Paul's Itch completed fic.
Title: Paul’s Itch
Author: macca44552
Pairing: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Fandom: The Beatles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: brief sexual situations, alcohol use, language
Summary: Paul has lice and Mimi does not approve.
A/N: *shrugs*
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Beatles, nor do I claim to. This is a fictional story and is not written to be libelous.
“Alright…alright! Let’s take a vote: how many of you sods think that Pete will grow a pair?” John loudly asks Paul, George, and Ringo. When no one raises their hands, John cackles loudly and dribbles a bit of whiskey down his chin. As if they are the same person, Paul immediately does the same thing, and he watches with a twinge of annoyance as the alcohol makes a spot on his shirt. He should have worn black. He remembers asking Mike whether or not he should wear the black shirt or the blue shirt, and his brother foolishly picked the latter. Paul makes a mental note to scold Mike for that one.
“Corr, look at Best just sitting in the corner with the birds wetting their knickers over him! He’s such a wanker… he just stares at them like a bloody git,” John rambles on and on. Paul doesn’t know why John’s made Pete his target tonight, but he follows along with his friend, laughing at all the jokes and insulting the drummer when necessary.
“He’s a shoddy fucking drummer,” George adds as he gives Ringo a pointed look. Paul wants to give Ringo the same look, but stops when he catches John staring at him.
“Huh?” he asks stupidly, afraid that his wandering mind caused him to miss some sort of question or statement that John directed at him. The guitarist rolls his eyes and Paul scratches his head.
“I asked ya if you wanted another pint,” John says as he waves around the bottle. Paul nods and watches as John stumbles over to the bar. Paul loves the Cavern Club…especially on the quieter days. Obviously, Paul loves the attention that he gets from the birds, but sometimes it’s good to just sit back and have a drink with your mates. Not all the time, though, because Paul has a prick to attend to.
“I don’t wanna run into Rory tonight. He’ll be pissed that I’m off with you lads. He’s always hammering on about band-loyalty and a bunch of other shite,” Ringo says. Paul runs his hand through his hair and itches his scalp absently.
“Sounds like a drag….” George talks to Ringo about his band, but Paul isn’t listening much. He looks over to the bar and sees that John is busy pushing himself at some girl. Figuring that he should order the whiskey, Paul gets up and goes over to John.
“Did you get everything?” he asks. John turns his head slowly to look at Paul.
“Not if you don’t shut yer gob,” he says as he jerks his head in the direction of the bird he’s chatting up. Paul sighs in slight annoyance, he really doesn’t want to pay for the bottle, but perks up again when he sees that John has the whiskey nestled in his right arm. Smiling, Paul pokes John on the nose before grabbing the bottle and taking it out of John’s grasp with ease. In retaliation, John kicks Paul in the back of the legs as he is walking away with the whiskey. After a few seconds, Paul turns around again and notices that John is still staring at him. He points to the bird, and John shakes his head in realization and goes back to staring at his prey. For a brief second, Paul wishes that he hadn’t redirected John’s attention.
“Where’s John?” George asks as he eyes the bottle. Paul looks towards the bar.
“With some bird,” he answers. Paul is about to open up the whiskey, but an annoying itch overtakes the right portion of his skull. Not really thinking, he uses the bottle to itch madly at the spot. He notices that George is staring at him, eyebrows raised, and looks as if he wants to make some sort of John-like comment. Paul just ignores him and continues to scratch his head with the bottle until the itch finally subsides. Relieved, he hands the bottle over to the other two, and both stare at it like Paul’s just put some pulsating organ on the table.
“What?” he asks, annoyed. Ringo chuckles.
“You practically fucked yer head with that bottle!” he quips and George laughs uncontrollably. Because Paul is now more aware of his scalp, he feels every little tingle on his head, and runs both of his hands through his hair angrily. He washed his hair that morning!! Maybe he just didn’t do it well enough. After all, his dad had recently complained to him about his taking too long in the shower; maybe he was just paranoid and didn’t wash his hair properly.
“Hey, Paul, are you okay?” George asks. Paul stops and realizes that he’s been scratching his head ever since he returned to the table. He takes his hands off his head, but immediately feels another odd tingling on his scalp, and has to bite his lip to prevent himself from taking a knife to his bloody skull.
“Fine,” he mumbles as he rubs his hands together nervously. He mentally tells himself not to touch his scalp, just don’t fucking touch it! He allows his mind to bring forth some particularly naughty occurrences with Dot, but drops them when he realizes that he’s gone back to scratching his head.
Fed up with himself, he stands up and says a feeble goodbye to George and Ringo. He thinks about saying goodbye to John, but decides that it would be more worth it if John initiates the goodbye. Go over by the bar, Paul tries to produce his best attention-grabbing swagger as he makes his way to the exit, but the urge to scratch his head messes with the gentle pout of his lips and the sexy arch of his eyebrows. He gives up and just storms out of the club, resolute to jump in the shower as soon as he gets home.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Paul’s sleeping when he hears the familiar sound of a stone hitting his window. He rubs his eyes and gets out of bed slowly. He thought that John would have shagged that bird tonight. Why is he at his window?
Paul puts up the yellowing blinds, and opens the window to see that John Lennon is already climbing up the damn thing. He takes a moment to admire the shape of John’s strong legs, but promptly stops because straight blokes don’t do that.
“What are you doing here?” he asks quietly when John finally gets into the room.
“Just thought I would kip it here. I got back from that bird’s place and I didn’t feel like going to Cyn’s…or Mimi’s,” he says as he takes off his pants. Paul looks away; he doesn’t want John to see him smiling.
“Fine. But you gotta get used to sleeping in yer own bed eventually,” Paul scolds as he settles himself in and leaves enough space for John. John scoots in next to Paul, and the latter feels John’s breath ghosting along his neck. He tries not to shiver. Accidentally bumping his leg into John’s gives him the image of a scalding hot iron plate running across his bare skin. He jerks his leg away, and decides to not move for the rest of the night. After he calms down, he thinks about him and John becoming famous…just the two of them. He thinks about becoming the biggest and best band in the UK. With John by his side, he feels safe and he enjoys the fame that encompasses him.
These thoughts bring him to sleep.
John Lennon does not.
After maybe a few minutes of semi-consciousness, he feels a hairy leg kicking him, and his friend calling his name over and over again.
“What?!” he grumbles. All he wants is to fucking sleep!
“Stop that,” John orders ambiguously. Paul turns over on his side and stares at John angrily.
“Stop what?!” he bites. He forgets that Mike is sleeping in the room next door.
“Stop scratching yer head so much. It’s fucking annoying,” John says. Immediately, Paul reaches up and rubs his hand on his scalp. He didn’t realize that he had been scratching before. Worry fills his veins when he remembers that he washed his hair twice that night. Was it the shampoo?
“Er…sorry,” he mumbles and closes his eyes. For good measure, he sticks his hands underneath the pillow, but retreats them when he realizes that John already has his hand there. Panicking, Paul turns away from John and positions himself so that he is lying on his arms. John chuckles behind him, but Paul ignores it and goes back to sleep.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“PAUL!!!!” John storms through Paul McCartney’s house as he is reading in the living room. Paul almost sighs in annoyance; he wants to be left alone because it was one of those rare occasions when Mike was out with his friends and his father was running some errands. Paul puts down his book and looks up at the freaked-out John in front of him.
“You’ve given it to me!!!” John shouts. Paul tries his best to coax his mind out of thinking of very inappropriate images.
“Given you what exactly?”
“The itch!” John screams as Paul watches him scratch at his head frantically. Paul laughs.
“Bloody hell, John! I didn’t give you the fucking itch! I was only scratching because I didn’t wash up properly,” Paul partially lies. He didn’t think that he gave John any sort of ‘itch’, but he was a bit worried about the state of his own hair. No longer could he even survive a few minutes without scratching away! He was beginning to think that he was going soft.
“Yes you did! You were scratchin’ like a bloody ferret all last night! And now look at me!” John explodes.
“John, are you saying that we’re both a couple of ferrets?” Paul jokes, unaware that he has begun imitating John’s scratching.
“You’re doing it now!” John points out madly. Paul is exasperated.
“I didn’t give you the itch!”
“Yes you did! You’re an itchy little cunt!”
“I did not spread any sort of itch to you.”
“What if it’s lice?” John asks the question that neither of them wants to hear. Paul shakes his head roughly. He can’t have lice. His hair is…well…his. Why would some creepy fucking bugs want to invade his scalp?
“You’re barking,” he says as he goes over to the refrigerator and examines his hair in the reflection of the metal part. It looks a bit disheveled due to his constant scratching, and he yearns to run upstairs and get his comb.
“Well what if it is then? Mimi won’t let me in her bloody house if that’s the case,” John says as he leans against the fridge. Paul turns away from his reflection and eyes John seriously.
“We do not have lice,” he says strongly. John snorts.
“In your fucked-up mind, maybe. But I can’t handle all the fucking scratching. I’m going to ask Mimi what she thinks. Do us a favor and stay inside ya? I don’t want you spreading this shite to the other two,” John says as he backs up to Paul’s front door, turns around, and closes it with a slam. Paul smells the scent that John leaves behind-cigarette smoke, aftershave, and that bit of odor that was so unmistakably John (arrogance and Mimi’s soap). Paul shakes his head and sits back on the couch, going over John’s words.
What if he did have lice? After all, they just got back from Hamburg…and that’s a pretty dirty place. He could have bedded some slut who had it crawling around in her skin. Paul shivers at the thought and picks up his book again. When the words fail to register in his mind, he puts the shoddy thing down and runs up the stairs. He has to take a shower again.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
John comes climbing up the window, but this time Paul expects it. He is sitting on the bed, hair drenched, and holding a pin that he had previously been stabbing at his head with. Four bloody showers…he took four bloody showers-each with a different bottle of shampoo, what a good thing to waste his money on-but the itching refused to subside. He stares at his feet as he listens to John pulling himself in his room. His hair looks a mess, and the muscles in his arms have grown tired from reaching up to his head so often. He wants it to end.
When John steps into the room, Paul sighs and scratches his head for the billionth time.
“Is it lice?” Paul asks, not looking at the figure looming over him.
“Yep,” John responds. Paul is taken aback by the light and almost chipper way that John is talking. Paul looks up to John and sees that he is wearing a fucking plastic bag over his head. A fucking plastic bag.
“What..er…what…” Paul tries to speak as he giggles quietly and points at John’s head. The latter rolls his eyes.
“It’s a bloody bag. Got one?” John says cheekily. Paul crosses his arms and smiles.
“Yeah, I got one. I usually don’t wear it on my head, though,” he says.
“Well…if you expected me to show up at yer lice-infested home after Mimi just got through raking my head with a comb, then yer as soft as your invisible bag,” John replies. Paul sighs.
“So it is lice, then.”
“That’s what I said,” John says as he rifles through the bag around his shoulder and pulls out a small plastic-covered dish filled with a strange colored substance. Paul wrinkles his nose.
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s Mimi’s special lice-killing mixture. So she says, at least. I expect it to be her tuna sandwiches,” John explains as he sits down on the floor and puts the bowl on the ground. “You have to put this in yer head, son.”
“No fucking way!” Paul scoffs as he stares at the pink goo suspiciously. John rolls his eyes.
“Yes fucking way! Stop bein’ such a bird,” John says. Paul watches as John dips his hand into his bag and pulls out a small and spiky comb that looks more like it is used for de-feathering a bird than combing someone’s hair.
“What’s that for?” Paul asks.
“Well this is for killing the buggers,” John says as he puts the goo up in the air, “and this if for getting out the little eggs,” John finishes as he waves around the comb. Paul swallows. The comb that John is holding doesn’t look like it will be kind to Paul’s scalp. He looks over at his cheaply constructed Solid 7 bass (it was the best he could do after Chas Newby left the band and Paul was forced to take up the bass) and wishes that he could play a few chords and make the lice leave his scalp. Wasn’t music supposed to be the answer to everything? Couldn’t he just use the power of rock ‘n’ roll to make the lice vacate his head?
“Look, son,” John says after studying Paul’s expression, “It’s either this or your hair comes off,” he finishes. Paul gasps loudly and runs his hands through his hair. He certainly doesn’t want that.
“I’ll do it,” he says with resolve. John smiles and stands up.
“Gear! First, though, we have to get rid of yer bedding! The little fuckers sleep in that shite.”
Paul shudders and stands up to glare at his bed like it had just done him a terrible disservice. He watches as John throws the pillow off his bed, takes of the blanket, and removes the sheets. Paul scratches his head.
“Er…John, where am I supposed to sleep?”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve brought something along,” John replies as he takes Paul’s bedding and chucks it out the window.
“John!” Paul gasps and runs to the window, fearful of waking up his father. John chuckles.
“Well where else was I supposed to put them?” John asks. Paul turns around to stare at John. Still with the bag on his head, he looks like a fucking nutter, and Paul has trouble focusing on anything aside from his friend’s odd appearance.
“You’ll get it later. Anyroad, let’s go into the bathroom so I can put this in your head,” John picks up the goo and comb. Sighing, Paul opens his door, creeps over the landing, and walks into the loo, John at his heel. He puts down the lid on the toilet, sits down, and stares at John expectantly.
“Stand up and bend over the sink,” John orders. Paul hopes that John doesn’t notice the fact that his legs shake as he stands, and a flush dances along his skin with abandon. He begins to bend over the sink when a thought occurs to him.
“Why do you have to do it? Why can’t I put that in my hair?” Paul asks as he nods towards the substance. John snickers.
“’Cause yer about half-way to retarded that’s why! You’ll be dripping it all over yourself,” he bites.
“I’ll get you half-way to retarded when I kick you in the head,” Paul says and John tries not to laugh too loudly. Paul turns around and drinks in John’s laughter-sincere yet demanding. He loves to think about the ying and yang aspects of John’s personality, but is forced out of his thoughts when John runs a strong hand through his hair, and Paul feels something wet and sticky touch his scalp.
“Bloody fuck!” Paul says frantically and John shushes him. If his hair turns pink from this shite, he’s going to give John a right good jab in the eye.
“Alright there Paulie?” John asks after a few minutes of silence. Paul nods and continues to feel the strange substance cooling his scalp effectively. He also pays special attention to the lazy caresses that John uses to lather the goo in. He feels his body tingle and tighten and his eyelids droop.
“Time to wash this out,” John says as he turns on the water and shoves Paul under. He tries not to gag and move around a bit at the surprise of having his head suddenly submerged under freezing cold weather. He reaches around to violently poke John, but he realizes that this assault isn’t good enough revenge. Vengeful, he hopes that the cold water on his head causes him to get sick, that way he’ll have to miss the show. He thinks about the look on John’s face when he finds out that he needs to procure a bass player in less than twenty four hours.
“All done,” John whispers as he turns off the water. Paul feels a towel engulf his head, and he lets out a deep breath at the sudden warmth. The feel of the battered towel is more than welcome, because Paul dreads what is to come.
“Sit,” John says as he taps the toilet lid. Obeying, Paul sits and uneasily runs his hands over each other. He is apprehensive about the pain, but the fact that John went through this earlier entices him to stay put and put on a brave face.
“Hope this hurts,” John jokes as he plays with Paul’s hair for a second before running the comb through his locks. Paul shuts his eyes tightly-he is waiting for the sharp scrape against his skin, for the comb to stop in its tracks because a couple of eggs are obscuring its path.
But none of this happens.
John continues to comb his head gently and Paul starts to grow confused. If he has eggs in his hair, then the comb should get caught in a small knot. It was simple physics and he understood that much. However, he does not understand why the comb, with bristles not even a micro meter apart, can so easily flow through his hair. Unless…
“John,” Paul whispers, and his friend understands that it is a demand for him to stop.
“What?” he asks. Paul sighs.
“I don’t have lice, do I?” he comes right out with it. There is silence for a long time before John snorts and laughs quietly.
“No, you don’t.”
“Did you?”
“Nope. All in our heads.”
“So…what was all this?” Paul asks. John pulls the bag off his head and Paul stares at his hair. He never realized how shiny it was.
“Well, that stuff that I put in yer head really was Mimi’s tuna,” John replies. Paul momentarily forgets what he hears and tells John to answer the question. His friend puts the comb down and walks away. Annoyed, Paul takes the comb and the bowl, and follows John into his room. They make eye contact for only a second before John scowls and slings his bag around his shoulder. Paul doesn’t want him to leave, so he reaches out and grips his shoulder.
“Come on, John. Tell me,” he begs. He doesn’t know if weakness is the best thing to show at this moment, but he does anyway. John relaxes underneath him.
“I just wanted to touch yer hair, is all. I wanna give up makin’ music and be a hairdresser! That alright with you?” he asks. Paul disregards everything after the first sentence and feels a strange sort of giddiness overtake his core.
“So…er…what’s in the bag, then?” Paul asks as he nods his head towards John’s knapsack. Smiling, John pulls out a large sleeping bag, and Paul realizes that maybe John had another reason for lying to him about the lice. He looks John in the eye, and he understands; they both do.
“I’ll set it up, then,” Paul says as he takes the sleeping bag and unravels it on the floor. He unzips it and crawls inside the pouch that certainly was not made for two people. Neither mind, however, when John settles himself next to Paul-the two of them press flush against one another in the small sleeping arrangement.
“Night, John,” Paul says. John stares at him for a long time. He doesn’t know what, but Paul desperately wants John to do something.
With great caution, John lifts his head and presses his lips against Paul’s cheek. Instantly, the young musician’s body fills with fire and he wants more of John. But he doesn’t know exactly what more he could want-they were both already sandwiched together. There is, of course, a very forbidden thought that passes through Paul’s head, and he shudders at the boldness and wrongness of his mind. Did he want that?
Before he could find out, though, John turns the other way with a smirk and feebly mutters “G’night Paul.” He lays staring at John’s back for a long time before he turns away from him as well and forces his eyes to go to sleep.
Even though his head is no longer begging to be scratched, Paul now has another itch to deal with.
The End!
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