#yoko and linda are sucking each other silly as this retreat is happening. btw

[cellarfulofnose]

Heart of the Country

Well, life on the farm is kinda laid-back...

(submitted by my lovely muse @adreadfulcantata. happy birthday ^3^)

Paul's milking the goat when the melody comes to him. He mumbles a line, and it almost shapes itself (really, there's only so many places the chord changes can go), but then Tina tosses her head and he realizes he's stopped in his work. He resumes diligently, raising his head to call out over Tina's back.

"Lin?" His breath fogs out into a pale cloud in the cold of the baby-blue morning. Swish, swish, sings the pail, ringing with each jet of milk.

"What?" Linda stands where she'd been squatting next to the chicken coop. There's only a small handful of eggs in her basket, and they're covered in hay and feathers and chicken shit but they're all lovely, the shells varying from blue to green to brown.

Paul blinks, because she's perfect and he doesn't have his camera. He hums the line again. "What d'you think?"

"What's that?"

"For the--second song." He hums it again, and taps his foot too. It's bluesy like that; a gut bass wouldn't go amiss.

Linda hums it back, nodding thoughtfully to the beat, then raises her eyebrows in acknowledgement. "I like it. It swings."

Paul gives a little wiggle, shoulders and hips, as well as he can for kneeling on the ground. Tina's all done; she walks off in search of her kid. He and Linda throw the tune back and forth a few times until it's got legs. On the walk back to the house, he starts to ad-lib, scatting a few bars, just until he can get his hand around a pen and start writing words. But it's a pan-handle that ends up in his hand instead, once they cross the threshold into the kitchen--omelets really can't wait. Linda compromises, lets him drag out a tape recorder to catch their little breakfast demo. As longs as he keeps cooking.

"What's that, Delta blues?" she asks, pouring tea.

"Mm, not quite. Little more country-western." A Texas drawl bleeds through to tug at his vowels, harden his r's. He adds diced peppers, tomatoes, and a handful of spinach to the beaten eggs. As they sizzle on the skillet, he whistles. Linda dances, shoulders shimmying. He laughs.

"This is nice, isn't it?" He's not planning to say it, but. Jesus, the sun coming through the window, the wind chimes on the porch. Somebody's got to.

"It smells great," Linda agrees--means to.

Paul chuckles. "No, the--"

"Oh, the song? Yeah, it's a good one."

"I just meant..." He gestures as well as he can with a spatula in one hand and a pan at the other. Shrugs at the room. "Just this."

"Hmm." There's a clink as she sets down the teacups, then her hands slide into his pockets from behind, and she kisses his shoulder. He curls against her, still too busy fending off burnt eggs to give much of anything back. But she's there for a breath, a side-to-side sway, then she's gathering plates.

"The country tune, it's not bad, though," Paul says a bit later, omelets plated and toast buttered.

"No. I like it."

He hesitates a moment, then, "John would hate it."

"Well," Linda says with exaggerated shock, "then." Might as well scrap the whole thing, hadn't we?

"I mean, I don't really mind, though. It's such a high, isn't it? Writing together?"

"It's kind of an ego trip," she admits, "making something ex nihilo. I don't know how you two kept your heads on." She raises the teacup to her lips. "Don't know how you stayed so ridiculously humble." Her eyes widen, then crinkle with a smile as she drinks.

Paul flips his hair over his shoulder, preening for her. He'll play the prima donna, because it's funny and she's right. He fancied himself a god among men once and, well, forgive him, but they were creating life out of nothing.

All right, not out of nothing. Thesis-antithesis, synthesis. Not genesis. It was part of them put together that grew into something as alive as a song, as self-sufficient as an album. Like...like childbirth.

Paul thinks of all the young songs toddling about out there, hyphenated to bear his last name, some old enough now to be starting primary school. He finishes his toast.

A few mouthfuls of bread doesn't push it down all the way, though. As they clean up, he starts talking again; not necessarily saying anything, mind you. "I think, with me and John, it was sort of..."

Linda pauses, giving him ample time to spit out the word he's looking for. He doesn't. "Give me a hint."

Paul shakes his head and hands her a dish to dry. "Not like exercise, you know, not a chore, like we were forced to, but we sort of...had to. Had to get it out, you know?" He gestures too broadly, wrist-deep in suds, and splashes his shirt.

"Cathartic?"

It clicks nicely. "Yeah," he says, because he's not going to find a better match than that. Purifying release. Yet it feels too...clean, somehow. Too pretty.

"Do you miss him?"

Paul doesn't like the feeling that floods his chest. The specific brand of defense that used to keep his blood pumping whenever they'd sit for American journalists. It's self-preservation--keeps him from blurting, Why the hell would you ask me that? Besides, he's not angry at her. She's not going to print it in the papers. She just wants to know.

He takes a breath. "Course I do, yeah. I mean. Shouldn't I?"

"What do you miss most about him?"

All right, that's...he's still not angry with her. He allows himself a laugh that's really a sigh. "Lin."

"Or is it the songwriting that you miss?"

"No. I don't--I just--" Linda motions for Paul to give her the next dish, and he rinses it and hands it over. "I mean, he's my best friend, I just. Miss him." She's quiet, so he continues. "I miss havin' him around."

"To do what?"

"Not to do anything, to just be there. Just be around each other." Paul shrugs. "I miss that."

Linda leans against the counter and smiles. "Great. Say that."

Paul blinks at her. "What, I just miss--"

"Not to me. Goober." She swats him with the dish towel. "Pick up the telephone. And say it to John."

"Oh." Paul huffs, taking great care not to roll his eyes as he reaches across the counter for an aubergine. "Right, let me just--"

"Go--down--the road." She punctuates each beat with another gentle whack from the dish towel and sets the last plate up in the cupboard.

Paul opens his mouth to protest, but it sort of dissolves. "Okay." Even now, this path is giving him uneasy footing. It's too simple. If it were that easy, he would've already just...wouldn't he? He dries his hands and rolls his sleeves back down. They're cold; he couldn't stop them getting wet. What harm is there in humoring her, though?

He must look like he's taking his sweet time, because Linda asks if he needs tuppence for the phone. As a matter of fact, he can manage, thank you, so he starts to hike down the road. The sun's coming up now. Just after six; Heather won't be up for half an hour yet. The driveway's all but dry now. After the last month's heavy rains, Paul was sure they'd be wading knee-deep in mud the rest of their lives, and yet. Slender green shoots will be daffodils soon, and then it'll be summer.

Paul's halfway to the phone box when he remembers the tape recorder. What a coda for the only demo of their country song--I miss him, I miss him, boo-hoo-hoo. Bleeding Christ. He's going to have to cut that tape. He picks up his pace, partly just to keep up with the way his lungs have kicked into fourth gear, but it's a bad idea. All of this. Right, he'll pick up the phone and call John, who he last spoke to through a lawyer, and tell him...tell him what, exactly? No, he can forget about the whole thing. He's not doing it. At least the trip isn't a total waste--he's getting a nice hike out of it.

He picks up the phone. He doesn't know why, but there's no harm in it, really. He could call Ringo, while he's here. His dad. Either of those would be reasonable options.

He dials John.

After six rings and no answer, Paul's stomach churns with the possibility that John just won't pick up. It should be a relief, infinitely preferable to what's absolutely going to happen instead (John will answer, and at the first note of Paul's voice, he'll slam it back down on the hook), but it's about to make him sick.

"Hello?"

It's not John. It's a woman's voice, but not Yoko, either. Paul almost stops breathing, certain he's got the wrong number, but it must be their staff, he realizes.

"Um." He can already hear himself putting on a BBC accent, and he hates it, but he's not sure what he would say if he didn't. "Hello, is John there, please, I'd like to speak with him."

For some reason, the woman doesn't ask who he is or why he wants to talk to John, just tells him to please wait a moment. Frankly, Paul's not impressed. Why bother with staff if they won't even screen your calls? It could be anyone on the other end of that line. He could be some kind of madman, some crazy ex-lover or--

"Hullo?"

At the sound of John's voice, Paul's not quite sure where he is for a moment. Not here, at least, not now. It doesn't seem plausible. He closes his eyes and says, "Hiya, John."

There's a silence so long that Paul bites his lip and starts to take another breath to repeat himself, but finally, "...Paul?"

"Hey," he breathes, staccato. His heart is racing like this is a matter of survival. There's no reason for it to be. It is, after all, a telephone call. He clears his throat. "Listen, I'm...are-are you doing anything right now?"

There's a sound like scoffing, as if John's too bewildered to string together a whole word. Then, "...Yes."

"Oh." Paul's throat tries to close, hot and aching. He forces a careful breath and continues. "I can just--"

"What do you want, exactly?"

Million-pound fucking question, there, thinks Paul. It's one he can't answer, so he gives John the next-best. "I miss you, mate."

He gnaws his thumb through another brick-load of a silence, before filling it with, "Just thought I'd...ring you and tell you."

"Oh you did, did you?" John says, with no pause this time, because it's a reflex, easier than speaking. It's a double-edged sword, not only lambasting this stupid bloody idea but insinuating that maybe it wasn't even Paul's to begin with; oh, YOU did, did you? "And that'd change, what?"

"No. I, I know. I just...look, it's the truth, I-- And I don't like that we've grown apart, you know."

There's a scratch of static, like John is moving the phone. "Do you hear yourself, man?"

More than either of us would like, Paul grouses to himself. But like he's always done, he keeps going. "No, listen, I know I-... I know what I did to push you, and I'm sorry. I am. I just can't stand it bein' like this, you know, we're not meant to be goin' at each other, or not speaking to each other, I--" He sighs. "Don't you miss it?"

"Miss what?"

Paul rubs his eyes. At some point, they'd closed again. "Be nice if you came out here, is all. Saw the farm."

"Nice. Yeah. What, so I can see how nice and bloody perfect your life is now? Without--without--is that it? You and Little Bo Peep?"

"I really, I really just thought you'd like to see it up here, and it's not, you know, John, it really isn't." Paul laughs a bit, only enough to make his breath shake, enough to wind him. "Without you. It's really not."

There's a huff, then another, heavier breath. "All right," John says, slowly. He doesn't sound happy.

Paul rakes his hand through his hair a few times, trying to weigh how lost a cause this is. "I'm writing a song. We are, Linda and me. You'd, oh, you'd hate it."

It's enough of a non sequitur that John actually laughs, a quick burst of disbelief before quieting again. "Yeah, I bet," he says after a while.

"No, it's Woody Guthrie doing musical chairs, it's really..." They're both laughing now, long enough that Paul can actually catch his breath. "I meant it, you know. You should come up here."

John doesn't laugh. "Paul."

"Not now, obviously--"

"But I can't just--"

Something kicks in Paul's chest. An unwise flicker of hope. John's arguing logistics with him now, not morals, not justification. "No, no, I know," he quickly says, "just sometime--"

"I..." John sighs. Struggles with something. "I'd have to...I'll, um. I'll call you back, all right?"

"...Yeah." Paul's heart doesn't just drop. He's pretty sure he can feel it split on impact, like a sack of flour. "Sure, yeah." Distantly, he remembers that this is a public phone box and he hasn't left John any number, and knows there won't be a call back. But it's all right. He got further than he expected. Hell, at least he got the bloody words out. Take that, Linda. That's what this was about. She hadn't said to invite him up here; probably would flip her wig if she knew he'd tried. Tell him what you told me. Those were her instructions. Check, done.

"Wait, hang on," John says. "Wait. Don't hang up, all right? I've--hang on."

"Okay," Paul breathes, automatic as if someone's just put a coin in him, and waits. And waits. There was a rough noise earlier like John put the phone down, but now there's nothing; no background chatter, no hold music.

Paul watches a lady beetle crawl up a stalk of grass. He follows the wispy trail of an airplane. He waits and thinks and stews and worries and just as he's about to ask if anyone's still there, John's voice comes through the line.

"Paul? You there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm here."

"There's a flight, um..." John sounds a little out of breath. "Just got one of the last ones, actually, so I can, um. Tomorrow. Is--can I? Is that all right?"

Tomorrow.

Paul's vision swims. He feels like he's in a car, driven by someone who's pressing down the brake and the gas as hard as they can simultaneously. He could sing. He's going to die. "Yeah," he says. "Great."

"All right, then."

Paul swallows. "Good. Yeah."

They say good-bye, John hangs up. It is, after all, just a phone call.

Paul makes the seven-minute hike back up to the farmhouse in about ten seconds. He's never felt this full-to-bursting with conflicting energy. He wants John to come, but every time he thinks about it, his stomach lurches with a feeling remarkably like dread. Tomorrow? He's got a day, if that, to get the place ready. Never mind selling the idea to the girls. Surely it's not too late to call the whole thing off.

Heather's finishing breakfast when he returns. Linda doesn't ask how it went--she might have done, but he tells her everything before she's got the chance to. It's just Paul's luck that she needs only a few minutes of convincing to get on board with the idea. She could've vetoed it outright, saved them all a lot of trouble. But, funny enough, she says, she's been promising Heather a trip back to London, and they've an open invitation from Yoko if they should ever need a place to stay.

"You can manage the place all by yourself, right?" she asks with a smile. Before Paul can actually blow a fuse, she drops the act and kisses him, beckons him to join her in the chores that need to be done before tomorrow. Everyone's fed. Everyone who needs it and will stand still is washed. Everything that's started to dry up, or to rot, is cut and shoveled away, replaced with fresh and new.

It's not even noon.

Paul takes a quick dip in the washtub and cleans the house. All of the softening fruit from the kitchen goes into the trough with the table scraps. Flat surfaces are wiped down and swept. He's ready to organize the clothes in the wardrobe, but Linda and Heather are packing--striped pants everywhere--so he bins that idea. A spliff outside the bathroom window doesn't calm him, but it slows him down. He straightens the shoe rack. Finally, he sits down to write.

I look high / I look low / I'm lookin' everywhere I go / Looking for

Paul stares at the paper, twiddling his pen back and forth. Looking for what? There's the million-pound question again. The longer he glares at the mostly-blank page, the more he wants to feed it to the goats. So much for creation ex nihilo, he thinks. Three lines his eight-year-old daughter could've written, and no closer to knowing what it is he's looking for.

Eventually, he remembers to eat. He plays make-believe horses with Heather, bathes her, reads her a story. Sings to her. As soon as she's in bed, he can't keep his hands off Linda, for some reason. They kiss, share whispery breaths, and he kneels on the kitchen floor, lifting her patchwork skirt to bury his nose in corn-silk hair and eat her out against the sink. He's too wired, and too exhausted, for anything else.

---

The next day's not much easier.

"Give her my love, yeah?" Paul says as he kisses Linda a final time, and throws in a wink; you know I don't envy you. Heather waves and they're gone.

The problem is, John didn't say what time he'd come, and the pesky thing about tomorrow is that it consists of twenty-four circles of hell called hours, during any of which he might decide to turn up. Paul does all of the chores again, twice, just to be safe. When he starts feeling like he needs to run rings around the farmhouse, he picks up his guitar and writes. Looking for does not get a partner. But he gets the middle eight down, and it's not bad, either. The scatting can stand on its own; no need to conjure actual lyrics.

A distant, rolling crunch of gravel in the drive. John's here.

Paul darts to the window. A sleek black car, ridiculously out of place in the rugged landscape, is chugging along the dirt road, raising a terrible cloud of dust. It's John, all right--overdressed. On his way to the door, Paul ducks into the bedroom to fuss with his hair in the mirror--there, that's enough.

He hears a car door creak open and slam shut. Boot-heels crunch their way to the front step. Paul's heart leaps into his throat.

He opens the door.

John looks up, like he'd been studying the welcome mat. He's freshly shorn, a shorter haircut than Paul's seen on him in twenty years. His glasses are tinted yellow. He's wearing a smart jacket over an expensive-looking shirt, a fucking scarf, and even sharper slacks. His black boots gleam.

Paul laughs, and it doesn't even sound nervous. "Did you bring any other clothes?"

John raises his eyebrows and tightens his lips. "Left my gunnysack at home, actually." He can't keep his smile hidden.

In a fit of boldness that surprises even him, Paul throws his arms around John, knocking their chests together almost painfully. He holds on tight even as it makes it harder to breathe. John stalls for a second, winded and caught unawares, but he embraces Paul back. Wraps him in his long, long arms and pulls them together.

"Hey." Paul can barely get enough air out to shape the word. The hug is squeezing his lungs like a bagpipe. Any more pressure on his windpipe and he'd cough--his throat already itches like hell from his second time mucking out the stalls that morning.

John doesn't seem to notice. "Hi," he says, smoothly, with evident room enough to breathe.

They break apart before Paul suffocates. He blames the sudden dizzy feeling on a lack of oxygen. "Want to come in?"

John unwraps his scarf as he crosses the threshold, like there's any meaningful temperature difference between inside and outside. Like the flimsy thing was doing anything to keep him warm, anyhow. "Should I take me shoes off?"

"Doesn't matter. Our floors will probably deal more damage to your shoes than you can to do them."

John toes off his boots. Paul's eyes flit around the entrance, the main room, and the kitchen, looking for anything he might've missed. "How was the drive?" he asks.

"Un-fucking-believable. Do you know people keep sheep out here? Look out the left-hand side, sheep. Right-hand side, sheep. Crossin' the road in front of you for half an hour, sheep on sheep on fuckin' sheep. About did me fucking head in. You don't have any of them, do you?"

"Oh, no," Paul says, mock-serious, with a curt shake of his head. The guttural baaa of a ram can be heard just outside the kitchen window.

"Good. Be too bloody soon, if I never saw another one." John turns as he speaks, taking in the sights of the farm cottage. The herbs hung to dry, the hand-hewn table, the quilt on the sofa. Paul considers them from an outsider's point of view, and he feels at once self-conscious and proud. It's kitsch, but it's, well, home. "This is cozy," John remarks, which doesn't clarify whether he appreciates it or hates it.

"Keeps us dry when it rains," Paul says, and does his best not to press.

John turns back to Paul. "What's there to do around here?"

"Have you eaten?"

John shakes his head. "Starving."

Paul spins around with a smile. As he makes his way to the fridge, John adds, "Why? Gonna kill the fatted calf?"

"We don't keep cows." Paul emerges from the fridge with the picnic hamper and a naked grin. It's so well-packed that the bottles of milk don't even clink as he lifts the basket, his eyebrows high with hope.

"Oh, do let's," John twitters, airy and delicate like a fine lady, tossing his head and batting his lashes with a dead expression. The mockery arrives a bit flat when his head-toss nearly launches his glasses off his nose, and he has to quickly push them back up.

Paul doesn't back down from the dig, either. If John wants to be an Edwardian gentle lady, he'll hear no complaints from Paul. He crooks his elbow, offering it out to John. John takes it--in those boots, he's almost-almost a little bit taller--and they stroll out the Dutch door.

They don't get to play Mary Poppins for long. A few steps out, Paul concedes that he needs both hands to support the basket. John storms off ahead, pretending great offense that Paul doesn't want to hold his hand anymore. It's minutes later before John realizes he might not be the best candidate to walk in front, as he doesn't know where they're going.

"It's not far," Paul says. "You can see the meadow, just ahead."

John manages not to get lost, but their journey is delayed several times when he needs to stop and pick something out of his sock. The spear-head seeds of the wild grasses lodge themselves in his expensive clothes, adorn his pant legs, fill his shoes.

"Ow!--God damn it," John snaps. For the ninth time, he stands on one foot and wobbles dangerously as he attempts to rid the other one of stickers.

"Just wait until we get there and get them all out then," says Paul. "You're only going to get more anyway. It's just over this hill."

He's underselling it a bit. The hill in question is deceptively steep; it might be the highest point on the otherwise uniform moors. John gripes about the trek and the burrs, Paul smugly advises him to dress for the environment next time, but soon, they're both panting too hard to jeer at each other.

It's starting to worry Paul, actually, how hard he's breathing. Not just the reminder that he's no spring chicken and should probably smoke less than he does, but now every lungful is starting to burn. Every inhale makes his head feel thick and fuzzy with a deep, flowery itch. This isn't good. He thought--he wanted to be certain that it was too early in the year for everything to be germinating, but alas, it is. The air is earthy and sweet with pollen, and fuck if John isn't kicking up more and more with every stomp, just in time for Paul to walk through its wake.

This isn't fair, Paul thinks. He's usually got more warning than this. Enough to plan around it. The hay didn't bother him at all this morning, not even on the second pass through the stalls, when the dust made his throat sting. Apparently, that doesn't mean he's in the clear. Though alfalfa hay isn't always the best litmus test--sometimes it gets to him, sometimes it doesn't. The wild grasses, on the other hand? Always. Just not this bloody early in the season, he thinks as his eyes start to water.

He could walk ahead of John, he supposes, get less of it kicked up his nose. But back here, he's got the distinct advantage of discretion. He can paw and scrub at his twitching nose all he wants (and then some more, when the itch immediately returns) without attracting attention. It's a pain, a real Sisyphean drag, but it's not more than he can manage.

Paul feels the first sneeze coming a mile away. A tingling that starts in the back of his nose and creeps up, spreads out, little by little. It feels too small, at first, for anything to come of it (Paul wonders if it'll be one of those that just teases him for a few hours), but it builds until it's bigger than his head. Before he can gasp in too much air, he seals his lips, holds his breath...but it doesn't matter, he can't stop it--

"hdt--!"

He has to clamp a thumb and finger around his nose to hold it in, squelch it down to nothing. The awful pounding feeling in his sinuses that results is almost enough to make him regret it, but what's the alternative? John's attention should be on the landscape, not on...shit, there's another one... "hdt--mph!" It feels like he's imploding, but he shakes his head free and tries to catch his breath. One sniffle against his sleeve, then he should be all right for a while.

Paul's so preoccupied and bleary-eyed, he nearly bowls into John, who's stopped at the top of the hill.

"Woodie Guthrie, eh?" John asks, hands on his hips, gazing out at the land, and Paul has to admit, it does look like the American prairie.

"Mm," Paul nods, blinking, pursing his lips together, just in case.

It's only a few steps down to the meadow, where it's flat enough to lay out the-- "Shit!" Paul suddenly spits, so quick and percussive it almost scratches the itch for a moment. Just fucking typical.

"What?"

"I've forgotten the picnic blanket." Paul hears, as soon as he says it, that he sounds like an A. A. Milne character; Oh, bother. But what are they meant to do--sit in the grass?

Without a second thought, John does just that, stretching out on his back like it's carpet (and not, for example, a blanket of weeds that practically trembles to cover them both in seeds and pollen). "The water's warm," he offers, swirling his arms and making the grasses ripple.

Paul tries not to shiver as he sits cross-legged on the ground. At least he remembered the picnic lunch; he spent half the morning cobbling it together. Cheese, berries, honey, cucumber sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, scones with jam. Milk and a small flagon of wine. (A lovely set of checkered napkins, too--Paul sequesters one away in his pocket, just in case worst should come to worst.)

"Is that your place?" John points at the valley below them.

Paul squints, then nods. "Yeah." His farmhouse is storybook-sized from where they're sitting. They've come a long way.

"How many acres is it?"

"We've--" Paul's about to answer, but his eyes flood and his breath skips. It comes up on him so fast down here, at nose level with the grass, that he scarcely has time to duck sideways against his wrist and catch two more sneezes he can't quite suppress. "Two hundred," he quickly breathes, before he's quite out of the grip of the second one. His face burns--some of it's allergic flush, some of it's the hike, but either way, he doesn't look at John.

"Bless you."

Paul doesn't know why it's so unexpected. But the shock of hearing John say it is enough to scare off a third sneeze that's fighting its way out. So casual, unconcerned. Paul rubs his nose, trying to soothe the burning, pulsing ache left behind when the sneeze retreated. John, mercifully, leaves it at that, and they eat.

"I just don't get it."

It's John who breaks the silence, which Paul is grateful for, but it strikes him dumb. He casts a puzzled look at John, who clarifies, "Why would you want to live out here?"

"What?" Paul knows he's talking on borrowed time, so he gets to the point. "It's beautiful. What d'you mean, why?"

"To look at, sure, but..." John takes off his glasses and folds them in the basket. "What do you do, day by day, month after month?"

"I..." Paul has to press a fist under his nose just to keep the breath in his lungs. It's a temporary fix, a finger in the dam, but as soon as he's able, he huffs, "There's a lot that goes into running a farm, you know."

"But why do it? What for? What was the point of getting rich and famous if you're just gonna live like it's the bloody nineteenth century--"

"Is that why you did it?" Paul coughs. Sniffs. "To get rich and famous?"

"That's why we did it. Or at least, that's what you told me, every day for ten years. If I'd known this was what you meant by 'the toppermost of the--'"

"I did-...Sorry..." Paul can't get two words of his interruption out before the need to sneeze nearly blinds him, and he has to twist away and grab his nose. He pitches forward three times, small and sharp, too quick in succession to breathe in between. As he straightens, catching his breath at last, he considers that he could probably keep it down to one at a time if he didn't try to hold them in. But really, there's only so much humiliation he can take. "God," he rasps, shaking his head. "That's...sorry."

"Bless you," says John, plowing right through the threshold. "You all right?"

"Fine. I just..." Paul closes his eyes briefly. He runs the edge of a finger under his nose, a quick swipe to keep it dry. "Well, I did it because I loved writing songs. I couldn't do anything else."

John doesn't push back on that--how could he? It's as true for him as it is for Paul, so it's back to knocking the farm. "There's nothing out here," he says.

"My family's out here."

"Your family's all over." John's voice drops slightly, like he's started to check out of the conversation. Only occasionally does he look at Paul. "There's real life happening out there, you know, in cities. Art and culture. There's a war on, as well, right now."

Paul's skin crawls. It's sweat from the heat of the day, it's everything John's saying, but this godforsaken grass... He rubs at his wrists, his neck, trying not to dig his nails in. He itches.

John doesn't notice, or he doesn't care. "But it's happening out there, not here. Sure, raise your family, raise a couple of goats. Raise a giraffe for all I care. But at what point do you pull your head out of the sand--"

"This was supposed to be perfect." Paul spits it out, half-laughing. This is just too absurd. It's too stupid. "I had it all planned out. Can you believe that?" John's gone quiet, but Paul can't seem to shut up. "I was going to bring you out here, and I wouldn't have to explain anything, you'd just...you'd just--" Paul gasps like he's drowning and lets out a shuddering sneeze into his fist. It's so unsatisfying he could cry. The first of many to come, and doesn't that just fucking figure? Bloody perfect. He might as well keep babbling and make a proper ass of himself. "You'd just see it, and you'd get it, I don't know, the--hh'chhew!" Across the back of his hand.

"Paul."

"The house, the animals..." Paul's trying to talk through the wrist he's jammed over his top lip, which is starting to feel like it's for nothing. "The land, th--hh-!...'Ttchhoo! God, the fresh fucking air..." He rises clumsily to his feet, trying to put a little distance between his head and the fresh air in question, just in time to whip around and muffle a violent sneeze with the cuff of his sleeve. With an exasperated huff, Paul goes digging for the checked napkin. He has to laugh once more as he folds it over his nose. It's just...sad. "Sorry. Bloody hell. This was going to be nice."

"I don't mind," John says earnestly. Paul makes a noise of dismissal, so John appends, "Paul, look at me."

Over the tent of red-and-white cloth, Paul looks.

John's face is soft and open. At the edges, maybe a bit pink from the hike and the sun. There's not a hint of derision. "I don't mind. I don't."

Paul casts his eyes down and turns away. "Thanks," he mutters, before drawing a tentative breath and blowing his nose. Straight away, a cool rush of relief--but only temporary, he knows. As soon as he starts to breathe again, the time bomb begins to tick.

John waits patiently for Paul to turn back around before he asks, "Hayfever?"

"...Yeah." Paul's cheeks lift as he tries to squash a mortified smile. "Well, but it's. Not hay that does it." Usually.

"Bloody well hope not. You might be in the wrong line for that, mate." John plucks a wildflower from the grass, tall and straight with a stiff violet plume. "What about them?"

"Um. Not too bad." Bit by bit, Paul's smile twists into something resembling laughter. "It's mostly the grass, I think. The weeds."

"Hmm." John brings it close and sniffs, blinks curiously, then leans in for another sniff. His face is solemn as stone.

For a moment, Paul feels bold. "Not givin' you any trouble, is it?"

John shakes his head. "I don't get hayfever anymore. 'M cured."

"What?"

"I get a jab once a month." John taps his left shoulder. "Yoko knows a fella, a doctor. Used to be every week, at first, could hardly stand it. But it's done wonders for me voice." John gives the wildflower one more sniff and shrugs, raises his eyebrows. Nada.

Paul gives a snorting scoff, and pays for it with a short spell of coughing. "Sounds nice. I'll take your word for it."

"Nah. I miss it." To Paul's heart-stopping surprise, John inverts the flower, pokes the end of the stem into his nostril, and swirls it around.

Paul's eyes widen. "What're you--"

"ahhh..." John's mouth lolls open, drinking air. His head tips back, his nose wrinkles, and he sneezes, hard enough to shake his whole body. "hh'ESCHhiew!"

Even with ample warning, Paul jumps very slightly. How pathetic is it that his heart's thumping double-time now? Only, he supposes, it's been a while. He wants to say something--call him an idiot, give him the full rites of the Catholic Church. All he can do is laugh.

John groans lightly. Once he's recovered enough to acknowledge his audience, he throws Paul a wink. "For auld lang syne." He tosses the flower, and it disappears into the grass.

Paul's not sure if that's quite what Rabbie Burns had in mind. He opens his mouth to tell John as much (in a Scots accent, to boot), but what comes out is: "I've missed you." His eyes itch and fill with tears--it's the pollen.

"Yeah, I heard." John's face stiffens as he hears himself say it, like he didn't mean to be so flippant. By way of an apology, he offers Paul a sandwich, saving him from sitting down again, and Paul accepts it. "I wish...It's silly, but I wish we could...All right, there?"

The itch that's been toying with Paul finally blossoms, and he jolts into the hand that's not holding a sandwich. "hh'nkxtch!"

John chuckles softly, in the most non-derisive way possible, blesses him, and announces that they're heading back now. Paul can only snuffle and gather up the basket.

---

"That head-in-the-sand bit, I didn't mean that."

John starts rehashing the argument when they've made it back to the farmhouse in once piece--which was no guarantee. Paul doesn't slow down, never mind stop sneezing until he's had a wash, changed his clothes, and flushed out his head with warm water. John did, in fact, bring different clothes, each outfit more extravagant and ill-suited to farm life than the last. But he changes too, resolves to burn his sticker-laden socks. It's only once tea is served that he revisits the matter of Paul's farm.

"I don't think you're hiding," he says, "whatever this is. But I don't know why you're so married to this place, if that's not true."

"Why do you care?" Paul sets his cup down. "It's not your life, is it?"

"Evidently not." There's a little venom to it.

"John." Paul does the opposite, drops his voice to his head register, retracts his claws. "Why are we doing this? I can't come back to London."

John looks down with a tight, joyless smile. "I can kid myself, can't I?"

"Look, it's--" Paul lifts up his hands. "Think what you want of me, but my home's here."

John's quiet. It tears Paul up, but there's a sense of relief that comes with it, too; if he were going to say something biting, something really unforgivable, it would've slipped out without a pause. He's quick like that. Paul doesn't know how he ever endured it. He can't see how he'll live without it.

"I miss it, too," John says.

Paul feels caught. Struck. They're having two different conversations and still managed to run into one another, in a clatter of heads and a tangle of limbs. It's a dead end. A corner.

This isn't what Paul invited him for.

Paul swigs his tea and marches into the bedroom. He returns with a cotton shirt, a pair of dungarees, and a battered pair of socks. "Put these on," Paul orders before John can ask, and dumps the bundle of clothes on his lap.

"Are you kicking me out?" John calls over his shoulder, but Paul's already in the bathroom. He returns with an antihistamine pill--pink, horse-sized, the kind that may as well be a sedative--and swallows it with the rest of his tea.

"In half an hour, this'll kick in," Paul explains. "And then I'm going to teach you how to ride a horse." He turns around as John's face is morphing from puzzlement to glee, hoping he'll change his clothes if given the privacy of the living room.

"Can you show me that song?" John pipes. The one you said I'd hate.

Paul bites his lip and goes off in search of his guitar.