Chapter Text
Initially, Paul thinks they’re all taking the piss. As the newest member of the band, he has learned to laugh off the jokes made at his expense. But a frown soon misshapes his smile as he dumbly watches the boys disperse themselves throughout the room.
“Yer serious?” he asks, confusion cementing his feet on the carpet. “All of you just…sit around an’ wank together?”
Eager and bright-faced, he had entered Nigel’s sitting room prepared for his first rehearsal with the new group, only for the shades to be drawn and instruments set aside.
“Loosens up the wrists,” John answers from an armchair, already thumbing open his trousers.
“If you don’t wanna join, just wait outside till the big boys are finished,” Len says with grating arrogance.
It feels like some type of test or initiation. Buy into our daft game and you’ll secure your spot in the band; bow out and consider yourself nothing more than an expendable instrument. Paul’s hand tightens around the neck of his guitar. Soon enough it disappears from his grasp entirely as he deposits it against the wall and seats himself in a vacant armchair.
They hoot and whistle at his decision.
“Mind yerself with the furniture, lads,” Nigel warns. “No stains.”
“But I always like to leave a little somethin’ for yer mum,” Pete quips, blonde eyebrows waggling.
“Fuck off.”
When their focus returns to their teenage libido, Paul steals furtive glances around the room. By now all of them have a dominant hand unabashedly shoved down their underwear. It seems they were serious after all. Without debating it much further, he follows suit.
They volley names back and forth, occasionally indulging in the fantasy with compliments to the women’s physical attributes. Admittedly, Paul slips beneath the undercurrent of pleasure. His ears selectively filter in the names but none of the background noise tailing them. Nothing that would remind him of what he’s taking part in.
Until John demands participation with, “Gi’ us a name, McCartney.”
His eyes peel open, outline the shape of John and his pumping fist. Nearly possessing the audacity to blush, he shuts them just as quickly and blurts the first name that comes to mind: “Marilyn Monroe.”
A few groans of approval furnish the air. When his own cock responds with a twitch of interest, he struggles to decide whether his body is betraying him or not. He’s never shared this part of himself with a group of other lads before.
In certain shadowy pockets of the room, he hears the quickening of breath. Pleasured sighs replace the names, concentration narrowed to finishing. Eventually, the pivotal moment for most of them arrives….
“Winston Churchill!”
For a terrifying moment Paul’s stomach sinks. His pumping fist freezes. Wide and paranoid, his eyes shoot open, looking for the smirks and pointing fingers. It had been some daft set-up after all, hadn’t it?
“Ah, fuckin’ hell, John!” one of the lads complains; but Paul notices they haven’t stopped.
The band leader erupts with laughter, slouched in his armchair and fly hanging open like a mouth cackling along with him. If John finished already, Paul hadn’t heard. But he also seems like the type to delay his own pleasure for a chance to ruin someone else’s.
Quick and businesslike, Paul strokes himself to completion and snatches some tissues from the end table to clean himself up. The others do similarly, and he learns, shamefully and uncomfortably, John had been able to hold out the longest.
The parted shades reintroduce the room to sunlight as they claim their abandoned instruments. He ignores the scarlet streaks on Pete Shotton’s pale cheeks—the sated gleam in John’s eyes.
He just hopes he passed the test.
* * *
These odd masturbation sessions aren’t a prelude to every rehearsal, Paul comes to learn. Many times he arrives to idle strumming or conversation, and their bottled hormones seem to enrich the music on those days. But the repeated occurrences sometimes baffle him more than if it had all been for a lark.
Undoubtedly, teenage boredom knows no bounds.
This time they’re down a washboard player and banjoist. Somehow such an insignificant loss still manages to alter the intimacy of the gathering. Despite the ample room, they sit even more closely together—a secrecy seated amongst them in the empty chairs.
Things progress much like the first time.
With some experience under his belt, Paul has grasped the procedure. His sensorial awareness is no longer as restrictive as the first time. He begins to notice more….
A catch of breath tempts Paul’s eyes into looking. A short distance away, the tops of John’s pale thighs are spilling from his black leather trousers. His fist works like a piston in fluid motions, mastering his own body with precise twists and squeezes. Lips parted, he practically melts into his chair.
As though sensing his gaze, John’s eyes flutter open. Like the sound holes of an acoustic, they stare at him across the room. Distantly, Paul is aware of the other lads carrying on, reaching for an end that has seemed to be stalled for him and John.
Knowing he should look away in repulsion, he unflinchingly watches his best mate come. Pearlescent strings spurt from his tip, hips undulating like he never wants it to end. All the while, his eyes never break away. It’s the first time Paul has ever seen another bloke climax. And he isn’t far behind.
Walking home from practice that evening, John asks him what he thinks of their raunchy sessions.
Paul wisely withholds sharing that they have changed the way he gets himself off at home now. When he can’t get his hands on a magazine, names stream through his head from an endless queue.
With a shrug he answers, “Wasn’t sure about it at first, but I’ve kinda got used to it now.”
“Nice warm-up, eh?”
“Sure,” he chuckles. “You always do the Churchill bit?”
John smirks. “Sometimes it’s Neville Chamberlain. Anything to fuck with ‘em, really.”
He bumps Paul’s shoulder playfully as they stride on.
They never mention the moment of eye contact.
* * *
His hand rests on the couch cushion, on the slow curl to a fist with every new name shouted out.
This time he can actually hear John—the fleshy slide of his hand and every gossamer breath. In small doses, with one singular sense at a time, Paul is learning how he tosses himself off. Seeing it, then hearing it, and letting his filthy imagination fill the gaps.
Their wrists brush. Neither of them jerk away.
The snag of arm hair feels like an electric jolt. An ice pick on sleeping skin. He had already been on edge the moment John claimed the seat beside him, and now his entire body is on the verge of snapping. Names both famous and local continue to fly from lips and over Paul’s head. His mind only narrows to the bony knot of John’s wrist resting against his own and finds it to be more effective than the Hollywood stars.
Next to him, he hears his friend speed up. So close—dragging Paul along with every sound, loud and slick. Then John’s fingers are tangling messily with his own on the cushion, squeezing as he orgasms. Unthinkingly, Paul grips back just as tight and imagines that strength around his cock. Bottom lip wedged between his teeth, he comes hotly.
Their panting breaths are thunderous to his ears. John’s fingers gently slide away like a phantom touch. He leaves Paul on the settee, tingling bodily.
The rest of the night, he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from John’s hands.
* * *
A few days later he cycles to Mendips to throw around some lyrics with John. Their last interaction has made a home of his thoughts, but Paul knows better than to bring it up. Anything can happen in the throes of ecstasy, and good mates always lend each other a hand. Now it’s business as usual.
Opening his friend’s bedroom door, however, he isn’t greeted by the usual sight of John with a guitar in his lap.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell, sorry—”
“Jesus, Paul, can’t you knock?” John barks, bolting up in bed. The blankets scarcely cover his modesty, not quick enough to hide how he had been biding his time.
“I thought you knew I was comin’,” Paul says, trying to settle his eyes on anything other than John’s tousled hair or flushed cheeks.
He snorts. “I could say the same.”
“I’ll just—”
“No, I’m almost there,” he says with a quiet laugh, as though surprised by his own audacity, before Paul can close the door. “Join in if you’d like.”
Slowly he begins to stroke himself again, eyes slipping shut. The light pooling in from the window leaves nothing to the imagination. Paul wonders just how close he is if, in his delirium, he can carry on unfazed.
“Usually only do that with the other lads, though,” he points out.
There’s something more intimate about the two of them doing it alone. Something that doesn’t lend itself to easy excuses.
“Stand there and watch, then. But I’m not stoppin’ for you or anybody.”
His head lolls back again, a wispy sigh escaping his lips. Paul waits for a laugh to follow it—waits for the punchline. But the glistening head of his cock seems far from a joke.
Swallowing, he eyes the room. After taking a reluctant step forward, he quietly closes the door behind himself.
John makes space for him on the bed by readjusting himself to lean against the wall. In a bed so small, however, they still find themselves elbow-to-elbow. Forcing himself to approach it like every other session, Paul unzips his trousers and spits into his palm.
They’ve always been mirrors of one another with guitars in hand. Until now, it never proved to be a problem—a ceaseless friction on the bare skin of their arms from the steady rhythm of their dominant hands. It kindles a fire within Paul’s gut.
Initially, the names are sparse and uttered with less enthusiasm than usual. He begins to think maybe John doesn’t want to make a game of it this time. Just toss off, clean themselves up, and get to the music.
Things soon take a jolting shift, however, and Paul can hardly blame it on a loose tongue.
Quietly, almost as though to himself, John mutters, “Elvis.”
Words stick to Paul’s throat. He hesitates, still as fearful of John taking the piss as he had been on day one. A slip of the tongue, or wrist, could end in a chagrin impossible to live down.
But the eye contact, the entangled fingers—had it all been a perverse joke, too?
Quietly, he dares to offer, “Marlon Brando.”
John receives it with a breath snagged by approval. His rhythm speeds up, encouraging Paul’s along with it by the nudge of his elbow. “Fuck…Paul Newman.”
He falters. To hear his own name nearly spoken by John during such an intimate moment scatters every other thought. Only one name laps around the track of his mind: John, John, John.
Unthinkingly, he says it.
Eyes as dark as splotches of ink meet his own. With the shades always drawn tight on their naughty sessions, Paul has never seen them so desirous before. They flick down to where he has a hand around himself.
Licking his lips, John asks, “Can I?”
He nods hastily.
Abandoning his own red and leaking cock, John takes control for him. His hand is large and already slick from his own pre-come. Inexperience in his touch, he finds his grip around the sensitive flesh. Paul’s fingers claw at the sheets in anticipation, tongue heavy in his mouth at the sight of a masucline hand around his cock. As John establishes a pace, quick and firm, his head lolls against the wall.
“Fuck,” Paul whispers, a praise that solidifies the confidence of his strokes.
Eventually, he rallies enough agency to return the favor. An X now formed by their arms, he wraps his hand around John’s cock. His friend moans, legs splaying wider for ample room to work. The angle is awkward, but the sensation of hot, stiff flesh that isn’t his own is too exhilarating to stop.
He’s seen and heard John; now he wants to feel him.
With a deep groan, Paul comes into his fist. His own grip tightens around John, strokes stuttering as his orgasm overtakes him. But, with a hand sticky and wet and folded around Paul’s as a guide, he steadies him on. Together, they pump his cock until John spills across their fingers—entangled in a way all too familiar.
Heavily, they slump against the wall. While they reel back in reality, John’s head tips onto Paul’s shoulder. Voice gravelly, he murmurs, “Winston Churchill.”
Paul chuckles into the top of his disheveled hair. “Piss off.”