#mclennon edits. DUH.

[thefabelmans2022]

no one except steven spielberg is brave enough to hold open auditions and chemistry tests these days. no one wants to work anymore everyone just wants to cast twitter white boys of the month when they could be CREATING twitter white boys of the month.

[celebratorypenguin]

Fic: Don’t Cry, Young Lovers (1/4)

Rating: R (sexual situations, non-graphic descriptions of past violence, language) McLennon (DUH...)

Greetings yet again from Overused Trope Land! This time we're with our boys in Paris, spending someone's hard-earned pay John's 21st birthday money. (Sorry, Paul, I love you but “Two Of Us” is NOT ABOUT LINDA.)

This is a work of fiction. The character of Sylvie/Sarah is based on and dedicated to the mother of one of my childhood friends. May she be remembered for blessing.

Anyway, this is the first of four parts. The story is mostly complete but needs editing, which is my least-favorite part. I’m hoping that exposing Part 1 in public will light a fire under my slothful self. ::lights match::

Don't Cry, Young Lovers

 Paris October, 1961

  The City of Lights was so much more beautiful, more bohemian, more enticing, more MORE, than either John or Paul could have imagined.

 Once they set foot in Paris and made their way through the winding cobblestone streets in search of cheap lodgings and cheaper food, they fell deeply in love with the city and began looking for excuses not to venture further to Spain.

 John's birthday money wasn't enough to allow them to travel in style, but it did get them a small, clean room with a window that let them look out on the glories of autumn. Paul's worries about sharing the tiny bed dissipated when John threw the window open and let in the crisp, rain-washed breezes.

 "The city smells alive," John remarked as he clambered up on the windowsill to get a better view.

 Paul, busily emptying his little suitcase and storing his few possessions neatly in the cupboard, simply smiled in agreement. He was a bit road-weary, particularly from having to do all the polite chit-chat with the drivers who'd been kind enough to give them lifts, but his heart had not been so light in years.

 John had chosen him. Not Cynthia, not Stuart, but Paul. And, amazingly, Paul's father had acquiesced to the trip with fewer dire predictions than anyone could have anticipated. He'd even pressed ten quid into his son's hands, "just in case."

 It was, Paul thought as he turned his suitcase on end to use as a night table, probably a sign that something was about to go terribly wrong.

 "Hey there." John's voice broke through Paul's musings. "Quit being a housewife for a few minutes and look at this." John beckoned toward the window. It wasn't large enough to seat them both, so Paul settled for peering over John's shoulders at the narrow streets below. It wasn't a grand part of town, of course, but it had a certain shabby charm that absolutely failed to remind him of Hamburg in any way, shape, or form.

 Score one for Paris, then.

 Squirming a bit on the hard ledge, John stuffed his glasses back in his jacket and turned to Paul. "What should we seek out first - food or booze?"

 "Food. Absolutely, food." Paul's words were punctuated by a loud rumble in his stomach.

 John's laughter was intoxicating. He hopped down and mussed Paul's hair. "Can't deprive a growing boy, now, can we? Let's take a walk."

 Following John was as natural as breathing. Paul patted his pockets, reassuring himself that he had both his camera and his wallet, as he strode quickly to keep up with John's long-legged gait. The scenery was so interesting that John was actually wearing his glasses. Looking around him swallowed up all Paul's attention, resulting in his foot slipping on one of the damp cobblestones. John reacted quickly, wrapping an arm around Paul's waist and steadying him. "Watch your step - can't have you breaking an ankle, now, can we?"

 "I'm not a fucking racehorse," Paul grumbled, but the warmth of John's body next to his was a solid, comforting familiarity in a strange place.

 They wandered aimlessly through the twisting streets until the scent of freshly-baked bread seduced them into a cozy boulangerie. Proud to show off his French, Paul ordered bread and tea for them both and reached for his wallet to pay. John stopped him with a firm hand on Paul's wrist.

 "Nope, I'm buying," he declared as he handed francs to the old woman behind the counter.

 "But I have money," protested Paul.

 "And now you have food and you still have money. It's a miracle!" John reached to take his change from the woman, and Paul saw him pull a face.

 "What?" Paul whispered, but John shushed him. The boys took their food and cups of tea and went to a vacant table by the window.

 "She has Mickey Mouse hands," John stage-whispered when they were settled.

 Paul gaped blankly at him.

 John held up his hands and tucked his index fingers behind his thumbs. "Only four fingers on each hand. No, don't turn around, you numpty!"

 Paul stopped himself. "That's weird," he said before taking a huge bite out of his bread. It was hot with a perfectly crisp crust, the inside so soft and flaky that adding butter would be a desecration.

 Evidently John felt the same, because he managed to smile blissfully whilst chewing.

 Their repast wasn't going to last long at this rate, so Paul concentrated on his tea and broke off only one tiny piece of bread at a time. He gazed out the window at the pedestrians and pigeons, none of whom seemed to be in a hurry.

 He liked that very much.

 After a few minutes, Paul examined the interior of the shop. Glass cases displayed every kind of sweet and savory baked good he'd ever seen and quite a few that were mysteries to him. Half a dozen tables, draped with mismatched, spotless cotton cloths, dotted the floor. But what drew Paul's attention was the mahogany spinet in the corner.

 His fingers twitched. He'd gone two days already without touching an instrument - he had grudgingly consented to John's demand that they leave their guitars at home - and he longed to make the lovely, lonely instrument sing for him.

 John followed Paul's line of sight. He shook his head in mock exasperation. "Honestly, are you conisdering cheating on your guitar with that tart of a piano?"

 Paul, whose body was almost aching with the need for music, chose to shoot the bird at John rather than give a verbal response.

 Leaning forward in his chair, John snatched the last of the bread from Paul's plate with a triumphant grin. "Hey!" protested Paul, "I wasn't finished yet!"

 "You know what they say: if you eat slowly, you eat less." John tore the morsel in half and brought one piece to Paul's lips.

 Paul considered nipping the finger along with the bread, but literally biting the hand that fed him seemed ridiculous. He sighed as he allowed John to pop the bread in his mouth, his gaze still focused on the piano.

 "We couldn't very well bring both guitars along, and we can't share, now, can we, since you need yours upside-down?"

 It shouldn't have stunned Paul that John was reading his mind. It happened far too frequently to have any element of surprise left, yet every time they finished one another's thoughts, Paul felt a tiny jolt like an electrical charge.

 The same charge went through him whenever John touched him, as he did now when he leaned forward to flick a crumb from the corner of Paul's downturned mouth. "Are you still hungry?" John asked.

 "No," Paul lied, but the hesitation in his voice didn't fool John at all.

 "Let's get you something else," he offered.

 "I'm not hungry."

 "Rubbish. And if I take you back to England looking like a starving waif, your dad will have my guts for garters!"

 "John, I'm fine, really, just let me finish the tea and--"

 Out of the corner of his eye Paul saw a plate with four piping-hot croissants being set on their table. He realized that he was looking directly at the old woman's deformed hand, then averted his gaze with a guilty start and began to sputter. "Ce ne sont, uh, pas, uh, le nôtre...n'avons, uh, pas d'argent..."

 "I speak English," the woman said kindly, circumventing the need for Paul's schoolboy French. Her voice was accented in a language Paul didn't recognize. "Please, they are old and must not go to waste."

 Paul opened his mouth to protest - the food was clearly fresh from the oven - but John interrupted. "That's very nice, thank you." His voice was soft, free from jest or sarcasm, which left Paul as curious as he was ravenous.

 When the woman smiled, Paul was surprised to realize that she wasn't as old as she seemed. She was probably in her early forties; her prematurely gray hair and the scars on her hands had been deceptive. Paul could see that John was not looking at her face but her arm, and when he glanced over he could see some crudely tattooed numbers just below the crook of her elbow.

 When John kicked his ankle under the table and made a "you're embarrassing me" face, Paul realized that he was staring. He forced his gaze upward again and said, "Merci - thank you very much" as the woman walked away.

 Unusually sober-faced, John sat utterly still for several moments, not touching the food but regarding it with a strangely abstracted expression. "What?" asked Paul around a mouthful of croissant.

 "You saw it," was John's terse answer, and Paul knew he meant the tattoo rather than the scarring. "I've heard about them, but I've never seen one. Shit." John ran his hands through his hair until it nearly stood on end. "Jesus, that's just wrong."

 Paul turned the words over in his mind for a few moments before the realization dawned. They'd been numbered with tattoos in concentration camps, the Jews and  everyone else HItler had wanted to kill. "So she's..."

 "Yeah."

 Paul's chest felt tight. He struggled to swallow, washing the food down with a gulp of the cooling tea. He'd heard his relatives talk in horrified whispers, their voices kept low "to spare the children," but it had never seemed real to him. To boys his age, the war was a dim memory, kept alive by the shadows of rationing and poverty that were only now beginning to lift.

 "And I thought it was a drag that we couldn't get sugar," John said, completing Paul's thoughts yet again. He picked up a croissant and began to eat it. "We've led pretty charmed lives by comparison, haven't we?"

 "I'd never thought of it that way." Paul knew he sounded as dazed as he felt. His life hadn't felt charmed, not since his mother's illness and death followed by his family's slide toward impoverished gentility, and he certainly wouldn't describe John's life that way. But compared to this woman and the story they'd only seen on the surface, Paul and John were princes of the realm.

 They finished their food, rising to thank the woman - the lady, Paul corrected himself in his head - before setting out to find enough cheap red wine to keep them merrily tipsy for the rest of the evening. John procured two bottles from a nearby shop and handed one to Paul.

 "What should we do tomorrow?" John asked.

 Paul, who wanted to "see the sights" without knowing exactly what they were, shrugged. "Up to you. It's your birthday party, you know."

 "Best birthday ever, and I haven't even had it yet," John said with a wide smile. "There are bohemian delights galore here, and wine to drink our health with. What else could two young, adventuresome lads ask for?"

 "A girl who won't give me the clap," Paul said archly. The rest of the group had never, ever let him hear the end of the Hamburg debacle so he tended to bring it up himself to lessen the painful inevitability.

 The sparkle in John's eyes dimmed somewhat. Surprised, Paul raised an eyebrow at him but John turned away and was silent for the rest of the walk back to their hotel.

 They climbed the narrow, dark staircase and opened the door to their room. John had left the window slightly open to freshen the air, and now the room was far cooler than Paul could have wished. He shivered a bit and drew his jacket more tightly around himself. "Mind if I shut the window? Getting a bit brisk in here."

 "Be my guest," John said in a listless tone as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

 Paul had no idea how in the world he could have offended his mercurial friend, but he knew better than to ask. He closed the window gently instead, then he took a seat next to John and slung one arm around his shoulders. "I know I'm your guest, and don't think for a moment that I'm not grateful, 'cause I really, really am."

 John blinked at him a few times, then shook himself from head to toe like a dog emerging from a puddle. "Sorry, I'm just knackered. Don't mind me." He set his bottle of wine on the floor next to the bed. "I'll save it for tomorrow, I think. Gonna turn in, maybe get an early start in the morning."

 Despite residual anxiety about John's changing moods, Paul got to his feet and went to the cupboard to get his pyjamas. He changed quickly, shivering with the cold. In his peripheral vision he could see John doing the same and then rushing to the sink to clean his teeth. Paul followed suit, taking care to wash his face carefully as well. It wouldn't do to get a pimple during such a grown-up adventure.

 By the time he finished, John had rearranged the covers and pillows on the bed to make one little nest for each of them. Top-and-tail. John surveyed his handiwork with a frown. "I've seen bigger postage stamps. I'm liable to get your foot in my face all night long, smelling of God knows what."

 "My feet are daisies compared to yours." Paul knew that his new-found devotion to hygeine was the laughingstock of his bandmates, so he used it to toss a bone to John, to get him to laugh.

 It worked. John's sour face crumbled and he favored Paul with a genuine smile as he snuggled down under the covers. "Night, then."

 "Good night, Johnny." Paul crawled into his little space and twisted around, trying to find a comfortable position that didn't encroach on John's area. Given that they were two long-legged boys trying to share one narrow bed, his efforts met with no success. Every time he drifted off, a bony ankle would connect sharply with his ear, or he'd feel John swat at his shins.

 It was also cold, far colder than Paul had expected, and he began to shiver.

 He felt a shift in the bed and bedclothes. When he opened his eyes, there was John, leaning over him. "Best come up here with me," John said, a little quickly, adding, "There's only one proper blanket anyway, and it's too cold in here to fuss about your modesty."

 Relieved that he might actually get some sleep, Paul moved his pillow next to John's and curled up on his side with John behind him. John was always a few degrees warmer than most people, so he was like a living, breathing hot water bottle, albeit one with pointy elbows. As Paul relaxed into slumber, he was dimly aware of John tucking the bedspread around him and whispering something into his ear that was too soft to understand.

 ***