Not Fade Away
Title: Not Fade Away
Author: skelly_lector
Pairing: John/Paul
Time Frame: February 1959
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: John's potty mouth and very, very slight fluffy boy-lovin'.
Summary: Paul tries to rouse John from a bad mood and finds that his troubles go deeper than expected.
A/N: Hellooo, it's me again, putting off working on Lucky Boys with another epic one-shot. As usual, it's far longer than I intended, but I like it anyway. My first John/Paul-centric story, as well as my first teenage-Beatles fic, so I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I totally know this is true because I was totally there to watch it nearly three decades before I was conceived. Totally.
It was early February when it happened. The day itself was not particularly unusual: just another frigid winter day in Liverpool. The pale, featureless sky fell in a steady dusting of tiny white flakes that melted against windows, froze the wet cobblestones into slick ice cubes, and stood out like stars in the dark hair of a young man hurrying through the vacant streets. Steam exploding out from between his raw lips in buoyant clouds, he hunched his narrow shoulders and barreled ahead, past the shut-up shops and warm windows with all the curtains drawn. Across a narrow residential street, over the lumpy, tree root-cracked sidewalk, under bare, overarching branches slowly graying with snow, up a short flight of slippery stairs, and he was there.
The metal knocker stung his gloveless hands as he banged it swiftly against the sturdy red door. Puffing at his numb fingers in a futile attempt to thaw his frozen digits, he listened absently to the brief flurry of activity that came from within the house. Muffled footsteps approached the door, and he closed his eyes, visualizing the advance of a pair of sensible heels down the hallway that connected the front door to the rest of the cozy two-story townhouse. The clatter grew louder, then paused, and the door should be opening…
Now. The locked clicked, the hinges creaked, and he opened his eyes to be greeted by the sight of a bespectacled, motherly, middle-aged face peering out at him.
“Paul!” the face cried, a look of pleasant surprise crossing the worn features.
“Hullo, Mimi,” he said good-naturedly, giving her his best parent-pleasing smile.
“Oh, come in, dear,” she urged him, stepping back to allow him into the house. “It’s freezing out! And you in nothing but that thin little jacket. You’ll catch your death, young man. Now get inside this house!”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He ducked his head to hide his exasperated grin as he followed her inside. Shutting the door behind him, he sighed in relief as the warm air surged around him, softening his freezing extremities and dispelling the raw redness in his cheeks.
“Is John home?” he inquired of Mimi’s retreating back as he followed her down the hallway and into the kitchen.
“Yes, he’s upstairs,” she informed him as they entered the bright, spacious room, a faint frown creasing the space between her dark brows. “He’s in one of his moods today; had the radio on all afternoon and wouldn’t come downstairs for tea. Goodness knows what’s got into him this time. Would you like a cup, by the way?” she added, lifting the blue china teapot off the counter and raising it questioningly in Paul’s direction.
“Yes, please,” Paul replied eagerly, before he remembered his manners and added, “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Mimi smiled, turning and pulling two cups out of the cabinet behind her. “Take a cup up to John while you’re at it.”
“Certainly,” Paul nodded, grinning faintly as he unwound his scarf and unzipped his jacket to let the warm air seep into his chest.
“Young man, the next time I see you at this house, you had better be wearing a better jacket,” Mimi scolded him, peering sternly at him over her spectacles as she poured out the tea. “What would your mother say if she could see you going about in this weather without a proper coat?”
“Leather’s very warm,” Paul protested, knowing it was useless to really argue with Mimi. In many ways, it was great being Mimi’s favorite of John’s friends; he was treated like a second son, and hot tea and a warm, welcoming house were just a few of the many perks that came with that position. But he also got his share of scolding and mothering from Mimi, especially after she’d found out that he no longer had an actual mother of his own. She often deplored the tatty state of his clothes and the fact that he and his brother were allowed to stay out as late as they pleased, claiming that “a house of men is no place for a boy to grow up.”
“Hmph.” She gave him another piercing look before turning to open the icebox. “I suppose it’s not fashionable to wear sensible overcoats these days. All you young men ever wear is leather, leather, leather. Very fashionable, indeed. I suppose hypothermia is quite fashionable as well. Milk and sugar?”
“Um.” Paul blinked, slightly thrown by the sudden change in the conversation. “Yes, please.”
“It’s all very silly,” Mimi sighed as she poured milk into both cups and dropped a cube of sugar in each. “John does the same thing, of course. But I always did think you so much more sensible than John.”
“I’ve got a jumper on underneath,” Paul volunteered meekly. He hated it when Mimi compared him to John, even over silly things like overcoats. It made him terribly uncomfortable.
“Well.” Mimi smiled dryly as she emerged from behind the counter bearing the teacups. “Thank heavens for that. Scone?”
“Oh, uh, yes, please.” Thrown off once again, he reached awkwardly for the plate of warm pastries on the counter in front of him. You always had to keep on your toes when you were talking to Mimi; much like John, she switched rapidly between topics and had no patience for people who couldn’t keep up.
“There you are, dear,” Mimi said briskly, setting the cups down in front of him. He took both handles in one hand and paused for a moment to balance his precarious load.
“Go on up,” Mimi said encouragingly, nodding at the stairs just outside the kitchen. “John needs a good cheering up. Hasn’t been out of that room of his all day. I can’t imagine what’s wrong; he’s been so much more cheerful lately. I almost thought he’d finally gotten over Julia.” She sighed, and Paul bit his lip, unsure of what to say.
“Well, don’t let me delay you,” she said suddenly, snapping out of her pensive moment. “Go on, go on.”
He smiled gratefully at her before making his slow, careful way down the hall and up the stairs. As he climbed, he whistled the song he had stuck in his head, a sweet Buddy Holly tune he’d heard in a record shop that morning.
“Every day, it’s-a gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster. Love like yours will surely come my way, a-hey, a-hey-hey!”
A thought struck him, and he increased his pace, a smile finding its way onto his face. That was just the thing to cheer John up; a new song for the Quarrymen to cover! And maybe John would even let him sing…
He reached the top landing and set off down the hall with a spring in his step, still whistling happily away. When he arrived at John’s door (which was shut, unsurprisingly), he gave it three swift kicks in lieu of knocking. There was a pause, during which Paul wondered if he’d somehow ended up in front of the wrong door.
But eventually the reply came: “What?” It was short, sharp, and highly irritable. Paul was in the right place.
“Johnny, it’s me!” he called out cheerfully. “Can I come in?”
“No,” was the nasty reply. “Sod off.”
Paul rolled his eyes; so it was one of those days. Early on, John’s moods had both baffled and frightened Paul, but by now he was used to them. He also knew John well enough to know that he didn’t always mean what he said. So he leaned down, turned the door handle with his elbow, and pushed the door open.
As usual, the room was a mess, with clothes and papers strewn across the floor and piled in heaps around the bed and desk. But the more Paul looked, the more he noticed that this was not a normal John-mess. Instead of the sense of careless accumulation of crap that the room normally had, this mess felt intentional, as though things had been thrown and broken and dirtied with the specific intent of creating chaos.
And there was John in the middle of it all, spread-eagled on his bed like a content rat in his nest. Except John was not content; in fact, he was the furthest thing from content Paul had seen in a long time. The moment Paul set foot in the room, John’s head snapped up and he shot Paul a glare that stopped him in his tracks.
“What are you doing here?” John demanded.
“Delivering the mail,” Paul retorted sarcastically. “I’m here to see you, you clod.”
“Why aren’t you at school?”
Now that was a strange question. Since when did John care? Even Mimi hadn’t bothered to ask that.
“Sagging off,” Paul shrugged. “Like you.”
“Well you can piss off,” John said shortly, lying back down and glowering up at the ceiling.
“After I came all this way? Not a chance,” Paul said firmly, closing the door behind him with one foot. “Mimi sent you up some tea.”
“Don’t want it,” John mumbled, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“Suit yourself.” Paul set one cup down on John’s bedside table and kept the other for himself. “So,” he began briskly as he settled down into John’s desk chair, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” John replied automatically, his scowl deepening. Any moment, Paul was sure the ceiling was going to catch fire from the sheer intensity of John’s glare.
“Mhmm,” Paul grunted through a mouthful of scone. “So you destroyed your room for fun?”
That got John’s attention; he turned his head and glared at Paul through narrowed eyes. “I didn’t destroy-no. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Of course not,” Paul agreed smoothly. “That’s why you only got half dressed and didn’t bother greasing your hair. I know I only pay attention to my appearance when something’s wrong.”
Blinking, John frowned down at himself. Indeed, he was only half dressed; his shirt wasn’t buttoned up all the way, his pants were unzipped, and he was only wearing one sock. To complete the insane look, his hair was pomade-less and sticking out in ten directions, standing straight up off his head like he’d been electrically shocked.
“I just…I didn’t…I didn’t feel like it today, alright?” John snarled, flopping back onto his bed with a loud harrumph. “A lad’s allowed to have a day off now and then.”
“Mm,” Paul said noncommittally, taking a sip of his tea and examining the clutter around him in the hope that it would provide him with some sort of clue to the cause of John’s anger. Because at the rate things were going, the chair he was sitting on was more likely to give him a straight answer than John was. The wall above John’s bed caught his eye; it was a veritable collage of posters, photographs, and drawings. There was the poster of Elvis, right in between Gene Vincent and Brigitte Bardot. There, too, was Little Richard, and beside him Rita Hayworth and a scantily clad Marilyn Monroe. But something seemed off; someone was missing. He scanned the wall, and sure enough, there was a conspicuous patch of white wall where a rather large poster had once been. He felt that he ought to know whose face was missing from the crowd, but he couldn’t quite figure it out. The poster hovered in the back of his mind, the name dancing on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t pin it down.
Frustrated, he turned his attention to the floor. Perhaps he would find the poster there. And after a moment he did find it-torn up into a hundred tiny pieces and piled up in a heap. Well, that was supremely unhelpful. He looked elsewhere, still flummoxed as to what on earth was the matter with John.
And then he saw it, slumped against the far wall like an old drunk under a bridge. That was it. Teacup cradled securely in his hands, he got to his feet and walked slowly over to it. A prickling sensation on the back of his neck told him that John was watching him from the bed.
“So what did you hear on the news that upset you so much?” Paul inquired finally, nudging the wreckage with one foot.
“Nothing,” John said flatly, and when Paul looked up he had his eyes fixed on the ceiling once more.
“John,” Paul said sharply, finally losing his patience with his friend’s mind games. “You threw your radio at the wall. Clearly, you heard something you didn’t like.”
“Wasn’t listening to the radio,” John said lazily, clasping his hands behind his head.
“You were too,” Paul snapped. “Mimi told me you’ve been at it all afternoon. And now you’ve destroyed it. What happened?”
With a sigh, John sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He got slowly to his feet, picked his way across the room to Paul, and stood beside him, frowning down at the radio like he’d never seen it before.
“It didn’t take being thrown too well, I suppose,” he mused, poking the dial with one bare toe. “Probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“John.” Paul planted one hand on his hip and gave John a look. But the older boy wouldn’t meet his eyes; instead, he squatted down on his haunches and began to fiddle with the radio, his long, deft fingers tucking in stray wires, fiddling with dials, and flipping switches. And, miraculously enough, the thing flickered to life, weak bursts of static drifting out of its speakers.
“John,” Paul said again, crouching down beside his friend. “John, please cut it out and just-”
“Shhh,” John hushed him, not deigning to spare him so much as a glance as he turned the dial in search of a signal. Finally, a proper station crackled into hearing, and both boys leaned their heads in close to hear what the news announcer was saying.
“…shocking tragedy that may change the face of American music forever,” the faint voice said solemnly. “A plane crash in Iowa has robbed rock ‘n roll of three of its most promising young stars: J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Ritchie Valens, and, perhaps most incredibly, Buddy Holly. The three musicians, as well as the pilot, were killed early this morning when a small charter plane crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa. Today, the youth of America mourn the loss of three of their favorite performers. Valens, who was only seventeen, became famous for his interpretation of the Mexican folk song La Bamba, which-”
A burst of static interrupted the announcer, and John turned the radio off, stone-faced. Paul sat down on the floor, wide-eyed in shock.
“My god,” he said weakly. “Buddy Holly…I can’t believe it. I don’t…he’s dead?”
“You heard the man,” John whispered, his voice dull and expressionless. The blankness in his eyes mirrored the tonelessness of his voice as he stared dully down at the pile of shreds that had once been his prized Buddy Holly poster.
“Christ,” Paul muttered, setting his empty teacup down in an empty space on the floor.
“It’s not fair,” John said quietly, running an absent hand through the tangle of his hair.
Paul looked up at him, nonplussed. “What?”
“You heard me!” John rounded on him, eyes blazing with rage once more. “It’s not fucking fair! Why did it have to be him on that plane? Why couldn’t someone else have died? Why did it have to be him?”
“It…it just was, John,” Paul said helplessly, taken aback by this sudden outburst. “Things like this happen. It’s just how life is.”
“Then life’s shit!” John declared, giving the nearest bedpost a vicious kick that rattled the windows. “It’s not fucking fair! Everyone who matters is gone!”
“John-”
“No, think about it! Eddie Cochran died in that car crash, Gene Vincent’s a cripple, Little Richard’s some kind of fucking born-again Christian, Elvis is in the army, the fucking army, Paul, and now this? We’ve got no bloody heroes left!”
“John, I don’t…this is just life,” Paul shrugged, completely lost. “This is what happens.”
“Well it fucking shouldn’t!” John snarled, raking his hands through his hair and pacing back and forth agitatedly. “This isn’t how it should be! The good people shouldn’t be the ones to die! It’s not fucking fair!”
“Life’s not fair, John,” Paul snapped, getting to his feet and folding his arms. “Don’t be fucking stupid. Everything doesn’t work out exactly how you want it just because you want it that way! For god’s sake, stop acting like such a child.”
“Oh, piss off, McCartney!” John yelled, giving the boy’s shoulder a rough shove. “You’re only fifteen; what the fuck d’you know about life?”
“I’m sixteen, you git!” Paul shrieked in outrage, raising his hand to shove John back. But before he moved, he caught himself and thought about what he was doing. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to be comforting John, and here he was about to hit him. What a great friend he was.
“Look. Okay.” He took a deep breath through his nose. “That doesn’t matter. Just…can’t you see that you can’t get so worked up about these things? They’re just facts of life, you know.”
John looked at him for a moment, chest heaving, dark eyes narrowed to deep brown diamonds. And then, something rather odd happened. His shoulders slumped, his eyebrows lifting and his mouth softening out of its firm, tight line.
“I know,” he said softly, taking a step backwards and sitting down on the edge of his bed. As Paul looked on in astonishment, he buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes, his cheeks, his hair. “I know.”
There was a silence; Paul stood rooted to the spot, staring at John’s hunched form in astonishment. What was going on now? John tended to have mood swings, but this…this was beyond anything he’d ever seen before.
“John?” Paul said meekly, more frightened by his friend’s silence than he had been by his anger.
“I just want to know, Paul,” John said into his hands, his voice quiet and hoarse and pulled tight around the edges. “Why does everyone I care about leave?”
And that was when Paul understood. He understood why John was reacting (and, indeed, overreacting) so violently to an event that only called for perhaps a few minutes of mourning. Most other people could just go on with their lives. But John couldn’t. And now Paul knew why, because he remembered the only other time he’d ever seen John like this: right after Julia died.
This wasn’t about Buddy Holly. It wasn’t about Little Richard, or Gene Vincent, or Elvis or Eddie Cochran. It was about John’s mum and John’s dad and everyone else who’d ever abandoned him or let him down.
“I mean, it’s just shitty, isn’t it?” John mumbled, swiping viciously at his eyes. “You get close to someone, I mean really open up to them, and you start to depend on them and expect them to be there for you, and then…and then, what? One day they’re gone. Just like that. And when you really need them, they’re not there.”
He dropped his hands into his lap, his elbows propped up on his knees and his shoulders hunched defensively. Thin bottom lip captured between his teeth, he looked up and turned reddened, bruised eyes on Paul.
“You know what it’s like, don’t you, Paul?” he asked, almost pleaded in a voice that was crumbling around the edges. “You understand?”
Paul didn’t need to say anything; John knew he did. He’d felt the same way after Mary had died a few years ago. And John was right; it had felt like abandonment, like she didn’t care about him enough to stay alive. It had shattered him to discover that the one time he really needed her, his mother was gone. He’d never been alone like that before.
But John had. Time and time again, he’d been left behind or given away by people he loved: once by his father and twice by his mother, not to mention the all the tiny daily disappointments and hurts suffered by a troubled kid from a broken family. And yet, Paul had never really thought about it, never considered all these little injuries. In fact, he was now coming to the shameful realization that he had just assumed that John was used to it by now, scarred and tough like a war veteran. It had never occurred to him that all those old wounds were always getting reopened, that they never really closed.
“It just makes me angry,” John said listlessly, staring down at his hands as they closed themselves into fists and opened up again, over and over again. “Everyone’s gotta have some way to cope, right?”
“I suppose,” Paul said weakly. “I just…keep going. I don’t know. I just try to move on.”
“I can’t, though,” John whispered, still glaring down at his hands. “I just get angry. I get so fucking angry, Paul, because I don’t know what else to do. I just don’t know.”
His fists were clenched now, forearms taught and trembling with tension. His lips were trembling, too, despite the force with which he was trying to press them together. And his eyes were blinking furiously, eyelids flickering up and down but still unable to disguise how his eyelashes were dark and shiny and wet.
“John…” Paul felt as though his voice had withered up and blown away like a dead corn husk.
“I can’t fucking take it sometimes, Paul,” John half growled, half wailed, the trembling in his arms growing more violent. “I just can’t.”
Paul wasn’t quite sure why he did it. Maybe it was because of what a pitiful sight John made. Maybe it was because he knew exactly how John felt, had gone through it just two years earlier. And maybe he just couldn’t stand to see his friend, the tough older boy he looked up to, his idol, in fact, so vulnerable, sitting there shuddering and struggling to hold back his tears.
Whatever the reason, Paul found himself crossing the room in a few swift strides and sitting down on the bed beside John. One arm went around the older boy’s shoulders, the other around his stomach. For just one fraction of one second, John froze, his breath stuttering into silence and his limbs shuddering to a stop.
And then he exploded, hands flying into motion to pound furiously at Paul’s shoulder, back, and any other part of him he could reach.
His voice came back to life to shriek, “Don’t fucking touch me! Don’t you-you fucking-goddamn queer, don’t you fucking-I’ll fucking kill you! Let go of me, you-you goddamn-you fucking…”
His sentence dissolved into a long, drawn-out wail that shattered into a hundred tiny sobs. Although he continued to batter blindly at Paul’s shoulder, his blows slowly weakened and finally stopped altogether. His head dropped forward, face burying itself in Paul’s shoulder as his chest heaved uncontrollably.
“It’s okay, John,” Paul whispered, pulling the older boy closer as he went limp. “Shhh.” Slowly, gently, he leaned back, pulling John with him until they were lying sideways across the bed. Letting out a long, shuddering sigh, John relaxed into the soft mattress, curling up in Paul’s arms and burrowing his face into the younger boy’s chest.
And then, finally, there was silence. It descended like fog, enveloping the two and shutting them off from everything; the cold outside, the bad news on the radio, and the difficult reality of their lives. In this moment, in this place, they were safe.
Yawning, Paul momentarily took his hand off John’s back to scratch his nose. Instantly, John looked up to stare at Paul with wet, red-rimmed eyes.
“You’re not going?” he croaked, an unusual tremor of fear in his voice.
“No,” Paul whispered, surprised once more by John’s vulnerability. “No, of course not. I’m not going anywhere.” He replaced his hand firmly, drawing John close once again. To his unending shock, the older boy snuggled, actually snuggled up against him, pressing his nose into his shirt and wrapping one arm around his waist. And yet, there was nothing strange about it; this felt perfectly right. In fact, it was quite comfortable, and Paul felt his eyelids start to droop and his breathing slow. It felt as though he was sinking down, down, down through the soft bedding and into a quiet, warm wonderland made of feathers and clouds.
He was drawn briefly from this pillowy dream land by the soft rumble of John’s voice.
“We never speak of this, yeah?” he mumbled into Paul’s shirt. “Never happened.”
“Mmm. Of course not,” Paul drawled groggily.
“Good.” John smiled sleepily and shifted slightly, pulling Paul in closer. Letting out a long sigh, Paul rested his chin on top of John’s head and let a faint grin creep onto his face. He was still smiling that faint, sad smile when he fell asleep.