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He became aware of the stench of the sea before he was even aware he was awake. It wove its way into his dream-state, somehow, and as he floated through strange sounds in the twisting pathways of his mind—music and talking, his friends’ voices, Mimi’s, Julia’s, and that old policeman who had shouted at him and George in angry German a couple nights ago. They all blurred together, in that strange way sounds do in one’s dreams, until suddenly they weren’t sounds at all, they were smells—and specifically one smell. That distinct, dank smell that you might call seedy or sleazy but which could only accurately be described as Hamburg.
He opened his eyes with a jolt that made him grimace and wonder why he had opened them at all. Sure, the smell of Hamburg wasn’t anyone’s dream, but it certainly wasn’t a nightmare either, and maybe if he had stayed with his eyes closed a bit longer he would’ve forgotten the smell only to fall back into the sounds, the dreamscape, the floating….
He’d squeezed his eyes shut at some point during his silent cursing of himself, but now he opened them again. His head was heavy with an ache that explained his inability to remember much of last night, or why—if his eyes and body temperature hadn’t joined up in some sabotaging pact to convince him of his own insanity—he was evidently outside and not in the seedy (ah, there was that word again!) room he shared with the other lads.
Blinking at the gray morning and the ships in the harbor that blocked his view of the equally gray sky and sea, he became aware of more than just the feeling of the cold morning air. For starters, he had been sleeping on a stained wooden bench, only not alone, because there was someone behind him, breathing hotly against his neck and with a hand rested innocently on his side. It was an unmistakable someone he didn’t have to turn to look at to identify, so John merely frowned.
Ah, there he was then. John again. The last remnants of his dreamy state had melted away in favor of a massive hangover and the biting morning air. He groaned and elbowed the body behind him.
“Geroff me, you big scouser,” John said.
“Mmph, you’re the scouser,” Paul murmured, clearly still mostly asleep.
“‘Course I am,” John said, sitting up. Paul’s arm fell away from him, and he suddenly felt much colder.
“Sleep more,” Paul muttered, sounding as if he was already doing just that.
John twisted around. “Oi,” he said, poking at Paul’s cheeks, which were pinkened from the cold. “Don’t. We gotta go.”
“Why?” Paul demanded, scrunching his face and shoving John’s hand away, but still not opening his eyes. He hummed slightly as he spoke next. “S’early.”
“It’s fucking freezing,” John said, crossing his arms over himself.
“S’okay,” Paul answered. “I’m just sleeping.”
“Just sleeping, he says,” John mocked. “When his face is red from the cold.”
“Can’t see me own face.”
“And lucky for you, innit?” John said. “Imagine being me, having to look at that ugly mug every day.”
“But sir,” Paul replied, eyes still decidedly shut. “Every face is ugly to a blind man.”
With a huff, John reached out to peel back one of Paul’s eyelids, but Paul grabbed John’s wrist instinctively before it could reach his face.
“Less cold with you beside me,” Paul murmured. “Just a bit longer.”
John stared at him. He had always thought Paul looked strangely angelic while asleep (which was maybe saying a lot, considering what Paul looked like when awake); he might as well put a halo over his head and be one of those porcelain Christmas tree toppers. And although John wasn’t one to lose an argument (even one with a sleepy angel), he also knew when he had lost with Paul. Anyway, it was just a bit longer. It’d be a shame to wake him up entirely.
Only somewhat begrudgingly, he let Paul tug him back down on the bench, only this time he was facing toward Paul, not with his back to him. Paul’s hand was warm on his wrist, and John was glad he didn’t remove it. Kept him less cold.
He blinked at Paul’s face, suddenly feeling much less awake than he’d originally thought he was. Maybe...if he shut his eyes, he’d be able to float away again, with just the memory of Paul’s pretty eyelashes, his lovely doll-like lips, his boyish cheeks pinkened by the cold….
“Soft lad,” John murmured, already on his way out.
“Who ye callin’ soft?” Paul murmured back, but by the sound of it he too was already far upstream.
When he awoke the next time, it was sudden but without the jolt. At first, he thought he had only opened his eyes to a dream, because there was a set of eyes staring back at him. But he was conscious of the cold in a way that told him he was awake, not to mention the feeling of the legs tangled with his on the bench.
“Fancy seeing you here,” John said quietly. Paul smiled.
“Come here often?” he asked.
“Oh, once in a while,” John answered. “When the weather’s nice.”
“And when it's not?”
“Oh, I come then too,” John replied. Paul smiled, and as he did John realized he still had his hand wrapped around John’s wrist. He wiggled against Paul’s grip. “Keepin’ me prisoner?”
“Saving your life,” Paul said. “We’re on a cliff, you know. If you roll over, you’ll fall right off.”
“Mm, the Hamburg sharks will get me,” John agreed.
“Or worse, the birds,” Paul said.
John let out a sharp laugh, mostly because he didn’t really know what Paul meant by that. Didn’t want to know, maybe. Finally breaking his wrist out of Paul’s grasp, he poked at his forehead. “I think ye got a screw loose up there.”
“Nope,” Paul disagreed. “Screws on tight.”
“Nah, I hear it rattling round,” John said. “Ought to see a mechanic.”
“Know anyone?”
“Tough luck,” John said. “I’m between mechanics at the moment.”
“Well, either one will do.”
John smiled. He liked this game. It was why he liked Paul—he could play along like no one else. John remembered Cyn commenting on it once, how it was like listening to a foreign film sometimes when she heard the two of them converse.
Oh, but why was he thinking about Cyn now? Paul was here, with his lovely eyes that John didn’t mind getting lost in. He supposed staring into Paul’s eyes was a bit like drifting off to sleep. He sort of forgot about the other things around, sort of forgot real life existed. He loved Paul’s eyes. It wasn’t even the color or the shape or anything like that that captured John’s attention. It was what was in them. Something deep, something driven, something that made him shiver when fixed with it, something he never wanted to look away from or to look away from him. Perhaps that was the best thing about Paul’s eyes—when John stared, they stared back.
“See something you like?” Paul asked. They were still talking in low voices, as if worried speaking any louder would wake up the rest of the world too, and then it wouldn’t be just them two anymore. John didn’t much mind it when it was just them two.
“Loads,” John said.
“Tell us 'bout them.”
John paused, taken aback. This was not the game—it was something disguised as the game. It might wear the cheeky mustache and the jaunty cap of the game, but it was not the same. He had noticed it start to creep up on a few occasions in Hamburg. Here, amongst the seedy men and the sleazy prostitutes, in between the cheap beer and the unfinished naps, was a different game wearing their game’s pants. It wasn’t a bad thing—certainly it couldn’t be, judging by the way it made John’s stomach flip flop with interest and buried excitement. It was just a different thing. It still had his and Paul’s tone and shape and grins, but it was different. It was the game they could play in Hamburg, but would try to forget back in old Liddypool.
“Well, there’s your cheeks,” John said, deciding not to start on the eyes. “Chubby little boyish things that make me imagine fat old baby photos Jim’s got tucked away in albums somewhere.”
“Oi, I thought this was supposed to be flattery,” Paul said.
“It is,” John replied. “‘Cause I like ‘em.”
He pinched one of Paul’s cheeks to prove his point, and Paul pulled a face, shoving his arm away.
“And there’s your eyelashes,” John said, reaching out to just barely brush the tips of his fingers over them. Paul blinked, and they tickled his skin. “Long, pretty, like a girl’s.”
“You’ve got a weird concept of flattery,” Paul said, but there was teasing in his voice. This was the Hamburg game, after all.
“Mm, and I like ‘em loads,” John said. “Very nice to look at, you know. So are those lovely eyes of yours.”
“Mm,” Paul agreed. “They wouldn’t be much without yours to look at.”
John blinked, then nodded once, silently. This was the game, but it was teetering dangerously close into something else.
“Anything else?” Paul asked, and if John didn’t know better, he’d say Paul sounded hopeful rather than joking.
“Uh-huh,” John agreed. He let his fingertips trail down from Paul’s eyes to his rosy lips. Let them rest there. “These.”
“These?” Paul repeated, saying the word carefully so John could feel the movement of his lips, the shape they took around the sound of his voice.
“Nice and pretty color,” John said. “I always want to paint them.”
Paul stared at him intensely for a moment. “Then why don’t you?” he asked, breath hot against John’s fingers.
John stared back. For once, he couldn’t think of an answer. It was always something else—the paints didn’t mix well, or he was out of the colors he needed, or he would much rather hold the idea of the painting in his head than have to transfer it out on canvas, because he knew that somehow, something about them would get lost in translation, and they just wouldn’t look right in the end.
So maybe that was the answer.
“Can’t recreate art that’s already been made,” John replied. He traced the shape of Paul’s lips with his thumb, eyes still set on Paul’s own.
“Can always make some more, though,” Paul said against the movement.
And John knew he wasn’t talking about painting. Fingertips still on Paul’s lips, he shifted one of his legs between Paul’s, on up, until he came into contact with what he expected. He felt the little puff of breath when Paul’s breath hitched at the contact.
“I like this too,” John said quietly.
“You don’t know anything about this,” Paul disagreed.
“‘Course I do. It’s in my head,” John explained. “Amongst all the thoughts about your pretty cheeks and your girly eyelashes and your soft lips. It’s in your eyes when I look at you.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long have you...seen it,” Paul said. “Had it in your head.”
John was quiet for a moment, thinking. “A long time.”
“Very long?”
“Long enough,” John answered. Maybe forever—maybe I’ll never stop. Maybe it’s an eternity in both directions.
“That’s very long indeed,” Paul said. He moved his lips ever-so-slightly against John’s fingertips after he spoke, as if torn between hoping John would think it was still part of his words and hoping John would see the true intent behind it.
But of course he saw it. He always saw it when it came to Paul. Didn’t he? What really made the difference was whether he chose to look at it, rather than just let his eyes pass on over. In Liverpool, he’d always done a lot of the latter. But here in Hamburg, he found himself thinking he could lean toward the former.
He tilted his chin forward just slightly, eyes fluttering shut in unison with Paul’s, and touched Paul’s lips with his own. So soft, so rosy. They were cold, too, of course, and John pressed his mouth closer to Paul’s with the intent of warming them up. Paul murmured something John couldn’t make out, or maybe it was just a little huff of surprise before reaching for the back of John’s head to pull him closer, fingers curling harshly in John’s hair to make clear that he wanted John, needed John closer than he was.
They were not far from Bambi Kino and the storeroom they slept in there, though evidently last night their drunken selves had determined it too far indeed. But now they had to get to it, as rank and makeshift a room it was. Had to because of the way John’s fingers seemed to burn when Paul’s hand accidentally brushed against his as they walked quickly toward the cinema, the way that they leaned into each other’s sides as if they needed to hold each other up, the way that John’s skin crawled with need and want and desire.
The store room was empty of the other lads, who were all likely either out or only just beginning their own day somewhere as equally questionable as a bench. John was grateful for that little miracle, because as he pushed Paul up against the door to shut it, he thought he would likely have lost his mind if he’d had to wait a second longer, let alone think up a reason to kick the others out of their room.
Paul moaned when John slid his knee between Paul’s legs, letting his head fall back against the door as he closed his eyes and held his breath.
John brushed his lips over Paul’s exposed neck, pressing them there as he murmured, “S’okay, love. Breathe.”
And Paul did, the pulse of his neck meeting John’s lips. His breath growing heavier, he groaned when John shifted to press himself against Paul, sliding his fingers into the belt loops of Paul’s trousers to pull their waists closer still.
“Fuck,” Paul breathed out, reaching to direct John’s lips away from his neck and to his own. “You.”
John wasn’t sure whether those two words were meant to be in connection with each other, but he couldn’t think about it much because as he opened his mouth to reply, “you,” as well, Paul, the sneaky bastard, slid his tongue into John’s mouth, so it was his turn to let out a short, embarrassing moan.
He moved his hips experimentally against Paul, who instantly reacted with increasingly ragged breath, pulling away from John’s mouth slightly, and when John moved again, Paul’s head was leaning back against the door again, though this time his exposed neck had splotches of pinkish red where John’s lips had been before.
“You’re gonna...drive me insane, Lennon,” he said breathlessly.
“And where will that leave me, Macca?” John got out with just as much effort. He pulled on the loops of Paul’s trousers again. “Need you to…”
“Clothes?” Paul finished.
“Yeah,” John agreed. “Fucking clothes.”
“I hope not,” Paul said, and John let out a sudden laugh.
“Don’t worry, dear, you’ll get your turn.”
He couldn’t help but savor the particular shade of red Paul’s cheeks turned at that, or the feeling of his own laughter when Paul shoved him playfully in retaliation, only to go straight for the buttons of John’s shirt. It was agony, trying to pull their clothes off, having to part for even a second only to relearn the burn of each other’s skin when they touched again. John wanted Paul everywhere—in his eyes, in his mouth, on every inch of his skin. He wanted the sound of Paul’s moans mixed in with the sounds of Paul’s humming when he thought no one was paying attention. He wanted to kiss Paul here, there, and there too. Wanted to know Paul, be a part of him, have every part of him to himself.
Here they were in Hamburg. Here they were in 1960. Moments could not be time without places, John thought, and every time Paul broke from him, even for less than a second, he remembered that. Because here they were in Hamburg, 1960, both a place and a time they could never return to again. This was it, this was now, and John wanted it forever.
“Don’t leave me,” John found himself saying, and Paul chuckled because he thought John was talking about the fact that Paul was now leaving John’s lips to trail kisses along his body, down down and down and—oh. So that was what Paul’s lips were meant to do.
“Paul,” John gasped out, hands twisting into Paul’s hair. He pulled on it slightly, causing Paul to let out something less like a moan and more like a whine. The music of Paul McCartney. “Promise.”
And he thought Paul hummed his assent, but maybe that was just another one of the many sounds John had never dreamed Paul McCartney could or would make, at least with John, so maybe it didn’t matter, right this instant, whether Paul promised or not.
Paul pulled away, suddenly, which made John gasp just as much as him, well, doing that in the first place had.
“God, don’t stop,” John said, dropping his head against the pillow of the bed they had claimed.
“Pray more often and I’ll consider it,” Paul replied cheekily, crawling up to kiss John on the mouth. As he did so, though, he paused, as if hesitant.
“What?” John asked.
Paul blinked at him, blushing. “Can—I mean, I want…”
“Spit it out, laddy,” John teased, reaching up to brush the hair off Paul’s forehead.
“I want you,” Paul said.
“Here I am,” John said.
“No, I—” Paul leaned down, closing his eyes to kiss John as he said it: “I want you. You know.”
“Oh,” John said, and perhaps if he had been crueller, he would have teased Paul for not being able to say it in so many words. “Alright.”
“Yeah?” Paul said, and the little hopefulness in his voice could have killed John.
“Yeah,” he said. “I—well, how do you want to….”
“Facing you,” Paul said immediately.
“Right,” John said. “Okay.”
There had been a moment, after they had shed their clothes and were catching their breath, when they each stood apart, looking at the other. And John knew he ought to be thinking anything else, but the only thing that came to mind as he took in the sight of Paul—all of him, in a way he’d never been able to look fully before—was
How can you stand before an angel and not want to live in its light?
And now the angel was beneath him, which he supposed should have made him God, but he was far from it. He was John, and this was Paul—Paul—so maybe angels were really the ones in control.
“Ready?” John breathed at last, when he thought things seemed in the right order. He was out of his depth here—they both were—but he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Paul nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” John said, and he leaned down to kiss Paul as he slid into him. The angel bit John’s lip at the shock of the feeling, which wasn’t very holy at all, but then even fallen angels were still angels, weren’t they?
“John,” Paul gasped, and John paused.
“You okay?” he asked worriedly.
“Yes, fuck, don’t stop, idiot,” Paul said. He closed his eyes. “Don’t you dare stop.”
John leaned down to trail kisses over Paul’s lips as he resumed his movement. “Never.”
He found a steady rhythm that made Paul whimper with every other jolt, and after that it was just music. The sound of Paul’s little moans, their heavy breathing laced together, John’s own moans, the feeling of Paul’s body below him, the sting of the place Paul had bit his lip, the feeling of Paul around him. He realized this is what he had wanted—Paul, everywhere, all around him. Forever.
Well, that last bit was another story, because with a gasp John was undone, and Paul was murmuring sweet nothings in his ear as John pressed his lips against Paul’s neck. Paul’s whisper of “I’m almost there,” as John pulled out of him. He reached between them, then, to help Paul get there and the ecstasy of feeling Paul shudder beneath him as it happened was perhaps greater than when it had happened to John himself.
“John,” Paul breathed at the end of it, and John hummed softly in response.
“Paul,” he replied. He felt like there was something else he wanted to say, as if it was on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn’t quite reach it. That was okay, though, because he didn’t need to say it. Paul was beneath him, arms wrapped around him, tracing his fingers lightly over John’s back, and John’s head was tucked against Paul’s neck, Paul’s chin resting in his hair. He was here, with Paul, with all of Paul.
“Let’s never leave,” John murmured.
“No,” Paul agreed. “I’ll never put my clothes on again.”
John chuckled against him. Then he yawned.
“Should sleep,” Paul said at that. “Have to play tonight.”
“Yeah,” John agreed. “But don’t move.”
“Okay.”
“Paul?”
“Hm?”
“Tonight, when I look at you while we’re playing,” John said. “Just know that I’m not thinking about music.”
He thought he felt Paul’s heartbeat quicken at that, and smiled to himself. Eyes take on a whole new meaning.
Perhaps it could only happen in Hamburg, he reasoned as he drifted off to the feeling of Paul’s steady breath beneath him. But at least it had happened at all. It was better that it had happened at all.