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It's this new bloke that gets George thinking about it properly -- sets all the little cogs turning pensively in his brain. Some musician friend of Paul's, Classical type, posh, older. Richard something. Paul's a bit obsessed with him at the moment, the way he gets sometimes with new friends. Well: the way they're all capable of getting, George can admit. It's not often you can click with someone, when you were a Beatle once, and they both get these pashes, him and Paul, that dopamine hit to the heart keeping them seeking out the love object until the rush fades. They're open enough about it -- Paul bitched about Jeff Lynne being George's boyfriend really, by which he meant he likes me just fine but he belongs to George. It was always like that, even back in the band: Brian was John's boyfriend. George Martin was Paul's. And George -- well, George thinks he was well fucking due the succession of boyfriends he's fallen for since: Bob and Ravi and Tom and the Erics, all of them liking him best, imagine that.
This bloke, though. George has been ringing for weeks trying to set something up, and Paul's had an excuse every time:oh, I'm out with Richard that evening, sorry. Oh, actually, Richard's taking me to Exeter that weekend to meet a friend of his. Finally, George managed to eke out the crumb of: "I'll be in Henley at the weekend actually, having lunch with Richard -- could see you after that?"
"I'd be honoured to get an audience of any kind with Your Majesty," George drawled; Paul had just laughed and said, "Pick me up at the restaurant, will you?"
So here George is, slumped low and incognito in his car when he sees them emerge. Paul's familiar frenetic loping gait betrays him right away. There's another man with him, well-dressed and tall. Distinguished-looking. Older, and very obviously gay. Paul, heedless of their exposed position on the pavement, lets the man envelop him in his arms, squeezes back for a long moment. They kiss on the mouth, fleeting, but mutual, and under his startlement George feels a kernel of something else he doesn't quite want to look at directly. Paul's hugging the bloke again for another ten seconds at least before he pries himself away and heads for George's car, raising an eyebrow and grinning acknowledgement.
He doesn't even look bothered, George thinks, dully. He doesn't look embarrassed to have been spotted in a compromising position. He clearly doesn't think it was compromising at all.
When he gets into the passenger seat, bringing the smell of cold air with him, George says, "That your new boyfriend, then?"
"Might be," Paul says, grinning. He leans across the gearstick and George accepts his hug automatically, breathing in the familiar smell of Paul's soap and his skin beneath it. Paul hugs hard, but he doesn't kiss George on the mouth. He doesn't kiss George at all.
George carefully isolates this thought and stashes it in the corner of his mind for later consideration. He says, "You've certainly been seein' a lot of him. Mind you don't lead him on -- he's gay, isn't he?"
Paul laughs. "Yeah, no chance -- I'm not his type, so I'm just having a nice time pining a bit."
George snorts. He turns the key in the ignition and eyes Paul consideringly as he pulls away. "You like your boyfriends queer, don't you?"
"Is that a problem for you?"
"No," George argues, defensively, "cept I've always managed to have straight ones, y'know. Seems less…"
"What?" Paul presses, after a quiet moment. George opens his mouth, struggling to articulate the vague feeling of unease in his head into something that makes sense. The city rushes around them in a middle class bustle.
Paul waits. That's the thing about Paul: he's often impatient, but he knows you have to wait for George, sometimes, or he'll never get a word in. George feels a little rush of gratitude. Eventually he says, "Just seems easier fallin' in love with someone a bit, if you know it means the same thing to both of you." He glances across at Paul. "You said it yourself, about Eppy. We were all in love with John, but he was gay. It was different."
Paul considers this. It's easier, George finds, to talk like this, while they're moving through time and space together, George's eyes on the road. Paul says, "You never know if it means the same thing to both of you though, do you? I mean. You only know what you mean, when you talk about love. Maybe to me it feels like -- cello music, and someone else thinks it's like cake, or -- d'you see?"
George smiles to himself. "Course it's music for you, Macca."
"It is for you," Paul points out, "isn't it? 'S why we."
He stops. George realises he's hesitant to put the words in George's mouth. He's not afraid of the truth of them, but that George might deny it, all these years later.
"Why we fell for each other in the first place," he supplies, and Paul huffs a laugh of relief.
George meets his eyes, suddenly shy -- ridiculous to be shy of someone you've known all your life. Someone you know by heart. But there it is.
"So," he says, to cover his sudden embarrassment, "you like your boyfriends queer because then you get kissed, is that it?"
Paul laughs. "You know what, I do like that about gay blokes. It's nice gettin' a kiss, isn't it? Knowing your wife won't go mad about it."
"You never kiss me."
"I will if you want, when you're not driving."
"Fuck off," George protests, feeling a treacherous trickle of heat crawl down the back of his neck. It's not about sex, he realises, but it is jealousy. You aren't only jealous over wives. You don't just fall in love with people you want to fuck. Once upon a time, after all, the four of them fell for each other and never recovered from it.
"Well," Paul says, "if you're insecure…"
George makes a disgruntled noise, but says nothing. He turns his eyes back to the road. They're nearly at Friar Park; when they reach the gatehouse, they pause while the gates swing open, as if to let the emperor back into his garden realm. As they sit there, George thinks about other men kissing Paul. Thinks about them getting something from him that George hasn't ever had, even though the two of them loved each other first. Even though George loved Paul before anyone else, for his sins.
Gravel crackles under the wheels as George navigates the long drive. Outside the house, he pulls up, turns off the engine, and unbuckles his seatbelt. He turns towards Paul, just slightly, quarter-profile. Paul's watching him silently, his eyes still huge dark pools, warm and watchful. Waiting.
"Go on then," George says, after a breath. "If you're gonna."
Something flickers across Paul's face in the moment before he leans in, there and gone again. His hand cradles the back of George's skull, fingers in the thick of his hair. He studies George's face for a moment, as if making sure. And then he kisses him.
It isn't the same sort of kiss he'd given Richard, George thinks, with a rush of relief. It isn't quite the sort of kiss you'd give a lover, either, but nor is it the sort of thing you'd ever bestow upon a casual friend. Paul presses their mouths together, soft, until George's lips part involuntarily, and then they're kissing properly, little sipping kisses, their mouths separating and coming together again over and over. It's as if, once having started, they can't quite work out how to stop without it hurting. There's no tongue; it's not like that, but it's making George feel warm and tingly all over, and when they finally part, they're both breathless, Paul's face as pink as George knows his own must be.
George can't help lifting his fingers to his softly-swollen mouth. He clears his throat.
"Sorry," Paul says. "I don't usually -- go on so much."
"You're all right," George says. He's mildly embarrassed at how hoarse his voice sounds. "It's like you said, they're all different, aren't they?"
"What, boyfriends?"
"Loves," George corrects him, and laughs. "Though I did like bein' your boyfriend, before all the rest of them shoved in."
Paul bumps a shoulder companionably against his. "We went past that, though, didn't we?" he points out. "We got married. All of us. Bloody impossible to get rid of each other now, as you're always complaining about."
George shoots him a look. "Well, I complain. It's what I do, you know that."
"I know," Paul says, and opens the car door. "O, tell me the truth about love, eh? Ours is the kind with the comforting smell, I think."
"You've got wise in your old age," George says, biting the inside of his cheek so Paul won't see the way his throat has gone, stupidly, tight. "Come on, let's go inside. I'm dying for a cup of tea."