gravity.
That was all the coaxing that Paul needed. Once John had shucked out of his shirt and underwear he lay face down on the bed, while Paul settled on top of him. He kissed a path along John’s shoulders, then moved lower, breath ghosting over the curve of his spine. John missed feeling his weight on top of him, but he shivered in anticipation for what was to come.
Paul got him worked up with his mouth first, then reached for the vaseline in the drawer nearby and slicked his fingers up. By time Paul had worked three of them inside, John was squirming with barely-contained impatience.
Then they were joined at last, both of them groaning with relief and pleasure. Paul’s hands slid up to untangle John’s from where they had fisted in the bedsheets and laced their fingers together. He turned his head to catch Paul’s eye, overwhelmed but smiling helplessly as he said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Paul answered right away, eyes gleaming. “All right?”
“Yeah. Don’t stop, love.”
“I won’t,” Paul assured, squeezing his hands tighter before falling into a gentle, insistent rhythm with his hips.
A hypnotic melody of gasps and sighs rang out from their mouths, getting louder and more intense as their pace increased. Paul was pushing into John more forcefully now, hitting that spot deep inside of him that made his voice waver and break, even as he kept begging for Paul to take him harder.
“Oh god, I’m close,” Paul gasped after a while. He tucked his face into John’s neck, breathing shakily. Then his teeth nipped at John’s pulse, which hammered even further at the thought of marks being left there for anyone to see.
“Yes, Paul, come in me,” begged John, tilting his head to give him more room. “Love how you feel, it’s so- ahh fuck, please, it feels so good…”
Paul managed one last thrust before he stilled with a desperate groan. He burrowed closer into John’s neck, mouth parting against his skin. Unable to help himself, John pressed back onto Paul’s cock a few times to draw out the final shivering jolts of pleasure, and close to his ear he heard an awed gasp of, “Jesus, John.”
They both settled on the bed in a blissful, languid heap. The sheets were warm and sticky underneath John, but he had no intention of moving any time soon, not after a wakeup call like that. Paul had him cocooned with his body and hadn’t pulled out yet.
John twisted around a bit, just enough to face Paul and have their lips meet in a gentle kiss.
“Forget breakfast, Macca,” he murmured between them. “After a shag like that, I’m ready to go back to sleep.”
“Don’t blame ye’,” Paul chuckled. “But me back aches, love, and I’m also starving. Afraid I’ll have to disappoint by gettin’ up.”
John pretended to huff with annoyance. “Oh, all right. If you must.”
Paul did so carefully, though John felt rather cold and empty now without his presence. But then, before he moved away from the bed completely, Paul caressed the space between his shoulder blades and leaned over to place a kiss there.
“I’ll go start the shower for us,” he said. “We’ll both feel better once we’ve gotten cleaned up, believe me.”
John hummed approvingly in his throat. “Aye, we smell fuckin’ ripe. Feed the cats while yer on, too, yeah?”
Soft laughter followed Paul out the door, and he said something in the affirmative that John didn’t quite catch but smiled at anyway. He let himself drift indulgently on the edge of sleep for just a little longer, and then he rolled onto his back and sat up, ready to start the rest of this perfect morning.
After they showered and ate some delicious veggie quiche that Paul had made, he and John began another ritual of theirs: playing guitar.
Last October John had finally attempted to organize the guest room in his cottage, which had transformed into a rather dusty and chaotic storage room over the years. Toward the back, underneath some weather-worn tarps, he had rediscovered his guitar. It was in surprisingly good shape, with no signs of mold or other damage from its particularly careless position.
Sometime after Christmas John had taken his guitar over to Paul’s farm near Machrihanish Bay. Paul could tune by ear rather well, so John had let him adjust the strings accordingly before he ran through the chords that he still remembered. Paul, however, had abruptly stopped him.
“What sorts of chords are those?” he’d asked, amused and a bit baffled. “I’ve never heard D or A minor like that before.”
John had rubbed the back of his neck, the embarrassed flare of heat already evident under his palm.
“Well, truth be told, I learned most of me chords from me mum,” he’d said. “And she only showed me how to play the uke an’ banjo.”
They’d had a good laugh about it, in the end, and Paul had even taken the time to show him some of the proper chords to use. What made it even better was that John could sit across from him and practice as if he were sitting in front of a mirror. While Paul would form the correct chord with his right hand, John would do it with his left.
There was something quietly intimate about them playing like this, too. Eye to eye, attuned not just to the music they shared but also to each other — their love blooming in a new, breathtaking way.
Paul stopped strumming now to take the last lukewarm sips of his tea. He set the cup down and reached for the notebook beside him on the couch cushion. John watched as he scribbled something with his pencil, brow creased in thought.
“Aren’t you going to share with the class, Paulie?” he prodded, stretching the stiffness out of his arms.
“Well, since we’re working on this together, I thought I should make it official.”
Paul handed the notebook over, his eyes glinting. The armchair on which John sat creaked loudly as he leaned forward to take it. He read the title they’d come up with yesterday, Too Bad About Sorrows, before seeing what Paul had added below that:
‘A Lennon-McCartney original’.
John swallowed, glancing up quickly at Paul, who was failing to bite back a grin.
“I get top billing on these songs of ours now, eh?” he joked, to cover up the bashful flush of his cheeks.
“Why not? Of course, I can always change it to ‘McCartney-Lennon’ if you’d like,” Paul countered, and John barked out a laugh, his nerves settling again.
“You would like that, wouldn’t ye’? Arrogant sod. I think those London artists really did rub off on you after all.”
Paul shoved at John’s shoulder in mock offense, both of them snickering like schoolboys. Before long the room was swelling again with their music — two guitars and two voices working as a tireless team to stay on the right course.
They spent a fair portion of the afternoon running errands. First they stopped over in Southend so that Paul could restock on some oil paints and canvases. Then they continued on to Campbeltown for groceries. The wind had a bitter, forceful edge to it, and John’s black cap nearly blew away as they bundled themselves into Paul’s truck.
“Bugger this cold,” grumbled John. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, shivers wracking through him. “Might as well run around starkers, for all the bloody good me layers have done me.”
Paul’s left hand settled over his thigh, then began rubbing up and down vigorously to generate heat. “There, how’s that feel?”
“Better.” After a moment, John grabbed his hand and moved it lower until Paul got the idea, cupping him through his trousers. “Warm me up here, too, yeah?”
Paul glanced down at where his hand had been directed, cheeks turning pink. He let out a breathless little laugh, saying, “Christ, yer a cheeky bastard. I’m not goin’ through with this in the middle of town.”
“Suit yerself. But no one would even see what we’re doin’, anyroad.”
John raised an eyebrow as if daring Paul to rise to the challenge, to keep touching him anyway. But, to his mild disappointment, Paul’s hand retreated to the steering wheel.
He drove them back toward Machrihanish without much fanfare. He did, however, spare John a few brief, tense looks which made him shiver for an altogether different reason. It also kept a fire smoldering in John’s belly, low and tight, for the rest of their trip.
“Hold still,” Paul said for the third time, popping his head around the canvas. “I can’t paint you if you keep movin’ around like that.”
John resisted the urge to roll his eyes, then straightened up to his former position — half-turned in a chair with his head tilted up and to the right, legs open in a relaxed pose and hands in his lap. Paul’s studio didn’t have heat, so they’d had to bring out one of the space heaters from his cottage. A trickle of sweat rolled down John’s back as he fought to keep himself still as requested.
“Me neck’s bloody killin’ me, Macca,” he grumbled. “How much longer ‘til yer done?”
“Almost there,” Paul promised. “Just have to get the highlights on yer hair…”
John watched him work out of his peripheral vision. He’d positioned the easel in a way where John could still take in most of Paul’s lean, confident frame. He sat perched on one of his stools, sleeves of his gray turtleneck rolled up to his elbows. Every so often he would duck his head forward, eyebrows telegraphing every subtle shift of his mood, from mediative to excited to dissatisfied. All the while his paintbrush bobbed restlessly back and forth like a buoy, an almost living extension of the man’s drive to capture something tangible.
At last, Paul set his palette and brush down on the small table next to him, straightening up proudly. “All right, it’s finished. Come take a look.”
With a groan John stood up, rolling his head from side to side to work the crick from his neck. He walked around to stand beside Paul, hand floating up to his shoulder.
The style of the painting leaned toward Paul’s love of the abstract, but he had still captured John’s pose as well as the background to a T. There was a lovely contrast between John’s green sweater and the red curtains behind him, drawn closed to block the glare of the snow. His face was bathed in warm, orange lamplight, and although his features were simple, the brush strokes communicated clearly that he was the subject. Thoughtful eyes peered into the middle distance from behind round spectacles, while his beard floated in dreamy curls about his angular face.
John looked down at Paul, who met his gaze curiously. If he was worried about John’s opinion, it didn’t show on his face yet. He looked as open and serene as a daisy turned up to the sun.
“Yer best one yet,” John declared, and Paul exhaled a pleased laugh. “It’s actually kind of fascinating, you know. Seeing how you see me. I think I like me better through yer eyes.” Then, because he couldn’t help but follow up a little vulnerability with a quip, he added, “Who would’ve thought I looked so devastatingly handsome?”
Paul scrunched up his nose playfully as he wrapped an arm around John’s waist. “And you say I’m the arrogant sod, Captain.”
John responded back rather maturely, he thought, by flicking Paul behind the ear and sticking out his tongue.
It was John’s turn to check on the animals, so he went around making sure that they all had enough feed and were sheltered from the cold. Paul, meanwhile, had gone in to make their evening tea and put some music on.
When John finally came back in, stomping snow from his boots, he heard Frank Sinatra’s voice serenading him from the living room:
‘You make me feel so young,
You make me feel as though spring has sprung…’
Paul was on the couch, foot tapping along to the rhythm, eyes closed with his head tipped back. John could see the soft, content smile unfurling over his face, and it made his heart squeeze in his chest.
He took off his coat and gloves, then walked over to stand behind the couch. He hovered over Paul for a moment before removing his cap and plopping it down on his face. Paul’s shoulders shook with laughter.
“What’re you doin’?” he asked, voice muffled by the cap.
Grinning, John yanked the cap away. Paul blinked up at him, then bit his bottom lip in the way that drove John a little crazy. He put his hands on the back of the couch and bent down to kiss that perfect Cupid’s bow. He huffed out a chuckle at Paul’s beard hair tickling his chin at this angle.
“Come here,” urged Paul, reaching back to tug at one of John’s wrists.
John went without protest, throwing his cap thoughtlessly to the side and circling around to sit next to Paul. He tucked his legs up across the cushions and nestled his head under Paul’s chin.
“Are you still okay with takin’ Martha to her appointment tomorrow?” asked Paul.
“‘Course. Shouldn’t take too long to get her shots. I’ve got all the money in me wallet.”
“Thank you. Just didn’t want to add to your stress in any way, since you’re still tryin’ to refit the boat an’ all. Tomorrow I’ll have to go up to Glenramskill to help Ms. Chandlish with her plumbing. All her drains are runnin’ slow, but she’s not sure where the blockage is this time.”
“Is she the one I met in town a couple weeks ago?” John murmured, and Paul made a noise in confirmation. “She was nice. Smelled like incense and peppermints.”
“Like the song.” Paul smiled and began humming the tune in question, until John poked him in the stomach to shush him.
Quiet blanketed them comfortably for a while. John let his eyes meander about to different parts of the room. He looked at now familiar pictures and paintings that Paul had hung on the walls, and he watched the steady turn of the record as Sinatra continued to croon in the background. Then John shifted his attention to Martha, who was lying on the floor and tearing away at a knotted rope that Paul had bought from the pet shop.
He had to marvel, yet again, how Paul’s farm had truly become a second home to him. He couldn’t have imagined anything as cozy or domestic as this just a few short years ago. Sometimes, though not often, he wondered if he would wake up back at the lighthouse, his one refuge away from the world, and find that Paul was nothing more than an unusually vivid and wonderful dream.
But every time Paul would still be there in his bed, or he would ring John up to spend the day together. And as John had discovered on Christmas morning, Paul was also now in a position to absolutely spoil him with fancy date nights, books, and everything else he might want. The paintings that Paul had taken to London to an art dealer had managed to sell for over £30,000, each.
John had whopped and laughed and hugged Paul as tightly as could be, until he was certain the ruckus could be heard from the peninsula all the way up to Campbeltown.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, love. Didn’t I tell you or what? I knew you’d make it, I just knew it!”
Paul had wiped the tears from his eyes, a huge grin on his face. “Yeah. You never doubted me fer a second, eh? I wanted to tell you sooner, y’know, but I thought it would be more special to tell you on Christmas. That’s how I was able to afford your ring, as a matter of fact. I finally got the checks at the end of October.”
John looked again at one of the older paintings on the wall. It dated back to 1969, a nameless seascape painted in hazy tones of blue, beige, gray, and yellow. The colors had always reminded him of the dockyards in Liverpool, and the way the sunset would sometimes give merchant ships trailing along the Mersey a pale, indistinct glow.
Paul must have noticed his faraway stare, because he turned his head a bit and squeezed his arm. “You all right?”
“Yeah… was just thinkin’ about home. Liverpool, that is.” John sat up and turned to Paul, a realization occurring to him. “Speaking of… I don’t think I ever really said outright, but I went to art school fer a while, too. The one over on Hope Street. It feels like forever ago now, but sometimes I wish I’d stuck with it, you know? Instead of rushin’ off to a life at sea. Yer painting reminded me of that just now.”
Paul’s face twisted with a strange, almost disbelieving smile. “Now hang on, you… no, clear off!”
John glanced around the room with an awkward chuckle, tugging at his collar.
“What? Have I said somethin’ wrong?”
“No, no, it’s just… Hope Street. You mean to tell me you went to the Liverpool College of Art?”
When John nodded, Paul guffawed and tossed his head against the back of the couch. He wanted to ask Paul what was so damn hilarious, until he began to speak again.
“That’s where I went, too! God, all these coincidences between us are gettin’ uncanny, you know? The college was right next to my high school, the Liverpool Institute, so I’d always see groups of older students with their books an’ portfolios at the bus stop. Me an’ George Harrison usually rode in the back together while the art kids sat in front.”
“George Harrison,” John repeated, slowly. Paul had mentioned him before in passing, but the description he’d given of the bus stop tugged, sudden and insistent, at a memory long-buried in John’s mind. He could just make out a thin boy with bushy eyebrows, and another boy beside him, a boy with piercing eyes and pouty lips, and… oh.
John leaned back with a start, staring at Paul almost incredulously. Paul noticed the rapid shift in his demeanor and straightened up, eyes flashing with mild alarm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I used to think we’d met before,” John explained, “Figured it was just a silly thing, but now I know it wasn’t. I remember you.” His eyes flicked to the familiar arch of Paul’s eyebrows, to the hair falling in wispy little half-curls down his forehead. “It was at the bus stop. I was tryin’ to get on and I ran into this gangly-lookin’ lad by accident. And there was this other boy next to ‘im with dark hair, who looked like Elvis. Both of them were wearin’ school uniforms…”
Paul’s eyes widened in recognition. He searched John’s face, too, as if trying to find remnants of that smooth-cheeked seventeen year old beneath the growing age lines and the tangle of his beard.
“Christ, it was you,” he finally breathed. “I hadn’t realized ‘til you said something…” A fond laugh bubbled out of him, bright and melodious. “You thought I looked like Elvis?”
John nodded, at a loss for words. What would his life have been like, if he’d spoken further to that boy and his friend on the bus? What if they’d crossed paths again, at a record store or even a church fête like the one in Woolton? Would their relationship have played out any differently than it had here, in the rugged highlands of Scotland?
Paul cupped John’s face, still laughing quietly, and John leaned into the touch with a pleased sigh.
“The world moves in mysterious ways,” murmured Paul. Then he said through a helpless little giggle, “You nearly bowled poor George over back then, you know. He kept talkin’ about it the whole ride, how you must be a blind bugger not to see someone standin’ there.”
John snorted through his nose. “Well, he was certainly right about that. I’m a bloody blind bugger without me glasses!”
Paul chuckled, bumping their foreheads together. After a beat he leaned down to mouth at John’s neck, soft little movements like a cat.
“Tell me again how I looked like Elvis,” he coaxed, and John huffed out a breath.
“Wish I’d known…” John broke off with a gasp as Paul kissed under his ear. “God, wish I’d had the chance to talk to ye’ more back then. I remember you lookin’ so… so soft. Yer face, and yer hair… god, Elvis has never looked as pretty as you, love.”
Paul groaned at that, dragging his teeth against John’s earlobe. “Used to have a crush on him, you know. My first one that wasn’t on a woman. Didn’t realize it ‘til I was a bit older, but when I did, I’d get one of his records out, and I… I…”
“You what? Tell me,” John urged. He was suddenly, achingly desperate to hear what Paul had to say, how a randy young man like him had dealt with his first crush on another man.
“I’d put the record on, and then I’d sort of… prop up the sleeve on a pillow, so I could look at his face while I tossed off. God, that really did it for me back then, and his voice? Hell, sometimes I’d only last a few minutes before I came all over the sheets.”
John let out a shameless moan at the confession. As if Paul couldn’t shock and delight him even more… just how was he expected to survive?
“Fuck,” he panted. “What a filthy lad you were.”
“I’ll show you filthy,” Paul promised, right before sucking a hickey into John’s collarbone.
It took a bit of fumbling for them to get their trousers off, but eventually John straddled Paul’s lap and their cocks were rubbing together against their stomachs as they kissed. John reluctantly broke away from Paul’s mouth to rip their turtlenecks off with shaking hands, which left them in only their undershirts now. Paul, the cheeky fucker, had on the black shirt that he’d nicked from John a while back. It accentuated the muscles of his arms, and also stretched taut over his chest so that one could see the outlines of his nipples.
Biting his lip around a smile, John worked his hands underneath the shirt and pushed it up to expose Paul’s chest. Goosebumps rippled across his skin, and John sought to chase them away, rubbing his hands back and forth until the chill subsided.
“Always look so damn sexy with my shirt, Paul,” he rumbled. “Drives me insane.”
Paul made a breathless sound, halfway between a laugh and a groan, and rewarded John with another slow, sensuous grind of his hips.
“I know,” he whispered. “I’ve seen the way you stare whenever I put it on. ‘Specially when I stretch like this.” He demonstrated it now, raising his arms above his head. He grinned smugly as he watched John stare at the fluid, flexing movements of his pec muscles. “Love seein’ how worked up you get over me, babe.”
With a deep growl, John smashed their mouths together — partly to shut Paul up before he came too quick, and partly because he couldn’t help himself, had to kiss the words out of Paul like he was dying of thirst without them.
He took them both in hand, thumbing at their leaking tips, and now Paul was the one wavering on the edge of control. He exhaled a startled gasp against John’s lips, head tipping back involuntarily.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s it, love, that’s so good… god, your hands, Johnny. There should be hundreds of poems and… and paintings about your hands. The most… ah, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”
John’s mouth twitched with a pleased, almost shy smile. He loved Paul like this, sappy during sex as much as he was outside of it, even when John wasn’t sure how to take it, the uncertainty curling in the pit of his stomach. After years of denying himself this sort of connection, physical and emotional, his muscle memory was still poised to be on the defensive.
He gripped the back of Paul’s hair, grounding himself to the moment again, and angled their faces for a deep, breath-stealing kiss. They broke apart only when John started rubbing his thumb in a tight circle over their slits, and they looked down to watch, both of them mesmerized. Paul, never one to keep quiet, kept up a running commentary.
“Oh fuck, that’s so hot, Johnny. Look at our cocks in your hand, that’s perfect. God, you always know what to do, don’t you? Makin’ us both feel so good, love… shit, like that. Keep yer thumb right there, right- ahh yes, that’s it, baby. Want to see it, wanna’ see us come together with your perfect fuckin’ hand, yeah?”
A broken keen wrestled its way from John’s throat, and he only managed to gasp out a partial warning — “Oh, Paul, I’m-” — before his hand tightened in his partner’s hair and he spilled into his own fist, most of it landing on Paul’s flushed, twitching prick.
“Oh, Christ,” Paul moaned, a full body shudder going through him. His lashes fluttered as he fought to keep his eyes open. “Oh John, that’s amazing. You’re amazing.”
John didn’t stop until Paul followed him over the edge with a shout. He knocked his forehead against Paul’s as they shared the same shuddering air, gradually coming down from their high.
Exhausted but satisfied, John reached down to pluck his turtleneck from the rug. He wiped off the mess from his hand, then cleaned Paul’s stomach as best as he could manage. When he was finished he balled the turtleneck back up and tossed it beside them on the couch.
They lingered in each other’s arms for a long time. Paul kept his hands splayed flat as he traced them soothingly over John’s shoulders and the small of his back. John breathed out a soft sigh, nestling himself deeper into the warm embrace.
“Hope yer washer an’ dryer are working,” Paul teased, and John smiled while he squeezed his arms a bit tighter around him.
“Well, thank goodness I have a big, strong handyman as my fiancé,” he countered.
Paul hummed in acknowledgement, and not even a moment later John found himself being pulled quickly into the clutches of sleep, his partner’s arms forever keeping him anchored and safe.