Chapter Text
Hamburg wasn’t everything that George had expected.
John had made it out to be some sort of fun adventure or something. Like they were going to go and play all these German clubs and drink all this German beer, and the German girls were going to throw themselves at their feet. When they returned to Liverpool, they’d be like proper celebrities.
George had yet to experience this part.
So far Hamburg had felt like a whirlwind, this chaotic mess of cheap beer and loud guitars and sweat and sex and tits and pills. So many pills. It was practically all they’d eaten since getting here, that and the greasy club food that sat heavy in the stomach and either made you throw up or gave you the shits five hours later.
(He worried sometimes about the food issue. Last time he’d visited the doctor had told him he was still growing, to keep healthy and to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and whatever else, and George wouldn’t really have cared if not for the fact that Paul still stood a good few centimeters above him and George desperately wanted to catch up. He thought, sometimes, about how nice it would be to have to look down at Paul to speak to him. For Paul to have to look up at him.)
Then there were the shows themselves. Six, seven, eight hour sets. Singing and playing and singing and playing until his throat was hoarse and his knuckles were dried and cracking open, little beads of blood were rolling down his fingers and hitting the fretboard. And if his mum were here, she’d rub some of her lotion on them, that made them sting but made the cracks heal over, but she wasn’t here. It was just him. Him, and JohnandPaul, and Stu, and Pete.
It was after one of these long, grueling sets that George first heard about somebody named Jurgen.
They’d just finished a show and had piled into a booth in the back corner of the club. John and Paul were doing their typical JohnandPaul thing– leaning in and whispering and giggling with each other, Paul with his legs half-draped across John’s lap like a bird– everyone else either too drunk or too polite to point out how it looked. Astrid and Stu were sitting close together, too (not as close as John and Paul, amusingly). George sat leaning against the table with his chin resting in his hand, nursing a glass of beer which he didn’t really feel like drinking, thinking about his bed back in their room. It was small, smaller than twin-sized, the sheets riddled with holes and crunchy stains, and he could feel the springs pushing insistently at his ribs and spine when he laid down on the creaky mattress. Still though, it was a bed, and it was his. And sometimes, after these long nights of playing and cracked skin and sore calluses, he wanted nothing more than to collapse into it and sleep for twelve hours.
But John and Paul wanted to stay out. So, they stayed out.
George actually quite liked Astrid and Klaus, at least. He’d hardly known them for a week, but they helped to balance out the JohnandPaul-ness of it all, and it was rather obvious that they were fonder of George than either of them, which was quite satisfying to George. Currently, though, Astrid and Klaus were having their own side conversation, leaving George and Stu to stare at them and exchange baffled looks.
“What?” George asked finally, leaning across the table.
Astrid smiled. “Nothing, Georgie,” she said. “We were just saying our friend Jurgen would like you all.”
George met Stu’s eyes. They’d met Klaus first, and then he’d brought Astrid along. He hadn’t even considered that there might be more of them.
“You should bring him,” George said, excited by the idea of meeting another of their friends.
Astrid and Klaus exchanged a look. “He doesn’t like crowds,” Astrid said. “They make him nervous, see.”
“Me too,” George said.
Astrid looked at Klaus again and laughed, as if he’d said something very silly or endearing. “Georgie!” she said. “But you play in front of crowds every night!”
“Well, I’m nervous every night,” George said, shrugging.
Astrid giggled a little, shaking her head, and reached out to squeeze his arm in some strange, affectionate gesture. George grinned back at them. He was pretty sure they viewed him as some little kid, just like everybody else, but at least they actually liked him. Were nice to him about it, rather than using it as an excuse to slag him off every five seconds.
The next time they showed up at the club, there was another person with them. George couldn’t see him too well from the stage, but he looked enough like them– the pale face and combed bangs and artsy sort of look— that George decided that he must be this Jurgen person, had begun calling him Jurgen in his head before even meeting him.
He packed up his equipment after the set quickly, thinking about this new person– wondering if he was a photographer like Astrid or an artist like Klaus, wondering which one of them he was going to take the most liking to. Definitely not Paul, he thought.
He waited for John to finish packing up– which meant he ended up having to wait for Paul, too– and in a few minutes, the three of them were weaving back through the crowd, looking for Astrid’s shock of blonde hair. George spotted them at a table in the corner and shoved past John and Paul to get to them first.
Astrid’s face split into a huge smile when she saw him. “Georgie!” she cooed, grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the crowd towards their table. “Good to see you!”
“Hi, Assa,” George said.
“Who’s the new bloke, then?” John asked from behind him.
Astrid moved aside and swept her arm out, as if presenting her friend. “This is Jurgen,” she said proudly. George pried his eyes away from Astrid, ready to introduce himself, but found himself pausing.
Jurgen was very good-looking. It was the strangest thing. George never really thought about boys in that way, but he couldn’t help but notice it, felt a little caught off guard by it. Pete was supposedly the best-looking in the band and Jurgen was certainly handsomer than him.
He had a sort of shy nervousness to him as he introduced himself to John and Paul and shook their hands, and when he turned to say hello to George, George felt his face heat up in an embarrassing flush.
“That’s George,” Astrid supplied. George hoped she was only being nice and hadn’t noticed his blush or his present muteness.
Jurgen’s gaze, and his voice, seemed to soften when he turned to him.
“Hello, George,” Jurgen said. He had a stronger accent than Astrid or Klaus. George found it sort of endearing.
George wiped his sweaty hand on the side of his pant leg before Jurgen could shake it. Jurgen’s grip was warm and firm, but gentle all the same, sort of like his voice. He didn’t really shake his hand like he had with John and Paul, just sort of held it for a moment. The thought of that made George’s face heat up again, inexplicably. “Hi,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t come out like too embarrassing of a squeak.
The moment was over quickly, they were all going to take a seat at the table, and John turned back to face George as he went, his eyes flitting between George and Jurgen with a furrowed brow, like he was thinking about something. George felt his cheeks flush again, looked down and avoided John’s eyes. It was normal, right, to be nervous around someone good-looking? John was just slagging him off, poking fun at him, like he always did.
He slid into the booth beside John, staring down at the table. He didn’t speak much for the rest of the night, and neither did Jurgen, to his disappointment. But they locked eyes a few times, across the table. He’d look up and Jurgen would be looking at him. Or he’d be looking at Jurgen, his cheekbones or his eyes or his jaw, and then Jurgen would meet his gaze and he’d direct it back down to the table after only a split second, heat rushing to his cheeks.
It was an odd thing.
Astrid and Klaus were always around, and Jurgen was with them only sometimes. Astrid had been right about one thing– he didn’t seem terribly comfortable around the crowd, always standing in the back, always with this nervous sort of energy to his shoulders and his constantly darting gaze. He didn’t talk much to George, or anybody for that matter. But sometimes he’d say, hello, George, or goodbye, George. Or he’d go get him a refill when he finished his drink, or light his ciggie for him. He didn’t do that with any of the other members.
And he wasn’t like Astrid or Klaus, either, didn’t fawn over him or call him adorable or ruffle his hair or any of that. Didn’t really treat him like a little kid, but didn’t treat him like a friend, either. Not the way he treated the rest of the band.
George wasn’t really sure what it all meant. But he thought about it a lot.
About a week after they first met Jurgen, George lost his virginity.
They were insistent about it, all of them, but especially John, poking fun at him for being seventeen and still blushing when women walked by him on the street with their tits out, touched him or batted their lashes at him or called him some pet name when trying to get in his pants. All of the boys– even Stu– always calling him little and innocent and pure and comparing him to some blushing virgin bird, talking about how they’d lost it long before seventeen. Fine, then, fuck’s sake, he’d said, let’s just do it.
They’d found the whole thing wildly entertaining, John going and getting some girl for him and bringing her back to the room, chattering her ear off about how it was George’s first time and she ought to make it very special, while George sat on the edge of the bed, blushing and fidgeting awkwardly with his hands. She was older than George would have liked, maybe a little too old, but she had nice big tits and blonde hair so he supposed she was alright. He hadn’t really been sure what to do when she climbed onto the bed, had just sort of gone along with everything she did, but when he was on top of her and they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, he suddenly found himself staring at the wrinkles on her face, gathering around the edges of her eyes. Like an older lady, like one of his teachers or something.
He felt a little bit disgusted. He looked at the pillow beside her head and tried to think of somebody else, somebody beautiful, Bridgette Bardot and Sophia Loren and right there alongside them, Jurgen’s face popped up in his brain.
It was the strangest thing, really. He didn’t think of boys in that way, not ever. But Jurgen was as good-looking as any pretty girl, and only a little bit older than him. He didn’t ever talk down to George or make fun of him like everybody else. He supposed it made enough sense that he’d be thinking of him.
When it was over, the rest of the boys made all sorts of lewd jeering noises and congratulated him on becoming a man while the lady pulled on her bra and stepped into her skirt. George thanked her awkwardly and then just laid there, staring up at the cracked, moldy ceiling. He’d thought he would feel older, or accomplished, or more like the rest of the boys or something, but he was only underwhelmed. He wondered if perhaps he’d done something wrong, if that was why he felt so disappointed by it, but he didn’t dare ask. He didn’t need to give the older boys any ammunition.
Eventually, when everyone’s laughter and chattering died down, he rolled over on his side and tried to fall asleep, little wet spots forming under his cheeks on his pillow.
Shortly after losing his virginity, George found himself crossing another milestone– his first fight. Real fight, with fists and everything.
He wasn’t really sure how it had started. His best guess was John, who had the shortest temper of all of them and was quite loose with his fists. Especially where Paul was involved. In fact, that was probably what happened. Some stupid comment making fun of Paul, and John would be across the room, fists swinging. He should’ve known, hanging around John with his absurdly short fuse, that he’d find himself in one of these situations at one point or another.
They were out in the alley outside the club, John and Paul up ahead, George and Stu a few feet behind them, chatting about something that was ultimately irrelevant. There were three other blokes in the alley with them, all bigger and older. A few words were exchanged, a few shouts, and before George even knew what was happening, fists were flying right in front of them.
George’s first instinct was to turn the other way and run. But when Stu jumped into the fray with barely a moment’s hesitation, he knew he had no choice but to follow. One of the Germans had shoved John to the ground and was leaning over him, about to punch him, bash his head straight into the pavement.
George didn’t think about it too hard, just launched himself at the guy, latched onto him with his arms wrapped around his neck and legs around his waist, pawing blindly at his face as John scrambled to his feet, shoving his fingernails into the man’s eyeballs, up his nose, shoving his heel repeatedly into the soft flesh of the man’s gut. The man managed to get a grip on George’s hands, squeezing them tight in his fists, crushing the bones of his fingers together, and George was suddenly, uncomfortably reminded of the fact that he was still growing, that he hadn’t eaten a thing but prellies today, and before he even knew what was happening, the man was flipping him over, he was flying through the air and his back was smashing against the pavement. All the air left his lungs in one big go. He laid there for a moment, staring at the
Reality hit him all at once. He’d never fought anybody, not like this, and now here he was, seventeen years old, this big grown man looming above him, ready to punch his lights out or snap his bones or worse. Panic spiked in his chest as he was finally able to draw in a breath, he kicked upwards frantically, feeling a brief sense of victory as his foot found the man’s crotch and he let out a cry of pain.
Then, before he could celebrate the small victory, the man was leaning down, twisting his fist in the front of George’s shirt and hauling him up with one hand. His sore spine collided with the cold brick wall, a huge hand wrapping around his throat, and his breath was gone again. He grabbed the man’s wrist, clawed desperately at the skin there, legs kicking, blind and frantic. He wondered, vaguely, where John and Paul and Stu were, if their situations were as awful as his, if they had decided to just walk off and leave him here to get killed or worse by this absurdly strong German man.
He tried to look around, to make out anything through the chaos erupting around him, saw a familiar flash of black hair in the corner of his vision.
“Paul!” he yelped, with the last bit of air he could force out. The hand tightened, and he heard himself whimper. He could hear his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, like it was going to burst out of his chest, his lungs spasming with pain, his vision going white at the edges, and he was going to die like this, because of stupid John and stupid stupid Paul, with this man’s pimple-face and booze-breath obscuring all his senses, his mum a million miles away, nothing but prellies in his stomach, his neck in a sweaty vice grip, his chest on fire-
There was a smashing sound and a cry of pain that George barely registered, and all of a sudden, the pressure let up.
George dropped to the pavement, kneecaps aching, barely registering the stinging in his palm. He coughed, gasping, vaguely registering Paul dropping to his knees as well in front of him, tossing aside the broken neck of a beer bottle he’d smashed over the man’s head.
Vision still spinning, throat still throbbing, George saw Paul’s black jacket and threw himself at it, wrapping his arms around his middle, hands fisting in the dirty old leather, gasping into the front of Paul’s shirt. He could feel one of Paul’s hands settle on the back of his head, Paul’s chest vibrating as he spoke, and it took George a moment to realize he was speaking to him. This frantic, shaky mantra of, “...easy, easy, Georgie. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
He was doing that stupid big-brother thing he always liked to do, trying to be all reassuring and comforting, and George wanted to tell him he wasn’t comforted at all, that Paul was the reason George was in this stupid situation in the first place, but Paul’s jacket was soft and familiar and he was the closest thing to home that existed in this stupid place, so he let himself just sit there for a minute, cold pavement digging into his knees, heart still pounding, shoulders shaking frantically inside Paul’s grip, letting Paul whisper his stupid comforting shit that wasn’t comforting at all.
When he finally pulled back, he found a piece of glass wedged in the base of his palm, where he’d broken his fall on the ground. Blood was flowing down his palm in rivulets, staining his shirtsleeve.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Georgie! You’re bleeding!” Paul fussed, as if George couldn't have worked that out himself.
George nudged carefully at the piece of glass, grimacing at it. It didn’t really hurt that bad, felt more numb than anything, tingly pins and needles shooting up his arm like he hadn’t moved it in a while.
“Don’t take it out,” Paul said. “You’ll bleed more.”
George pulled a face up at him, wondering when exactly Paul had decided that he was some sort of medical expert.
“Stay there a second,” Paul said, patting George’s shoulder, and the moment his back was turned, George pulled the piece of glass out and tossed it onto the pavement.
Paul returned a second later with John and Stu in tow, Stu looking a bit worse for wear, holding the side of his head and blinking rapidly, a little stream of blood trickling from his nose. Hit his head, George assumed. Figures, he thought, that the two people who started this whole thing were walking away unscathed, meanwhile him and Stu were sitting here on the verge of death in some random alley in Hamburg.
“Why’d you take it out?” Paul cried incredulously.
George blinked up at him. It took him a moment to realize he was talking about the glass. “It was bothering me,” he said, shrugging.
Paul stared down at him for a minute, baffled, then shook his head and reached down to pull George up to his feet.
It was ultimately decided by John and Paul that they should go over to Astrid’s, while George stood there leaning against Paul’s side and trying not to keel over, Stu probably doing the same beside John. When they arrived at the door, they found Klaus and Jurgen standing there in the entryway with Astrid. Probably just eating dinner with her or something, but George found it rather funny. It gave the impression that they were cartoon characters or something, always together even when the boys weren’t around. All three of them stared wide-eyed at the four of them standing outside her apartment, all bloody and roughed up. George gave them a little wave with his bloody hand, which he thought would be kind of funny but didn’t seem to amuse any of them.
Astrid kicked up a huge fuss about Stu’s head, dragging him into her bathroom to see if he had a concussion or something, however that was done. George found himself wondering how it was that girls always seemed to instinctively know about stuff like that while John and Paul dragged him over to the couch and forced him to sit, commenting over his head.
Paul was saying something about a sewing kit, did Astrid have one.
“‘Course she does, she’s a bird,” John said.
“Jurgen,” Paul said, and George realized suddenly that Jurgen was there too, hovering behind John and Paul, looking equally anxious. George was actually quite happy to have him here, a sturdier, more mature presence than John and Paul’s fussing and bickering. He didn’t even blush at all when he made eye contact with him. The blood was too busy coming out of his hand to go to his cheeks, he supposed.
“Jurgen, get Astrid’s sewing kit,” Paul said, and George thought it was quite rude, but very Paul-like, to walk into somebody else’s place and start barking orders at their guests.
Jurgen only blinked at the request. “What?”
“Y’know, sewing kit,” Paul said, repeating it slower. “Needle and thread.” He mimicked the act of sewing and looked quite like an idiot while doing it.
Jurgen still appeared confused, staring blankly at him. “Why would you…”
“So we can sew up Georgie’s hand!” Paul said, gesturing wildly to the blood-soaked strip of shirt he’d wrapped around George’s wrist on the walk over, which was already becoming quite fuzzy in George’s memory. Jurgen frowned down at George’s hand, and George was beginning to feel like some zoo exhibit or something, just sitting here in silence with everybody staring down at him.
“Does he need stitches, really?” Jurgen asked.
“There was glass in his hand,” said Paul, and George wondered vaguely if anybody was going to ask him what he thought, or just stand there arguing over him while he bled to death on Astrid’s couch.
“It looked deep,” John supplied, because of course he needed to take Paul’s side.
Jurgen took a few steps forward, right through John and Paul so he stood in front of George, knelt down on the carpet so he was at eye level. George watched him carefully, wondering if Jurgen was going to reveal he’d secretly been a doctor or something all this time. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, he thought.
Jurgen gestured to George’s hand, which sat limply on his knee, where he’d been trying to keep it from staining Astrid’s couch.
“May I?” he asked.
George lifted his hand from his knee, held it out for Jurgen to take.
Jurgen’s hand was bigger than George’s, he observed, George’s fingers looking especially bony held between Jurgen’s as he unwrapped Paul’s strip of t-shirt from George’s hand. John and Paul peered over Jurgen’s shoulders.
At the first sight of blood– the real thick, gooey stuff oozing from the cut, not just the little red stains on the shirt– George’s stomach did a queasy little flip, lightness rushing up to his head like he’d taken a huge drag from a cigarette. He directed his eyes away, tried to focus on a spot on Astrid’s wall as John and Paul let out twin groans of disgust at the sight.
George could feel him getting to the end of the wrapping and tried not to wince as he peeled the last bit of t-shirt away from where it stuck to the cut.
“Does it look bad?” George heard himself ask. His voice came out sort of weak and thin, but all three of them looked up at him with stunned expressions, like they’d forgotten he could speak or something.
After a moment’s pause, John hummed. “Worse,” he said. “You’ll never play guitar again.”
There was the sound of a light smack, which George was pretty sure was Paul hitting John’s arm.
“He’s only teasing,” Jurgen said, his voice steady, but gentle. “It’s not so bad. No stitches. Just some bandages should be okay.”
Jurgen got up for a moment, came back with some cloth bandages and alcohol, while John and Paul seemingly lost interest in George’s wellbeing and turned away to have some JohnandPaul side conversation. Jurgen retook his spot, knelt down on the carpet in front of George, waited for George to nod permission before taking his hand.
“This may sting,” Jurgen warned gently, unscrewing the cap on the bottle of alcohol.
He poured a little bit onto George’s palm, and it did sting, like hot water seeping into dry skin. George hissed and pulled his hand back instinctively.
“Sorry,” Jurgen said, giving him a pitying look which made George feel like a child and had him sticking his hand right back out, trying to school his expression into neutrality.
“‘S alright,” George said quickly. “Wasn’t that bad.”
He thought he saw Jurgen’s lips quirk up slightly before he resumed rubbing alcohol in the cut. He had big hands, but he was very gentle with it, touching George’s hands like they were some sort of fine china. George let himself look back down at the cut. It wasn’t so bad anymore, with all the blood wiped away.
He glanced back up at Jurgen, who was staring pointedly down at George’s hands, as if he was deliberately avoiding his gaze. The silence between them was growing increasingly awkward, especially with John and Paul off together in the corner, Astrid looking at Stu’s head in the bathroom, George felt strangely isolated here on the couch. With this nice-looking man who didn’t seem to want to look at him.
“What do you do?” George blurted.
Jurgen’s hands still. He glanced up at George, wide-eyed, like he’d forgotten he could speak. “Sorry?”
“I mean…” George shifted a little, suppressing the urge to fidget with his hands. He just felt silly now. Maybe Jurgen just didn’t want to talk to him. Regardless, he pushed on. “I just meant… Astrid takes photos and Klaus is an artist so… what do you do?”
Jurgen smiled slightly, shrugged, looked back down at George’s hand. George thought for a second that he looked rather shy.
“I take photos too, sometimes,” he said.
“Really?” George said. “Are they any good?”
Jurgen shrugged. “I suppose somebody else would have to be the judge of that.”
“I’d like to see them,” George said, then felt a bit stupid for it. Maybe Jrugen didn’t want to show him his photos.
Before Jurgen could reply, John and Paul came back over and plopped down on either side of George.
“How’s the patient, Doctor?” John asked. “Will he live?”
“I think he will,” Jurgen said, tying off the bandage. Then, to George, “There you are.” Released his hand, which instantly became unpleasantly cold.
“Thank you,” George said as Jurgen moved to stand up.
“You’re welcome,” Jurgen said softly.
George glanced over to find John giving them a rather odd look, but was too tired to think anything of it.
He wasn’t aware that he’d fallen asleep until he found himself blinking awake, his limbs loose and heavy, but feeling more well-rested than he had in a while. He supposed Astrid’s couch was better than his lumpy mattress back in the club. He lifted his head from Paul’s shoulder and detached himself from his side, rubbing his eyes at the orange sunlight peeking through Astrid’s curtains.
As he sat up, something warm and heavy slipped off his shoulders, and he scrambled to pull it back up and return to its warmth. It was a jacket, big and unfamiliar, draped over him like a blanket.
“Hi, Georgie,” Astrid said, gliding into the room with two mugs, which she placed on the coffee table beside the couch. George glanced over at Paul, who appeared to have just woken up himself, rubbing his eyes and frowning.
George looked back at Astrid, who was smiling warmly at him. “Is Stu okay?” he asked.
Astrid paused, the smile fading just slightly. “I think so,” she said, though her tone was troubled. “He’s resting in my room. He says his head still hurts.”
“Oh,” George said. He felt like he should try to comfort Astrid, but wasn’t exactly sure what to say.
“What about you?” Astrid asked, her gaze flickering down to the white bandage wrapped around George’s wrist. “John and Paul seemed worried.”
“Just a flesh wound,” George said. His subsequent shrug caused the jacket to slip off one of his shoulders, and he hurriedly yanked it back, holding it around himself with one hand like a blanket.
“Oh!” Astrid said. “You better leave that here. I need to give it back to Jurgen.”
George blinked. “It’s Jurgen’s?” he said, rather stupidly.
“Ran out of blankets, with all of you here,” said Astrid.
“Where is he?” George asked, glancing around the flat, seeing only John curled up in an armchair.
Astrid laughed that oh, George sort of laugh that was condescending coming from anyone but her. “Well, he doesn’t live here, Georgie,” she said. “He went home, of course.”
“Right,” George said, flushing a bit at the thought of Jurgen walking out into the biting cold without his jacket just so George could be warm in Astrid’s flat.
Astrid picked one of the mugs up off the table and placed it in George’s hands, the steam rising up to warm his face. “Drink your coffee,” she said, ruffled his hair, then turned to head back into her bedroom.
George took a sip, not terribly fond of the bitterness, but savoring the way the heat slid down his throat into his stomach. He wiped at his lips with the back of his hand, then turned to find Paul giving him a rather strange look from the other side of the couch.
George blanched. “What?”
Paul shook his head, blinking, as if shaking a thought away. “Nothin’,” he said. His gaze shifted to something past George.
George glanced over and watched Paul and John share some knowing sort of glance across the flat. Probably having some secret little laugh at his expense or something, he thought. He sighed and melted back into Astrid’s couch, wrapped Jurgen’s coat tighter around himself.
The next time he saw Jurgen was over a week later. Astrid and Klaus had brought him along to one of their shows again, and perhaps George had only been imagining it, but he had seemed warmer than usual towards him. Smiling as he greeted him, asking him how his hand was, sitting beside him when they moved to another club for some drinks.
George was tired, as he usually was after shows. He dry-swallowed a few prellies from John and sat at the table with his chin resting in his hand, blinking slowly, yawning into his bandaged palm. Waiting for them to take effect. He didn’t drink too much– he was at that beyond-hungry stage of hunger, his stomach so empty and aching that he felt if he put anything in it things would only worsen. He took tiny sips of beer and tried to ignore the pangs, simply hoping John and Paul would want to leave soon. He wasn’t going to walk all the way back by himself, not so soon after the whole fight incident the week before.
The night slid past him in rounds of drinks and collective laughter and little glances between him and Jurgen, the meanings of which George couldn’t really decipher. When they all got up to dance, George followed them into the center of the club, then snuck away almost immediately to return to the table alone. He didn’t feel like dancing, especially not with Astrid and Stu and John and Paul all over each other the way they were. And he’d lost track of Jurgen a while ago.
He watched them for what felt like a long time, sitting there with half-lidded eyes, trying to keep track of his friends in the commotion of moving bodies. Hoping that John and Paul would tire themselves out soon.
Eventually, John and Paul snuck away to the loo, which George hoped was a sign they’d be ready to leave soon. They seemed to stay in there for a while, though. Abnormally long. So long that George began to wonder if they’d gotten sick or something, or perhaps they’d snuck out and he hadn’t even noticed.
After some time, he got up and went over to the loo to check, and just as he reached for the door, it swung open towards him, Paul wide-eyed on the other side.
“George!” Paul said. He looked sort of flustered, cheeks and lips flushed bright red, shirt and jacket askew, hair mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “What are you- what are you doing here?”
George felt rather empty-headed, like he was missing something here but too drunk and tired and hungry to put his finger on it. “Er. Looking for you.”
“Well, you found us,” Paul said, forced a smile, and brushed right past him.
George was too confused to follow him, just stood there baffled until John emerged a second later in a similar state of disarray. “Hey, Georgie,” he said, sounding sort of breathless. “Paul and I are going to head back.”
Relief washed over George. Finally. “Oh, good,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”
John shifted. “Well, we were thinking you could stay here for a bit, come back later, huh?” he said, as if this were a perfectly reasonable request.
George blinked. “But- why?”
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Okay, well…” John ran a hand through his hair, sighed. “Just go find yourself a bird or something, huh? Place is crawling with them.”
“I’m tired, though,” George said. “I just want to go back, I think.”
“Paul and I are going to write, though,” John said.
“In the middle of the night?”
“Hey, when inspiration strikes, it strikes. So you don’t want to be around for that, we’ll bother you, all that guitar playing and singing.”
“You won’t, though. I just want to sleep.”
“Okay, but, we just- we just need it to be the two of us, y’know? Just so we can focus. You know how it is.”
“I don’t know how it is.”
“Georgie-”
“I’ll just sit there quietly, I won’t disturb you-”
“Christ, Georgie, can you take a fucking hint for fuck’s sake?” John snapped. “We’re writing, we’re doing important shit, we don’t need some kid around, alright? Fuck’s sake.”
He felt himself flinch, step back like he expected John to hit him, even though he knew he never would. Was pretty sure, at least. George had heard that tone from John before– that angry spitting tone– directed at hecklers and arseholes who slagged off Paul, but he’d never been on the receiving end of it before.
George had always known that they felt like that, but they’d never said it aloud before. But now, there it was, right out in the open. John and Paul saw George as some stupid kid, and they didn’t want him around. He tried to think of some snide remark, some way to stand up for himself, but found instead that his face was flushing red, his vision blurring, throat tightening.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking- You’re crying? Really?”
As if it hadn’t been bad enough already, John’s tone– still snide and biting– made it a million times worse. Utterly horrified, George raised a hand to angrily scrub away the tears, willing them to stop flowing. He heard himself sniffle pathetically. He took a step back, tried to turn away, but felt a hand clamp down around his arm, wrapping all the way around its skinniness with room to spare.
“Okay, okay, hey, come on,” John’s tone had softened considerably. Maybe because he felt bad. Maybe because he knew Paul would be mad at him if he noticed he’d made George cry. “Come on, don’t get upset. You know I didn’t mean that, Georgie.”
I know you did mean it, that’s the fucking problem, George thought, but didn’t say, for fear that it would come out all garbled and tearful. He shook his head, stared down at the dark, sticky tile floor beneath them.
“Hey, come on, come on, look at me, huh?”
George forced himself to look at John, if only to get it over with.
“Paul and I- we just want to write together for a bit. Just a bit. You can come back in an hour or so, okay? We just need to be alone, the two of us.”
George bit his lip and glanced back down at the floor. He felt frustration build up in him, nearly overtaking the hurt and humiliation he’d already been feeling. This whole JohnandPaul thing– he just didn’t understand it. He didn’t. All he wanted was to sleep– in his own room, for that matter– and somehow that was a problem?
He gathered up what was left of his dignity, looked John in the eye, and said, “but why do you need to be alone?”
John sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. “Fucking hell, Georgie,” he mumbled, shaking his head. He took a moment, as if gathering together what he wanted to say, then looked back at George, placed his hand back on his arms. “Georgie, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s just, we don’t really want you there. You just… you don’t get it. Not like Paul and I do.”
John walked past him back to the exit, where Paul was probably waiting for him, leaving George to just stand there, processing the words. It was so John, he thought, to say I don’t want to hurt your feelings and then drop an atomic fucking bomb on his feelings.
He wiped away the rest of his tears and felt like a proper stupid idiot for shedding them. He insisted he wasn’t a little kid, but now here he was crying over hurt fucking feelings. Maybe John and Paul were right. Well, Paul was an idiot– and barely even older than him at all, by the way– but John was old and he seemed to know a lot. He was one of the coolest people George knew, and George had just gone and embarrassed himself in front of him.
He hung around in the club for a while, searching the crowd for Stu and Astrid, but they’d left already. George hoped, for Stu’s sake, that they’d gone back to Astrid’s apartment. God forbid Stu go back to the room and interrupt sacred JohnandPaul songwriting time. Or maybe he’d be allowed in, because he was older.
Eventually, he grew tired of the stale club air, the scent of alcohol and sweat and ciggies, and wandered outside. The cold bit right through his thin, moth-eaten jacket, but the streets were at least quiet and peaceful. He decided to find the nearest bench and sit on it for the rest of the night. Hopefully he’d freeze to death, or one of those blokes from the fight would come back to finish him off. Then John and Paul would find him, then they’d be sorry for the way they’d treated him. Or maybe they’d just celebrate that they didn’t have to deal with the stupid kid anymore.
George ruminated on this, wandering around and looking for a bench, when a voice rattled out through the night, a welcome distraction from the unpleasant train of thought.
“George?”
George whipped around to see him standing there, familiar jacket wrapped around his shoulders, cigarette cherry painting his stony features orange.
“Jurgen!” George blurted, so drunk and relieved to see a friendly face that he didn’t even bother to hide his delight.
Jurgen was frowning at him, eyes sweeping up and down his body with brows furrowed in what appeared to be concern. “What are you doing out here?”
He probably did look a mess, George supposed, face all splotchy, drunk, jacket riddled with holes, strands of greasy black hair coming loose from where he’d tamed them into over twelve hours ago.
“I thought you went home,” George said, deliberately avoiding the question.
“No,” Jurgen said. “I only- I needed some air. I don’t like crowds.”
“Yeah, me neither,” George said.
Jrugen tilted his head, looking amused. “Really? I would have thought, with you being a musician…”
“I know,” George said. “But it’s different, y’know, being onstage. It’s like- you’re not in the crowd. You can just focus on the music.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Jurgen said. “I never could. It’s very impressive.”
George blushed a little bit, glanced down at the pavement.
They fell into step beside each other and walked down the street, finding a bench about a block away and sitting down wordlessly. George pulled his ciggies out of his pocket and stuck one between his lips with shaky hands. Without asking, Jurgen pulled out his lighter and leaned in, cupped his bigger, warmer hands around George's as he lit it for him.
They sat there for some minutes, side by side, just smoking their ciggies in comfortable silence. George was still tired, still hungry, still pretty drunk, but he at least felt more relaxed now. He didn’t think he was going to get pulled into any kind of fight or mugged or anything, not with Jurgen sitting by him.
After a while, Jurgen cleared his throat as if he wanted to say something, then promptly said nothing. George glanced up at him and tilted his head questioningly. Jurgen’s gaze darted about a couple of times, as if he didn’t want to look right at George for some reason, and then he was clearing his throat again, and George felt rather ridiculous.
“What?” he asked finally, wondering if he had something stuck to his face or something that Jurgen didn’t want to look at.
Jurgen bit his lip and took a long pause.
“I told you I’m a photographer, yes?”
“Yeah,” said George.
“Well, I was thinking… perhaps I’d like to photograph you.”
“Oh,” said George, rather baffled by all of that leadup just to talk about photography. “Well, okay. John and Paul are always busy writing, so we’d have to find a time where-”
“No, no,” Jurgen said. “I mean… I’d like to photograph you. Just you.”
George felt blood rush to his face, was eternally grateful for the darkness to hide it. “Just me?” he asked.
“I- only if that’s alright with you!” Jurgen said quickly, and his voice sounded small, nervous. George found it odd that someone like Jurgen could be nervous around someone like him.
“Of course it’s alright,” George said. “It’s just- well, usually people want to photograph John and Paul. They write the songs, y’know.” He wasn’t exactly sure why he was defending John and Paul to Jurgen. It was almost instinctive. “They’re more important.”
There was a long pause which felt quite significant, George’s words hanging in the air. “More important?” Jurgen said finally. “Where did you get that idea?”
George elected not to answer the question.
“You’re the lead guitar, aren’t you? You’re just as important as them!”
George glanced down at the street, taking an awkward drag of his ciggie. “You think?”
“I know,” said Jurgen. “Watching you play– it’s my favorite part of your shows.”
George paused, looked up at Jurgen. “Really?” he blurted.
“Well, I just mean–” now it was Jurgen’s turn to look down at the ground, almost like he was embarrassed, which didn’t make much sense to George. “I just mean, your parts. Your guitar playing– listening to it… it’s my favorite. You’re my favorite, I suppose.”
George nearly choked on his cigarette. Nobody had ever called him their favorite before. He glanced over at Jurgen, just to see his face and make sure he wasn’t having him on, but found Jurgen looking right at him already. They met eyes for a second, then they both looked away.
George glanced down at the pavement, took a drag of his cigarette to hide his huge stupid grin that wouldn’t go away. It had always been John and Paul this, John and Paul that. Pete with his stupid handsome face. Stu with Astrid. But George… George had never been anybody’s favorite before.
After some time had passed– enough time for John and Paul to be done with whatever bullshit they were up to– they got up from the bench and Jurgen walked George home. All the way to the club’s door. They stopped on the front step, just stood there and stared at each other for a second.
“Thanks for walking me,” George said.
“You’re very welcome,” Jurgen said.
They stood there for another moment, George fidgeting awkwardly with his hands, feeling sort of awkward, like he should be doing something else. He wasn’t sure what.
Eventually, Jurgen told him good night, and, at a loss for anything else to do, George replied good night and opened the door, casting Jurgen one last smile as he closed it behind him.
George bound up the stairs, Jurgen’s words playing over and over in his head. You’re my favorite. You’re my favorite. Not John, not Paul. Him.
The room was quiet and dark when he got there, John and Paul probably asleep in their own beds. George threw his jacket on the floor, collapsed down on his creaky, stained, lumpy mattress and slept better than he had in weeks.