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Near black clouds coated the sky in a thick paste, low enough to the ground to threaten a twister or worse from cropping up in a nearby field.
Small, insignificant rain drops were dribbled all over the window, making it hard for John to see anything more than the smears of dark gray cumulus clouds that were promising to fall right out of the sky and onto the unmowed lawn.
John always hated horrible weather like this; it made him want to lock all of their outdoor cats in the barn for the rest of the day and make sure all of their dogs stayed inside just the same.
Not only because it was dangerous (and cruel) for the dogs to be outside with such awful rain and wind bristling up their pelts, but also because they would get unforgiveably dirty amongst all of the mud and muck that covered the vastness of their property.
John let out a delayed sigh, his right elbow was propped up on the windowsil, his chin laid on the palm of his upturned hand. His other arm was spread out right beside it, lazily picking at the roughness of his elbow.
The trees that surrounded Lennon-McCartney home were thick, dark green covered oak trees that didn't appear to be advanced in age.
But what if they fell and hit the house?
He had this conversation with Paul before, and his husband never failed to bring it up.
-
They were sitting in the living room on their sofa one night, watching an old western on the television.
"We'll be fine," John said, only halfway paying attention to his spouse's fears. He patted him on the thigh comfortingly, "A tornado'll have to rip the tree from the ground before it slams into us, love."
The loner pulled out a gun at the sheriff, the cold steel of the barrel shone in the glints of the white sunshine above them.
John could feel Paul's gaze turn to him, his pursed lips slightly open at the center in their usual manner, the top always perked upward like a dying plant after a sprinkle of water.
"Ye don't think it could happen, do ya?" Paul prompted, his eyes going over John's features, as if to search for a quick answer. "It happened to me aunt once, and she lost her house, John."
The sheriff quickly yanked out his own gun and pointed at the loner, a titanium smirk curved his lips into a near smile before he said as tongue-in-cheek as he could without choking on it, "Say hello to God when ya meet him."
"John!" Paul snapped at him to get his attention. "Are ye even listening to me?"
-
The memory was kind of shoddy, but that's usually what happened along those lines, anyhow.
Paul, like always, was right, and John was starting to feel the full effects of how right he really was.
And those effects were a sense of fear and dread.
The trees were rather close to the house, and it wouldn't take much prying of the wind for them to be ripped from their roots and into the side of their house.
John chewed on the inside of his cheek, his teeth digging into the soft, slushy flesh.
The pine coloured leafs slashed back and forth like a pendulum, on a routine rhythm, it seemed like.
Their branches looked like funny bones, really; as if they could snap any second without their guts and tendons, and fly into the window without much warning at all.
It was possible, but John didn't want to think about that anymore.
He didn't want to think about anything.
"John?" Paul's voice came from up the staircase, the elevation made his voice carry down those steps with a startlingly deep, throaty quality to it. "What are ye doing down there?"
John turned his head to see Paul in his dressing gown at the top of the staircase, the dim light from down the hall in their bedroom gleamed on the black satin of his robe.
The dark cover up was wrapped tight enough to around him to obscure his chest, a small V shape peeked just underneath his clavicle to reveal his plendar gap and the skin above. He was tanned from the physical labour they had been doing the past week in their garden and such.
Paul's coffee coloured hair was in a slight disarray, with sections sprayed across his forehead and ruffling near the beginnings of his cheeks.
Though the staircase and beyond was covered in a tenebrous wash of gray and blue, John could see Paul's brow furrow with a hint of concern at John just looking out the window on the landing, though he was balancing a million other things that went on his mind at the same time.
John only shrugged, looking back at the darkness unfolding at only three in the afternoon outside before he turned to see Paul once more.
"Looking at the weather s'all, my dear." John reassured his spouse, removing his elbow from its upward position and his other arm from its prime view of the side of their house.
He turned back to Paul, his rolled up sleeves falling back down to his wrists nonchalantly. He draped his arms lazily across the end railing of the stair case, the rosewood banister making a rounded turn to serve its purpose to the other half of the staircase below.
John leaned up against the railing, looking up at Paul with burning eyes and a sense of heaviness about him.
He couldn't pretend to be all happiness and sunshine; to be honest, he was exhausted already and it was only a quarter after three in the afternoon. And yet, he could not recall even lifting a sorry finger the whole day.
Perhaps it was the darkness.
Maybe his body had just relied on cues from sunny Scotland to tell him when it was time to pass out every night. Maybe...
"What are ye doin' all dressed up?" John asked him, his fingers rubbing the fabric over his elbow habitually. "Don't tell me yer leaving for the ball without me, princess!"
A smile curved onto Paul's face, something that John had to see before he was convinced that the other man was doing all right at least.
"Wouldn't dream of it, darling." Paul mused back at him, his arms folding across his chest as he leaned his shoulder against the wall to his left, his foot crossing over his other. "I always invite you to come." His grin hazed over into a soft smile that spread over his face. "I'm a gentleman, not some dream killer."
John lifted his head off of the length of his arms, beaming at the man above him. "Ah! You flatter me, McCartney." He wetted his lips quick enough that he barely swiped his tongue over them. "Just as gentlemanly as ever, my love."
John rested his chin on the edge of his arm, his eyes fixed upon the younger man.
After the words left his mouth and dissipated into the thin air, something else filled the older man.
The threadbore, familiar feelings of uneasiness took over his thoughts before he could even take hold of the old ones.
He shifted his weight around inconspicuously. "But where are ye goin'?" John asked once more, this time his voice was hushed and without alarm.
All of the rooms that made up the house, it seemed, were silent in that one moment. Not even a settling of the house was heard, not a adjustment of bones clinking together in John's rickety ankles, or a clicking in Paul's restless heels.
There was just silence and them.
Paul adjusted his right arm tighter on to his left bicep, his head pressing up against the wall he was leaning on.
"I was about to draw meself a bath," Paul relented the secret he had been withholding for the past five minutes, though it was most likely only five moments.
Five fleeting moments of no thoughts but sweet ones for John.
There was a sadness that crossed over Paul's face, just for a brief second and then, it was gone. It was the wrinkling of his brow, the quiver of his lips, the tightening of his hand on his arms, the tenseness in his jaw.
He was still worried about something.
I should go up there and hold his damn hand, John thought in a groggy state, returning back to his late afternoon blues. And then, I'll make him a cuppa, and send him off to bed before a tear trickles off of him.
"I wanted to know if you'd like to join me," Paul interrupted the older man's thoughts with an offer, eyeing down to the blue-gray drenched landing with an anxiety that John could feel only in his expression, but not his voice or his words.
A low, throaty bubble of thunder burst outside, drowning out the sound of the soft breathing.
John turned instinctually to the window, the old raindrops that smeared the pane washed out the trace of fog from deep rain sprays and shallow clouds from view.
He could still see the blobs of trees' hair through the glass, green and puffed out into one huge stroke of colour on an artist's easel, more like a blown up bush that a mighty oak tree.
The brushes of brown in between the plasters of green looked as if they might drip off of the paper entirely.
The thunder faded slowly out of their ears, rolling its back down the hills that enshrouded their property in grassy, occasionally wildflower covered mounts.
The dim blue gray light took the place of the aftershocks of thunder, murking the transitional space of the landing and the top of the staircase and beyond in a nearly midnight shade that made it hard for the older man to see the other man above him.
John folded his lips back into his mouth, turning back to his husband with a neutral look striking his face. He pushed his lips into the base of the sleeve of his shirt from the arm in front of him, jagging his teeth into the cotton.
So...the bath.
A bath wasn't an experience that John loathed. In fact, he actually enjoyed the once occasional soak quite liberally when he was in art school, when days were lightly sepia filtered and spent with your booted feet kicking the desk in front of you, if he managed to show up to class at all, that is.
Paul wasn't as indulgent as John was, however. He was a bit more practical when in came to off-time and work time.
He would delve into that territory at the most biweekly, because he preferred to keep his head full and his hands busy with a new song, or painting some masterpiece that John just so happened to take off of his hands for fifty pounds (when you were a poor (semi) rich boy in art school, you bought your best friend's art work).
But, once they got together and married, Paul realized very quickly that all work and no play makes Johnny a very dull boy, so of course, they both fell into their own personal and emotional care.
So they took baths together; on the weekends, they would sleep in until twelve, they did each other's hair and watched their usual shows or some made-for-tv movie that was airing.
These were all normal things that they were engaged with doing regularly, and it seemed that Paul gained an eye for when it was the proper time to do such things: when they were stressed out and at their wits end.
It would be perfectly aligned to the man's keen intuition to understand that John was fad beyond his wits end.
But he didn't want to take a bath.
He didn't want to do really anything but stare outside the window.
John brushed a lone strand of reddish brown hair out of his eyes with the stroke of his forefinger.
"I don't know," he finally said, looking back up at his husband, adjusting his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "It's not like anything'll be happenin' out here." He gestured generally downstairs, before his gaze fell back to Paul.
He felt small under his draping gaze, the singes of old admiration and deliberation melted through Paul's face into a sad, waning look that hurt when it dripped onto John.
Paul took his weight off of the corner of the wall slowly, his arms staying crossed together.
"What's wrong, Johnny?" He asked softly, tilting his head slightly to the side as if to take a better look at his husband. "Ye seem nervous." He smoothed the glassy sash that closed his dressing gown with his left hand, his fingers plucking at its tightness.
John shook his head nonchalantly, wetting his quickly dried lips before replying.
"About what?" He queried, his brows furrowing to a frown.
He might be slightly off put by the weather, but it wasn't the weather that was making him anxious.
Not in the slightest.
"What could I be nervous about? The sky fallin'?" He shook his head once more, half trying to convince himself of his words, "C'mon Paul, I'm all right."
Paul nodded wordlessly, his wandering fingers still pulling habitually at the edge of his robe's sash.
John knew Paul was worried about him, and it didn't make him feel any better about the situation that was unfurling before him.
He wasn't doing well, and he hadn't for the longest time. It wasn't about the weather, it wasn't about the trees, it wasn't about Paul.
It had nothing to do with Paul, and yet, Paul was probably thinking that it did.
Paul complained about the trees, and now it made John paranoid about the goddamn trees.
He could already see the wheels turning in Paul's head. He knew that was what he was thinking of. He knew he was overthinking it now, why wouldn't he be?
The darkness that leaked throughout the staircase and landing coated Paul's face in dark blue, the only light coming from down the hall rubbed across his shoulders, leaving behind murky glints there that shifted with every slight movement he made.
John waved his hand to the other man, gesturing back to their bedroom behind the younger man.
"Go, go ahead and take yer bath," he tried convincing Paul, "I'll be in there in a few minutes."
Paul raised an eyebrow. "You'll be all right?"
John nodded affirmatively, brushing another another strand out of his face. "Promise."
---
John sat on the floor of the bedroom with his legs pressed to his right side on the floor, his left leg stacked on top of the other. He could feel the weight of his other leg making the one sat on feel a bit tingly and numb, but he ignored it.
The edges of his right foot scraped against the rough brown carpetting below him, the itchiness of the scratch mark made him simply scrape his foot back and forth with a more brutalized intensity to get rid of it.
He rested his right hand on the edge of his stacked knees, a lit cigarette clutched between his middle and forefingers. His thumb rubbed the lip of the fag, without forcing too much weight on to it to make it fly out of his hands like a torpedo.
Happened too many times before, John thought as he looked at the old cigarette ash burns that were scatter across the flooring in little black bullet holes, the strands of the carpet's hair brushed up in shoots of smoked fabric.
John's back pressed against the foot of the bed, the iron bed post ran its cold fingers down his spine, he could feel them from even underneath his long sleeved shirt.
He had always insisted to Paul that iron bed frames were the best, as they made the room feel more open and alive because there wasn't any 'junky' looking, grand wood carved bed frames to deal with.
But that salesman was right, and he was wrong.
Again, he told himself as he lifted his cigarette to his lips and took another deep, long drag.
Again, and again, and again, and again...
Paul didn't want him to think of himself as a constant failure, a constant reason for all of the things that went wrong in their lives.
He knew, on an intellectual level, that it couldn't always be him, but for some reason, it was.
And he couldn't help it.
John watched the closed door to their bathroom, the halo of light that billowed directly underneath it made John wonder what taking his husband so long with his bath.
It hadn't even been an hour, and he was already regretting not taking the other man up on his offer.
They could have been in there together, laughing and carrying on, talking about their days, planning to do something else, like watching a movie or hell, even going out to fucking eat.
But John said no.
Why did he say no?
John shoved the cigarette back into his mouth, the after blows of an old drag still leaving his mouth.
He said no because doing anything was hard, and saying no was easy.
Just like smoking was, just like listening to music was, just like gorging and then restricting your diet was.
It was all so much easier than yes to the things that were actually good for you.
And talking.
Talking was hard, and John thought that Paul knew that, since Paul and him hadn't been talking at lengths for the past few weeks.
He could see the worried expressions that Paul would pass to him, the wandering talks about how he was doing, all of those things were painful because John wanted and needed to talk to Paul.
At least when Paul was there, he could try to allude about some of the things he was feeling, so that they wouldn't swallow him whole like they usually did.
Paul was the light of his life, he made things a bit easier to go through the motions and monotony of every day life. The grind was good when two people were pushing it in the same direction.
And sometimes, the other had to pick up the slack for the one that was falling behind.
John was falling behind, and he was worried that he was putting too much on Paul by struggling.
Not just flailing, but drowning.
John plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, his eyes going over the lines of dull light that were being traced underneath the door. A billow of gray-white smoke streamed out of his nostrils and mouth, the feeling of the nicotine washing over him in cool, clean swaths.
A thick shadow pushed the light out from the underneath the door, the door to the bathroom slowly and deliberately opened with a loud creak that edged its way into John's brain.
Perhaps Paul would be done sooner than he thought.
John straightened his crooked figure quickly, his eyes meeting Paul's face with an instant beam.
He balanced his cigarette in between his teeth, "The arrival of His Highness!" John mock bowed to the younger man. After a few moments, he lifted up and pulled the nearly gone cigarette stub from his lips, his sharp grin melted away into a softer smile once his eyes lingered longer on Paul's.
Paul smiled back at him, a towel tucked in between the crook of his arm swayed back and forth as he wiped his left hand on it.
"Yes, yes, I'm here." Paul waved his hand admiredly at his crowd of one, lifting the towel up to the back of his head. "I'm most obliged to you for waiting for me, darling."
John pushed his cigarette nub into his mouth, taking one last quick drag of it before it would dwindle out.
"Well, I understand baths take a while," John cooed as he took the cigarette and rubbed it out on the black iron bed frame, the ashes streaking across like paint. "And I wanted ye to relax, have a nice time..."
His workless hands fell down to his left thigh, resting there with their thumbs caressing the inside of the other hand's palm.
"So, yeah." He finished abruptly, losing all other traces of what he really wanted to say before.
He looked back up at Paul, not noticing what he had been wearing before.
Paul was dressed in a crisp, ivory pajama shirt with big buttons of the same colour all of the way down.
His pajama bottoms were part of the same set, with the band pulled up to his natural waist.
The sleeves of his pajama top were rolled up into a thick bunch just behind his elbows, revealed the spread of black hair that covered the lengths his arms.
The fabric looked like a soft, cooling cotton linen, one that John would rush to jump into after a long, tiresome day of working, worrying and overthinking everything else that happened in the day and the days beyond.
Paul's hair was in a slightly damp, fluffed out disarray of black coffee that was spread across his head in waves and curls that John craved to run his fingers through, just to touch the coldness of the bathwater in between his digits.
His fingers were reddened from the hot water, John could see his wedding ring gleam the reflection of the bathroom's dimming light as he pressed his palms into the bed to get on top of it, his towel slammed onto the mattress with his other hand pinning it down.
Paul plopped onto the bed, his right leg still touching the floor as the other was in a half lotus position on the mattress.
"What did ye do while I was in there?" Paul asked quietly as he tilted his head slightly back and took the towel that he had thrown off from his side, squeezing through his hair to grasp at all of the remaining excess moisture that lingered in his hair.
The question sounded strange with Paul's voice, and John wasn't sure how to respond to it, because Paul had never asked that before.
What he was doing. It was strange.
"I dunno," John hurrumphed, lifting his left hand up to examine it thoroughly with a peculiar interest in it. "Watched some tv, watched some walls, thought about you, thought about me, thought about eating the cake in the fridge, thought better of it, my fat arse doesn't need to be eatin' any cake..." He rubbed his thumb over the nail of his middle finger.
He mimed flicking something off of it, turning back to look up at Paul. "The usual, Paul, only the usual."
Paul took the towel out of his hair, the nearly black strands went one by one to the back of his neck. "You shouldn't tell yourself ye can't have the cake." He set the town down on the bed in front of him, nearly touching his foot. "I made the cake for you, because you said it was your favourite."
"Half a slice isn't bad for you like a full slice is." John told the other man quietly, turning his figure to the front of the bed frame, looking down at the strokes of ash that he had painted on the black iron. "And you can eat the cake, it doesn't matter to me."
"Eat a huge strawberry shortcake by myself?" Paul echoed the older man's words, a frown forming at his brow. "John, I don't think yer gonna gain anything by having a slice of cake." A sad look crossed over Paul's face. "Especially if you want to eat it. There's nothing wrong with-"
"How do you know?" John snapped.
"Everytime I eat something that I 'want', I get on that scale and I've already gained two fuckin' pounds."
"John, I already told you," Paul began slowly, his dark eyes looking down at John with a line of concern, "It's water weight. Everybody gains it. It's perfectly normal, and you're normal." He shook his head. "There's nothing abnormal about your body, John."
John pulled his legs into his chest, his eyes now hurting from all of the sights around him.
How little and inconsistent all the burns were on the floor.
How inconsistent and meaningless all of the stories he was telling Paul were.
John wrapped his arms across his legs, holding himself still by his wrist.
"You don't understand," John said as he stared at the fabric of his pants, his forehead nearly pressed against the edge of the mattress.
He closed his eyes tightly, his glasses digging into the bridge of his nose. "Everything's wrong."
Everybody tried to understand, but the reality was that trying was different than doing.
And Paul always tried to be the most understanding, he always wanted to be the most understanding, and yet, there was a barrier to that, just like there was a barrier between the two of them now.
The walls of communication remained strained, like the wires had been pulled so far from their outlet that they were just barely holding the connection together.
The mattress' bed springs released their tension, announcing that Paul had just gotten up from his seated position. John didn't look up to greet him, his eyes starting to ache and swell with tears.
He lifted his hands to his face and began rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers, his nails hitting the inside of his glasses' lens.
John didn't want to let the flood go in front of Paul. That would look so stupid and it would be completely pointless because John knew there had to be an easy way to fix this. If he couldn't do it the right way, he would do it the easy way and at least THEN-
Two thick, warm arms wrapped around his shoulders from his left side, a sleeved bicep coming close to John's mouth, the smell of Old Spice deodorant filled his nostrils with its familiar strength and cleanliness. John's fingers stalled their rolling on his eyes.
He could feel Paul's chest press against his own shoulder with a comforting firmness, the smooth fabric of his pajama top rubbed against the sleeve and shoulder of John's shirt.
Paul's breath was soft and warm in the older man's ear, not a blaring wind that was sharp and hot on the side of his face. It trickled down his ear to the side of his neck, smelling of watery spearmint toothpaste.
"I don't understand, John." Paul said quietly into his ear, the older man could almost feel the movement his lips on the edge of his lobe. "But that's why I need you to talk to me, so I can."
John swallowed hard, removing his fingers from his aching eyelids. The paleness of the mattress sheets hurt to look at, but he couldn't get himself to look back at Paul.
"I love you so much," Paul whispered once more, grasping on to his husband tighter. The feeling of his eyes were burning into John's cheeks, the knowledge that Paul was just staring right through him with love and compassion made him want to cry more, and he wasn't sure why.
John pressed his lips against Paul's bicep, the cotten fabric clinging to his wet lips. He could smell the fresh, cool scent of the sleeve, but he could also smell Paul's skin, the body wash he had been using. It was comforting, it made him feel safer, a little bit braver.
John lifted his head off of Paul's bicep, turning to look at the other man. Paul's face was within a few centimeters of John, his eyes staring back into his. John felt like he wanted to simply die right there.
There were tears streaming down Paul's cheeks, little watermarks that slid down his neck and into his shirt.
His sable eyelashes were drenched, the drops licking the bottom and tops ones in thick smears. His face was red and splotchy, as if he had rubbed his face deep into his pillow.
John didn't want to make Paul cry.
He didn't want to make him feel any of that. It was wrong, wrong, wrong.
He felt like shit, didn't mean that Paul had to feel the same way and be concerned about his health. It wasn't right.
John adjusted his legs down to the floor, turning to face the other man. He couldn't let Paul suffer in silence anymore, he couldn't pretend that it all fell upon blind eyes and deaf ears.
John put his hands on Paul's cheeks and wiped away the tear stains with the swipe his thumbs.
His cheeks felt warm to the touch, sticky and wet from the old and new tears that kept falling down.
Paul swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with the rigid motion.
"I don't want you to think that you have to do all of this alone," Paul croaked out as John continued to wipe the tears away from his eyes, the feeling in his stomach burning to a hole. "I've been here the whole time, John," tears began filling up their old spots again, "I just don't want you to feel like you're all alone."
"It's hard, Paul." John finally said, his husband's tears beginning to pool at the top of his thumbs. He swiped them back and forth slowly, like anesthetized windshield wipers. "Everything's hard. Talking's hard."
He turned to wipe his nose on the sleeve of his shoulder, leaving a trail of clear mucus on his black shirt.
He turned back to his tearful spouse, "I never meant to push ya out, Paul. Never, not in a million years." He let out a huff of nervous laughter in an attempt to cut the tension, "You're my best friend; if I pushed ye out, I wouldn't have anyone." He could feel a mistiness blur his line of sight, a correction that his glasses couldn't endow.
"You don't have to keep fighting with yourself," Paul told John gently, his hands roaming to the older man's wrists, grasping on to them in a tight, embracing manner. "You don't have to keep holding it in, John."
Paul's face was a blur of drying hair, big, puffy eyes, and soft lips that he couldn't focus on.
John swallowed hard, contemplating the offer, going over each option that he had.
He could push Paul away, deny everything, and everything would go back to the way it usually did: things would just slowly climb their way up to being worse and worse, and he wasn't sure what Paul would do or say.
Perhaps he would eventually leave him, and that would lead John down a deeper and deeper spiral.
Or, he could let the armour fall.
He could tear the wall down, mend the broken fence, and everything could try to be pieced back together again.
He could finally explain everything that was wrong. That way something could be right again.
Suddenly, John flung his arms around Paul's neck and buried his face into the crook of it.
He could feel the tears that had stalled in his eyes stream down his cheeks in thick, hot tear flows.
Paul held on to a tight grasp of John, his arms joining each other at the center of his back. He could feel the other man's palms spread out on the length of his backside, the balls of his hands rubbing reassuring circles into various muscles and bones.
A portion of John's shirt rode up on his side, the metal bar of the bed frame beside him began pressing into him with every shudder, every shake his body ever fastened. The chilliness rippled throughout his body, but John couldn't stop crying.
The notched collar of Paul's pajama top muffled anything that John would try to scream out, they only came out in cracked, broken whimpers that barely sounded like anything at all.
He pushed his nose into the underside of the collar, pushing himself deeper into the younger man's shoulder.
Paul kept rubbing his back, his head rested on the middle of John's twitching shoulder, his chin and mouth pressed up against a strip of bare skin, his lips stalling right there above his clavicle. The breath from his nostrils fell into his shirt, the warmth spread across the gooseflesh that rippled over his cold backside.
John's eyes burned with the fresh downpour of tears, tightening their taut close with every chance he had.
He felt as if he were a glass full of water that kept toddling over, being pushed over by naughty hands and societal pressure.
Another press, another shudder.
Another push, another scream.
But no one could hear him. No one could feel what it felt like to have your insides tear away at you like that.
But Paul did.
Paul continued to hold him, his warm breath and steady figure allowed John to feel at least secure, with the knowledge that nothing bad was going to happen.
The tiny, almost miniscule hope that just because it felt bad now didn't mean it would feel bad forever clawed its way up John's spine. He wasn't sure if he would accept the different point of view, but for right now, he didn't want to make that decision.
They all swirled around his head for hours on end, anyway.
Paul's right hand wandered from his back onto his head, running his fingers across his scalp back and forth. John kept his face buried underneath Paul's collar, the smell of his cologne prompting him to stay in one place.
Paul's fingers rubbed the back of John's head, the sound of his hair running through his digits drew a small comfort for the older man.
John could feel Paul turn his head towards him, his breath now brushing against his sideburns and jawline.
John didn't want to look beside himself, for he would be showing off his tear stained, splotchy, out-of-touch face. But he also did want to see Paul's, knowing what kind of destruction his own pain caused the other man.
That would be almost too much for him to bear.
Paul leaned closer to him and kissed John on the cheek, his lips were soft and warm, a welcome sensation to a situation that was clawing at his stomach and wracking from the throes that he was immersing himself in his head.
Paul's lips roamed off of his cheek slowly, his breath clinging onto John's ear like a spread of light cobwebs.
"Everything's okay," He told him quietly in his ear, the sensation of his mouth was close enough that John felt like he could feel it on his earlobe.
He rubbed the ball of his hand deeper into John's right shoulder blade, the motion lulling John to a state of nearly collected chaos and emotion. "You're doing great."
John snuffled hard into Paul's pajama top, the lump in the back of his throat had softened just a bit. He swallowed once more, tightening his fists behind Paul's back.
John didn't know what to tell him in response, his brain wandering with every self deprecating thing he could think of:
No, it's not okay.
No, I'm not doing great.
I'm wasting your-
"I shouldn't be like this," John croaked out, turning his mouth to the side of Paul's collar, the warmth of his shirt completely lost in the startling frigidity of the room.
Out of the corner of his glasses, in the bleariness of his true vision, he could see the muscles in Paul's neck grow taut with anxiety. "I should get over life."
Paul grasped on to him a bit tighter, his right hand wandering down to the small of his back.
"It's not something ye get over, Johnny." Paul reminded him gently, his fingers tracing the edge of John's shirt before he pulled it down, saving the lower portion of his back from the coolness of the air around them. "Ye do the best ya can."
John squirmed in the younger man's arms. "I don't do the best I can," he countered, his cheeks peeling back with the movement of his mouth, sticky with snot and tears. "The best I can would be-"
"John, the best you can do is all you do." Paul interrupted him softly, his fingers playing with John's hair, allowing it to drain out of his digits and then picking them back up again. "I know you think it's not enough, but-" Paul swallowed soundly, his fingers brushing up the fabric of John's shirt on his back in clean, crisp swipes. "-what else could you do, love?"
John kept his cheek on Paul's collar, his eyes trying to focus on the side of his husband's neck, and the smoothness of the skin there. He could see his Adam's apple bobble and throb, possibly from dryness, but most likely from nervousness.
"I don't know..." John's voice drifted off, his fists softening to open fingers that tugged at the back of his husband's pajama top. "I, I-" He let out a pained sigh, his hands clamming up once more. "I just wanted to be fucking happy, Paul." He looked up at Paul, his eyes landing on the bottom of his jawline. "Was that too much to want?"
Paul looked down at him, his downturned, whiskey coloured eyes wrinkling at the ends as he shook his head.
"No, it's not." Paul reminded him soothingly, his fingers continuing to collect and sift through the other man's hair. "But we can't be happy all of the time. Sometimes," he swallowed, "things get fucked and things get hard, and ye don't know what to do, or what to say, anymore."
"But things aren't really hard," John countered, his shoulder blades growing sore from holding them in an awkward position for so long. "It's just, everything feels that way for some reason."
"I know, love." Paul replied quiet, looking down at the other man with warm eyes and a comforting mien that made him want to melt into a puddle right there. He swept the side of his hand across the top of John's forehead to brush a flop of hair that obscured a part of the older man's vision.
John blinked back up at him habitually, his hands balling into tight fists once more behind the other man.
"I'm sorry," John began, pulling his left hand out from over Paul's shoulder and began straightening the other side of Paul's collar, which had flipped over to his neck. "For all of this."
He could feel the other man's eyes look down at him with startling warmth, a soft overtone to the words of apology that were melting off of his lips.
He didn't want to see Paul's face, no. He couldn't look him in the eye to tell him the truth about all of this anyway. He was just stringing along some fable, some blur of fiction that would swipe right past his eyes and be gone.
"Don't be," Paul replied back, his fingers fluffing the hair that rested closer to the back of his neck. "I want you to talk to me, I want you to tell me everything because I love you, and I want to take care of you." He rubbed the base of John's neck with the tips of his fingers. "Just like you take care of me."
John looked up at Paul finally, straining his neck to see the fullness and depth of his face. His lips were perked in their usual fashion, his eyes glistening brightly before he blinked.
"We're doing this together," Paul added quiet, his hand reaching down underneath the back neck of John's shirt, stroking the line of hair that resided there. "We face the days together, ye don't have to do it alone."
John swallowed hard. "You mean that?"
He had never been told that by anyone but Paul, and he wondered, just for a glimmer of a second, if he was saying all of that just to make him feel better, for words were cheap, and actions were valuable and expensive endowments.
"Of course I mean that," Paul reassured him, his eyes falling right onto John's. He could feel the hand that he kept inside of his hair loosen its grip, wandering to the side of his shoulder. The warmth of Paul's palm in the midst of his controlled chaos made him feel safe, far more than he used to.
John lifted his head off of Paul's collar, the strain that he had put on his neck began screaming back at him with a throbbing, sick ache, but John didn't care.
His arms slid to himself from behind Paul, the hands no longer in white fisted clenches.
Now John was looking at Paul without hiding in the safety of angles, without the comfort of knowing that you didn't have to look them in the eyes when you talk about the hard things.
It was something he was always working on, and it would always he a work in progress, he assumed.
But regardless of that, he was willing to build up enough tolerance in his belly to do so.
John wiped the old excess of tears that lingered on Paul's reddened cheeks, his thumbs brushing just underneath the droop near his bottom eyelids.
"Thank you, love." John said, a small smile spreading over the other man's cheeks.
Paul took his hand from off of his shoulder and placed it on John's, rubbing the top of his hand with his thumb. "Always, dear."
In that moment, John felt okay.
All right. Closer to okay than before was perhaps the better descriptor .
And that was something that he realized that what Paul had meant.
Everything was okay in that moment, everything was okay in that minute. It didn't mean that it was going to be okay all of the time; hell, it didn't even mean it was okay some of the time.
But John was okay right now, and that meant everything to him.