#I Want to Hold Your Hand

[penny00dreadful]

Surprise! I drew another lil something 🥰 this time for @pearynice from her fic I Want To Hold Your Hand

This moment was burned into my brain ever since I first read it. I love this fic.

But Eddie’s walking a half step faster than him, Steve’s own tipsy legs unable to carry him as quickly. So he reaches, and hooks two of his fingers through Eddie’s belt loop.

Eddie starts, arms jerking, and Steve pulls him close, knocking them gently together. “You’re too fast.” Steve complains, softly, and the blush returns to Eddie’s cheeks at the words, his dimples, too, and Steve grins, the pop rocks in his chest fizzling at the sight.

[rufusrant]

and when i touch u i feel happy….. inside…..

[icallhimjoey]

bookstore joe hits different and i want to be hit once more right across the face pretty please

im sorry to the girls who arent into bookstore joe and im very not sorry to the girls who are into bookstore joe - enjoy babes! Wordcount: 2.4K

---

I Want To Hold Your Hand

When Joe walked in just after three, he greeted Anne who was stood behind the counter, doing some till work, and he got a small grunt in reply.

Standard. Made him smile. No sign of you, though.

Joe looked, craned his neck, but every corner of the store was empty. You were probably doing something in the back. He’d see you in a second.

Like always, he found a book, found a seat, and settled in for at least an hour of reading. He had the time today. Time to sit. Time to read. To soak up the atmosphere. To maybe kiss you again, if he was lucky. Time to notice how Anne was being more quiet than usual. To see how she was helping customers in a voice so unnatural to her own, it kind of freaked him out a little. To see her disappear into the back and come out back on her own, and...

Where were you?

He’d kissed you a few days ago. Kissed you. And now, something felt... weird. Like something was missing.

It was nearing in on 4PM and Anne hadn’t yet told him to fuck off, or whatever, so he knew something was off.

It was quiet in the store when Joe spoke up and asked, “Hey, Anne... am I going insane, or–”

“It’s your fault.” she was quick to cut him off, not even looking up from her task.

Joe frowned. What had he done?

“What have I done?”

Anne sighed and gestured a vague hand at him as she said, “Just your mere existence.” like it was obvious.

Joe thought back to all of your recent interactions. Your granddad had sadly passed away just over two weeks ago. Last week he tried cheering you up by showing you some pictures from the shoot you allowed him to do in the store. He’d kissed you then. The funeral had happened, and Anne had let Joe help out behind the till for a second and... now, you were... hiding?

From him?!

Surely not.

That was going to make this plan of sneaking another kiss absolutely impossible.

Unacceptable.

Anne watched Joe go through every single thing he’d done or said over the past few days that could’ve upset you, and then begrudgingly sighed.

“You’re such an idiot.” Anne said, before nodding her head towards the door that read personnel - the same door Joe had walked through ten seconds into his first ever visit.

Joe didn’t need telling twice.

When he stepped into the breakroom, he wasn’t prepared for how he found you.

You were sat at the table, buried in your laptop, one leg up on the chair, chin resting on your knee, and it was obvious you’d been crying. No matter how sweetly you smiled at the sight of him, it was obvious. Your face still eyed somewhat blotchy, eyes void of make-up and the delicate skin around them coloured red.

“Hey,” you didn’t seem surprised at the sight of him, at the fact that he’d just walked right into a room he technically wasn’t really allowed to be in.

“Hey, you– I’m sorry, you weren’t in the store, Anne said I could–... are you all right?”

Your smile grew as you nodded.

“Yea, sorry. Something, happened... earlier, it’s nothing,” you were quick to wave a hand, dismissing whatever had gotten you to hide in the back entirely. “I’m okay. How are you?”

Joe didn’t believe you. Didn’t buy it for a second. He felt like he should, because it felt like it was polite to take you for your word, but he couldn’t help the suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

“What happened?”

“Well, nothing, really. I overreacted to something and–”

“To what?” Joe interrupted, and immediately apologised. “Sorry, I... I’m sorry, I just...”

He just, what? If Joe knew, he would’ve told you, but it was not that long ago that Joe found you crying in a closed store and this felt oddly similar.

He didn’t like you upset.

Made him want to fix it.

“I promise I’m okay, just... it was for the best for me to not face any customers for a second, and I had to do some administrative work anyway, so...”

Joe’s eyes fell on your laptop as you gestured at it, and then he saw what was next to it.

He recognised it instantly.

The book you’d never sell.

Was it insane to think that he knew something was missing in the storefront? That he’d subconsciously noticed that it wasn’t in its spot? On the shelf? Where it always sat?

Probably was.

“Oh, um...” you saw Joe’d noticed and laid a flat palm on the leather-bound cover. “Yea, this was,” you had to stop to swallow.

“You don’t have to tell me.” Joe quickly decided. He didn’t want to make you start crying again. He wanted exactly the opposite, actually.

“No, it’s not–” you cleared your throat and sat up straight. You didn’t want to get emotional again over such a silly thing. “It’s Anne. She sat me down here and refuses to let me do anything else.”

You used her as you excuse. You weren’t lying; Anne really had said that you could stay in the breakroom for the rest of the day. She’d man the front on her own fine. Would find you with questions but then would tell you everything was going okay and leave you on your own again. But she wasn’t keeping you there. You were keeping you there.

“Ah. Can’t piss off Anne, can we?” Joe smirked slightly.

“I think we piss off Anne all the time,” you laughed, and it broke the tension a little.

Joe awkwardly stood in the middle of the breakroom and you were sort of glad he was there, but you wished you would’ve just been in the storefront with him. That you would’ve gotten to see his face as he’d walked in. As he’d sat down with his book. As he’d crossed his legs and let his head rest in his palm of which the elbow pushed into the armrest.

Joe was still staring at where your hand was placed, and now that you couldn’t seem to move your hand away from the big book of fairytales and folklore your granddad used to read you stories from, it felt only fair to explain why you’d gotten upset earlier that day.

“Someone tried to buy it.”

It was so stupid, because, before, when someone would climb up a ladder and find it, you would smile and just tell them, “No sorry, that one belongs to the store, I’m afraid.” and calmly take it from their hands to put it back.

Where your granddad used to make you reach for it when you were little.

Where your mother would pluck you from a ladder and scold her father for making you climb up so high.

Where it lived.

Where it had always lived.

It had never been a problem before. People were allowed to touch it. To read it. To ask to buy it. You’d just tell them no, and that would be the end of it.

Not today, though.

“They caused a bit of a scene when I said they couldn’t.”

You smiled as you said it, but Joe saw right through it.

“They were right though. Why keep a book in a bookstore when it’s not for sale? It’s right in between all of the books that are... I should just, I don’t know. Keep it some place else, I guess.”

“Of course not.” Joe reacted matter-of-factly.

You’d just gone through something extremely traumatic, were still going through something extremely traumatic, and why would you listen to someone who didn’t know? Who didn’t understand?

Joe thought he barely even understood, but he understood this.

He understood the blotchy skin. He understood Anne banning you from your own store for the rest of the day. He understood why you weren’t moving your hand from your grandfather’s book that he used to read you your favourite story from.

“I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive, but... I kind of wish I’d have been here when that happened.”

Not so that he could be the hero. Not so that he could step in and tell them to maybe just accept what the store owner was telling them.

“I would’ve loved to see Anne’s face.”

That made you chuckle. Anne really was your personal guard dog, as so it turned out.

“It was a pretty great face,” you recalled, smiling to yourself. God, you really lucked out with her.

“Store’s fairly empty now, though...” Joe pointed a casual thumb over his shoulder, and you looked at the door to where Anne still was manning the front.

You took a deep breath and grimaced a little, “Yea, I know... but, I kind of... I have some things I can finish here,” you pulled your laptop towards you. “And we’re nearly closing, anyway, so...”

You had already decided this was going to be the place where you would do all of your work today, and didn’t really want to come out of hiding. You’d do that after Anne would lock up. When there wouldn’t be any chance of the bell above the door jolting you back into your anxiety.

Joe thought for a moment. Looked at you, your laptop, your grandfather’s book, and...

“Would you mind some silent company?”

That one other time he had found you all fragile and up in your emotions, he’d just sat down right next to you, started reading a book in silence, and it had worked. He kind of wanted to give it another go. See if it would also work a second time.

“I–...” you faltered and looked at the wooden chairs around the table you were sat at. “These aren’t half as comfortable as the ones out front.”

“I asked, would you mind it?” Joe let his eyes twinkle, lips almost smiling. It made you drop your shoulders a bit as you relaxed at the idea of a bit of Joe in the break room, just for your comfort.

“No, I wouldn’t mind it.” you copied his tone, and Joe’s almost-smile turned into a beaming one.

“Okay, one second.” Joe said, slapping the doorframe as he passed through it, and you heard how he rushed his steps.

“Not my fault!” you heard Joe call out to Anne.

“Absolutely your fault,” Anne calmly replied.

“Not my mere existence!”

“Just your face then.”

Joe jogged back into the breakroom with a book in hands and pulled out the chair opposite you. He sat down, found his page and gave you a last sneaky little look over your laptop screen.

Then, just like before, he offered you his hand.

His hand.

Joe laid his arm across the table, wrist up, palm open, with fingers just shy of touching your laptop.

You just looked at it a moment.

Joe didn’t need to comfort you the way he had done that day, in the store, when all you could do was think about your grandfather and cry at his memories and the fact that there wouldn’t be new ones made.

A customer hadn’t been very kind to you today about something you felt sensitive about, and over an hour had passed already. You were fine.

But the gesture was sweet. Joe offered his hand for holding and even though it wasn’t needed, necessarily, it was still a nice gesture.

Kind.

Joe was so sweet. So kind. Soft and gentle and lovely.

You remembered how nice the distraction of playing fingers had been. How it had calmed you down enough for you to reveal the source of your hurt that day.

“Come on,” Joe then softly said, not unkindly, and you made eye-contact for a second. If he wasn’t going to be able to kiss you today, he could still try for the next best thing.

“I want to hold your hand.”

Just like that, it all shifted from a comforting gesture that was meant to soothe you to just a thing Joe wanted for himself. It was a bit silly how that made it easier to give in.

You reached a hand over and let the tips of your fingers touch the warm skin of his palm before they spread out and found a way to hold onto Joe’s closing fingers. They curled together best they could in their position, and when you chanced another glance at Joe, you saw the faintest hint of a smile across his face as his eyes had found his page again.

You got back to your work on your laptop, and whilst it definitely was a lot trickier to work down your to do list with one hand, it was also definitely a lot more gratifying.

You sat in the breakroom together like that until you could hear Anne carry the A-frame into the store, and where before you’d wished the day had just been over already, you kind of wished you’d get at least another five minutes with Joe. All right. Maybe ten.

Joe stayed put until you closed your laptop.

Joe stayed put until you got up to go back out front.

And then Joe stayed put until you walked back into the breakroom to pick up your grandfathers big leather bound book; the one book you’d never sell.

Joe watched you place it back where it belonged.

Back on its shelf where Joe remembered finding it after your grandfather asked him to go fetch him something from up high.

“Thank you.” you said looking down from you position up on a ladder, and Joe just smiled.

“Thank you.” Joe said in return, holding up the book he’d been reading before putting it down on his little ledge where he kept them.

“Thank me.” Anne dryly said, mostly to herself, from where she was doing the till.

“No.” Joe gave Anne the same smile he’d given you, and made you giggle as he said goodbye and left the store with a small wave.

“Thank you Anne,” you made a point to say it, because Anne really had been the star of the show today.

“Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

---

The Taglisted

@ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson,

@choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @djoseph-quinn,

@dolcevit4, @eddies-puppet, @emma-munson, @emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee,

@figmentofquinn, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @hanahkatexo, @harringtonfan4,

@hazelenys, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke,

@lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @mandyjo8719, @mexicanfolklore, @munsonluvrr,

@munson-mjstan, @nadixq, @nglharry, @notverywise, @pepperstories,

@phyllosilicate-s, @royale1803, @sherrylyn0628, @sidthedollface2, @solzi1420,

@songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73,

@werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

[lucy-in-the-skiess]

Paul McCartney, c.1964

[thecoleopterawithana]

Even though John is under-powered in this period we still see what made him so magnetic to Paul and to others around him. There is a scene early in Part Two that I find riveting. It takes place a couple of days after George has left. The status of everything - the project, the band - remains uncertain, but they are ploughing on for now. John, Yoko, Ringo, Paul and some of the crew are sitting in a semi-circle. Paul looks pensive. Ringo looks tired. John is speaking only in deadpan comic riffs, to which Paul responds now and again. Peter Sellers comes in and sits down, looks ill-at-ease, and leaves having barely said a word, unable to penetrate the Beatle bubble. At some point they’re joined by Lindsay-Hogg, and the conversation dribbles on. John mentions that he had to leave an interview that morning in order to throw up (he and Yoko had taken heroin the night before). Paul, looking into space rather than addressing anyone in particular, attempts to turn the conversation towards what they’re meant to be doing:

Paul: See, what we need is a serious program of work. Not an endless rambling among the canyons of your mind.

John: Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores… We’re all together, boy.

Paul: To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip.

John: And when I touch you, I feel happy inside. I can’t hide, I can’t hide. [pause] Ask me why, I’ll say I love you.

Paul: What we need is a schedule.

John: A garden schedule.

I mean first of all, who is writing this incredible dialogue? Samuel Beckett?

Let’s break it down a little. The first thing to note is that John and Paul are talking to each other without talking to each other. This is partly because they’re aware of the cameras and also because they’re just not sure how to communicate with each other at the moment. John’s contributions are oblique, gnomic, riddling, comprised only of songs and jokes, like the Fool in King Lear. Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores sounds like a Lennonised version of a line from Dylan’s Tambourine Man (“take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship”). “We’re altogether, boy”? I have no idea. Does Paul? I think John expects Paul to understand him because he has such faith in what they used to call their “heightened awareness”, a dreamlike, automatic connection to each other’s minds. But right now, Paul is not much in the mood for it. His speech is more direct, though he too adopts a quasi-poetic mode (“canyons of your mind” is borrowed from a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) and he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. “To wander aimlessly is very unswinging,” he says (another great line, I will pin it above my writing desk). Then John does something amazing: he starts talking in Beatle, dropping in lyrics from the early years of the band, I Want To Hold Your Hand and Ask Me Why. (To appreciate John’s response to Paul’s mention of a schedule, American readers may need reminding that English people pronounce it “shed - dule”.)

What’s going on throughout this exchange? Maybe Lennon is just filling dead air, or playing to the gallery, but I think he is (also) attempting to communicate to Paul in their shared code - something like he loves him, he loves The Beatles, they’re still in this together. Of course, we can’t know. I can’t hide, John says, hiding behind his wordplay.

— Ian Leslie, "The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back" (January 26, 2022).

[I was curious to read more of Ian Leslie's approach to the Beatles in general and Lennon-McCartney in particular, since he's currently writing a book about John and Paul's relationship: “John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs". He's also the author of that New York Times opinion piece that came out today.]

[lalaballa]

Oh, yeah, I'll tell you somethin' I think you'll understand

When I say that somethin' I want to hold your hand

Oh, please, say to me You'll let me be your man

And please, say to me You'll let me hold your hand

And when I touch you I feel happy inside

It's such a feelin' that my love I can't hide

Yeah, you got that somethin' I think you'll understand

When I say that somethin' I want to hold your hand

Yeah, you got that somethin' I think you'll understand

When I feel that somethin' I want to hold your hand

[rabid-dog-steve-horn]

[nevereverywhere]

✨Ringo✨

[got-ticket-to-ride]

After a palpable silence, Paul said, "Well, that's an interesting one" also known as "slowly dying inside"

According to an article by the Daily Mail, this picture was taken by a fan on May 28, 1968. John Lennon coolly stares into the camera. Alongside him, George Harrison has in his shirt pocket a resignation letter from Paul McCartney – apparently written a full two years before he would eventually quit. Mr Herring says he took these intimate pictures of the Beatles after turning up uninvited on John’s doorstep, later sharing a car ride with him to George Harrison’s house to see the Beatles recording – and witnessing the opening of a letter said to announce McCartney’s resignation.

Could this have been Paul Mccartney's kneejerk reaction to having to listen to Two Virgins?

In his 1980 David Sheff interview John said: "After Yoko and I met, I didn’t realise I was in love with her. I was still thinking it was an artistic collaboration, as it were – producer and artist, right? We’d known each other for a couple of years." (also known as forcing myself to love someone to mend my broken heart because someone betrayed me)

As far timeline goes, John left India April 12, 1968. John then went to find his next best thing to "get back" at something someone did in India. In May 2, 1968 he made the "Two Virgins" tape with Yoko and presented it to his bandmates.

After a palpable silence, Paul said, “Well, that’s an interesting one.” ALSO NOW KNOWN AS "wait till I send you my resignation letter on May 28, 1968"

John then says: “You need to understand that this is where she and I are now. I don’t want to hold your hand anymore.” (this was directed to The Beatles - but we all know who it was for)

Ringo and George are just silent throughout the whole thing, because mother and father are fighting. And mother's heart is breaking.

So in conclusion, I want to hold your hand was their love song, huh.

[askdrhanniballecter]

My husband has locked me inside (verbally told me I can't leave the house) and has left me here (walked into the other room) to waste away.

Our daughter (the cat) has also abandoned me (she is lying on the other side of the bed) and no longer loves me (she's purring).

My heart is broken and I am devastated. I fear I shall perish if my husband does not return soon (he is ten feet away from me).

[fiiction-fixates]

was listening to past masters and got to the German covers of I Want To Hold Your Hand/She Loves You, and I was like. Why can’t I understand the words. And didn’t realize until I checked, halfway thru the song

[booksbeatlesj2]

Mystery grandpa is my favorite OG Beatles fan 😂

[groovybananastarfish]

[beatlebugblog]

beatle bears!

[0tr45hm0uth]

You'll let me hold your hand I want to hold your hand

I Want To Hold Your Hand - The Beatles

Thanks @ineffablake for the song recommendation!

[icallhimjoey]

cuties 🥹 omg im actually sobbinggggg

you're joe, im jamie