Rain (Without Saying Goodbye) [s/a]
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: John/Paul
Disclaimer: Burn me alive if this is real, promise.
Summary: “You’re a fuckin’ bastard, John, for doing this,” he says. Paul’s clothes stick to his thinning frame with the moisture of the sky. John would have felt offended by the comment if the rain wasn’t still falling, falling, falling.
“You left,” Paul says, “You left without saying goodbye.” Paul and John, they’re everywhere at once. Lights are flashing in the dark. A storm. A dream. A storm is in Paul’s dream, his nightmare, and lightning surrounds him.
The weather is nearly silent, a whisper, and the thunder is merely a stone falling in the distance. With each drop of rain, they can hear John’s name. John. John was in this, too.
“Silly Paul,” He says. They’re both seventeen again, and the severity of the storm is a figment of their adolescent exaggeration. “Now that just isn’t true.”
Paul glares at John. The thunder, the rock in the place far ahead of them is rapping against Paul’s ribcage now, in a rhythm that makes his knees weaken and eyes sharpen with pain and a newfound sense of rage.
They’re both seventeen again. John is smoking a cigarette, the smoke twisting out of his mouth and forming practiced rings that float into the air; they disappear by means of the pouring rain, the rain that calls John’s name.
John, John, Johnny.
They’re teenagers and Paul is yelling at John for taking the train home without him. They’re eternal and Paul is yelling at John for dying without a final goodbye - a formal one; one that Paul would have no doubt performed himself, had the roles been switched.
John. John.
They’re everywhere at once. Each time the lightning strikes, John is at a different stage in his life. He shakes his head and laughs. Paul feels his heart beat a mile away.
“Why, John, why did you leave?”
When John smiles, it’s fairly surreal, his teeth gleaming in the light that doesn’t seem to exist, the clouds obstructing any rays that the sun may have been so generous to give. Strangely, though, John is not wet. John is in a perfect state, and Paul thinks for but a fraction of a second that maybe John is all in his head.
John continues smiling, and he takes a drag of his cigarette. Paul can feel the ashes in his chest, the fire in his eyes.
“You left me here with nothing. No memory, no pictures, no special note, not even a bloody goodbye. Would that have been so damn hard, John? Just one simple goodbye? It sure as hell wouldn’t have killed you.” Morbid humor from a morbid man. Morbid humor from a morbid man at the expense of a dead man. Some things are just unavoidable in life.
John knows better than to contradict Paul when he’s in the middle of a tantrum, so he doesn’t. The rain keeps falling, calling John’s name, begging,
John, John, please, Johnny.
“I mean, we started out so great, John, so bloody great, and just…” Paul throws his hands in the air; he’s drenched, while John remains as dry as the bones he used to have. Paul is a train wreck while his counterpart remains patient and calm. The lightning flashes twice, and John thinks for a moment that somehow their roles must have been switched. Their scripts mixed up.
“Why did you have to go?”
John. John. John.
John shakes his head, which is starting to hurt from all the mentions of his name. A dagger twists inside of Paul for each moment he doesn’t speak, and it’s enough to tear Paul’s chest to pieces, to rip it open and carve him out, to spill the contents of him all over the pavement, staining it red, a sick sort of malice and pain filled color.
The streets stay clean, though. Paul is the only thing soaking in all of New York.
John is about so speak, but instead, Paul continues, as if all of the things that he’d been longing to say, all of the things that didn’t make it into the oh-so-heartwarming songs were spilling uncontrollably off the tip of his tongue, out of his eyes, out of every possibly orifice of his being.
“You’re a fuckin’ bastard, John, for doing this,” he says. Paul’s clothes stick to his thinning frame with the moisture of the sky. John would have felt offended by the comment if the rain wasn’t still falling, falling, falling.
John, please, John.
When Paul tries to finish his nonsensical thoughts, filled to the brim with anger that may not be so rational, John slaps him and he stops. The sound reverberates throughout the whole world, throughout the entirety of Paul’s mind.
“Stop talking,” He says in a voice calmer than Paul had expected. If only for a moment, the rain stops, hesitant, and Paul is left there dripping, dripping, a mess from all the tears he had never cried when the clock had told him it was right.
“Paul,” John says, and he steps closer, and since it’s John, he doesn’t say what’s on the script for this scene. “Of course I didn’t say goodbye, you twit, why would I?”
Paul looks at John like he’s gone crazy; but if John is in Paul’s head, does that men Paul is crazy, too? Paul is obviously confused. Vexed. John looks at him expectantly, as if he’s waiting for him to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“I don’t…” Paul says, “I don’t understand.”
John smiles when Paul says this, because it’s then that he knows they’re getting somewhere.
“Look around you, Paul,” John says, and he gestures with an exaggerated motion to the street around them, suddenly bustling with people, the morning light hitting the glossy pavement in such a way as to make it shine with the aftermath of the rain. Music is in the air, a tune that was all too familiar, and John smirks, “I never left.”
When Paul wakes up, the thunder in his heart and the lightning in his eyes are outside again. When he goes back to sleep, an uneasy rest to say the least, John doesn’t show up again. John tends to leave people hanging.
“I never left.”
Paul doesn’t remember his dream the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, but his subconscious gets the message.
**
Paul sees John everywhere; everywhere imaginable holds some sort of allusion to his friend long since gone (Although, was he really gone if Paul could still see him?) but if Paul had ever told anybody that, he’d be undoubtedly deemed the mad man he recognized himself to be with a smile on his face and a witty sort of glint to his eye.
For starters, Paul sees John in the mirror.
Every morning when he wakes up, when he stares into that piece of reflective glass that the human race seems to be so caught up in, John is there, the effects of him still as visible as the pictures of him littering the floor of Paul’s memory, as visible as the tangible matter of which Paul is composed. Every morning, he sees the remnants of John in the laugh lines surrounding his eyes, the very essence of his friend sunken into the skin that wrinkles every time Paul smiles, each depression of skin representing a time when John had been there, the cause of the laughter, creating a fond memory in Paul’s mind. Paul can still hear John’s laugh when he looks at those lines, and he smiles at the mirror, just so he can remember. He figures he’ll always remember John as long as he smiles, so he does more often than not.
Paul sees John in the street, in the cracks of the worn and weary downtown Manhattan pavement. He sees his friend in the faces of the citizens themselves; the many faces of John Lennon and How He Affected New York. He sees John sprayed across the walls in all of the expressive artwork painting the buildings in misunderstood words, deft twists of a spray can or a paint brush resulting in a piece of work that would have made his friend smile. A wall is dedicated to his memory, and Paul smirks at it, the little piece of John in him cracking a grin along with him. John had never been very materialistic, no, not towards the end, anyway; it was the little things that had counted. Still count.
The End. The words, to Paul, seemed so inaccurate, really, because when he looked around, seeing John in all these secret places, even sometimes hearing his snarky comments in his mind, it was as if John didn’t really have an end.
The boy two years his elder had always told Paul that he wanted to go out on fire. He wanted to go down in a way that would have everyone talking.
“Joke’s on you, John,” Paul says to himself sometimes, “you never went out at all, did you?” Of course John doesn’t reply, but he smirks, because that’s what he’s been saying for years now.
Paul hears John sometimes, in the bustle of the street that John had told him he loved once upon a warm phone call; and among the most obvious places, he hears him on the radio. Paul can hear the reverberations of John’s countless messages, ringing through the ages in spectacular, almost visible strands of hope for generations among generations to come. Paul smiles and smiles, memories enrapturing his mind, and John seems to be omnipresent, even post mortem.
Paul sees John in the eyes of the youth, their passion apparent and their yearning for revolution and change evident in every step they take. Paul sees John’s face in every peace sign, music note, and act of kindness that he should pass on his merry way. Paul sees John here, there, and everywhere, quite frankly, with none of those awful sort of music puns (his own kind, how can you sink lower?) involved in his thoughts.
It’s then that a strange sort of sensation washes over Paul, as if he’d thought these thoughts before, heard them spoken, perhaps in a dream he doesn’t remember. He shrugs it off, though, and he smiles, ready to face this day and every day after that.
Yes, John Lennon tends to leave people hanging , but never without a clue.
Pairing: John/Paul
Disclaimer: Burn me alive if this is real, promise.
Summary: “You’re a fuckin’ bastard, John, for doing this,” he says. Paul’s clothes stick to his thinning frame with the moisture of the sky. John would have felt offended by the comment if the rain wasn’t still falling, falling, falling.
“You left,” Paul says, “You left without saying goodbye.” Paul and John, they’re everywhere at once. Lights are flashing in the dark. A storm. A dream. A storm is in Paul’s dream, his nightmare, and lightning surrounds him.
The weather is nearly silent, a whisper, and the thunder is merely a stone falling in the distance. With each drop of rain, they can hear John’s name. John. John was in this, too.
“Silly Paul,” He says. They’re both seventeen again, and the severity of the storm is a figment of their adolescent exaggeration. “Now that just isn’t true.”
Paul glares at John. The thunder, the rock in the place far ahead of them is rapping against Paul’s ribcage now, in a rhythm that makes his knees weaken and eyes sharpen with pain and a newfound sense of rage.
They’re both seventeen again. John is smoking a cigarette, the smoke twisting out of his mouth and forming practiced rings that float into the air; they disappear by means of the pouring rain, the rain that calls John’s name.
John, John, Johnny.
They’re teenagers and Paul is yelling at John for taking the train home without him. They’re eternal and Paul is yelling at John for dying without a final goodbye - a formal one; one that Paul would have no doubt performed himself, had the roles been switched.
John. John.
They’re everywhere at once. Each time the lightning strikes, John is at a different stage in his life. He shakes his head and laughs. Paul feels his heart beat a mile away.
“Why, John, why did you leave?”
When John smiles, it’s fairly surreal, his teeth gleaming in the light that doesn’t seem to exist, the clouds obstructing any rays that the sun may have been so generous to give. Strangely, though, John is not wet. John is in a perfect state, and Paul thinks for but a fraction of a second that maybe John is all in his head.
John continues smiling, and he takes a drag of his cigarette. Paul can feel the ashes in his chest, the fire in his eyes.
“You left me here with nothing. No memory, no pictures, no special note, not even a bloody goodbye. Would that have been so damn hard, John? Just one simple goodbye? It sure as hell wouldn’t have killed you.” Morbid humor from a morbid man. Morbid humor from a morbid man at the expense of a dead man. Some things are just unavoidable in life.
John knows better than to contradict Paul when he’s in the middle of a tantrum, so he doesn’t. The rain keeps falling, calling John’s name, begging,
John, John, please, Johnny.
“I mean, we started out so great, John, so bloody great, and just…” Paul throws his hands in the air; he’s drenched, while John remains as dry as the bones he used to have. Paul is a train wreck while his counterpart remains patient and calm. The lightning flashes twice, and John thinks for a moment that somehow their roles must have been switched. Their scripts mixed up.
“Why did you have to go?”
John. John. John.
John shakes his head, which is starting to hurt from all the mentions of his name. A dagger twists inside of Paul for each moment he doesn’t speak, and it’s enough to tear Paul’s chest to pieces, to rip it open and carve him out, to spill the contents of him all over the pavement, staining it red, a sick sort of malice and pain filled color.
The streets stay clean, though. Paul is the only thing soaking in all of New York.
John is about so speak, but instead, Paul continues, as if all of the things that he’d been longing to say, all of the things that didn’t make it into the oh-so-heartwarming songs were spilling uncontrollably off the tip of his tongue, out of his eyes, out of every possibly orifice of his being.
“You’re a fuckin’ bastard, John, for doing this,” he says. Paul’s clothes stick to his thinning frame with the moisture of the sky. John would have felt offended by the comment if the rain wasn’t still falling, falling, falling.
John, please, John.
When Paul tries to finish his nonsensical thoughts, filled to the brim with anger that may not be so rational, John slaps him and he stops. The sound reverberates throughout the whole world, throughout the entirety of Paul’s mind.
“Stop talking,” He says in a voice calmer than Paul had expected. If only for a moment, the rain stops, hesitant, and Paul is left there dripping, dripping, a mess from all the tears he had never cried when the clock had told him it was right.
“Paul,” John says, and he steps closer, and since it’s John, he doesn’t say what’s on the script for this scene. “Of course I didn’t say goodbye, you twit, why would I?”
Paul looks at John like he’s gone crazy; but if John is in Paul’s head, does that men Paul is crazy, too? Paul is obviously confused. Vexed. John looks at him expectantly, as if he’s waiting for him to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“I don’t…” Paul says, “I don’t understand.”
John smiles when Paul says this, because it’s then that he knows they’re getting somewhere.
“Look around you, Paul,” John says, and he gestures with an exaggerated motion to the street around them, suddenly bustling with people, the morning light hitting the glossy pavement in such a way as to make it shine with the aftermath of the rain. Music is in the air, a tune that was all too familiar, and John smirks, “I never left.”
When Paul wakes up, the thunder in his heart and the lightning in his eyes are outside again. When he goes back to sleep, an uneasy rest to say the least, John doesn’t show up again. John tends to leave people hanging.
“I never left.”
Paul doesn’t remember his dream the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, but his subconscious gets the message.
**
Paul sees John everywhere; everywhere imaginable holds some sort of allusion to his friend long since gone (Although, was he really gone if Paul could still see him?) but if Paul had ever told anybody that, he’d be undoubtedly deemed the mad man he recognized himself to be with a smile on his face and a witty sort of glint to his eye.
For starters, Paul sees John in the mirror.
Every morning when he wakes up, when he stares into that piece of reflective glass that the human race seems to be so caught up in, John is there, the effects of him still as visible as the pictures of him littering the floor of Paul’s memory, as visible as the tangible matter of which Paul is composed. Every morning, he sees the remnants of John in the laugh lines surrounding his eyes, the very essence of his friend sunken into the skin that wrinkles every time Paul smiles, each depression of skin representing a time when John had been there, the cause of the laughter, creating a fond memory in Paul’s mind. Paul can still hear John’s laugh when he looks at those lines, and he smiles at the mirror, just so he can remember. He figures he’ll always remember John as long as he smiles, so he does more often than not.
Paul sees John in the street, in the cracks of the worn and weary downtown Manhattan pavement. He sees his friend in the faces of the citizens themselves; the many faces of John Lennon and How He Affected New York. He sees John sprayed across the walls in all of the expressive artwork painting the buildings in misunderstood words, deft twists of a spray can or a paint brush resulting in a piece of work that would have made his friend smile. A wall is dedicated to his memory, and Paul smirks at it, the little piece of John in him cracking a grin along with him. John had never been very materialistic, no, not towards the end, anyway; it was the little things that had counted. Still count.
The End. The words, to Paul, seemed so inaccurate, really, because when he looked around, seeing John in all these secret places, even sometimes hearing his snarky comments in his mind, it was as if John didn’t really have an end.
The boy two years his elder had always told Paul that he wanted to go out on fire. He wanted to go down in a way that would have everyone talking.
“Joke’s on you, John,” Paul says to himself sometimes, “you never went out at all, did you?” Of course John doesn’t reply, but he smirks, because that’s what he’s been saying for years now.
Paul hears John sometimes, in the bustle of the street that John had told him he loved once upon a warm phone call; and among the most obvious places, he hears him on the radio. Paul can hear the reverberations of John’s countless messages, ringing through the ages in spectacular, almost visible strands of hope for generations among generations to come. Paul smiles and smiles, memories enrapturing his mind, and John seems to be omnipresent, even post mortem.
Paul sees John in the eyes of the youth, their passion apparent and their yearning for revolution and change evident in every step they take. Paul sees John’s face in every peace sign, music note, and act of kindness that he should pass on his merry way. Paul sees John here, there, and everywhere, quite frankly, with none of those awful sort of music puns (his own kind, how can you sink lower?) involved in his thoughts.
It’s then that a strange sort of sensation washes over Paul, as if he’d thought these thoughts before, heard them spoken, perhaps in a dream he doesn’t remember. He shrugs it off, though, and he smiles, ready to face this day and every day after that.
Yes, John Lennon tends to leave people hanging , but never without a clue.