Chapter Text
“Is this- I don’t-” Paul bit down on his neck; George’s hips involuntarily bucked, and the next words came out in a panting whine. “I don’t understand-”
“Don’t understand what?” Paul said gruffly, own hands now exploring the skinny figure underneath George’s shirt, fingers leaving tracks of fire in their wake. “Reckon this is a perfectly clear situation, love, we’re snoggin’-”
“Paulie, you-”
“Me?”
“What about… what about-” he took a deep breath as Paul’s ever-curious fingers brushed his crotch, cheeks flaming at this point. “I thought – John.”
Paul immediately stilled, slowly pulling his hand away and lifting his head from George’s neck. He stared down at George from his straddling position, quiff no longer a quiff and now no more than a mussed up, half-greasy halo around his perfect face. His cheeks had reddened and his lips had bruised, breath coming out in short pants and a frown pulling his perfect eyebrows together. He looked curious and confused, adorably so, head tilting as a puppy would.
“What about John?” he asked quietly. His hands were resting on George’s chest now, completely silent, fingertips burning through the cotton like the lit end of a cigarette. “Why would ye-”
It felt like a bucket of ice-water was suddenly thrown over his head. “I- I thought- you-” he stammered, feeling incredibly sobered up, and he sat up slightly. His heart was hammering in his chest. “I dunno-”
Paul hadn’t moved when George had, face suddenly a whole lot closer. “No, tell me,” he countered, still gentle, still soft. “Tell me. What about John, Georgie?”
“I- I think he likes you, and I think you like him,” was the answer. George swallowed drily, gaze flitting between Paul’s eyes and mouth. “Like like.”
“You think I’m queer for John?”
“No!” George said, answering too quickly to properly process what Paul had just asked him. “…yes? Maybe?” he breathed in shakily. “I dunno, Paul…”
Paul swallowed and averted his eyes. He looked nervous all of a sudden, breathing through flared nostrils and clenching and unclenching his jaw methodically. “Well,” Paul finally muttered, “funny, that. I dunno either.”
And for one long, heart-shattering moment that was all that Paul said, and George was absolutely convinced he’d cocked up. Why couldn’t he keep his stupid mouth shut for once? Why couldn’t he leave those bothersome “but I’m confused”-thoughts behind and go along with whatever activity Paul’d had in mind? Why had he even drunk so much in the first place, knowing that it made his mouth loose and his feelings more intense?
“It’s like-” Paul spoke up again, frowning, looking like he was thinking hard. “It’s like… whatever I feel for ‘im is… I tried to convince meself it’s friendship. I really tried. But it’s so much more… intense. It’s like it could swallow me whole, y’know?”
Yes, he did. Fuck, did he know what Paul meant – it was what he was experiencing every single bloody day, this all-consuming emotion somewhere in between obsession and admiration, this burn deep in his chest, the feeling of looking at his mate on a sunny day after swimming and seeing the golden light hit his face in the gentlest of ways, reflecting off the droplets of water clinging to those fucking lashes of his and feeling like he’d been hit by a train. He knew.
Paul’s tongue darted out subconsciously, wetting that bitten bottom lip, and he didn’t seem to notice the shaky little sigh George produced. “Sometimes he smiles and my heart feels fit to burst. It’s not a fuckin’- it’s not a platonic feeling. I know that. I knew that, jus’ didn’t wanna accept it, ‘cos… ‘cos that’s queer, and we don’t do queer, and I hoped that it was just a fuckin’ phase. That I just admired ‘im too much, that that’s why I felt giddy like a bloody bird whenever ‘e gives me a compliment. And when I started to realise it wasn’t, a fuckin’ prayed it was just him.” Paul’s gaze met his. He looked scared, almost, eyes too wet to be neutral. He looked too much like a deer caught in headlights. “But then there’s you.”
George couldn’t bloody breathe.
“You’re there,” Paul stuttered, “with yer perfect fuckin’ face and hair and humour and you’re there, next to me, not a hundred fuckin’ mental miles away with yer Bardot-lookalike girl and yer art school mates. And you listen and you help and you push me out of my comfort zone more gently than John does, and you don’t loudly proclaim anythin’ queer is disgusting, you just roll your eyes when John does and then you smile at me and every single fuckin’ time my heart skips a beat and that confuses me.” He paused, took a deep breath. “I thought- I thought it was just John. I hoped it was just John, because that would mean it’s just John, no-one else. But it’s you as well.”
Oh. Oh. Oh my God-
“Oh.” George managed to utter.
“An’ lately,” Paul continued, voice pained, “whenever I’m with John, all I can think about is you. And I fuckin’- I fuckin’ don’t mind it at all.” Another pause, some squinting of glassy hazel eyes. “You should close yer mouth, Georgie. You’ll catch flies.”
George exhaled through his nose, feeling a weird mix of elated and emotional. Paul liked him. Paul liked him like he liked Paul, he liked him and he didn’t seem to be taking the piss, didn’t seem to be lying. The entire situation was completely and utterly insane, the concept of it sitting in George’s head like a greasy, sticky batter of confusion and happiness and disbelief. The tightening of his belly and the racing of his heart was so akin to feeling of heartbreak that he felt like he might cry.
This had to be a joke, had to be one of those cruel ones homophobes used to figure out which one of the lads was a fag. But Paul didn’t have it in him to do that, was too much of an “let people live” kinda lad for him to pull a joke like that. It had to be a dream then, one of those ones that had him wake up to that disgusting feeling of peace - a feeling that would only be shattered as reality set in and the hangover would make its presence known. It had to be some kind of nightmare. His mam always said that ‘er lads ran a fever after drinking too much, so that the body could burn off all that alcohol. That had to be it. A fucking fever dream. Paul kissed him and confessed to him in some sad dream that his mind made up for the sheer purpose of torturing itself and this wasn’t real. It fucking couldn’t be.
“Oh,” he repeated softly. His voice was shaking a bit, and his eyes burned. “Okay.”
“Are you crying?” dream-Paul murmured, and he reached out to wipe his thumb over the skin under George’s eye; his breathing hitched at the contact. “Why are ye crying?”
A laugh bubbled up and he allowed it to fall from his mouth, sounding watery and sad and happy all at the same time. The totally-not-real-Paul kept wiping with a worried frown. “Because it’s insane,” he blubbered, still laughing. “I’m- I must be a bloody nutter. This isn’t real. I’m dreamin’.”
“It’s real, George.”
“Well it can’t be,” he shot back. Fake Paul retreated his hands, rested them on George’s chest instead. “You’re- I’ve been in love with ye ever since you kissed me, years ago now, and the only one you’ve been starin’ at since then was John. Like- like he’s yer world.”
The mentally-constructed Paul stayed silent, pursing his lips.
“I’m gunna wake up in the morning” George continued, “with a bitch of a hangover and you gone, and then at noon I’ll be in yer sitting room with you and John in yer own little bubble and me alone. And I’m gunna have to accept that, ‘cos it’s never going to be any different. Even when I’m not okay with it.” A tear dripped from his jaw onto his collar. “That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Geo-you’re-pathetic-he’s-fake-Paul was still frowning, still pursing his lips, and he sighed through his nose. “That’s what you think?”
“It is.”
The dream-version of his mate stared at him for a few more seconds, big hazel eyes swirling with emotion he couldn’t quite decipher, before he nodded. “Alright.”
George’s heart broke a little, involuntarily. Which wasn’t right, ‘cos this wasn’t real. “Alright?”
“Alright,” dream-Paul said, and he was smiling. It was slightly unnerving. “We’ll go to sleep and see in the morning whether yer little theory is correct or not.”
George swallowed, wondering if he was wrong to assume that this was all part of his drunk dreaming, but he knew that if he had the chance to not hurt himself he should take it with both hands. “Alright.”
With that gentle, unnerving smile, dream-Paul pushed George onto his back and climbed off him to grab the blankets George had crumpled up at the foot of his bed when he got up this morning. He pulled them over their legs and laid down himself, curling around George with a content little sigh. It was no different from the way they’d usually sleep after a night at the Cavern, all tangled up and and clingy, but it did feel different somehow. It was still almost uncomfortably warm as always, and even in his dreams Paul still smelt like beer and cigarettes and sweat like always, but the contentment George associated with the action felt different. It felt real. No longer fabricated by fickle fantasy and forced ignorance, no longer accompanied by an annoying voice in the back of his mind whispering about how he was living in a lie. It didn’t make any sense.
“Night, Georgie,” dream-Paul whispered, and he stretched to place a real-feeling kiss on George’s jaw. “See ye in the morning.”
“You won’t,” went his thoughts, but he settled his head against dream-Paul’s anyway. Black hair tickled his cheekbone. “G’night, love.”
When George awoke to sunlight that felt like drops of acid, a stomach that seemed to have twisted itself into a knot, limbs feeling like gummies, and a head being pounded on by a hammer, he didn't know where he was for a brief second.
Soon enough though, the cotton he'd stuck his nose into smelled like his mam's laundry detergent and the wall across from him was filled with posters and pictures he'd taped to the old, faded wallpaper once. Even in his foggy, groggy, hungover state he was pretty sure that Elvis poster had been put up last week with a lot of swearing on his part and a lot of laughter on- on-
on Paul and John's part.
Paul.
George shot upright, ignoring the way his stomach churned and groaned and whined like his nan without 'er sherry on a Friday night, and swung his legs over the bed. He was still dressed in his clothes from yesterday; his drainies felt particularly uncomfortable and itchy, his shirt was really fuckin’ sticky, and by the feeling of it his hair was somewhat still in place. He'd bloody well hope so too, considering the amount of time he'd spent on front of the mirror the night before and how much gel he'd plonked into it - but it was honestly the least of his worries, now.
As he set on the edge of his bed, the dream came back to him so aggressively it felt like he’d been punched in the gut. There was an immediate feeling of nausea spreading through his entire body, thick and sticky and overwhelming like syrup, and the deep, careful breaths he was taking to will it down weren’t helping. Why, pray tell, had he drunk so much again? Moreover, what on earth had his brain been thinking? Was this his thing now, mentally torturing himself through dreams after having had too much to drink? The mere memory of Paul tucked against him with a soft, plump mouth pressed against his jaw made his heart clench, because he was certain it’d never be a reality. That was the painful part. A dream would never be more than that, a dream - it’d never be part of his actual life, no more than a silly and pathetic fantasy he thought up whenever he felt particularly lonely. Just fucking wank material.
God, he felt like shit. Though the nausea slowly dissipated and he could finally move without the fear of throwing up, his legs felt incredibly unsteady when he carefully rose from his bed, head pounding uncomfortably as the blood rushed down. He stumbled, having to use the wall as leverage and preventing himself from collapsing. He’d never felt quite so shitty before
A leather jacket was draped over the chair next to his bed, which was very weird. He vaguely remembered hanging his on the coatrack in the hallway while Paul tried to help him balance, and it’d been Paul who had still been wearing his jacket when they’d entered his bedroom. He hadn’t been that drunk that he’d dreamt everything, had he? That would be just ridiculous.
...right?
He somehow managed to run down the stairs without tripping and falling over his own two feet, stepping into the kitchen with an ease that surprised himself, and managed to rail in an audible gasp.
James Paul McCartney, the guy he was convinced he’d dreamt of kissing last night, was sitting at his mum’s kitchen table with a cup of tea and a plateful of sausage and toast, chatting casually with Mrs Harrison. His hair was messy and he was wearing the clothes from last night as he laughed and chatted and charmed his way into George’s mum’s heart, like he always did. Mum’d never said it out loud, but her favourite of the Quarrymen was Paul, and never before had George wished more that that wasn’t the case.
He was here. In the flesh. A real, physical apparition of Paul was sitting at the kitchen table and eating breakfast, and that meant that his presence hadn’t been some kind of embarrassingly desperate fever-dream. And that meant-
Did it?
“Morning,” he rasped as soon as he’d caught his breath and train of thought, and two heads simultaneously turned to smile at him.
“Afternoon,” mum corrected gently, nodding at the clock next to the cross above the door, and he repeated her correction quietly before taking a seat next to a smugly smiling Paul.
“Slept well?” Paul muttered from his seat next to George, dipping a piece of his toast in some sausage grease. George dared to glance at him and felt himself flush the lad’s smirk. “Slept like a babe meself, actually. Comfortable pillows you’ve got, Mrs Harrison-”
“It’s Louise to you, lad,” she scolded with a fond smile, placing a plate filled with toast, sausage, an egg in front of George. “You know that. And ‘ere ye go, love,” she then said, combing George’s fringe back with her fingers before leaning back to fetch him some tea. “Nothin’ like soaking up last night’s mistakes with some hearty food, aye?”
“Aye,” he replied, immediately bowing his head to break off a piece of toast and scoop up some of the egg, but also to avoid looking at his mate. “God bless, ma, thanks. An’ I slept just fine, thank you, Macca.”
“I’m glad,” Paul said, taking a sip of his tea. “Though I could’ve guessed that, with how loud you’d been snorin’.”
“I do not snore,” he immediately protested, head snapping in Paul’s direction before figuring out the lad’s little plan. He regretted it instantly, breath audibly hitching at the sight of his mate in the warm afternoon light coming in from the kitchen windows, and realising just how smitten he actually was. Paul, the handsome bastard, stared back with that annoying, knowing smirk of his, big eyes twinkling in amusement and contentment. George turned back to his food with an embarrassed scowl. “I don’t,” he muttered nasally, stuffing sausage into his mouth. “Your little sensitive ears just can’t handle anythin’, as per usual.”
Paul just giggled in reply and took another sip of tea.
“Well,” mum said after a moment of silence, flitting around the kitchen as she gathered her bags, “I’ll be off, now. Shopping ain’t doin’ itself, now, is it? You boys leave the dishes in the sink, and both clean up, won’t you, lovies? You reek.”
“Do we?” George muttered with a grimace, around the same time Paul answered with a cheery “alright Louise!”. She smiled at the both of them, pressing hard kisses to the top of their heads- and she was gone.
George sniffed himself briefly and immediately recoiled, taking a big gulp of tea to get rid of the smell lingering at the back of his throat. “We reek.”
“Do we?”
“Yes,” George muttered in reply, returning to stuffing egg and toast into his mouth. “I do, at least, so that means you must smell as well, y’know.”
“We should shower then,” Paul said, gobbling up the rest of his breakfast/lunch with the last of his tea, and standing up to put his plate in the sink. “Hurry up.”
And despite him rarely taking any of Paul’s demands to heart, he hurried up. The egg and toast disappeared first, followed by the last bits of his sausage, and he threw back his tea. Paul looked awfully satisfied when he stood up to place his own plate in the sink, which was something George tried to tactfully ignore. Paul just liked it when he got his way.
It didn’t take long before they were upstairs and getting ready to shower. Though Paul was taller than him by an inch (or, “less than an inch”, as he always snapped when someone commented on their height difference), borrowing clothes was never a particularly big problem. Mum didn’t mind it, as long as the clothes returned washed and ironed; besides, George had developed a habit of turning up in Paul’s trousers as well. It was for that reason that the thought of Paul wearing his pants, his trousers, or his shirt should not have felt as weird as it did. It made his lower belly tingle somehow, even though he was still not sure whether that happening last night was a dream. Paul had stayed, but had his mind not just made up the kiss? The confession?
“Towels in the bathroom, aren’t they?” Paul asked casually, pulling at his collar to sniff himself. His nose wrinkled adorably, like it always did when he smelled something he didn’t quite like, and George had to smile at the sight.
“Y-yeah,” he murmured, averting his eyes to fumble with the clean socks in his hands. “Bathroom, yeah. Dirty ones in the bin next to it.”
“Right,” Paul answered, and then he was silent.
There was a tension between them that wasn’t natural, that wasn’t there usually as Paul hated awkward silences and always attempted to fill them with smalltalk, and the obvious absence made George feel like he was on edge. All of his muscles were tense, upper back aching in that uncomfortable fashion that usually only happened when he walked home on a cold night and tried to keep himself from shivering. He didn’t even dare to turn his head to look at Paul. Why was he silent? What was he thinking of? Had he done something embarrassing in his sleep? Had he moaned Paul’s or, God forbid, John’s name?
He swallowed. His throat was dry.
“You okay?” he then asked, voice raspy from the nerves and brief disuse. “Want to shower first?”
It happened very suddenly.
He was pushed against the door in the blink of an eye, wrists locked in rough fingers and eyes locked in an intense gaze. Paul, the bastard, had always been strangely attractive when he was concentrating. Of course, George found Paul attractive regardless of his level of concentration, but there was something about intense eyes in an otherwise innocent and youthful-looking face that tugged at his gut. Whether Paul’s concentration was on his guitar, on John, or on birds, it’d never before failed to get George hot and bothered during moments he didn’t want to be and fuck, this was not the moment to get excited-
“We kissed this morning,” Paul informed him casually, voice weirdly calm in comparison to how red his cheeks were getting. “You kissed me, and I kissed back, and then we… I said something.” A pause. “D’ye remember?”
George blinked rapidly, a mix of disbelief, panic, and excitement spreading through his body. His stomach hurt. “I- I think- that wasn’t a dream?”
Perfect eyebrows shot up ‘till Paul’s hairline. “A dream?”
“Well it wouldn’t be the first time-”
“There’s a hickey on your neck, George,” Paul stated, sounding incredibly incredulous, and George’s heart stuttered at that statement. “My hickey. Did you even look in the mirror when you got up?”
This was getting ridiculous. “Why on earth would I-”
Paul shook his head, greasy hair swaying with the movement. “Doesn’t matter. We kissed, you said you liked me, I said I liked ye back, and I’d like to know what ‘appens now.”
George frowned. “We keep it to ourselves?”
“Well, yes, you git,” Paul rolled his eyes. “It’s illegal, remember? It’s just-” he sighed through his nose, leaning in a bit closer. “What other things will we keep to ourselves?”
“I-”
“‘Cos I’d really like to kiss you now,” he confessed quietly, “and I’d like it- I’d like it if we kept that between us, y’know.”
Oh.
Oh.
“Oh,” George squeaked, face heating up when that gaze slid down to his mouth. “Okay. I- yes.”
Paul dove in with a content sigh, mouth pushing against George’s in a way that felt unnatural and dangerous in the light of day. The kiss wasn’t necessarily as hungry as it had been hours before, and wasn’t as soft as it had been the first time, but it was exactly what George needed in that moment - and then some.
Slow but sure was the movement of Paul’s lips against his own, with a certain confidence behind it when Paul managed to deepen the kiss. George’s heart thrummed in his ribcage with nerves as he tilted his head, granting his mate all the access he required, and his entire body starting to tingle when Paul released his wrists to grasp his cheeks instead. God, this was exhilarating, even better now that he was sober and the alcohol-induced numbness of his face had faded. Paul tasted like egg and sausage and tea, hints of the night before masked and washed away with his late breakfast.
Paul pulled back, breathing hard, and leaned his forehead against George’s. George, in turn, let out a shaky sigh.
“So,” Paul whispered. “You stink.”
The difference between Paul’s statement and action was absurd, and George laughed loudly, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. He did stink, but so did Paul, and they’d just kissed.
Sober.
“And you smell like an old sock,” he replied, looking back down to stare into Paul’s twinkling eyes. He smiled brightly, body warm. “Let’s get on with it.”
Paul pressed one last kiss to his mouth, cheeks bright red, and leaned back. “Well… you first?”
Showering was, sadly, not a shared activity. George went first, opting out of a wank because of how quickly he wanted to wash up, and as soon as he’d opened the door Paul rushed past him to use the last of the hot water. Paul wasn’t finished by the time George had gotten dressed, and it took another ten minutes of absentmindedly playing some familiar chord progressions to keep himself occupied for Paul to finally emerge from the bathroom and appear in George’s bedroom with wet hair and a black t-shirt sticking to his chest.
“Sounds good, that,” he muttered, picking up his leather jacket and putting his arms through the sleeves. “Anything in the works?”
“Nah, you’re the virtuoso ‘ere, Macca,” George replied, taking his guitar out of his lap to put it in its case. “You took an awfully long time. Didya have a wank or somethin’?”
Paul swiftly turned around and walked towards the stairs. “I promised John we’d be practicing at mine at one, so we better go.”
George couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. He jumped up, taking his guitar case in one hand and speeding off after Paul. “You did, didn’t ye? Randy bastard-”
“It’s past one already and I’m sure da’ will have let ‘im in, but I’m not sure how long those two’ll survive without us there as buffer.” Paul had reached the bottom of the stairs, already pulling on his boots. As soon as George had reached the hallway he spotted the redness of the tips of Paul’s ears, and his grin widened. “You know ‘ow they are-”
“Jim likes me better an’ John can’t handle that,” George concluded, putting down his case and leaning down to step into his own boots and tie them up. “You totally wanked in the shower.”
Paul looked at him as he opened the door, waiting for George to pull on his jacket and walk out as well. It wasn’t until George had locked the front door and they’d reached the pavement that he spoke up again.
“Tha’s right.”
“What?” George laughed at the mischievous twinkle in Paul’s eyes and the consistent red flush on his cheeks. “What’s right? All of it?”
Paul just grinned.
They left to walk down the familiar path to Paul’s home, closer to each other than usual. George’s shoulder burned whenever Paul’s brushed against it, right through two layers of cotton and two layers of leather, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was nice, reassurance that Paul was there, that it wasn’t a dream. Paul turned to look at him and flushed when he grinned cheekily, ignoring the way his heart raced.
Paulie’d branded him, but George had left just as much of a mark as well.
It was alright, now.