Fic: Sink in Good Oblivion, John/George, PG-13
Title: Sink in Good Oblivion
Pairing: John/George
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2051
Notes: Hamburg!fic! First (completed) attempt at Beatles slash. I'm particulary surprised that I've developed this soft spot for John/George with all my J/P shipping. But I'll take it.
It became a cycle: by the time the second set rolled around, they needed the prellies just to make it through, then came the twitching hours laying in bed as the room grew slowly lighter, and finally they crashed for a few hours before Koschmeider pounded on the door, waking them up just in time to do it all again. They were slowly adjusting. Paul found it easier to get by without the pills most nights, or at least he didn’t pound them back by the fistful like the others. Pete managed to kip anywhere, nodding off in the corner between sets even with the noise of the club around him. John and Stu counteracted the pills with booze and fucking, and after an hour or so of the two, they passed out. George, however, was stuck. He couldn’t adjust to the late hours, the throbbing headaches that wouldn’t quit, the lumpy mattress that was not his own.
George hadn’t slept in three days.
He felt John’s eyes on him that night as his fingers slipped clumsily through the chords, and he turned away, trying to hide his fingers the way Stu did, which was fucking ridiculous because he could play, and here he was about to be kicked out when Stu could barely play three chords properly.
“Pull it together, mate,” Paul told him between songs, his eyes full of sympathy, but his tone, like it always was when it came to the band, all business.
Pete shook the tube of Preludin at him, but George shook his head, his vision swimming. He was exhausted, but as long as he stayed straight until the end of the set, there was the delicious possibility of sleep. One night of shite playing-John couldn’t kick him out for that.
Paul pulled him up to the bar after they finished and shoved a glass in his hands.
“It’ll knock you out. John and Stu pulled a couple of birds, but I told them to conduct their affairs elsewhere. Should give you the chance for a bit of rest.”
George grimaced as he swallowed the contents of the glass with a vague notion to ask what he was consuming. “Ta.”
Paul watched the bar for a moment and chewed his lip. “Look. I know you want to prove yourself to me and John, and believe me, we’re sold. You’re probably the best musician in the group.” George braced himself for whatever unpleasantness he sensed coming. “But you’re seventeen, and it’s your first time away from home, and if you want to go back, we’ll understand.”
“I’m not going back.”
“It may be-”
“Leave it. I’m not going back.” George emptied his glass and set it back on the bar. “I’m going to bed.”
Paul gave him a nod and let the subject drop. “I’ll try to keep Pete out for a bit. Give you a chance to get settled.”
“Ta,” George said again.
Back in the rooms, George was alone. He pulled off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor before crawling heavy-limbed into bed. For the first time, he didn’t mind the lumps or the faint smell of the mattress or the scratchiness of the blanket. He just wanted to sleep. If he didn’t, he was pretty sure he would die.
Half an hour later, Paul and Pete entered with soft steps and hushed voices, both crawling into bed and snoring softly within minutes. George was still awake, mind buzzing with a mantra of stop thinking stop thinking and sleep stop thinking sleep sleep sleep that kept him from actually following through on those thoughts. Avoiding the prellies hadn’t helped. The drink hadn’t helped. Being left alone hadn’t helped. With a groan, George decided there was nothing left that could help.
And he was still awake two hours later when John returned, the time having passed with a grainy slowness he felt grate through his lungs with each breath and drag across his skin as he shifted in the sheets. He heard John pause in the hallway, then the harsh, determined clicks of his boots against the concrete until finally, John appeared in his line of vision: his eyes, two glints in the otherwise dark room.
“Still up, I see? What would your mother say?”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s not very polite of her, is it?” He grinned and sat on the edge of George’s bed as he removed his boots and jacket, tossing them in the corner. George sighed and rolled away from him, pulling the blanket up over his head.
John leaned back, his elbow digging into George’s side. “Want me to sing you a lullaby, then, son?”
“Just piss off.”
George was winding tighter and tighter with each second and knew John sensed it. Which was why John was pushing his buttons, hoping to find the right combination to make him snap. It’s what he always did, and usually George was determined not to give him the satisfaction. But tonight he was too tired to give him the same back as he usually did.
The mattress shifted, and John crawled across him, wedging himself between George and the wall, pulling the blanket away from his head. “Come on, Georgie, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”
George felt a lump rising in his throat, due to exhaustion or frustration or what he wasn’t quite sure, and buried his face in his pillow. The last thing he needed was to cry in front of John fucking Lennon.
“Will you please just leave me alone? Please?”
“We’ll have to ship you back to your mum, then. No other way. Can’t have some kid lurking about the Reeperbahn with the big boys, now, can we?” John prodded him in the side. “Eh?”
George sat up abruptly. “Just fucking leave it, will you? For fuck’s sake.” He hoped John didn’t notice the way his voice cracked on the last word, or the way his shoulders and hands were shaking, or the way he was every bit the stupid kid John made him out to be. “I’ll go home, okay? Is that all you want? I’ll go home tomorrow if you just leave me alone.”
He heard John sit up behind him, waited for the biting remarks and the too-hard-to-be-playful pinches. A hand rested on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, and George held his breath.
“Close your eyes,” John said, his tone unnaturally soft.
George sniffed and knew that if he closed his eyes, the frustrated tears would squeeze out and that would be the end of it.
“Close ‘em,” he repeated, adding a little shake to show that he was still in charge, and George obeyed.
He quickly swiped away the hot paths his tears had taken down his cheeks, even though there was no way John could see them in the dark. Knowing John, George thought, he probably would have smelled them or tasted them in the air with some animal sense no one else possessed, and then he would never have heard the end of it.
With his eyes closed, George’s other senses heightened, and he shivered as John’s warm fingers traced down the back of his neck before digging in harder, kneading away the tension and aches. George could feel his heart pounding at the simple intimacy of someone else’s hands on him and took deep breaths to calm himself, inhaling the scent of leather, smoke, and scotch that John always seemed to carry with him. His jaw clenched with the worry that this would end up being yet another way that John was taking the piss out of him, but after a couple of minutes, he decided that he didn’t care. It felt too good. John’s hands moved surely over the muscles of George’s neck and shoulders, slid down to gently massage his lower back, and even smoothed along his arms, coaxing away the ache of eight hours of playing.
Slowly, George started to relax and under the easy rhythm of John’s hands, he started to drift off, finally, miraculously. He wouldn’t have known he had fallen asleep but for the jolt he received when John’s arms slid around him suddenly, pulling him back against the older boy’s chest to keep him from pitching head first to the floor. With one arm still wrapped around him, John continued to rub at his shoulder for a moment before pulling them both back down to the pillow.
George tried to mumble a thank you, some expression of how grateful he was to taste sleep again and willing to give John every ounce of credit. Instead, all that came out was a half-formed sigh.
“Sleep,” John whispered against his ear, and George did.
When he awoke, he wasn’t sure how long he had slept, but thrilled with the simple and nearly forgotten sensation of waking. He let out a long breath and smiled with relief. The rooms were light, but hazy, indicating that it was late afternoon. He could hear the others talking in the other room, John’s voice rising above the others as it often did, and that was when, with an unnamable terror, George remembered the events of the night before, wiping away all calm brought by rest.
Straining to hear the topic of conversation, he pulled on his clothes from the night before. John was probably telling the others how he had found the kid crying into his pillow, how they had to send him home, how they were probably better off without him. After all, it was only after George had agreed to leave that John had stopped harassing him. John was never nice without reason, and he had been a bloody angel the night before in George’s estimation; he probably had wanted to soften the blow of shipping him back to Liverpool.
Prepared to defend his place in the band with the fact that he still knew more chords than Paul and John combined, George made his way in to see the others.
“Ah, here she is, Sleeping Beauty!” John announced his presence to the others with a grin.
“All right?” Paul asked.
“Better,” George admitted, still eyeing the others carefully, waiting for the expected ribbing.
Pete stood up. “Come on, then. Let’s find something to eat. I’m starving.”
George nodded, bewildered, and returned to the room he shared with Paul and Pete to get his jacket and shoes. John followed, leaning against the doorframe and lighting a ciggie as he waited.
“Did you tell them?” George asked after he heard the outer door shut, indicating that the others had left. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he hated that he let John have this kind of control over him. As if what John said mattered. John was the one who had crawled into bed with him, given him a fucking backrub, and stayed until he fell asleep. And maybe longer. Who knows what time John crawled out of George’s bed. Maybe he had stayed the whole night. George let out a shaky breath at the idea, unsure whether he was upset or pleased.
John shrugged. “Nothing to tell, is there?”
“Yeah?”
And maybe John was right. Maybe none of it mattered. Maybe he was overanalyzing a simple exchange between mates, a rare moment of kindness from John after a rare moment of weakness from himself. George watched him, brows knit, trying to read the glint in his eyes as he pushed off from the doorframe.
“Yeah. Put your fuckin’ shoes on. I’m hungry.”
George smirked to himself as he pulled on his boots. “So I’m still in?”
John took a drag on his cigarette, delaying his answer by a few extra seconds. “Course you are. Just take care better care of yourself. Bad enough I got Stu up there unable to play properly. Don’t need to lose you, too. Now let’s go.”
As George brushed past him with a grin, finally feeling secure in his place in the group, John grabbed his shoulder giving him a firm shake and a stern look. “Don’t let it happen again, son.”
“Stay out of my bed then,” George told him.
John’s eyes narrowed only a brief moment before he grinned. He gave George’s shoulder a shove, and the two headed off to find the others.
Pairing: John/George
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2051
Notes: Hamburg!fic! First (completed) attempt at Beatles slash. I'm particulary surprised that I've developed this soft spot for John/George with all my J/P shipping. But I'll take it.
It became a cycle: by the time the second set rolled around, they needed the prellies just to make it through, then came the twitching hours laying in bed as the room grew slowly lighter, and finally they crashed for a few hours before Koschmeider pounded on the door, waking them up just in time to do it all again. They were slowly adjusting. Paul found it easier to get by without the pills most nights, or at least he didn’t pound them back by the fistful like the others. Pete managed to kip anywhere, nodding off in the corner between sets even with the noise of the club around him. John and Stu counteracted the pills with booze and fucking, and after an hour or so of the two, they passed out. George, however, was stuck. He couldn’t adjust to the late hours, the throbbing headaches that wouldn’t quit, the lumpy mattress that was not his own.
George hadn’t slept in three days.
He felt John’s eyes on him that night as his fingers slipped clumsily through the chords, and he turned away, trying to hide his fingers the way Stu did, which was fucking ridiculous because he could play, and here he was about to be kicked out when Stu could barely play three chords properly.
“Pull it together, mate,” Paul told him between songs, his eyes full of sympathy, but his tone, like it always was when it came to the band, all business.
Pete shook the tube of Preludin at him, but George shook his head, his vision swimming. He was exhausted, but as long as he stayed straight until the end of the set, there was the delicious possibility of sleep. One night of shite playing-John couldn’t kick him out for that.
Paul pulled him up to the bar after they finished and shoved a glass in his hands.
“It’ll knock you out. John and Stu pulled a couple of birds, but I told them to conduct their affairs elsewhere. Should give you the chance for a bit of rest.”
George grimaced as he swallowed the contents of the glass with a vague notion to ask what he was consuming. “Ta.”
Paul watched the bar for a moment and chewed his lip. “Look. I know you want to prove yourself to me and John, and believe me, we’re sold. You’re probably the best musician in the group.” George braced himself for whatever unpleasantness he sensed coming. “But you’re seventeen, and it’s your first time away from home, and if you want to go back, we’ll understand.”
“I’m not going back.”
“It may be-”
“Leave it. I’m not going back.” George emptied his glass and set it back on the bar. “I’m going to bed.”
Paul gave him a nod and let the subject drop. “I’ll try to keep Pete out for a bit. Give you a chance to get settled.”
“Ta,” George said again.
Back in the rooms, George was alone. He pulled off his clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor before crawling heavy-limbed into bed. For the first time, he didn’t mind the lumps or the faint smell of the mattress or the scratchiness of the blanket. He just wanted to sleep. If he didn’t, he was pretty sure he would die.
Half an hour later, Paul and Pete entered with soft steps and hushed voices, both crawling into bed and snoring softly within minutes. George was still awake, mind buzzing with a mantra of stop thinking stop thinking and sleep stop thinking sleep sleep sleep that kept him from actually following through on those thoughts. Avoiding the prellies hadn’t helped. The drink hadn’t helped. Being left alone hadn’t helped. With a groan, George decided there was nothing left that could help.
And he was still awake two hours later when John returned, the time having passed with a grainy slowness he felt grate through his lungs with each breath and drag across his skin as he shifted in the sheets. He heard John pause in the hallway, then the harsh, determined clicks of his boots against the concrete until finally, John appeared in his line of vision: his eyes, two glints in the otherwise dark room.
“Still up, I see? What would your mother say?”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s not very polite of her, is it?” He grinned and sat on the edge of George’s bed as he removed his boots and jacket, tossing them in the corner. George sighed and rolled away from him, pulling the blanket up over his head.
John leaned back, his elbow digging into George’s side. “Want me to sing you a lullaby, then, son?”
“Just piss off.”
George was winding tighter and tighter with each second and knew John sensed it. Which was why John was pushing his buttons, hoping to find the right combination to make him snap. It’s what he always did, and usually George was determined not to give him the satisfaction. But tonight he was too tired to give him the same back as he usually did.
The mattress shifted, and John crawled across him, wedging himself between George and the wall, pulling the blanket away from his head. “Come on, Georgie, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”
George felt a lump rising in his throat, due to exhaustion or frustration or what he wasn’t quite sure, and buried his face in his pillow. The last thing he needed was to cry in front of John fucking Lennon.
“Will you please just leave me alone? Please?”
“We’ll have to ship you back to your mum, then. No other way. Can’t have some kid lurking about the Reeperbahn with the big boys, now, can we?” John prodded him in the side. “Eh?”
George sat up abruptly. “Just fucking leave it, will you? For fuck’s sake.” He hoped John didn’t notice the way his voice cracked on the last word, or the way his shoulders and hands were shaking, or the way he was every bit the stupid kid John made him out to be. “I’ll go home, okay? Is that all you want? I’ll go home tomorrow if you just leave me alone.”
He heard John sit up behind him, waited for the biting remarks and the too-hard-to-be-playful pinches. A hand rested on his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, and George held his breath.
“Close your eyes,” John said, his tone unnaturally soft.
George sniffed and knew that if he closed his eyes, the frustrated tears would squeeze out and that would be the end of it.
“Close ‘em,” he repeated, adding a little shake to show that he was still in charge, and George obeyed.
He quickly swiped away the hot paths his tears had taken down his cheeks, even though there was no way John could see them in the dark. Knowing John, George thought, he probably would have smelled them or tasted them in the air with some animal sense no one else possessed, and then he would never have heard the end of it.
With his eyes closed, George’s other senses heightened, and he shivered as John’s warm fingers traced down the back of his neck before digging in harder, kneading away the tension and aches. George could feel his heart pounding at the simple intimacy of someone else’s hands on him and took deep breaths to calm himself, inhaling the scent of leather, smoke, and scotch that John always seemed to carry with him. His jaw clenched with the worry that this would end up being yet another way that John was taking the piss out of him, but after a couple of minutes, he decided that he didn’t care. It felt too good. John’s hands moved surely over the muscles of George’s neck and shoulders, slid down to gently massage his lower back, and even smoothed along his arms, coaxing away the ache of eight hours of playing.
Slowly, George started to relax and under the easy rhythm of John’s hands, he started to drift off, finally, miraculously. He wouldn’t have known he had fallen asleep but for the jolt he received when John’s arms slid around him suddenly, pulling him back against the older boy’s chest to keep him from pitching head first to the floor. With one arm still wrapped around him, John continued to rub at his shoulder for a moment before pulling them both back down to the pillow.
George tried to mumble a thank you, some expression of how grateful he was to taste sleep again and willing to give John every ounce of credit. Instead, all that came out was a half-formed sigh.
“Sleep,” John whispered against his ear, and George did.
When he awoke, he wasn’t sure how long he had slept, but thrilled with the simple and nearly forgotten sensation of waking. He let out a long breath and smiled with relief. The rooms were light, but hazy, indicating that it was late afternoon. He could hear the others talking in the other room, John’s voice rising above the others as it often did, and that was when, with an unnamable terror, George remembered the events of the night before, wiping away all calm brought by rest.
Straining to hear the topic of conversation, he pulled on his clothes from the night before. John was probably telling the others how he had found the kid crying into his pillow, how they had to send him home, how they were probably better off without him. After all, it was only after George had agreed to leave that John had stopped harassing him. John was never nice without reason, and he had been a bloody angel the night before in George’s estimation; he probably had wanted to soften the blow of shipping him back to Liverpool.
Prepared to defend his place in the band with the fact that he still knew more chords than Paul and John combined, George made his way in to see the others.
“Ah, here she is, Sleeping Beauty!” John announced his presence to the others with a grin.
“All right?” Paul asked.
“Better,” George admitted, still eyeing the others carefully, waiting for the expected ribbing.
Pete stood up. “Come on, then. Let’s find something to eat. I’m starving.”
George nodded, bewildered, and returned to the room he shared with Paul and Pete to get his jacket and shoes. John followed, leaning against the doorframe and lighting a ciggie as he waited.
“Did you tell them?” George asked after he heard the outer door shut, indicating that the others had left. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he hated that he let John have this kind of control over him. As if what John said mattered. John was the one who had crawled into bed with him, given him a fucking backrub, and stayed until he fell asleep. And maybe longer. Who knows what time John crawled out of George’s bed. Maybe he had stayed the whole night. George let out a shaky breath at the idea, unsure whether he was upset or pleased.
John shrugged. “Nothing to tell, is there?”
“Yeah?”
And maybe John was right. Maybe none of it mattered. Maybe he was overanalyzing a simple exchange between mates, a rare moment of kindness from John after a rare moment of weakness from himself. George watched him, brows knit, trying to read the glint in his eyes as he pushed off from the doorframe.
“Yeah. Put your fuckin’ shoes on. I’m hungry.”
George smirked to himself as he pulled on his boots. “So I’m still in?”
John took a drag on his cigarette, delaying his answer by a few extra seconds. “Course you are. Just take care better care of yourself. Bad enough I got Stu up there unable to play properly. Don’t need to lose you, too. Now let’s go.”
As George brushed past him with a grin, finally feeling secure in his place in the group, John grabbed his shoulder giving him a firm shake and a stern look. “Don’t let it happen again, son.”
“Stay out of my bed then,” George told him.
John’s eyes narrowed only a brief moment before he grinned. He gave George’s shoulder a shove, and the two headed off to find the others.