When Streams are Ripe and Swelled With Rain [s/a]
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Paul
Disclaimer: Fiction.
Summary: John sits in his hotel room, a cigarette resting delicately in his fingers. He smiles while he watches the smoke twist out of the open window, and it's when fondly he thinks, "There's no place like London", that Paul returns from a walk, disheveled and soaking from the rain.
Author's Note: Based off of Simon and Garfunkel's "April Come She Will", off the wonderful album "Sounds of Silence", which is the suggested listening and a song I believe everyone should know.
It's early April when the calendar begins to bleed; the days on the pages becoming indistinguishable, one from the other, confused amongst cities and autographs and counting the miles away from home.
John sits in his hotel room, a cigarette resting delicately in his fingers. He smiles while he watches the smoke twist out of the open window, and it's when fondly he thinks, "there's no place like London", that Paul returns from a walk, disheveled and soaking from the rain.
They're happy like this.
"We're really living the dream, eh, Johnny?" John puts out his cigarette in the ash tray and has to open another pack.
So happy; they're young like this, in body and in spirit.
Rain is still soaking Paul through his clothes; tiny rivulets begin to run down his face as if streams, as if he's crying, but both know better than to think that. What reason have they to cry? They have it all, and life as they know it may as well cease, because there isn't a way that they know of which could make it better.
John turns to Paul, wipes the droplets off his cheek, following the benevolent action with a flick to the forehead.
"You twat. Ever heard of an umbrella?"
"But-"
"Cor, thick bastard. Now get off my bed, you're messin' up the sheets."
A smile and a wink from Paul to his counterpart: "Funny," He retorts, "isn't that what that bird said to you back in Phoenix?"
April is a wonderful month for the both of them.
*
At the peak of May, at the pinnacle of their fame, and on possibly the brightest city in the world, John discovers suddenly how susceptible he is to what he calls "cabin fever" when Eppy won't let girls into the hotels anymore, and he begins to look at Paul in a completely non-conventional way.
If only for a second or two.
It's the loneliness that always takes hold of him when he's not in constant company, but the thought of any more company which sends painful spikes into his mind makes his situation a real catch-22.
"What are you moping about, Lennon?"
"Bugger off, Macca," is John's quick reply, however, it's really the fond nickname tacked onto the end that acts as an invitation to do otherwise. He's lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, as if to decipher the mystery of its existence as well as his own; but when Paul lies down next to him, with comfortable amount of space between them (which is none, of course), he decides that he's still happy, anyway.
"That one looks like a dinosaur," Paul says quietly, and John's eyes search the ceiling.
"What?"
"That stain." As per usual, the walls of the hotel are littered generously with them, a faded memory of the spring showers that accompanied the preceding months.
John just laughs, and plays along as he often does. He points to another spot, and another, and both John and Paul lay there for a seemingly endless expanse of time, making shapes and stories out of that which was once nothing more than unsightly discoloration.
May seems to last longer than April; manages to stay by means of time's open wound, and how the days pass with lethargy when often the fab four find themselves with nothing to occupy their nights besides the fleeting wishes of home and freedom and a reprieve from the ever-present shrieks of the public.
They are fleeting, however; by May's end, they're still happy; content to lie and stare at a ceiling. By the end of it, they're still young, in body and in spirit.
At the dawn of the second day, after the first night well spent deep in imagination, both John and Paul fall silent; not out of fatigue, but of thoughtfulness. Paul asks once more.
"What's wrong, John?" And John just sighs, because he doesn't know. He's happy. Perhaps he just misses his wife and son.
He says so.
And since Paul, bachelor as he is, can offer no real emotional consolation, he opts for the physical approach. Henceforth, the nights of May are characterized by short-lived dreams of Liverpudlian modesty and time spent in Paul's arms.
*
The songbirds of June are more exuberant, John notices, than the birds of any other month, and it's as if the whole melody of life changes with them; their confidence extracted only from the certainty that after a few months, winter really has dispersed, and the sun in the sky warmly drying the dew on the grass was not, in fact, any sort of illusion or trickery.
It's only after days and days of not sleeping, of public assumptions and of short fuses set alight that John and Paul simultaneously realize that established relationships are just too much for any one man to handle.
"So then why not two, eh?" Paul says one night through inebriated laughter. John snorts.
"Shut up, Paul."
The music gets better, and so do the money and the drugs, no matter what personal cost there may be.
At the beginning of June, they're happy like this; a second wind in a race to fame and fortune that even weeks ago was enough to erode even the strongest of contestants.
Happy; they're young like this, still, in spirit moreso than in body. Although, however the tune of the month changes, with the snugness of night time comes, at least to John, the crippling fear and loneliness and self doubt that really only Paul knows about. And as long as it's not trouble with a bird, he's all too willing to come to the rescue.
John and Paul (the doe eyed ruffian with a hero complex), during the month of July, take fondly to midnight walks, although strictly prohibited by Eppy and his band of loyal well-to-do's.
They had conversations only disclosed between them and the soft moonlight by which they were surrounded at all angles. John thinks dully about how much nicer it would be if the birds were singing.
"Do you think that we'll be like this forever?" Paul asks one night.
"Be like what?"
"Well. Trapped." Cell mates; that's what they are. But John only chuckles, despite the seriousness and ambiguous sense of hopelessness with which the conversation swells. His laugh holds no humor.
"Come on, Macca. Trapped? Don't be a loon; there's always a way out, right? We found one when that lot of pricks told us we couldn't go out, and I'll be damned if we don't find one out of..." The pause that John holds here quickly becomes pregnant with all of the things that both of them have constantly circulating their thoughts, but what neither of them will dare say.
"A way out of what, John?"
Silence.
"I dunno. Life."
By the end of the month, the tune definitely changes. Despite, this, June's closing still offers a semblance of what was once referred to childishly as "happiness", however diluted with smoke and millions of suffocating shrieks and money poorly spent as it is.
Somewhere along the way, their definition of their deepest desires deviates from its original purity, and their morals and their feelings begin to harden in correlation with the stony face of expectation and public image.
But they're happy like this. They're young like this, young in terms of body moreso than in spirit, which begins to age at a rapid pace as John becomes less inclined to ease his loneliness out of nothing if not disdain for his own weakness, and Eppy begins to really mean it when he says to not go outside.
*
July harbors Paul frequenting John's bed once more, just as he feels his reality slipping away through his fingers; being forcibly removed in favor of the reality shared by everyone else.
"Welcome to hell, Paulie," John says one nights upon his arrival, and Paul just rolls his eyes.
"Come off it, John, we've been here all our lives."
"Sometimes it just takes a while to realize it is all."
A gray sort of complacency sweeps them into August before they can even say the words "time flies".
*
August at home is uncharacteristically benevolent, with tongues of greenery surrounding all the familiar places that comprise fond memories of boyhood and of taking the greatest pleasure in the very simplest of things.
Left to their own devices, off the leash for only a month for the process of rejuvenation to take hold and work its wonder, John and Paul relive their adolescence with an entirely new appreciation.
Early-to-mid August brings only more night time visits and song ideas to the Lennon household, much to the chagrin of Cynthia, however quiet she may keep about her bitterness over the fact that whenever Paul is present, her husband may as well be merely phoning in from a different country; present in voice and generally responsive, albeit, far away in mind, enjoying with his best friend and no one else the splendors of an endless summer day.
"John," She says one night, a rare night away from music and ruckus and Paul, "John, you and Paul aren't kids anymore. You're going to have to grow up and realize that there has to be more to life than a silly rock band with your mates, you know?" Her voice is pleading and her eyes are shining with all of the feelings of desertion that John himself had refused to show.
"Can't help progress, love," Is his offhanded response, but a cry from the baby Julian in the other room quickly perforates the anger beginning to swell inside of him and leaves him deflated, eyes finally open wide.
He and Paul, they're happy like this. They're young like this, although youth is such a thing that is incapable of preservation so long as time bleeds on, the rush of blood in haunting sync with the palpitations of the heart.
August, however transcendent of every other month in terms of beauty and simplicity and warmth, like any other month must die, replaced unceremoniously with the coolness of the autumn wind.
Time moves slowly but moves on, starting with the first of September; preceding the second, third, fourth, and so on; days which see less and less late nights up with all consuming imagination, but more phone calls home and evenings spent alone with no one to hold.
"Maybe it's time to grow up."
Paul is soaked with rain again, and the scene in which he and John find themselves is eerily reminiscent of their days spent at the top of not just everybody else's world, but the world inside their own minds.
"You think so?" John flicks his cigarette out of the window and fixes his eyes carefully to the street below.
"Does it really matter what I think?" The streams on Paul's face could be either rainwater or something to John that is much more undesirable. He doesn't wipe it away this time, no matter how much he wants to, nor does he respond, repression being his desired course of action for the years to come.
It's of little consequence whether or not they're happy like this, whether or not they're young.
September brings with it falling leaves and the beginnings of a falling out, two souls once young and new grown old.
"Jesus, Macca," John says hollowly, "I thought I told you to get an umbrella."
Author's note: SO, it has been a while. I'm surprised to find that I still recognize any of the usernames (I know it's not likely I'm to be remembered, but this is merely a nostalgia moment that anyone is welcome to pass by). JHP/Beatlesslash was always wonderful, and I hope the preceding words weren't too off-the-mark.
Pairing: John/Paul
Disclaimer: Fiction.
Summary: John sits in his hotel room, a cigarette resting delicately in his fingers. He smiles while he watches the smoke twist out of the open window, and it's when fondly he thinks, "There's no place like London", that Paul returns from a walk, disheveled and soaking from the rain.
Author's Note: Based off of Simon and Garfunkel's "April Come She Will", off the wonderful album "Sounds of Silence", which is the suggested listening and a song I believe everyone should know.
It's early April when the calendar begins to bleed; the days on the pages becoming indistinguishable, one from the other, confused amongst cities and autographs and counting the miles away from home.
John sits in his hotel room, a cigarette resting delicately in his fingers. He smiles while he watches the smoke twist out of the open window, and it's when fondly he thinks, "there's no place like London", that Paul returns from a walk, disheveled and soaking from the rain.
They're happy like this.
"We're really living the dream, eh, Johnny?" John puts out his cigarette in the ash tray and has to open another pack.
So happy; they're young like this, in body and in spirit.
Rain is still soaking Paul through his clothes; tiny rivulets begin to run down his face as if streams, as if he's crying, but both know better than to think that. What reason have they to cry? They have it all, and life as they know it may as well cease, because there isn't a way that they know of which could make it better.
John turns to Paul, wipes the droplets off his cheek, following the benevolent action with a flick to the forehead.
"You twat. Ever heard of an umbrella?"
"But-"
"Cor, thick bastard. Now get off my bed, you're messin' up the sheets."
A smile and a wink from Paul to his counterpart: "Funny," He retorts, "isn't that what that bird said to you back in Phoenix?"
April is a wonderful month for the both of them.
*
At the peak of May, at the pinnacle of their fame, and on possibly the brightest city in the world, John discovers suddenly how susceptible he is to what he calls "cabin fever" when Eppy won't let girls into the hotels anymore, and he begins to look at Paul in a completely non-conventional way.
If only for a second or two.
It's the loneliness that always takes hold of him when he's not in constant company, but the thought of any more company which sends painful spikes into his mind makes his situation a real catch-22.
"What are you moping about, Lennon?"
"Bugger off, Macca," is John's quick reply, however, it's really the fond nickname tacked onto the end that acts as an invitation to do otherwise. He's lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, as if to decipher the mystery of its existence as well as his own; but when Paul lies down next to him, with comfortable amount of space between them (which is none, of course), he decides that he's still happy, anyway.
"That one looks like a dinosaur," Paul says quietly, and John's eyes search the ceiling.
"What?"
"That stain." As per usual, the walls of the hotel are littered generously with them, a faded memory of the spring showers that accompanied the preceding months.
John just laughs, and plays along as he often does. He points to another spot, and another, and both John and Paul lay there for a seemingly endless expanse of time, making shapes and stories out of that which was once nothing more than unsightly discoloration.
May seems to last longer than April; manages to stay by means of time's open wound, and how the days pass with lethargy when often the fab four find themselves with nothing to occupy their nights besides the fleeting wishes of home and freedom and a reprieve from the ever-present shrieks of the public.
They are fleeting, however; by May's end, they're still happy; content to lie and stare at a ceiling. By the end of it, they're still young, in body and in spirit.
At the dawn of the second day, after the first night well spent deep in imagination, both John and Paul fall silent; not out of fatigue, but of thoughtfulness. Paul asks once more.
"What's wrong, John?" And John just sighs, because he doesn't know. He's happy. Perhaps he just misses his wife and son.
He says so.
And since Paul, bachelor as he is, can offer no real emotional consolation, he opts for the physical approach. Henceforth, the nights of May are characterized by short-lived dreams of Liverpudlian modesty and time spent in Paul's arms.
*
The songbirds of June are more exuberant, John notices, than the birds of any other month, and it's as if the whole melody of life changes with them; their confidence extracted only from the certainty that after a few months, winter really has dispersed, and the sun in the sky warmly drying the dew on the grass was not, in fact, any sort of illusion or trickery.
It's only after days and days of not sleeping, of public assumptions and of short fuses set alight that John and Paul simultaneously realize that established relationships are just too much for any one man to handle.
"So then why not two, eh?" Paul says one night through inebriated laughter. John snorts.
"Shut up, Paul."
The music gets better, and so do the money and the drugs, no matter what personal cost there may be.
At the beginning of June, they're happy like this; a second wind in a race to fame and fortune that even weeks ago was enough to erode even the strongest of contestants.
Happy; they're young like this, still, in spirit moreso than in body. Although, however the tune of the month changes, with the snugness of night time comes, at least to John, the crippling fear and loneliness and self doubt that really only Paul knows about. And as long as it's not trouble with a bird, he's all too willing to come to the rescue.
John and Paul (the doe eyed ruffian with a hero complex), during the month of July, take fondly to midnight walks, although strictly prohibited by Eppy and his band of loyal well-to-do's.
They had conversations only disclosed between them and the soft moonlight by which they were surrounded at all angles. John thinks dully about how much nicer it would be if the birds were singing.
"Do you think that we'll be like this forever?" Paul asks one night.
"Be like what?"
"Well. Trapped." Cell mates; that's what they are. But John only chuckles, despite the seriousness and ambiguous sense of hopelessness with which the conversation swells. His laugh holds no humor.
"Come on, Macca. Trapped? Don't be a loon; there's always a way out, right? We found one when that lot of pricks told us we couldn't go out, and I'll be damned if we don't find one out of..." The pause that John holds here quickly becomes pregnant with all of the things that both of them have constantly circulating their thoughts, but what neither of them will dare say.
"A way out of what, John?"
Silence.
"I dunno. Life."
By the end of the month, the tune definitely changes. Despite, this, June's closing still offers a semblance of what was once referred to childishly as "happiness", however diluted with smoke and millions of suffocating shrieks and money poorly spent as it is.
Somewhere along the way, their definition of their deepest desires deviates from its original purity, and their morals and their feelings begin to harden in correlation with the stony face of expectation and public image.
But they're happy like this. They're young like this, young in terms of body moreso than in spirit, which begins to age at a rapid pace as John becomes less inclined to ease his loneliness out of nothing if not disdain for his own weakness, and Eppy begins to really mean it when he says to not go outside.
*
July harbors Paul frequenting John's bed once more, just as he feels his reality slipping away through his fingers; being forcibly removed in favor of the reality shared by everyone else.
"Welcome to hell, Paulie," John says one nights upon his arrival, and Paul just rolls his eyes.
"Come off it, John, we've been here all our lives."
"Sometimes it just takes a while to realize it is all."
A gray sort of complacency sweeps them into August before they can even say the words "time flies".
*
August at home is uncharacteristically benevolent, with tongues of greenery surrounding all the familiar places that comprise fond memories of boyhood and of taking the greatest pleasure in the very simplest of things.
Left to their own devices, off the leash for only a month for the process of rejuvenation to take hold and work its wonder, John and Paul relive their adolescence with an entirely new appreciation.
Early-to-mid August brings only more night time visits and song ideas to the Lennon household, much to the chagrin of Cynthia, however quiet she may keep about her bitterness over the fact that whenever Paul is present, her husband may as well be merely phoning in from a different country; present in voice and generally responsive, albeit, far away in mind, enjoying with his best friend and no one else the splendors of an endless summer day.
"John," She says one night, a rare night away from music and ruckus and Paul, "John, you and Paul aren't kids anymore. You're going to have to grow up and realize that there has to be more to life than a silly rock band with your mates, you know?" Her voice is pleading and her eyes are shining with all of the feelings of desertion that John himself had refused to show.
"Can't help progress, love," Is his offhanded response, but a cry from the baby Julian in the other room quickly perforates the anger beginning to swell inside of him and leaves him deflated, eyes finally open wide.
He and Paul, they're happy like this. They're young like this, although youth is such a thing that is incapable of preservation so long as time bleeds on, the rush of blood in haunting sync with the palpitations of the heart.
August, however transcendent of every other month in terms of beauty and simplicity and warmth, like any other month must die, replaced unceremoniously with the coolness of the autumn wind.
Time moves slowly but moves on, starting with the first of September; preceding the second, third, fourth, and so on; days which see less and less late nights up with all consuming imagination, but more phone calls home and evenings spent alone with no one to hold.
"Maybe it's time to grow up."
Paul is soaked with rain again, and the scene in which he and John find themselves is eerily reminiscent of their days spent at the top of not just everybody else's world, but the world inside their own minds.
"You think so?" John flicks his cigarette out of the window and fixes his eyes carefully to the street below.
"Does it really matter what I think?" The streams on Paul's face could be either rainwater or something to John that is much more undesirable. He doesn't wipe it away this time, no matter how much he wants to, nor does he respond, repression being his desired course of action for the years to come.
It's of little consequence whether or not they're happy like this, whether or not they're young.
September brings with it falling leaves and the beginnings of a falling out, two souls once young and new grown old.
"Jesus, Macca," John says hollowly, "I thought I told you to get an umbrella."
Author's note: SO, it has been a while. I'm surprised to find that I still recognize any of the usernames (I know it's not likely I'm to be remembered, but this is merely a nostalgia moment that anyone is welcome to pass by). JHP/Beatlesslash was always wonderful, and I hope the preceding words weren't too off-the-mark.