#but Miles and Julian are ‘you’re my BROTHER and I LOVE YOU’ even though they’ll never say it

[hawkp]

Thinking about how Miles had two brothers and leaving them when he joined up was hard for him.

Thinking about how as much as Julian rubbed him the wrong way when they met, he definitely started to think of him as another brother.

Thinking about how they watch out for and fight vehemently for each other.

[to0thach3]

glowing, pt. 4

pt. 1,   pt, 2,   pt. 3,   p. 4,   pt. 5,   pt. 6,   pt. 7

Dinners, at the palace or not, were awkward.

They were always a little bit strange, with the odd mix of people that attended them, and maybe the unspoken feelings had always left an uncomfortable aura.

But the meals that followed Portia's visit to her brother were nearly unbearable, for anyone. Muriel had gotten so tense that he'd left the table, even the building, on multiple occasions. The five people that remained, all characteristically chatty, fell dead silent, and it wasn't unusual for the only noise to be that of silverware against plates.

Asra frequently tried to start up a conversation, asking Nadia about the rebuilding of the Flooded District, or tapping the table in front of Julian to get his attention.

Sometimes it worked, and the uncomfortable atmosphere relented for a minute or two, and sometimes someone would even laugh. But then Julian would lock eyes with MC, or Portia with Julian, and things would fade back.

One night, 2 weeks after that day at Julian's house (5 weeks into the disease, a nagging voice told him), the silence at the magic shop's dinner table had gotten a bit too stifling, and Nadia broke it by asking MC about how the wedding planning had been going. MC blinked quickly, reaching blindly for Asra's hands, which cradled hers gently. Her eyes darted to Julian, and he almost thought he saw guilt within them.

"It's going well," she began after clearing her throat. "Asra's sent a letter to his parents, so they should be arriving in a few weeks. I don't have anyone to invite, so it'll be pretty small. You all, Muriel, Mazelinka. You're welcome to invite your sisters, Nadi. Fill up the empty seats." She gave a strangled little laugh. "I can count on all of you being there, right?" Her eyes flickered to Julian once more.

"Of course," Nadia said airily. "And my sisters adore you, I'm sure they would be happy to come. As would Lucio, but that's completely your choice."

MC nodded slowly. "We'll talk about it. Julian? You'll be there? Just as a guest, I mean." The eye contact was painfully intense, and Julian nearly shrunk under it. He was at a loss for words, until Portia elbowed him roughly. "Yes," he sputtered. "Of course. I'll be there." He paused, mind moving a thousand miles an hour to make the quick decision. "Right beside you, if you'd still let me stand with you."

MC looked at him blankly. Julian watched as Asra stroked her hand lightly with his thumb, and fought to keep down a bout of coughs and the flowers that would no doubt accompany it. "Thank you, Julian," MC said softly. "I'd love that."

Asra gave Julian a lazy, grateful smile, and Julian felt his heart jump, though he had no idea why. "It's getting late," Asra said with a glance toward the west window. "You're all welcome to stay, but I need to get up early to visit Muriel." He stood fluidly, leaning down to press a kiss against MC's temple. "I'll see you when you come to bed, love," he whispered. Not quiet enough, and the vines around Julian's lungs clamped tighter. The surge of jealousy that ripped through him was overwhelming and terrible, and he covered his mouth with his arm and a cough ripped through him.

"Whoever leaves last, be sure you lock up!" Asra called over his shoulder as he headed upstairs with one last wave.

A few more coughs rattled through Julian's chest, and he felt Portia's hand lightly pat him on the back, and MC looked at him with concern. "Are you okay, Jules?"

Julian nodded in lieu of an answer, looking down at his arm and quickly scooping up the petals that had fallen onto his leather sleeve, tucking them into his pocket. Portia watched him carefully, trading a glance with him before speaking up. "He's getting over an illness. We're not quite sure what, but he's had a nasty cough. That's why he missed a few dinners over the last couple of weeks." Her words were clear and believable, but Julian heard the tension and anxiety behind them, and he frowned.

MC's eyebrows furrowed, worry lines appearing. "That's awful. Any other symptoms? The air's been getting drier, that can't be easy."

"Some of the groundskeepers are out sick as well," Nadia chimed in. "There might be something going around."

"I'm alright. Just a cough, probably just a cold." Julian stood, maneuvering his long legs out from under the table. "I should be going. Goodnight, ladies."

He headed briskly to the door, but MC was right behind him. "Jules!" she called gently as she caught up with him at the entryway. "I'm sorry, about what happened at the palace. I had no idea you weren't feeling well, and springing that on you must have caught you off-guard." She stared at him with wide eyes. "And it means the world to me that you'll stand with me at the wedding. So... I'm sorry, and thank you. Oh!" She reached around him to open the door, gesturing for him to step ahead of her. They both walked a few steps into the street, and MC linked her arm with Julian's. This wasn't strange. She usually insisted on walking him to Goldgrave after dinner, as though he needed protection.

"I wanted to ask if you'd spend the day with me tomorrow." MC grabbed onto his arm with her free hand, fingers playing idly with the metal snaps. "Asra will be in the forest all day, and Nadia has some kind of taste test for the wedding."

Julian looked down at her curiously. "Shouldn't you be there for that? Since it's your wedding?"

MC shrugged. "I trust Nadia's judgement, and it sounds like it'll be tedious. So, I'd like to spend the day with you. We can go to the Red District, or the Theatre, or the Market. We could spend the day at the cottage. Whatever you want."

Julian rolled his shoulders, and MC let go of his arm. "I've missed you," he said gently. "But I don't think it's a good idea for us to spend time alone together."

"Oh."

The word carried through the narrow streets, and the echo rang in Julian's ears.

"I'm sorry. I just thought... I thought we were okay now? I'm sorry. Asra said that things would be okay if I apologized. I just want- I want things to be okay, Julian. Why are we not okay?"

"'Asra said'?" Julian stepped back. "You apologized because Asra told you to?"

Head tilted, MC looked up at the doctor. "Yeah. He thought it was the best way to resolve this. Are you angry with me?"

"Oh, I'm sure Asra would have an answer to that."

She crossed her arms over her chest and scoffed. "So you're mad that I asked my fiancé for advice? What's going on, Jules? Why do you suddenly have an issue with me and Asra's relationship?"

"Suddenly? You think the two people I've loved in my life can get engaged, and that my issue with it is sudden?" Julian flayed his arms out in frustration, and locked eyes with a stunned MC.

"Jules..."

"Don't-" He scuttled back a few more steps. "Don't call me that. Ask Portia or Nadia if they'll stand with you, because I can't do it. I'm sorry." He turned and rushed down the street toward Goldgrave, leaving MC in the dust as her tears started to fall.

[westallenfun]

Before the Hood - 1/6

For @jade4813 from @backtothestart02​ -I’m not going to lie. This gets pretty angsty pretty quickly and ends on a bittersweet note. But it’s meant to be the prequel to my Robin Hood westallen AU that I plan to write eventually (yes, this is a Robin Hood AU, you got me), and that fic will end very happily, so if you’d like, you can consider that your fic too. I hope you’re able to enjoy this fic though!

I so appreciate you as a person and a shipper and a writer. I am always so inspired by you and your talent and appreciate so much how kind you are. So I was unbelievably excited when I received your name as my giftee (you write such incredible AUs!). Hopefully you will enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it and be hopeful about what comes after instead of in a puddle of tears. I hope I can do your masterpieces some justice and that you have an amazing Christmas and holiday season!!

Merry Christmas!

…

(All of these chapters have been lightly proofread, so feel free to do a re-read once I post them to AO3 & FFnet, b/c I’m sure they’ll be in much better condition then.)

Fun Fact: I did some medieval research for this story that I did try to incorporate. (1) People were not meant to be educated unless they were upperclass/royalty/clergymen. (2) Women were rarely educated period, unless upperclass and then very little. They were expected to marry and raise children. (3) The Crusades and everything according to the Robin Hood legend that I googled I tried to incorporate to some degree, since I did keep the story set in the Middle Ages. (There’s prob more, but I can’t think of what at the moment.)

…

Chapter 1 -

Collin Woods.

A place thick with trees, alive with wildlife, and far from any central city on the map, two hundred miles away from the literal Central City. Within the woods contained the small town of the same name, the only structure cresting above the trees being the stone castle of the royals. Previously residing there was King Richard – a loyal, good king who took care of his people and flourished the town with bountiful riches and a thriving population. But within the past several months he had left the town and its people to embark on the noble quest of fighting in the Crusades. In his place, he left his younger brother, Prince John, a selfish, spoiled, adolescent fool who little by little drained the small town of its resources until the only thing rich and satisfying to the eye could be found within the castle grounds.

Many of the young men of the town had gone off to fight in the Crusades with their King. Not all could go, because work needed to be done that could not only be sustained by older men, women, and children. But some left not only for the cause itself but to escape the death trap that had become their once thriving homeland. War with all its drudgery, pain, and rate of death on the battlefield was still a welcome reprieve. To those that survived, they only hoped their king would return with them and so sustain the lands they used to call home and create a small paradise once again for themselves and those they loved.

Beside Prince John was his wise and yet often taken for granted advisor, Sir Hiss – not his actual name of course, but his natural born lisp that often affected his speech had granted him the title. The superficial prince did nothing to correct it. Since he relished as well as mocked his only true friend – if he could be called that – the name suited him in the latter case. Trained guards were at Prince John’s disposal, as well as the particularly greedy Sheriff of Collin Woods, Clifford Devoe.

Amongst the townspeople was the West family, but with the father, Joseph, and the son, Wallace, off to fight in the Crusades, and the mother, Francine, passed many years ago, the daughter, Maid Iris, was ordered by Prince John to live under the care of Sheriff DeVoe and his wife, Marlise. Iris was rarely seen after that, except for at festivals hosted by Prince John. And by one other, who she risked everything to see night after night by moonlight, hidden amongst the trees lining Silver Lake.

Barry Allen.

Bartholomew was his given name, but hardly rolling off the tongue, his best friend, Cisco – who’d also shortened his name – decided on a nick name for the young Allen. To those around him, it had stuck.

Barry was the only child of Henry and Nora Allen. The former was the only doctor in the town. He had taken a young pupil under his wing, a girl – which was most unheard of, Caitlin Snow. He’d tried to lure his son into the teachings of medicine. There were few things greater than the ability to heal, he would say. But young Barry would have none of it. And being a friend of Caitlin himself, Barry encouraged the union. There should be more than two doctors in one town, should one fall ill, heaven forbid. But it wasn’t going to be him. Most of the time when he wasn’t home, he traveled into town to offer his skills – that of repairing homes and entertaining children – as proof of his servitude. His mother, Nora, who was a seamstress to nearly everyone found this to be a great addition to the work force. And since she needed to do little to win over her husband, most of the time he relented.

But Barry didn’t spend all of his time tending to the needs of the townsfolk. His favorite pastimes were narrowed down to three: fishing with his best friend, Cisco, practicing archery from his handmade bow and arrows, and visiting Maid Iris by moonlight.

One late afternoon in June, finished with his tasks for today, Barry idly leaned against a tree and carved himself some new arrows, preparing to get some practice in. For the Crusades he would tell his father if the subject ever arose. But it hadn’t yet. Only his friends knew of his hobby, and it was kept amongst them. It was no secret Barry didn’t want to go to war.

“Hey!”

The disgruntled voice pulled Barry out of his reverie, and he saw an unamused Cisco standing inches beneath where his arrow had landed, a hole piercing his new hat as it stay pinned against the tree behind him.

Barry had the decency to blush.

“Sorry, Cisco.”

Cisco carefully pulled the arrow free and his hat with it and placed it back on his head.

“Watch it. My mother made that.”

Cisco’s mother was not the greatest seamstress – as was evidenced by the seams falling apart of the hats she made for her son, even without arrows being shot through them. But his parents looked down upon the Allen’s for Henry’s audacity to train a young girl in medicine, to educate a peasant girl whose duty it was to marry and raise children, not attempt to heal people. And also, because Barry’s parents were not stricter with him. As a result, they forbid their son from being friends with Barry – an order he ignored fervently.

“My mother could make you a new one,” Barry offered, not for the first time, as he turned his full attention to his friend.

Cisco snorted. “My mother would know. She knows she can’t sew. It has never been her talent. And if she saw how neatly the seams were sewn, she’d know where I had been.”

Barry nodded. He knew. He just couldn’t help but offer.

“Did you see Caitlin today?” Cisco asked casually, leaning against the tree beside Barry.

Barry shook his head. “I left early this morning. Ralph was off with Sue again, so he wasn’t around to watch his younger brothers and sisters. I offered my services.”

Cisco’s lips turned up in a smirk. “Of course you did.”

“It is my contribution,” Barry said, picking up another arrow and shaving down the sides so it would fly more smoothly.

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

He shrugged.

“Maybe you’re just jealous Ralph can spend time with Sue in broad daylight when you have to sneak around with Iris by moonlight.”

Barry froze, his eyes wide as he turned to look at his friend.

“What? You thought I didn’t know?”

Barry turned his body fully.

“I’m your best friend,” Cisco said, offended.

“You’re not- You didn’t- Does anyone else-”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course no one else knows. At least not because of me. I won’t tell a soul.” He paused. “At least not until you do.”

Barry snorted and returned to his arrows.

“I’ll never be able to do that,” he muttered under his breath.

“You never know,” Cisco said, softening.

Barry picked up his bow and arrow and aimed for a farther tree.

“As long as King Richard is fighting in the Crusades and Iris is cooped up with that awful Sheriff DeVoe, there’s no way we can be together openly. She’ll probably marry that awful knight Julian,” Barry said, scowling.

“I thought he’s planning to leave for the Crusades,” Cisco said, his brows fusing together.

“Not before obtaining a marriage proposal, I bet.”

“And why would the Sheriff say yes to him? He gains too much by keeping Iris locked up. He feeds off her inheritance.”

Barry lowered his bow. “Because Julian is a knight, and his father is in Prince John’s royal guard. He probably thinks Julian won’t return from the Crusades and he won’t have to worry about it.”

“But if he does return…”

“He’ll have to own up to the promise. And Maid Iris will have no choice in the matter.”

Cisco shoulders slumped, and then he gathered himself together, determined to let them not both be burdened down by this possibility.

“It might not happen,” he offered. “Julian’s thirst for war might overcome his desire for Iris.”

Barry looked at him. “It does.”

Cisco’s brows furrowed again.

“Julian wants her because I have her. It’s his petty jealousy for everything I have that is greater than his thirst for war. All the medals and glory in the world would mean nothing to him if they didn’t also crush me into the ground in the process.”

He shot off another arrow, this one recklessly into the air at a distance. Someone could trace it, find him, discover his hobby and somehow use it against him. But he didn’t care. Few things stifled his hatred for Julian Albert, son of the guard, knight in training, who gloated about all that he would receive on his return from the Crusades. More than once Barry had wanted to retort bitterly, ‘If you return.’ But he’d held his breath. He wouldn’t sink to his level.

“And what do you have that he doesn’t?” Cisco asked, though he knew at least some of what his answer would be.

“Both parents, friends, the right to choose what I want to do, and a father who is willing to bend the rules for the sake of the people.”

“And the love of Iris,” Cisco added, which made Barry’s anger finally fizzle out.

“Yes. And that.”

…

In the quiet cottage just off the edge of town, Nora Allen sat in her rocking chair and picking up a new color of yarn to add to her nearest quilt. She hummed quietly to herself, a melody to harmonize with the blue birds chirping outside the window. The sun shone through it, warming her face, and with the scent of biscuits wafting out of the oven, she knew dinner would soon be at hand. The chicken was ready, and the corn. With the prepared food would come her husband, her son, and the young girl Henry had taken under his wing, Caitlin Snow.

Caitlin was a quiet one. With long brown locks and the same purple, cotton dress she wore day after day, only changing the ribbons in her hair on occasion, Nora had taken to mothering her. She’d never had a daughter, and there was much about Caitlin that appealed to her. From her determination to chase after her dreams to her polite refusal of anything that might inconvenience anyone, Nora welcomed having her in their home and at their table. A few times she had studied her son’s interactions with her to see if there was any spark. She certainly wouldn’t mind having Caitlin officially part of their family.

But Caitlin, it seemed, was in love with a slightly older boy, Ronnie Raymond, who had gone off to fight in the Crusades. And Nora’s boy, Barry, she had begun to suspect, still fancied Maid Iris.

It was a star-crossed romance she’d hoped her son could avoid. Not because she held anything against Iris or her family, but because it would be nearly impossible for them to find happiness together in a practical sense with Iris being elevated in her father’s and brother’s absence. In addition, she knew the feelings had not been one-sided before Joseph and Wallace had left for Crusades. That made the young romance even more devastating.

But Iris lived with Sheriff DeVoe now, who was snide and arrogant and in line with that terrible Prince John who was constantly raising the taxes. She hoped Marlise DeVoe, who while loyal to her husband, didn’t appreciate his tactics, had taken Iris under her wing and protected her. Heaven only knows what kind of atmosphere existed in that house if she hadn’t.

With Prince John’s almost constant raising of taxes – and demand in paying them being more frequent – Nora worried that soon Henry would allow appointments without pay. He tried to be firm and decisive on the outside, but on the inside his love for her and his son and the townspeople had turned him to mush. After all, once Barry had made it clear he would not be following in his footsteps, Henry had sought out a pupil and had no qualms whatsoever about taking on Caitlin Snow.

The sound of the heavy wooden door being opened interrupted her thoughts, and the sound of her husband’s warm voice made the sadness of her thoughts all but disappear.

“Something smells good,” Henry said, walking through the door. “You smell that, Caitlin?” The young girl nodded beside him. “It smells wonderful.”

Nora smiled to herself, set aside her tools and yarn and walked into the entryway adjoining the kitchen.

“You’re home,” she said, to which her husband crossed the distance between them and placed a kiss on her cheek. “It smells so good.” He pulled back. “Is it biscuits?”

She nodded. “Yes. And chicken and potatoes.”

Caitlin’s eyes lit up. “You have potatoes?”

“Yes. And I’m going to mash them. Would you like to help?”

Caitlin nearly bounced up on her toes. It never ceased to amazing Nora how this girl could go from being shy to eager and excited when new opportunities presented themselves. She wondered what that meant about her home life but decided not to think on it.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she chuckled. “Come on.” She nodded her head towards the hot pot over the fire and grabbed some pot warmers so as not to burn herself. “Grab a bowl from the bottom shelf. We’ll put them in there first.”

Caitlin did as she was told and used the large spoon to transfer the vegetable. Nora looked over her shoulder at her husband as she did so.

“Have you seen Barry today?”

“Not this morning,” he said on a sigh. “But the Dibny’s informed me he spent all morning with their rambunctious children, so he must’ve done some good today.”

“Henry.” Her voice lowered, and he reined himself in.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s a good thing what he’s doing. It’s better than just lying around this place all day. I’m glad he’s getting work in and that he’ll help out with the harvest in the fall.”

“Oh!” Caitlin interjected, spying the individual in question walking passed the distant window. “I think I see him.”

Moments later, the door opened and Barry walked in, a basket of freshly pulled carrots in his arms.

“Carrots,” Caitlin said, awe-struck by yet another delicious food being added to the menu.

“What a brilliant idea, Barry. Thank you for thinking of it,” his mother said.

He forced a smile that matched his father’s until Henry felt the glare his wife was delivering to the back of his head.

“I thought it might…add something,” Barry added lamely, avoiding his father’s gaze.

“I talked to the Dibny’s earlier today,” Henry said, pushing bitter feelings behind him for the sake of the meal and the company. “It sounds like you were very helpful to them this morning.”

Barry looked at him, then glanced at his mother and Caitlin and knew he had to do something to release the tension.

“Well, someone had to be, what with Ralph running off with Sue just as his brothers and sisters were waking up.”

Henry softened, a proud smile gracing his features.

“I’m glad you stepped up, son.” He gripped his shoulder. “It’s good to know what’s important in life and not go running after a lass before you’ve found your place.”

He glanced over at Caitlin.

“Nothing against you, of course, Caitlin.”

She grinned sardonically.

“Of course not. I’m special.”

Barry shook his head at the comment, but it had the whole family laughing, and so the tension was broken.

…

Night descended over Collin Woods about an hour after dinner. Caitlin had returned home, promising to meet Henry at his clinic the next day as early as she could. He promised to bring food with him and Nora insisted she come home with Henry for dinner again. Caitlin was reluctant to make that promise, so she just smiled as a goodbye and waved her hand on the way out. Barry watched her from the front window and thought about the impact she made on their home. He was glad to have her in his life, and glad even more so that she’d provided an escape for him from his father’s profession. But he worried some about her home life. Whenever he saw her about in town, there was no light in her eyes. She looked sullen, almost like a young child. And he saw the tight grip her mother always had on her even though she was three years into adulthood at age fifteen. It just made him more aware of the destruction Prince John had brought upon their little town.

Barry lay in bed until he could hear his parents’ snores drifting down the hall. Deeming it safe to slip out, he pushed open his window and carefully climbed over the ledge to the other side. He closed it after he’d landed in the grass, keeping it open a crack so he wouldn’t have difficulty going in, and then slinked away from his home, taking off as fast as one of his arrows as soon as he’d reached the cluster of trees thickening like a swarm of flies on the way to Central Pond.

He got to the edge of the water, looked up and saw some hazy clouds crossing over the moon. He worried for a moment that she wouldn’t come. They had always said that if it was a cloudy night, maybe it was a sign they shouldn’t meet up that night, that there was somehow a better likelihood of them being caught, even if logically that didn’t make sense. They should be harder to see with no grand moonlight making figures known amongst the trees.

But he didn’t have to worry long. Because mere moments later, a tap came on his shoulder, and he nearly fell into the water because of it.

“Barry!” she quietly shrieked, pulling him back by the fabric of his shirt, and then dissolving into a fit of giggles when she did. Putting a hand over her mouth, she tried to compose herself. “I’m sorry.”

He was flushed, breathing heavily for a few moments, but then a silly grin stretched across his face.

“No apology needed,” he said, then took her hand and led her away from the water into the woods. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“So was I,” she said. “The clouds were so much thicker from my bedroom window.” She came to a stop and held both of her hands in his, swinging a little on the balls of her feet. “But I thought I’d make a try for it. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

In truth it had been two days, and the only reason they hadn’t met up was because of storms, rain that poured hard and for hours. But it still felt like an eternity. Every moment apart felt like a lifetime.

“I know,” he said, intertwining their fingers together. “It’s been forever.”

He couldn’t wait any longer. He pulled on her hands with his own, instantly bringing her closer, and met her lips with a sudden kiss. She melted into it, and so did he. His arms moved to settle on her waist as hers wrapped around his neck. And for a while they stood there in the filtered moonlight, just ignoring the world around them.

“Oh, Barry,” she murmured, eventually pulling back enough to lay her head on his chest. He swayed them gently. “I wish it could be like this forever.”

He rested his cheek on the top of her head and shut his eyes, listening to the sway of her long dress in the night breeze.

“So do I.”

“I dream at night about us, you know.”

He smiled to himself. “You do?”

“Well, don’t you?” She lifted her head to look up at him.

“Of course, Iris. I dream about you even when I’m not sleeping. I almost shot Cisco with an arrow today because I was so distracted dreaming of you.”

Her eyes sparkled. “You wouldn’t have hit him.”

“I don’t know…I was pretty distracted.”

“You never miss,” she said. “Not even when you’re distracted.”

“I might’ve made an exception for Julian,” he joked lightly.

She smirked. “I might’ve let you.”

He didn’t know if her not liking Julian any more than he did made their situation even more tragic, but he decided he liked it. Better the knight not be his competition when it came to Iris’ heart. In any other way, he could deal, even if he didn’t want to, but if he was unsure about where her heart lie, he was sure he would die.

“Come on,” he said, stepping back enough to just hold her hand. “I want to show you something.”

Iris bit her bottom lip and ran with him through the woods until they came to a large tree. She stopped before he did and looked up at the spectacle before them.

“It’s amazing,” she said, awestruck.

“It’s old,” he responded. “And probably shouldn’t be climbed on.” He bent down to pick something off the grass just around the old oak. “But it’s unlike any other tree in the whole forest, and I think we should make it our own.”

He came back to her and handed her a rock, sharp and narrow at the end. She looked at it strangely and met his eyes with a quizzical expression.

“What are you thinking, Barry?”

He grinned and pulled her to the large, oak tree. Then she watched as he used his own rock to painstakingly carve his initials into the wood. He made a small cross beneath it and stepped back. He glanced at her when she didn’t move.

“Your turn,” he said.

Excitedly, though she tried to contain herself, Iris stepped forward and carved her own initials in. Then, without any prodding, she drew a large heart around their letters and stepped back, looking at their masterpiece proudly.

“I love you, Iris,” he said, softly, and she turned to find him staring at her, so much love in his eyes. She didn’t doubt his declaration for a second.

“I love you, too, Barry,” she returned, taking both his hands in hers as they’d been before.

“I don’t know how long we can be like this,” he admitted. “But I’m going to treasure every moment.” He brought their clasped hands to his heart and held them there. “You’re my home, Iris. And that’s one thing that will never change.”

Her heart aflutter, and all words fallen away from her memory, she smiled softly in response. Then she tilted her face up, closed her eyes, and waited for him to kiss her.

[auskultu]

“I Read the News Today, Oh Boy”

Nat Hentoff, Ramparts, November 1967

You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination. There is musical infinity as well. We’ve only just discovered what we can do as musicians. What threshold we can cross. It doesn't matter so much anymore if we’re No. 1 or on the chart. It's all right if the people dislike us. Just don't deny us. — George Harrison

As the rush to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band confirmed, the Beatles are now Art. Jack Kroll, Newsweek’s analyst of Now Culture, proclaimed “A Day in the Life” to be “the Beatles’ ‘Waste Land.’” In the New Statesman, composer-critic-musicologist Wilfred Metiers devoted an entire column to an exegesis of the themes of loneliness that make the album “art of an increasingly subtle kind.”

The Beatles, moreover, are Functional Art. Said the Times Educational Supplement (of London): “Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics represent an important barometer to our society—sentiments which are shared by pupils in every classroom in Britain ... If the record’s understanding were to be reflected in Britain’s teachers, our schools might be more sympathetic institutions than some are now.” In echo, a school superintendent this past July told a conference of music educators in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, how to start their journey across that alarmingly widening generational gap: “If you want to know what youths are thinking and feeling, you cannot find anyone who speaks for them or to them more clearly than the Beatles.” Said Beatles even speak for and to the dead. At the funeral in August of murdered British playwright Joe Orton, the Beatles’ recording of “A Day in the Life” started the decidedly secular service.

And yet three years ago, Paul McCartney insisted, “We have no message and aren’t trying to deliver one.” What is the message now? On one level, it’s not quite clear, even within the company of the four gurus. Tim Leary announces: “The Beatles have taken my place. That latest album—a complete celebration of LSD.” And Paul McCartney, who has indeed taken LSD, says: “After I took it, it opened my eyes. We only use one tenth of our brain. Just think what all we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world. If the politicians would take LSD, there wouldn’t be any more war, or poverty.”

But George Harrison, once a trip-taker, tells the Los Angeles Free Press: “Acid is not the answer, definitely not the answer. It’s enabled people to see a little bit more, but when you really get hip you don’t need it.” And John Lennon, who has also journeyed somewhere into himself through acid, laughs when told that hippies, actual and acolyte, take the initials of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” as a hortatory message. “No,” he says, “my son, Julian, brought a painting home from school and said it was a picture of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” So what is the message? Look up in the sky—and live.

On another level, however, the message is clear and Beatles-consensual enough. Writing of the Sgt. Pepper implosion, Paul Williams, editor of Crawdaddy, the higher critic of the new sounds and feelings, asserts: “If there’s a message, it’s ‘Dig Yourself.’ ” With a little help from your friends. It’s getting better all the time, and it doesn’t really matter if you’re wrong or right.

But that’s not all. There is also death. The Beatles are, up to a point, hip to death, more so than any other popular music group has ever been. Eleanor Rigby is dead long before the obsequies. And death grins in “A Day in the Life” of the man who blew his mind out in a car. In the same song, the deaths of miners in Lancaster become “four thousand holes ... and though the holes were rather small they had to count them all.”

The man in the car is bloody well dead, the crowd of people who stood and stared has turned away, the miners are in holes, but “though the news was rather sad / Well I just had to laugh. I saw the photograph.” Thus the auto-anesthesia of us all, who will not see pain, who will not believe in death, and who are disappointed when the news is not of pain and death. But could the song also show the Beatles’ own auto-anesthesia? Having seen pain and having thought of death, do they turn to save themselves—and their friends—through magic?

Magic? Wilfred Mellers finds one common bond in the music of Boulez, Cage, Bob Dylan and the Beatles—“an attempt to return to magic, possibly as a substitute for belief.” In an interview with Miles in the International Times, Paul McCartney says: “With any kind of thing, my aim seems to be to distort it, distort it from what we know it as, even with music and visual things and to change it from what it is to see what it could be. To see the potential in it all. To take a note and wreck it and see in that note what else there is in it, that a simple act like distorting it has caused. To take a film and to superimpose on top of it so you can’t quite tell what it is anymore, it’s all trying to create magic, it’s all trying to make things happen so that you don’t know why they’ve happened.” 

And George Harrison, anxious for serenity, talks about being only 24 “in this incarnation,” and goes on: “We’re Beatles, and it’s a little scene and we’re playing and we’re pretending to be Beatles, like Harold Wilson’s pretending to be Prime Minister . . . They’re all playing. The Queen is the Queen. The idea that you could wake up and it happens that you’re Queen, it’s amazing but you could all be Queens if you imagine it. . . they’ll have a war quickly if it gets too good, they’ll just pick on the nearest person to save us from our doom. That’s it, soon as you freak out and have a good time, it’s dangerous, but they don’t think of the danger of going into some other country in a tank with a machine-gun and shooting someone. That’s all legal and aboveboard, but you can’t freak out—that’s stupid.”

Magic is dangerous to the world, but the world is more dangerous to the Beatles—and to their friends. And so, there is the leap into the magic of the loving community. We all live in our yellow submarine and our friends are all on board. With our love—we could save the world—if they only knew. [But since they don’t know] “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying.” In this, the Beatles and the hippies are together in a search for peace.

And so the Beatles no longer speak to the very young who do not yet know how dangerous the world is, how efficiently numbing, how full of little boxes for them. The very young have turned to the plastic Monkees; but the older teens and many in their twenties and beyond are listening. On the other hand, the Revolver disc was dismissed by a class in a large industrially-centered English school with the words: “Aw no, sir, we don’t like that: it’s all Chinky.”

Beatles records are not on the jukeboxes in the black ghettos nor, I expect, are they the food of magic for those in the lower tracks of any of our schools. Those young abandoned magic with Santa Claus. The Beatles are increasingly for the comfortable and afraid—afraid to be lonely, afraid to be Eleanor Rigby. It is true, as Frank Kofsky writes in the National Guardian, “There are millions of devout followers of Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, and all the rest, who are in opposition to the society that spawned them and are, in the words of a Jefferson Airplane song, ‘trying to revolutionize tomorrow.’ In hippie communities like San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, they strive to realize the new socialist man (my label, not theirs) who will be capable of fulfilling to the limit the creative potential of the human race, especially in the arts.”

But, even with a little help from their friends, will these revolutionizers of tomorrow-through love, through consciousness-expansion, through digging themselves on their yellow submarine-change what’s happening out there? Even if you could spike LBJ’s root beer with LSD, what then?

However, as for expanding creative potential among those in the beloved community, the Beatles are indeed among the liberators. They started nibbling at Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. (In that incarnation, George Harrison also picked up on Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy.) They were less black-inflected than the Animals and the Rolling Stones; but along with them and other young British rockers brushed by the blues, the Beatles turned millions of American adolescents onto what had been here all the hurting time. But the young here never did want it raw so they absorbed it through the British filter. Oh yes, some later found Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and now they’re into their own kind of greyboating with Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield and Big Brother and the Holding Company, but that’s a trip, as it has to be, with a return ticket. I mean, Shankar is beloved, but if he put an evening raga on you at high noon, would you know?

Anyway, the Beatles went on—into and through Buddy Holly, the Nashville communion, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Beach Boys. They were getting to where, as Paul McCartney put it, they could be influenced by themselves. And in their wake they left behind the fake imperatives of the 32-bar tune, “consonant” changes, steady tempos. Harmonies shifted vertiginously, their early modalities grew strange branches, voicings continually surprised themselves, and uncommonly ecumenical textures appeared —the sitar in “Norwegian Wood,” guitar tracks running backwards on “I’m Only Sleeping,” sitar and electronic sounds in “Love You Too,” more electronics in “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Writing of the latter, Mellers discovered “a new sonorous experience in amalgamating avant-garde jazz (Mingus-like jungle noises, Cage-like electronics, folk penta-tonicism, Indian sitars).” And in the Mellotron overlay in “Penny Lane,” he wondered if Lennon and McCartney had been digging Charles Ives.

Sgt. Pepper has further disintegrated paper categories and boundaries to get to where the Beatles could hear where they belong at the moment. Their first album had been recorded in one day. This one, with four to six sessions a week, evolved through more than three months, and is the most heterogeneous, heady mix of possibilities in pop music history. Combs and paper over a string octet and harp on “Lovely Rita”; multiple tracks of percussion and strings into which sitar, tamboura and swor-mandel are imbedded, swirling between 4/4 and 5/4 on “Within You Without You.” Three tambouras, a dilruba, a tabla, an Indian table-harp, a sitar (Harrison), three cellos, and eight violins on “She’s Leaving Home”; Lennon on Hammond organ, recorded at different speeds and then overlaid with electronic echoes, while four harmonicas disport in Being for the “Benefit of Mr. Kite.” And on and on to the 41-piece orchestra in “A Day in the Life” with, as Jack Kroll exults, “a growling, bone-grinding crescendo that drones up like a giant crippled turbine struggling to spin new power into a foundered civilization.”

Where now? The next move, says Paul McCartney, “seems to be things like electronics because it’s a complete new field and there’s a lot of good new sounds to be listened to in it. But if the music itself is just going to jump about five miles ahead, then everyone’s going to be left standing with this gap of five miles that they’ve got to all cross before they can even see what scene these people are on ... That’s what I’d like to do. I’d like to look into that gap a bit.” 

As George Harrison says, “You see, we haven’t really started yet, the Beatles. The future stretches out beyond our imagination.” The Beatles are absolutely fre-e-e. “The competition among the best—Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, among them—is no longer for money,” observes pop chronicler Al Aronowitz in the Saturday Evening Post. “They already have enough of that. The competition is in music . . . The best artists in the business—the aristocracy—are moving into positions of power. They’re making fewer and fewer compromises with commercialism. There’s hardly anything interesting happening outside this exclusive circle.”

Meanwhile Rap Brown tries to find the revolution and the strategists of the New Politics scour the new class for their constituency. But to the Beatles, are they for real? Why be up-tight about anything? “At the back of my brain somewhere,” Paul McCartney says, “there is something telling me now that ... it tells me in a cliche too, it tells me that everything is beautiful.” And so it may be. Who can put down magic that works for the magician?

Must everything be related constantly to the non-psychedelic world? I keep thinking about the Beatles as “an important barometer to our society,” and I remember Donald Michael predicting in The Next Generation that the control centers “will be able to tolerate groups living at different paces and styles, if they show no deliberate intent to alter significantly the drive or direction of the prevailing social processes . . . Isolated and insulated from major and majority preoccupations of the society, and thereby offering no threat to the status quo, these enclaves will provide opportunities for more whimsical, personally paced styles of life.”

But what the hell, like the rest of us with stereo, the Beatles get by with a little help from their friends and they do live up to their promise: “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.” The music’s getting better all the time as the indignant desert birds hover about the shape with a lion body and the head of a man.