Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue

December, 1964

NEMS Enterprises offices, Liverpool

Breathe, you prick.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

John’s chest is caving in. Not metaphorically. Not poetically.

Literally.

“Shite.”

It stinks in here—rotten wood, window cleaner, and whatever coat someone left behind to die. He doesn’t remember walking in, but forty-five minutes into the party, the air shifted, and now he’s in it.

He thought he’d heard someone call “John!” from the corridor, through Christmas glitter and the pop of crackers. Probably Mal. Maybe Brian.

Could be Christ on a cracker, for all he cares.

He staggered blindly into the first door he’s found and into a maintenance cupboard, barely missing the collapsing cardboard B— part of some set piece from that telly thing with the dancers and the smoke machines and the fans screaming like dying animals.

The B leans on him now, like the universe is taking the piss. It leans like it wants to flatten him. Wouldn’t that be fitting?

Death by marketing.

Breathe.

Except he can’t feel his hands. His chest’s folding in like wet cardboard. His skin buzzes like it’s trying to crawl off his bones, because how many hours can a man think, Look at me, Paul. Please look at me. I’m right fucking here, before he starts coming apart?

It’s not Paul’s fault John is hopelessly obsessed, and in love, and knackered beyond repair by it.

That John can’t stand not seeing those bloody eyes for fifteen straight minutes.

Not Paul’s fault John dragged them both so high up—past breath, past reason—until the world looked like a snow globe. Now they’re just dangling there—click-click-click—waiting for gravity to remember them, and John wants out before the cart tips, before the crash breaks them into pieces that can't be put back.

Look at me, Paul!

Paul, who drinks it all in like sunlight. Who’s floated off into orbit while John’s stuck in the exhaust fumes. Who laughs without checking John’s face first. Who shines for strangers the way he used to shine just for him.

When John left the party, Paul had three admirers queued and was halfway to charming a fourth.

Men, women—doesn’t matter. They all want a piece, and he lets them bite.

What would Paul do if he knew?

If John grabbed him by that ridiculous jacket and said, Look, I’m not alright. I haven’t been alright in ages. And maybe if we just got in the car and drove till the map gave out, things might start making sense again?

Would he laugh?

Would he say, Johnny, mate, you’re off your nut again, and hand him a drink?

Then, through the vent—because of course there’s a bloody vent—comes the final insult: confetti. Cheap cracker filler, green and gold, floating down like the world’s most pathetic snowfall.

It lands like dust on the cardboard BEATLEMANIA!—soft, weightless, like the dust that settles over a grave.

“Holy fuck. What’ve I done?”

Chapter Text

August, 1966 No. 7 Cavendish Avenue, London

Martha barely even acknowledges him these days.

She’d been such a tiny, squirmy thing the day Paul brought her home from High Wycombe. John remembers how she had fit perfectly in the palm of his hand, warm and wriggling. The way Paul’s eyes had lit up at the sight of her. Now that same little puppy—just a year older—gives him a bored sniff before wandering off to more interesting company.

Stings more than it should.

Sure, for all the chaos he’s set in motion—convincing the lads to pack in touring, upending their little world—it turns out to be the least of his troubles. A minor tremor in the grand seismic shift of things. And yet, somehow, it still stings.

Funny thing, getting what you want. It had all seemed so bloody wonderful at the time—no more touring, no more howling fans, no more tearing through cities like a pack of stray dogs. Finally, a bit of peace. Turns out, peace is just another word for boredom. Turns out, the world beyond their bubble of roadies, managers, and fawning fans doesn’t spin quite the same way.

At home with Cyn and Jules, he’s just… there. A ghost at the table, a faint outline of a man. Jules babbles away, unaware that his dad’s slowly going mad. He sleeps up in the music room in his attic most days, a self-imposed exile from the matrimonial bed, while the silence creeps in like damp and settles in his lungs.

The great escape, he’d thought.

But all he’s done is lock himself in a different kind of prison, tucked away in the Stockbroker’s Belt, somewhere in the poshest depths of Surrey.

Never, ever take housing advice from accountants.

Technically, it’s his party. Or rather, a party in his honour. A Spaniard in the Works had somehow managed to shift 200,000 copies. He still can’t wrap his head around it, not without laughing.

Brian had insisted on a proper do to mark the occasion, but really, it’s just an excuse to cram every pretentious twat London can dredge up under one roof—the kind of people he’d rather have never met and hopes never to see again. Since none of these tossers would be caught dead outside Mayfair, they’ve all ended up here.

And so here John sits, perched like a boxer in the farthest corner of the front room, his only opponent his own sanity. He’s watching the scene unfold as if through glass: cigarettes dangling from slack lips, shoulders brushing in feigned intimacy, smiles as hollow as their hearts.

The day would’ve been far less agonising with a bit of that killer pot Mal smuggled his way last week, but Cyn’s been hounding him about “setting a proper example” or some such rot, so now he’s stuck muddling through it, stone-cold sober and \ unamused.

Speak of the devil, there’s Cyn across the room, perched stiff as a mannequin in those ridiculous oversized sunglasses she thinks make her look posh. It’s a scene straight out of Country Life if you squint very hard, with Jules propped on her knee like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He can’t fathom why she brought the boy here—poor kid’s barely old enough to talk, let alone endure a roomful of toffs. But then, that’s Cyn all over these days, isn’t it? All puzzles, no smiles.

There’s Pattie beside her, glowing like the sun. She’s been sniffing Jules’ head a fair bit lately, like she thinks that if she breathes in enough of that powdery baby smell, it might put a baby in her own belly.

She deserves it—hell, the whole bloody world deserves it. More Patties.

Pattie catches him staring, her brows drawing together in a mock-scold. He humours her, raising his glass with a crooked grin. She smirks back, triumphant, and returns to nuzzle Jules—her expression so pure, so tender it nearly hurts to watch.

He can’t remember the last time Cyn looked at him like that. That version of her feels a million years away.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spots a waiter, tray wobbling like he’s carrying live grenades.

Perfect.

“Oi, you there—yeah, you, sunshine.”

The waiter freezes. “Y-yes, sir?””

“Do us a favour and find something better than this piss.” John dangles his champagne flute like it’s radioactive.

“Sir, that’s a 1928 Veuve Clicquot, from Mr Fraser’s private collection,” the boy says, trying not to gulp.

“Is it now? Tasted washing-up water with more charm.”

“Would you prefer a Moët?”

“Moët!” John scoffs. “That’s not very patriotic, is it?”

The boy flounders.

“Go on, be a love—How about three fingers of that Lagavulin Macca’s hiding in the downstairs pantry?”

The waiter’s face drains of colour, like he’s just been asked to steal the crown jewels.

“Lagavulin. Whisky, eh? Nectar of the gods. Either you get it, or I do, and if it’s gone missing, I’ll start naming suspects.”

“No need, sir, I’ll be right back,” the boy says, scattering like a frightened pigeon.

“Make it a double!” John hollers after him. “For Queen and Country!”

He sinks back into his chair, gazing across the room like a bored cat. He lands on the drinks cart, where Brian’s flanked by some Australian bint barking up the wrong tree if ever there was one.

Good old Eppy’s finally looking sharper these days, like he’s managed to crawl out of the pit he’s been wallowing in since their last show. They’d staggered offstage that night, sweat pouring off them, when John lit a fag and announced: “It’s over, Bri. We’re done.”

Brian, of course, had looked to Paul. He always did, whenever John was being impossible.

John had caught the doubt creeping into Paul’s eyes. Weeks—months!— of arguments had worn them down to something frayed and dangerous, and the cracks had started to show. Paul had never been good at hiding it when he’d lost faith in a plan.

And for a moment, it looked like he might say no.

With one stare, sharp enough to slice through any second thought, John had killed any doubt Paul might still have: Don’t even think about it.

Paul had nodded—reluctant, hesitant, but final. That was that.

Brian, for his part, had looked like someone had shot his dog. For months afterwards, he’d been a complete wreck, muttering endlessly about lost revenue and wasted opportunities.

Thank fuck for Ginger Baker.

Nothing steadies Brian quite like knowing that somewhere in London, Ginger’s smashing a drum kit through a wall or shagging some peer’s wife in full view of hotel staff. Brian’s at his best when he’s got something to panic about, like he was put on this earth to wrangle lunatics clad in paisley and fur coats. It’s almost sweet, in a way. Keeps the poor sod from spending too much time dwelling on John-We’re-Bigger-Than-Jesus-Lennon, anyroad.

(’s not just Ginger, though. If John’s got a nose for these things—and he usually does—he’d wager Brian’s new Portuguese tennis instructor (Miguel? Manuel?) has been doing more than perfecting his backhand. Whatever the bloke’s doing, it’s bloody working.)

“Sir?”

John glances up to find the waiter standing with a bottle of Lagavulin and a single tumbler balanced on a tray. The boy starts to pour. John saves them both the bother by reaching out and plucking the bottle from the tray.

“You’re a saint, lad. Go on, then—scarper, before someone spots you liberating the good stuff.”

He watches the boy disappear, feeling the afternoon just might be tolerable after all—until he clocks a familiar shape in the far corner.

Alf.

Hard to miss now that he’s latched onto poor Mal. Another one of Cyn’s brilliant ideas. Not only did she cave to Alf’s pleading and let him live with them, now she’s dragging John’s skeletons out for show-and-tell, with Alf’s latest stray in tow for good measure.

The woman—younger than John himself— clutches her coat on her lap like a lifeboat, glancing nervously around the room. What was her name again? Alf had introduced her, hadn’t he? Five times in five minutes, and it had still slipped clean through John’s fingers.

Not that he can bring himself to feel pity for her. She chose Alf. That’s punishment enough.

Alf, on the other hand, is impossible to ignore, going on loud enough for everyone to hear: “My boy, the Beatle,” as if John’s some trophy he earned instead of a son he walked out on. He looks ridiculous—scruffy sideboards creeping halfway down his jaw, and those eyebrows. God, those eyebrows. Like two overgrown hedges locked in battle for territory smack in the middle of his forehead.

Watching Alf is like staring into a mirror, and he hates it.

“What’s that you’re keeping there, eh?” George sidles up, clapping a hand on John’s shoulder like an anchor.

“Just a little something for us real men.”

“Don’t recall seeing any of those when I walked in. Where’re they hiding?”

“Well, there’s Mrs Kelly and that majestic moustache of hers, for starters. Twice the man you’ll ever be, lad.”

George cracks up, snatching the bottle and popping the cork. “All I see’s a bunch of cunts.”

“Oi, manners,” John tuts. “D’ye kiss your mam with that mouth?”

“Kissin’ your mam’s more like it.”

“Aye, me mam was a fine lass,” John agrees, nodding sagely. “Shame, though. Picked me dad and his mug to match.” “Don’t need a pretty face to charm the masses, son,” George says, eyeing John up and down. “You’re looking alright today. That suit’s dead smart.”

“Yeah?” John straightens up, giving his lapels a tug. “Dougie said it’s Belgian linen made by blind nuns or some such.”

“Ah, oui oui,” George laughs, nose in the air like a ponce. “Hair’s lookin’ lush.”

“That’s cinema hair, that is. Contractually shaggy.”

“When are you off?”

“Two days,” he doesn’t meet George’s eye. “Not a minute too soon.”

Two days, and he’ll be free. Free of Brian’s hovering, free of Cyn’s freezing silences. George only hums, but he knows; he and Pattie bugger off to India tomorrow. It’s strange, this — the four of them, once fused at the bloody hip, now peeling off like old wallpaper.

Christ, but he can’t wait.

Good old Richard Lester, bless his spotless timing, had come through just as John was drowning in a cocktail of sorrow and self-loathing. A funny little film, shooting on the continent, for eight whole weeks.

The silver screen!

John had jumped at the chance without so much as a glance at the screenplay. Maybe he’s fooling himself about this acting lark, but at least it’s his idea. After America, after the tour—after all of it—he’s desperate for something that doesn’t come with three shadows breathing down his neck.

He’d agreed, but only if they got one thing straight—no minders. No Mal, no Neil, no one lurking about to make sure he didn’t wander into traffic. He’d felt dead pleased with himself after laying it all out, even if Mal had spent the next week moping. But it worked out for everyone—NEMS got its payday, John got eight weeks of breathing room, and Mal got a well-earned sulk.

It certainly put a bit of colour back in Brian’s cheeks, Ginger Baker and that Portuguese bloke—Miguel? Manuel?—notwithstanding. He’d gone so far as to invite Dick to the party. There he is now, lurking near the drinks trolley, watching John like a hawk in case he bolts before they get on the plane.

“Learned your lines and all that, then?” George asks, glancing sideways at him.

“Lines? Reckoned I was just meant to stand there and look devastating.”

George pauses, blinks. Almost believes him.

“Once more unto the breach!” John bellows. Mal’s wife jumps, nearly sloshing her sherry. “Or close the wall up with our English dead!”

“Piss off,” George mutters, batting John’s creeping hand off his sleeve. “Give it a rest. You heard from Mo yet?”

John shakes his head. Somewhere in Jamaica, on what was meant to be a sun-soaked holiday, Ringo’s laid out on an operating table. Emergency surgery, they said. No one’s sure what for — not even Ringo, apparently.

John would swap places in a heartbeat.

“Nice he’s got a hobby,” George crosses his legs.

“What d’you reckon they’re digging out of him this time?” John asks.

“Could be his heart.”

“Maybe his brain.”

“His Toto!”

They laugh, fast and messy. Then it’s gone. Left hanging in the air, hollow and honest.

It’s strange, these moments—they creep in now and then, like some shared instinct. The kind that makes them stop and look around, realising for a heartbeat that they’re no longer in Liverpool.

“Get the state of this room, eh?” George says, almost distant, as though the thought had slipped out unbidden.

Their gazes sweep across the empty spaces—glaring gaps where things once stood. What remains feels half-hearted, like an afterthought. What’s gone feels purposeful—stripped away with surgical precision by Mrs Asher in her righteous fury.

The rest of London had learned the news the same time she did—Paul caught in bed with someone who wasn’t Jane. Mrs Asher had made sure the house bore the marks of her wrath.

“Looks better, if you ask me,” John says at last. It’s about as close to kind as he can manage—a poor substitute for the good-fucking-riddance sitting bitterly on the edge of his tongue.

Paul’s better off without Jane, and the room’s better off without that loveseat she’d lumbered him with. Two thousand quid, that thing had cost. Two thousand, for something that looked like it belonged in a Victorian funeral parlour.

Not that Paul got any stick for it. Beatle Paul can do no wrong, not even when London’s darling tosses him aside like yesterday’s fish wrapper. To this crowd, a bare patch of floor isn’t missing furniture. It’s negative space. Artistic, like. Minimalist, mate.

“Where’s His Nibs, by the way?” George asks all innocent-like, as if he hasn’t been clocking Paul’s absence just like everyone else.

“Dunno,” John lies.

Because of course he knows where Paul is. John always knows. He’s made it his life’s work to know where Paul McCartney is at any given moment ever since that day at Forthlin Road, when he sat there watching Paul pluck I’ll Follow The Sun out of thin air like some kind of alchemist.

Paul was sixteen, going on seventeen, sun-pink and freckled after a day out in New Brighton with Mike and their cousins. He sat hunched over his guitar, one bare foot tapping as he worked out the chords, still smelling of sea salt and chip shop vinegar.

And then—just like that—he sang. Not tentative, not testing, but like the song had been waiting, fully formed, for Paul to bring it into the world.

Pure magic, it was.

Improbable, inexplicable magic.

Like someone’s caught lightning in a bottle, slapped a Liverpool accent on it, and plonked it right down in front of John Winston Lennon, of all people. All this, while old man Jim sat in the kitchen, picking his nose as though the eighth wonder of the world wasn’t unspooling itself two feet away.

He knew then and there that his heart, his poor heart, was in trouble.

It’s been in trouble ever since.

Everyone at the party knows where Paul is, too. Hard not to, with Robert’s hand glued to Paul’s back like a limpet, steering him around the room like a prize horse at auction. All Bob’s been talking about is leaving for Paris with Paul in a few days, hell-bent on snatching a rare Magritte armed with nothing but his connections and the blinding charm of Paul’s smile.

And twenty minutes ago, they slipped out of the front room and haven’t been seen since.

If they’re trying to dodge the whispers about who Jane supposedly walked in on tangled up with Paul in their bed, they’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

Ten minutes tick by, and still no sign of Robert or Paul. John wanders toward a half-empty bookshelf, pretending to study the faded spines. He’s barely settled when Rupert Lethbridge—one of Robert’s sleazier hangers-on—approaches him like a spider closing on its prey.

“Well, well. John the Wordsmith. Hiding in the literature section, are we?”

“Looking for something with smaller words. Thought you might’ve left a diary.”

“Quite the achievement, John, old boy,” Rupert drawls, flicking his cigarette.

Rupert fancies himself a poet. Unfortunately for Rupert, he’s the only one who does.

“Surprise you, does it?”

“Must be nice, getting people to think you’re saying something.”

“You didn’t like, then?” John asks.

“It’s got… charm, I suppose. Takes nerve, pretending gibberish is genius.”

“Cheers, mate. Maybe one day I’ll reach your level.”

Rupert’s wife glides over, placing a manicured hand on John’s arm.

“Oh, don’t mind him, John, he’s just envious,” she purrs and turns to study John the way one might size up a chipped vase at auction. “It’s refreshing, really, to see something so blissfully unserious.”

Rupert hums. “Almost like it’s not even trying to be literature.”

“You think you’re clever, aren’t you?” John brushes his sleeve, bored. “Six generations of cousin-fuckers and not one original thought between the lot of you.”

The wife’s laugh stumbles, cracks, and dies a graceless death — just as Robert and Paul stroll back into the room. They join Brian and Dick Lester, forming a tight little knot.

Then, as one, all four turn to look at John. “Ah, John, there you are, darling!” Robert calls. Cor blimey. “Well,” John says, turning to Mr and Mrs Cunt, “I’ll leave you to chat about how clever you are at not liking me.”

He heads for the garden door.

Robert and the others drift toward him. “Man of the hour!” Robert beams. “And look at you — that suit…” His eyes drop. “Is that… a T-shirt?”

“Yeah. We’re doing casual now. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Robert tuts, brushing an imaginary crease from John’s lapel. “Marvellous, really—so you,” he pauses, his smile turning conspiratorial, “Though I can’t help but think a man of your stature deserves a real couturier. Charles at Henry Poole—absolute genius, top drawer. Been dressing me since my Eton days. Did wonders for our Paul, didn’t he?”

“That the one where you’ve got to have sucked off half of Eton to get a fitting, ain’t it?”

Brian chokes on his champagne.

“Oh, you’re incorrigible!” Robert laughs, just a shade too stiff to be real. “But I could get you in, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could, Robert, but I’ll stick to Dougie, ta. He’s a proper fella. Doesn’t need a family tree to measure your inside leg. That’s our style, eh, Macca?”

“Sure, Johnny,” Paul says happily. It’s the voice that could talk a copper out of writing a ticket, that’s sweet-talked its way out of far worse. It fools everyone, except John. He knows Paul’s high as a bloody weather balloon, nodding along to things he hasn’t even processed.

It’s all part of Paul’s act these days. Smile, nod, and keep John at arm’s length, pretending nothing’s changed.

John watches him, cocaine-thin and untouchable, drifting across the rug like he’s not quite touching the ground. There’s something obscene about it, about the way Paul’s so utterly, deliberately careless.

What would Mary say? Shoes, Paul, she’d tut. What kind of host goes barefoot at his own party?

The kind of host, apparently, who doesn’t give a toss.

It’s a shame, really, because the rest of him looks a picture. That red riding jacket—tailored within an inch of its life, broad in the shoulders and nipped just enough at the waist to make him look taller than he already is. The black trousers—narrow, clean lines from hip to heel—fall just shy of his bare, hairy feet, where the perfection ends.

That’s Paul all over. Shiny, polished, picture-perfect—until you get close enough to see the cracks.

He hasn’t spoken to John—not since John walked through the door, and barely at all since they got back from America. He’s hurt, maybe. Or disappointed. Or betrayed, as if John’s the villain in whatever story he’s spinning for himself.

Their eyes meet for a fleeting second, something passing in the air that’s too quick to catch. He tries to read him but for the first time ever, it’s like staring at a locked door. Then, as if on cue, some other bastard drifts into their little circle, breaking the moment clean in two.

“John, let me introduce Mel Dufresne. He’ll be your production assistant,” Dick says, valiantly stepping in to salvage the awkward silence. “Your very own Sancho Panza, if you will.”

“Another Mal, is it?” John says, giving the man a once-over that starts at his shiny brogues and ends at his aggressively wholesome grin. “What are we up to now, eh? Three? Four? Are you lot unionised?”

“Name’s Melville, sir,” the man corrects him, his voice slow and syrupy, the thickest Southern accent John’s ever come across.

“Like Herman?”

“No, sir. Like my great-uncle Melville. He was a prison guard in Montgomery. Fine man. Bit of a temper, though.”

John blinks. He’s got the strangest sense he’s seen this one before.

He’s a corn-fed six-four, grey-eyed, jaw like a brick wall, and shakes John’s hand like he’s trying to break it politely. When he smiles, two massive dimples appear out of nowhere, bright enough to dazzle. The whole package radiates Bible Belt door to door salesman, the sort who practically screams, Trust me, I’ve never had a single interesting thought in my life!

And yet, somehow—maddeningly—John finds he doesn’t hate the bastard.

“Think we’ve bumped noses before, haven’t we?”

“Mel was your tea-runner in Switzerland,” Dick says.

“That’s right. Tea Yeti!”

“Promotion for you, then?” Brian smiles.

“Or this one’s trying to get rid of you,” John says, jerking a thumb at Lester. “You sly dog, Dickie.”

“It’s great to be working with you again,” Mel replies, quick and sincere.

“No promises, Other-Mal,” John grins through a curl of smoke, already halfway amused. He does so love fresh meat. “Told Dick I’d behave myself, but if I start acting like a twat, just wave down our Mal. Tall enough to see from the Pyrenees on a clear day, he is.”

Finally, a laugh— proper and real, breaking the tension like a crack in the clouds. Even Paul lets one slip. For the first time today, John feels less like a mistake in the margins, like he’s properly in on the joke.

Finally.

And then Robert goes and opens his mouth again.

“We were talking to your father earlier, John.”

“You poor sods. Reckon you’ll all need a rabies jab after that.”

“Quite a character, he is,” Robert goes on—the understatement of the century.

“Oh, aye. A real con vivant, that one. Swipe your wallet while he’s shaking your hand, he will.”

He lets the words hang, watching with mild amusement as the conversation grinds to an awkward, twitching silence.

“…So don’t,” he adds, all helpful-like.

Dick, clearing his throat, tries for a save. “He, uh… he says you were a natural-born actor. That you used to put on plays for the family when you were a boy.”

“How would he know? Was too busy shagging Mam’s best mate in the kitchen before buggering off and leaving us for dead, wasn’t he?”

They’re distracted by a noise when Martha pads over to the patio door and starts pawing at the glass, whining low in her throat. Paul moves without thinking, weaving through the guests to let her out. As the door clicks shut behind him, Robert leans in.

“You know, John, you and I have quite a bit in common,” he says quietly over the commotion, leaning into John’s space.

“Do we, now?”

Robert hums.

“I, too, am the result of an ill-suited match and a wayward father. Tale as old as time, isn’t it?”

He sips his drink, casual as anything.

“It’s why I’ve chosen not to continue the line. No appetite for it. But this grudge you’re carrying—John, really—it’s unseemly. A bore, even. Especially in company. You’ve so much else to fix your attention on.”

“We’re nothing alike, you and me.”

“Aren’t we?” Robert’s gaze drifts lazily toward Paul, who’s now coaxing Martha into a little spin. “Look at him in that suit. Those legs… like a gazelle.”

It hits John like a misstep on a staircase. He turns, watching Robert, trying to gauge whether he’s joking.

Robert meets his gaze with something that almost resembles pity.

“No, you’re right. We’re nothing alike, John. Me? Couldn’t keep my hands to myself if I had him around all the time. But, of course, I’m made of… different stuff.”

The insinuation hangs in the air.

“You see,” Robert goes on, voice lower now, “some men will spot a gazelle in the wild and admire it from a distance. Others…” His lips curl. “They cart it off to Paris, see how long it takes to forget the wild. Teach it a few tricks. Different instincts, I suppose.”

John’s brain goes weirdly still, but somewhere out on the edge, he feels his fingers flexing.

“John,” Brian says sharply, a hand clamping down on his shoulder. “Not here.”

John doesn’t resist. His body goes slack, like something vital has just short-circuited. He allows Brian to steer him back, away from the others, through the hallway and into the foyer.

“Fuck’s sake,” John snaps, shaking Brian’s hand off. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, John, every word.”

“What are you even doing, letting him trot off to bloody Paris with that snake?”

Brian exhales, slow and strained. “What would you like me to do? Lock the fire exits? Bar the windows?”

“Wouldn’t hurt!”

“I can’t very well pin you all down and make you sit in a neat little row now that you’ve stopped touring, can I?”

And there it is.

“Oh, right. So it’s my fault, is it? My fault Bob’s parading him round like some prize poodle, ‘cause I didn’t fancy taking a bullet—”

“John, please—”

“You’re never letting this go, are you?” John snaps. “None of you.”

It wasn’t even him who first brought it up. It was George — George going on about how they couldn’t keep doing it. But does anyone remember that? Of course not.

It’s always John with the target on his back. Always John who ‘wrecked it.’

“That’s not fair, John. That’s not true.”

“Then bloody do something.”

“I will, John. I am.” Brian’s voice is strained now, trying not to sound as worried as he is. “You’ve got to trust me to handle it, alright? You do your film, get your head straight. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t come back, Bri?”

“Of course he will,” Brian says firmly. “You’ve still got that score with George Martin, don’t forget. The Boulting brothers picture. I’ve booked the studio.”

John blinks. “Christ. That’s still happening?”

“Yes. Paul’s mad for it. Keeps fiddling at the piano — I think he’s half-written it already.” Brian straightens his sleeve. “You’ll come back with something brilliant too. Always do.”

John doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on Paul. Across the room, their gazes catch for half a second. John searches his face — looking for a sign, a flicker of guilt, anything real — but Paul looks away, laughing at whatever clever rot Robert’s just said.

“Fine. But if this all goes tits up, don’t come crying to me.”

Brian allows himself a small, satisfied smile. Another tantrum averted.

“Can I go home now, mother?” John sulks.

“Not yet. Cake.”

“Fuck me, Bri, a cake?” John groans, letting his head thump softly against the wall. “Better not have my ugly mug on it.”

Brian’s face remains a perfect, unreadable mask, which means John’s face is absolutely on the cake.

“Just—” Brian exhales, long-suffering. “Just steer clear of Mr Fraser, please.”

John exhales like a bull.

“John,” Brian warns.

“Fine.” John spits, watching Brian float away.

Fuck it all to hell.

“Mal!”

The name’s out before he even realises it’s got two owners now. Doesn’t matter. One’s as good as the other.

Mel—American Mal—answers the summons. “Yes, sir?”

“You clocked in yet, Sancho?”

“Sure,” Mel shrugs.

John’s smiles, a dangerous little thing.

Mal and Sancho—his newly anointed name, courtesy of John—team up to smooth out the jagged edges of the rest of evening, each drink and drag dulling the sharpness into something bearable. From that moment on, the party shifts, less of a storm and more of a lazy drift.

The cake arrives, and the crowd spills out into the garden to marvel at the summer sky as it bleeds shades of peach and pink.

By the time Brian steps forward for his grand speech, John is merrily and faithfully held up by Mal and Sancho, one on either side like bookends.

Words fly past him. Finally, this day is over.

“So with that, let’s raise a glass to the man of the hour,” Brian beams. Always does when there’s a crowd. “Singer, songwriter, writer, and now a film star in his own right.”

“Here, here,” John slurs, hoisting his empty glass in a lopsided arc. The little joke hovers for a beat before landing. He nudges Mal. “Clever, that. He’s a clever ‘ne, our Eppy. Get it? In his own right.”

Mal chuckles, shaking his head—not at the joke, but at the human catastrophe beside him. He claps John’s shoulder and starts steering him back toward the front room when a familiar voice cuts through the noise, light and chipper.

“I’d like to say a few words myself.”

“Ah, fuck me,” John mutters.

“I’m John’s father,” Alf says, parting the sea of guests, until he reaches John. To John’s horror, Sancho—damn Sancho—steps aside, politely allowing Alf to sidle up and sling an arm around John’s shoulders like they’re a double act on stage.

John wants to just vomit into Paul’s hollyhocks and call it a night. He turns to tell Mal exactly that when Alf speaks again.

“Lovely day for it, eh?”

“Piss off, Alf. Keep your mitts to yourself.”

“Oi, don’t be like that—”

“Buzz off, you cunt,” John snaps, suddenly remembering just how wobbly he is.

“Still got that sharp tongue on you, eh, son? Always was a cheeky bugger. Not even this lot’s managed to knock it out of you.”

The crowd chuckles uneasily, caught between awkward politeness and the slow realization that they just might be watching a train wreck in real-time.

“Didn’t I always say you’d make something of yourself?” Alf slaps his back. “Always knew there was something in you — bit of spark, that edge — his old man’s gift, see? Runs in the family, doesn’t it?”

Alf chuckles, a little too loudly.

“Life’s a journey, eh? Never quite know how it’s going to turn out. But just look at you now — top of the world. Honestly, son, I mean it. Your mam’d be proud as anything, bless her soul.”

“Don’t you dare bring her into this,” John slurs. The world is spinning.

“Come on, lad, no need for all that. She’d want us to sort things, wouldn’t she? Father and son, together again.”

John’s voice, when it comes, is razor-sharp. “Not a day goes by I don’t wish it were you in the ground instead of her.”

Alf blanches. “Ach. You don’t mean that, son.”

“Twice a day on Christmas.”

“See what I mean?” Alf’s face crumbles. “That’s ‘is mother’s side, that. Bad blood, that lot. We Lennons never—”

And that’s all it takes, really. John grabs Alf by the lapels, slamming him hard into the garden wall. There’s an ugly thud when the old man's skull hits the rough stonework.

“Do not talk about my mother. Ever. Again.”

“Or what? What’ll you do—beat an old man to a pulp in front of your own wain?”

“Daddy?”

It’s like a drop of ice down his spine. Jules. He blinks, blinded by the overhead lights and shame. He can’t see him, but he feels his voice hit him square in the chest.

“Shit,” he breathes, trembling now. “Shit,” again, sharper, like he’s trying to shake it off.

Alf sneers, jerking away from him. “You’re bloody mental! A rotten apple, just like—”

Right, he thinks through the fog. So that’s blind rage, then.

John’s fist flies before the thought can finish. One clean swing, and Alf’s jaw snaps sideways with a sickening crunch, and before anyone can even flinch, he’s already winding back for another.

“John!”

“Mal, do somethin—Mal!”

And then hands, everywhere—grabbing, yanking, pulling him back into the blur of bodies before he can land another blow. He kicks out, doesn’t even know who he’s aiming for.

He’s slammed back against the French doors with a jolt that knocks the air out of him.

It’s only when he’s pinned John realizes who’s holding him—Robert, surprisingly strong, pinning him against the delicate French doors.

“...grab hold of yourself!”

“Get your fucking hands off me—” John snarls, struggling to twist free.

“Stop it!” Robert barks, giving him a rough shove. “You’re embarrassing yourself, you miserable fool. Look around!”

John’s head thuds back against the glass, the adrenaline bleeding out of him all at once. His vision skews, tilts—but over Robert’s shoulder, he sees them:

Cyn, pale as death. Julian, clutching her skirt with both hands, eyes wide and confused.

“Why’d you always do this?” Robert hisses.

“Geroff,” John growls, weak now.

“People bend over backwards for you,” Robert snaps. “Throw you parties. Clean up your bloody messes. And you piss it all away—every time. All anyone’s gonna remember from tonight is how you embarrassed Paul. Again.”

“Someone has to,” Robert snaps. “Can’t blame him for being done scraping you off the floor.”

“You’re full of shite, Bob,” John shoots back—but the words tremble as they leave him.

Because Paul isn’t there.

He hadn’t stepped in. Hadn’t tried to stop any of it.

John’s eyes flick across the garden, desperate, searching for Paul’s eyes, but it’s like peering through smoke. The booze and the rage churn together, distorting everything, turning everyone into shadows.

“Am I? Then why’s he crawling into my bed and not yours?”

Right, so that’s blind rage, then.

John lunges without thinking, headfirst. His forehead crashes into Robert’s skull with a sickening, bone-deep crack.

And for a few blessed seconds, there’s only silence.

Chapter Text

The first thing John feels is Martha’s wet nose, shoving insistently at his cheek. The second thing is—there it is again—Martha’s nose. She’s persistent, he’ll give her that. And, all things considered, it’s a rather nice ending for the day. Or his life, if that’s the case.

Then the headache kicks in.

When he pries his eyes open, he finds himself slumped in Paul’s guest tub, the cold enamel digging into his back. George hovers above him, chewing his gum and looking down with all the smug satisfaction of a gargoyle. Behind him stands Richard Lester, looking like he’s walked in on an autopsy.

Lovely. Just lovely.

“It’s alive!” George crows. “Come on, what year is it?”

“Year for you to shut yer gob,” John croaks.

Richard steps in, hesitant. “Are we sure he’s okay? Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”

“Nah, he’s had worse in Hamburg. Haven’t ya, Johnny? What doesn’t kill you just makes you harder to kill.”

Richard bends down a little, peering into the tub. “He could’ve cracked his skull. Might have a concussion.”

“Dickie, lad, if he were concussed, he wouldn’t be mouthing off, would he?” George nudges John’s elbow with the toe of his shoe, like he’s checking a carcass. “Go on, say something clever so the Yank’ll relax.”

“Something clever.”

George smirks. “See?”

“Where’s—” John starts, then falters, blinking hard. His brain’s a jumbled jukebox of names. “Where’s Cyn?”

“Mal drove ’em all home. Cyn says not to bother showing your face tonight.”

He gives a short, dismissive snort and slumps until the cold porcelain cradles his skull. “Not exactly dying to see her, meself. Where’s Alf?”

“Scarpered before you and Bob started comparing dick sizes, or whatever that was,” George says, blowing a lazy bubble. Pop. “No offense, Dickie.”

“None taken,” Richard says, carefully. He’s planted near the door, hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets, visibly unsure how involved he’s meant to be.

“And, er...?”

“Downstairs, chatting up the coppers.”

“Coppers?”

“The ones your da’s gone to cry to. Paul’s spinning some yarn for them. Told them Alf was drunk and trespassing, had no business here, all that palaver.”

John cracks one eye open, squinting up. “You’re not sackin’ me, are ya? This picture’s all I’ve got left at the moment.”

“Why would I fire you?”

“Oh, I dunno. Attempted patricide, split lip. Makes for cracking PR.”

“All press is good press,” Richard says, crouching slightly beside the tub and offering a hand.

John eyes it for a beat, then sighs like a man preparing for execution and hauls himself upright. The world lists violently but he catches himself on the tiled wall, white-knuckled but standing.

“You alright?” Richard asks.

“Ta, mate.”

“Sure,” Richard says, giving a faint, uncertain smile. “Just maybe don’t make it a habit, yeah?”

“What, getting knocked arse over tit or kicking off in public?” George pipes up.

“Both?” Richard replies without missing a beat.

John groans and catches his reflection in the mirror. Split lip, dried blood, his hair sticking out with sweat. Still, George wasn’t wrong; he’s crawled away from worse.

Richard steps forward. “Why don’t we go get you something—”

But the door swings open before he can finish. Paul enters, silent and sharp. He’s got John’s glasses dangling from one finger, a glass of water in the other, and a crumpled aspirin packet clutched between palm and wrist. The air in the room shifts and Richard moves instinctively, making room for him.

John clears his throat. “Come to administer last rites, have you?”

“Could we have a minute, lads?” Paul says, eyes pinned on John like George and Richard aren’t even there.

George raises his eyebrows, mouthing Good luck, mate as he slips out, Richard and Martha trailing behind him.

“I’m fine, by the way, thanks for asking,” John grumbles.

Paul steps forward and sets the glass of water and the aspirin down on the sink with a sharp, deliberate clink.

“Ta,” John mutters, sliding the glasses on with fumbling fingers. He reaches for the flannel, runs it under the warm tap, and drags it across his face with a sigh.

“Can you believe Cyn? How many bloody times have I told her—keep that man away from me! And what’s she do? Invite him to this.”

“It’s like she wants me to crack. Him and that cow, parading about under my roof. Told her a hundred times—it makes me miserable. But does she care? Does she listen?” He tugs off the glasses, wipes them clean with the hem of his t-shirt. “Nah. Just carries on, same as always. Thank Christ I’m out of here come Monday. Could use the break.”

Paul tuts, like he wasn’t listening at all. “We need to sort that lip,” he’s close now, too close, and John catches a whiff of Robert’s cologne.

Fucking hell.

“I’m fine.”

“There’s Savlon in—”

“I said, I’m fine!” John roars, the words bouncing off tile and mirror and back into his own ears.

Paul flinches—just a flicker, half a step—but enough. “We need to talk.”

John barks a laugh. “Ye breakin’ up with me, then?”

“Listen—”

“You know what?” He runs a hand through his hair, rough, like he’s trying to tear the thoughts out by the root. “I don’t even wanna know. I’ve got to keep my wits about me for this bloody picture, alright? Can’t be dealing with this shite right now. Go on, then—go sit on it in Paris with him, see if I care.”

Paul has the audacity to look offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Shopping for Magrittes now, are we? You’re from Speke, Paul. SPEKE. Might as well have NEW MONEY, stamped right here—” He jabs a finger towards Paul’s forehead. "’s pathetic. How d’you reckon that plays, eh? Jetting off with that ponce?”

“Same way it looked when you let Brian whisk you off to Spain, I reckon.”

“Oi, don’t you start. That was—”

"What? What was it, John?"

“Lads?” Brian appears in the doorway and steps in, voice light but eyes sharp, and Robert right behind him. “There’s a car waiting for you, John. Unless you’d rather stay here tonight?”

John's eyes stay locked on Paul. “Nah. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the honeymoon.”

"Savoy, then? Or—mine?”

“Yours’ll do.”

He steps into Paul’s space without warning, until the air between them all but snaps. Paul’s back straightens, trying not to retreat.

“I can smell him on you,” John whispers.

Paul flinches, just a beat too long. John catches it. Good. He shoulders past, ramming into Robert hard enough to make him stumble. “Watch your step, sunshine,” he mutters without looking back.

He slides into the waiting car, a hulking black beast of a thing. Brian slides in first, and when Richard and Sancho climb into the bench in front of them, he decides it’s been far too long since he played the ornery bastard. “What are you lot doing here?”

"Brian's kind enough to let us stay at his place till we fly out," Richard says.

“More strays, Brian?” John snorts. "Mr Epstein likes to keep a full stable, y'see."

Brian ignores the bait entirely, which only eggs John on. “I’m his favourite, though,” he adds, smirking, which finally prompts Brian to roll his eyes, the picture of long-suffering patience.

“I’m getting you a doctor as soon as we get there.”

John turns to Sancho, peering at him like he might sprout feathers. “Why’s he here? Thought I said no lackeys.”

“John, let’s not,” Brian warns.

“I did, though. I did say it.”

Richard clears his throat. “Mel’s an assistant script supervisor—”

“La-dee-bloody-da,” John sing-songs.

“—and he’ll be helping you when I’m tied up with the rest of it,” Richard finishes, unruffled.

John scrunches his nose and peers sideways at Sancho. “You don’t say much, do you?”

Sancho doesn’t bother looking back. He keeps his gaze fixed on the blur of lights smearing past the glass. “I talk when there’s somethin’ worth sayin’.”

“Didn’t scare you with my little show back there, did I?”

“I don’t scare easy.”

John leans forward, closes the gap between them. “No? Not even a tremble?”

That gets Sancho’s eyes. He turns, slow and calm, meets John square. “Way I was raised, if you want help, you ask nice. I ain’t here to chase you round like a wet dog.”

John blinks, taken off guard for a heartbeat before a grin curls across his face. “You’re alright, Alabama.” He holds his joint out in offering, but Sancho just gives a slow shake of his head.

“What, too holy?”

“Too navy.”

John pauses mid-drag. “A soldier?”

“Was,” Sancho says evenly. “U.S. Navy, signal division. Learned real quick it’s better to listen first, talk later. You might try that sometime.”

“And what’d they teach you about joints?”

“That I don’t like gettin’ sloppy round strangers.”

John gives a dry laugh. “You think I’m a stranger?”

“I think you’ve been on show too long, and it’s wearin’ on you.”

It hits John harder than he’d like, a queasy little dip low in his stomach. He draws in smoke, holds it, lets it curl out between his teeth.

“Not entirely sure what to make of you. You do know it’s an anti-war film, do you?”

“And I’m anti-war, sir.”

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, son, you’ll give me a rash,” John scowls, holding the joint out again, this time more insistent. “Trust me—it makes dealin’ with me dead easy, just ask Mr Epstein here.”

Brian just sighs.

“It does!” He exhales a slow plume of smoke and smirks. “Don’t need me to tell you, eh, Sancho? You were on set with us lot, must have made an impression.”

“Sure did.”

“Nice someone remembers, ‘cause we were all baked out of our skulls—”

“John!” Brian snaps.

“Keep your hair on, Bri,” John says, waving the joint lazily before turning back to Sancho. “Go on, then. One little puff. You know you want to.”

With a slow, resigned breath, Sancho mutters, “Alright.” He leans in, pulls a small, careful puff, then passes it back, smiling like a man humouring a dangerous child.

“There you are,” John says, leaning back, grin softening. “Takes the edge off.”

“Bit like sitting in warm water.”

“Now you’re talkin’. Who’s your favourite Beatle, then?”

“That Jagger guy.”

John barks a laugh. “Aye, mine too. You got yourself a bird back home?”

“A bird?”

“A girl, mate. A bit of skirt. Someone to keep yer letters in a shoebox under the bed.”

Sancho shifts, the faintest flush rising up his neck.

“Cheeky sod. Aye, you’ll fit right in,” John says with a sly grin, elbowing him. “Welcome to showbiz.”

Brian, true to form, calls for a doctor the moment the front door clicks shut behind them. He turns out to be a crumbling relic of a man with a black bag and a frown that suggests he doesn’t approve of being within a mile of a Beatle.

He prods at John with the brisk, joyless efficiency of someone inspecting meat at a butcher’s, and eventually declares a mild concussion. It takes a while, not least because John’s bloodstream is hosting more substances than a chemist’s cupboard.

Brian takes it upon himself to wake John every few hours to make sure he hasn’t shuffled off the mortal coil. John, for his part, groans, swears, and occasionally mutters dark threats about throwing himself out the window just to make everyone’s lives easier.

Brian doesn’t laugh.

By the time the sun claws its way over the horizon, John resembles a semi-functioning adult again. He rings Cyn, going through thirty minutes of the same argument they’ve been having for months. He wants his dad out of his house, she thinks it’s good for Jules to have more family around seeing that John is always gone, and when John reminds her he’s been home for months, the whole thing starts to disintegrate into high pitched accusations.

He ends up giving her strict instructions to let Mal in and have him pack his things, for however long he’ll be away. John won’t come back to that house—his house—until it’s been stripped of Alf and the stink he leaves behind.

When it’s done, he drops the receiver like it’s burned his fingers.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters to nobody in particular, before throwing back a couple more aspirins, which he may or may not chase with a gin and tonic.

“Of course,” he hears Brian over the phone from the other room. “It was, indeed. The father is known to have—”

There’s a pause. Then a shift in tone—softer, but sharper. John leans slightly toward the doorway, listening.

“The mother’s been gone for… Yes. Quite tragic, indeed.”

Another pause. “You have my word, CI Brown. Thank you ever so much.”

Brian glides into the kitchen with Mildred, the world’s least huggable private secretary. Loyal as a well-trained retriever, if a retriever had platinum hair and the personality of a frozen haddock.

Ritchie calls her Old Faithful.

It's not a compliment.

“All sorted,” Brian announces, cheerfulness just a shade too rehearsed. He gives John’s shoulder a brisk pat. “Eat something. Magda will bring it. You rest.”

In waddles Magda. Elderly, Polish, two expressions in her whole arsenal and neither of them cheerful. She’s never said a word to John that wasn’t a nod, a “yes,” or “Mister Lennon.” She retrieves a bowl, a spoon, and a box of cornflakes, tips them in, adds milk, gives him a solemn nod, and disappears.

It’s only once she’s gone that John catches the twitch in her step, the tension in her hands. She’s frightened of him. Of him.

And suddenly he’s sixteen again, back in Mimi’s kitchen getting his ears boxed for... something, caught trying to get her attention or a smile, breaking a rule she never bothered to explain. Don’t whistle, John. Elbows off the table. Don’t breathe so bloody loud.

It’s always like this when the fog lifts, when he catches a glimpse of himself in the quiet moments when he’s not John Lennon, Beatle, just John.

And he’s a father, isn’t he? A father in name and technicality only. The sort of father who needs someone to pour the cornflakes into a bowl for him, because God only knows what Lennon might do, left alone with a cereal box and too much autonomy.

“Mr Lennon?” He jumps when Old faithful pipes up from behind him. “Mr Epstein would like you to sign off on this.”

She offers a neatly typed sheet, Brian’s blue-ink notes curling across the margins.

Chief Inspector— I wish to express my deepest regrets for last evening’s incident… entirely unintended… a lapse in judgement… I trust we may put this behind us in good faith…

John picks up her pen. “May I?”

“Please.”

He slices through the text.

Cross, cross, cross.

Then, with that ornamental schoolboy script they once tried to force on him: Mr Lennon can go fuck himself. Then, for good measure, he scrawls a cartoon geyser beside it; Old Faithful.

Would’ve got kept in for it in ’53. Worth it now.

He pivots the page toward her with a flourish, like it’s art, which in a way, it is. She gives it one look and her face clouds over.

“Charming.”

He gives her his finest knuckle-dragging gurn.

“I worked all night on that,” she says, tight-lipped, yanking it from him.

“And that’s why you're on Beatle wages, love!” he shouts after her as she disappears round the corner.

The day drags like a busted clock. His head throbs, his patience frays, and somewhere beneath it all—buried under the aspirin, gin, and the storm of Cyn’s voice still ringing in his ears, is a stuttering heartbeat that whispers what he’s been trying not to think about:

Paul, who hasn’t rung.

Paul, who may still have Robert’s cologne lingering on his body.

Paul, who hasn’t shown his face all day.

Paul.

To keep from smashing the furniture or launching himself out the window, John runs lines with Sancho. It’s like running lines with Lyndon Johnson; every word drips out of his mouth in a slow, syrupy drawl. John reads his lines, and everyone else’s, and Sancho, assistant script supervisor extraordinaire, marks lines and crosses paragraphs with a bright red pen.

By the third read-through, though, John feels a flicker of sympathy for Mad King George.

“Again,” John snaps, cutting him off mid-line. Sancho raises an eyebrow, amused but compliant. John inhales sharply. “Musketeer Juniper, where’s your finger?”

“Must ‘ave left it stickin’ up the Kay-bar Pass, sir!”

This is ridiculous. “Khayber!”

“Kay-bar!” Sancho tries again.

“Khay!”

“Kay!”

“Oh, sod off,” John mutters, flinging himself onto the sofa in defeat.

That night he rounds up Richard, Mal, Sancho, and a few stragglers, and marches them all to The Scotch of Saint James.

He’s already bored stiff before the velvet curtain breathes shut behind them.

When they sit, he orders the good stuff for the table—three rounds deep before anyone can protest—because that’s what magnanimous hosts do when they’re bleeding from somewhere the guests can’t see.

This used to be their place once, where he could always count on finding Paul, either jamming with John Mayall or with his hand up that nanny’s skirt—what’s-her-name, Marianne’s girl.

John scans the room like a hunter, eyes locking on a petite brunette he’s never clapped eyes on before. He jerks his chin toward her, nudging Sancho.

“Go fetch her for me, will you?”

Sancho looks, blinks once, then cuts him a flat stare. “Get her yourself. ’m not a fucking pimp,” stuffing his hands in his pockets and stalks off.

Three songs in, Richard is flanked by two aspiring actresses (aren’t they all?), Sancho’s chatting up a French bird John wouldn’t mind borrowing later, and that waitress glides past again, the one Mick swears is a pair of identical twins called Poppy and Daisy, though John’s never seen them in the same room at once and suspects she’s just the same girl in a place full of people seeing double.

She slides steak and chips in front of him, her smile bright enough to hurt. He’s not hungry, but he saws into it anyway. Fork halfway to his mouth, Sancho glances over.

“That’s somebody’s mama you’re eatin’ there.”

John stops mid-chew, brows lifting. He spits the piece back into the napkin.

“You a veggie, cowboy?”

Sancho looks almost insulted. “Ain’t no cowboys in Alabama.”

“Right. Cheers.”

Then, like a magician’s flourish, Poppy-or-Daisy appears, asking about his steak. He grabs her waist on impulse, and she sinks into his lap. Her bum’s warm, her perfume forgettable. She’s just enough to blur the lines, bless her.

She laughs when he leans in, telling her about the time they got kicked out of The Russian Tea Room in New York. He tells it like it was fun, not humiliating. She laughs, rubbing his thigh like it’s hers to claim.

And all the while, the door keeps swinging open and closed, over and over again—and every time, it’s not him.

One person who does show is the nanny. Maggie — that’s it — he plucks the name from the mental lint trap. Normally, he doesn’t waste brain space on the birds drifting through the other lads’ beds, but she’s stuck around long enough, like a cold sore.

Word around the tables is Paul had promised to whisk her off to Sardinia, now that he’s unshackled from Jane’s chains. Instead, he’s buggered off to Paris without her. She must be about as chuffed about it as John is. No wonder she’s out prowling.

She’s tall. They always are, the ones Paul can’t shake after one or two goes, he’s greedy like that. Tall and curvy, tits out, the kind of hips that make men write bad poetry. Like something straight out of those American stocking adverts John used to flick through in Julia’s sitting room, when the mere glimpse of a thigh would leave him hard and dizzy.

This one ticks every box. John sees none of the appeal.

Confident, though—he’ll give her that. She’s shagged her way through their incestuous little circle without ever bothering with shame. She waits for Poppy-or-Daisy to bugger off before swooping in and planting herself beside him.

He ignores her, so she turns her gaze on Sancho, giving him a long, leisurely once-over, like she’s sizing up livestock. New face, new toy, new target. Whether she likes what she sees or not is anyone’s guess, but then Stevie Wonder’s Fingertips kicks in, bouncy and buttery, and something in it softens her. She slides a fag between her lips and leans in with a smile.

John doesn’t light it. She lights it herself then dips her head, voice husky at his ear.

“Shall we go back to mine? Make him jealous?”

“Not keen on anything Paul’s already broken in, ta.”

She blinks “No, me neither.”

He gives her a look that could slit throats. She takes it as a win, smooths her skirt, and saunters off.

When Poppy-or-Daisy returns, she wastes no time and climbs straight into his lap. She wriggles as she settles in, hips rolling with just enough mischief to make him see stars behind his sunglasses. He’s hard in seconds and his brain starts slipping out the side of his ears.

“Christ,” he mutters, gripping her waist. “You tryin’ to get me arrested?”

She just smirks and whispers something that sounds vaguely illegal in his ear.

“You’re impossible,” he growls, and before anyone can object, he’s bundled them both into he drags her through a door marked “Staff Only,” nearly slamming it behind them.

He shoves her fingers down his trousers. They're small and deliberate, so teasingly slow that his eyes roll back. She bats those ridiculous blue eyes at him like she’s asking for another silly story, but John’s got more pressing matters at the moment, so he pushes her head down.

“You always this impatient?” she purrs.

“Yes,” he growls. “Get on with it, yeah?”

“I know what you like, love.”

“Do ye now.”

“Mmm,” smiles sweetly from below and runs her tongue up John’s cock, one long swipe and then a slurping, sucking kiss to the head.

“Ngh,” he begs and shoves his hand in her blond, soft hair. She hums approvingly around his cock and takes him whole again— all the way down her warm, velvety mouth.

She’s good—Christ, she’s good. And bloody hell, he needed that. Needed someone’s hands on him, someone’s mouth, someone not asking questions. Five seconds of being someone’s want instead of everyone’s problem.

”Fuck—” he cries as she her opens wide to suck his tightening bollocks. He spreads his thighs further apart, rutting helplessly until his cock hits the back of her throat.

“Sweet Jesus, oh, god,” he whispers, because Lord have mercy on his soul, he’s dangerously close and—

He desperately pulls her mouth away and folds her against the counter, grabs it with one hand for purchase, and one of her arse cheeks with another to keep her right where she is so he can take her from behind.

They grunt like animals in the wild when he slides in and starts moving. He loses track of time watching her necklace bounce along the nape of her back, her elbows slipping, catching, slipping again as she tries to steady herself on the edge of the counter.

“Yes, yes, yes, fuck,” he grunts, matching the string of “Ah-Ah-Ah”s every time he bottoms out. She makes all the right sounds in all the right places, but the truth is she’d had him strung so tight it's over before he can even enjoy the view.

He groans when he pulls out of her, coming on her knickers and her thighs. He zips himself up while she puts herself back together like women always do—one hand pulls a compact from her bra, the other smooths her hair, and within seconds she looks like she’s just come from tea at her great-auntie.

“So,” he says, tousling his hair. “Settle a bet for us — you Poppy or Daisy?”

Her brow furrows, like she’s trying to work out if he’s stupid or just pretending, then kisses him, the most chaste kiss imaginable, like a stamp on a letter. Like he didn’t just shag her into oblivion next to a bucket and a mop.

“Call me when you get back?”

He chuckles, wagging a finger as if she’s been very naughty, then ghosts out without a backward glance.

When John gets back to the table, it looks like every fever dream he's ever had about swinging London threw up in real time. Keith’s half-naked, gyrating with a bloke who’s prettier than half the girls John’s ever pulled, and Richard’s grinning like a toddler in a brothel while one of the bright-eyed starlets traces hearts on his sweaty bald patch.

Sancho, somehow, is now caught between two French girls having what looks like a very stylish meltdown about Kierkegaard. John hears Sancho throwing the words sublime despair and moral cowardice float around and he’s thrown back to Astrid and Stu and the smell of cigarettes in wet Hamburg stairwells.

It’s bizarre. The lad looks like he should be selling rifles out of a boot, not breaking up continental cage matches about existential dread.

John elbows Richard, eyes still on Sancho. “Where’d you dig that one up?”

“Mel? New York. Why?”

“What’s his deal?”

“I was giving a guest lecture at a screenwriting class and he cornered me in the stairwell. Went on for ten solid minutes about Running Jumping, called it ‘absurdist cinema’s missing link,’ which was… frankly alarming.”

John snorts, glancing back at Sancho.

“So I made him a waterboy. Figured if he was going to stalk me, might as well have him carry something.”

John shakes his head slowly. “Strangest redneck I’ve ever met.”

“Strangest anyone I’ve ever met,” Richard says. Then adds, almost offhand, “But he’s a good writer and a hard worker. Knows when to shut up. That’s rare.”

Before John can reply, one of the French girls turns her attention his way.

“You agree with Kierkegaard, yes? That despair comes from refusing to become oneself?”

“Despair’s what you call it when you’re sad and rich enough to write about it, love.”

She laughs, a little too loudly, maybe thinking it’s flirtation. It’s not. He flicks ash into the tray, eyes drifting toward the entrance as the door swings open again. For a second, something tugs at his spine — a sliver of hope, reflexive and unwelcome.

But it’s not him.

“Kierkegaard can piss off,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone.

He knocks back the rest of his drink and leans into the noise.

They fly out to Hanover the next afternoon.

John spends most of the flight with his forehead pressed against the cold glass, watching clouds drift by in lazy, white waves. He’s still high enough to blur the sharp edges of the past few days, high enough to notice how the earth stretches out below them, beautiful and unbothered.

The closer they get to Hanover, though, the greyer the world becomes, as though someone’s twisted the saturation knob all the way down.

It’s only a quick three-hour drive from Hanover to Hamburg, but it might as well be another planet. Hanover is a slab of grey, smothered with endless rain. Sheets of it slide down the bus windows in rivers, blurring everything outside.

They rattle down to Celle in a wheezing old coach. John plants himself next to Sancho for the whole ride, and the rest of the crew keep such a generous distance he starts to suspect Richard’s had a quiet word. And Richard was right: Sancho’s the quiet type, and doesn't talk much. For once, John’s fine with the silence.

Somewhere near the halfway mark, Sancho fishes out a dog-eared paperback, its spine bent into submission by too many re-reads. John cranes his neck, squinting at the title.

Sand and Foam. Khalil Gibran.

Well, now, that’s a turn. He knows the title; everyone who’s been to New York treats it like holy writ. Never opened it himself. Too clever by half for a Southern gent, he reckons, though it would stand that the veggie cowboy's a poet, too.

Still, curiosity nips at him, so he makes a grab for the book. Sancho slaps his hand away without lifting his eyes.

“Give ’ere, I’m bored,” John says, lunging again.

“Get your own damn book,” Sancho shoots back, elbowing him square in the ribs.

John sticks a finger in his ear like a bored schoolboy.

Sancho grimaces, draws back to retaliate — and the whole coach sways, brakes screaming, a cyclist wobbling past in a streak of near-death.

“Schloss!” the driver shouts, flinging the door open like he’s discovered Atlantis and waving everyone off the coach to look at — well, a Schloss. Celle Castle, John reckons, if he’s bothering to keep score.

Down on the kerb, he takes a long, unimpressed drag on his fag and squints up at the white hulk of stone.

“We’ve got our own castles, ta very much.”

“Yeah, well, we ain’t,” Sancho says, shading his eyes with one hand.

“You can have one of ours if you’re good.”

Behind him, Sancho gives a quick, unguarded laugh and the sound lingers in the air as they clamber back onto the coach.

Finally—finally—they’re dropped off at the Bergen-Hohne training camp. The whole place reeks of a faint whiff of diesel, though John hasn’t the foggiest where it’s coming from.

He barely has time to take in the bleak surroundings before he’s whisked into a crumbling room at the heart of the barracks. An elderly German man with cheeks like overripe plums eyes him up and down, then herds him into a battered barber’s chair.

“Alright?” John mutters, trying for some sort of pleasantry, but the old man doesn’t so much as grunt in response.

Across the room, Richard tosses Sancho a Nikon. “For posterity!” he calls, flashing John’s reflection a wink.

“Know what you’re doing, Sancho?”

“I do mostly portraits,” he says, fiddling with the settings.

“Pardon me, Lord Snowdon,” John mutters as the barber shoves his head forward with all the tenderness of a bouncer.

The shears start up with a snarl. Somewhere behind him, Sancho’s camera clicks.

“Bedside manner’s a bit Gestapo,” he winces, and the old man's frown deepens. “Not you, grandpa, you’re a right charmer.”

“Wave goodbye to the mop-top,” Richard announces, arms folded, and leans over the barber’s shoulder to direct him. “There. No, shorter there. Just like that.”

Hair slides down the cape, and John feels himself slipping with it. He tilts his head in the mirror, frowning like he’s inspecting a painting in a gallery he’s not quite sure he likes. The production team’s swapped out his old specs for the new round ones they’ve insisted on. He slips them on and peers in closer.

There goes Beatle John. The mop’s gone now, and in the mirror there’s someone else: older, edges sharpened, a jawline he recognises from old photos of his dad, the ones Mimi used to hide in drawers. He thinks about a small room in Paris, about Jürgen cutting his and Paul’s hair into the mop for the first time, a pair of grinning idiots trying out a new look.

Feels odd, feels wrong, to be closing that book without Paul in the room.

What are they now, if not a matching set?

Richard leans in. “Well?”

John spreads his hands. “What can I say? I’m a masterpiece.”

The room — a jumble of extras and crew who showed up out of nowhere with no real reason to be there — erupts in laughter.

“Don’t worry, soon as we’re in Almería, you’ll have the villa for a bit of privacy,” Richard winks.

“What villa?”

“For you and Mrs Lennon.”

“Mrs Lennon won’t be visiting,” John replies flatly. "Just get me a room with a view and a turntable.”

“…Right.” Richard glances at Sancho.

Sancho looks like he’s about to say something, then clocks John’s face and shuts it. “Got it, boss." They’d settled on ‘boss’ as tolerable, now and then. ‘Sir’ was banned on pain of death, and ‘Mr Lennon’ had died a quick death after John reminded him of his father's recent fate.

“Come on, then, are we doin’ this or what? Ready when you are,” John’s already on his feet.

“Any calls for Mr Lennon before we start, Mel?” Richard asks.

“No, boss,” Sancho says.

And just like that, they’re shooed out, making way for Michael Crawford.

By day two of shooting, one thing’s become painfully clear: Richard Lester is a sadist.

There’s really no other explanation. He’s got them tramping across the parade ground like wind-up toys in some war-obsessed fever dream, hour after hour. It’s one thing to lark about on film as a Beatle — unscripted, high, and adored whatever you’re doing. It’s another to slog through this: reshoots, retakes, rehearsals.

Christ alive.

Between touch-ups in makeup and the usual poking and prodding from wardrobe, John makes a break for the craft services table, nicking anything vaguely edible before Kinnear gets there and inhales the lot. Roy’s taken to elbowing him in the ribs whenever a camera swings their way, grinning like the bloody Cheshire Cat. “Smile, mate.”

Every time John thinks he’s got a moment to himself, Richard appears—materialising from behind a prop truck or out of the fog of production staff, clapping him on the shoulder with a manic gleam in his eye. “You’re fabulous, just fabulous! Keep it up!”

He doesn't feel fabulous.

He feels out of touch, out of place. Wonders what would happen if he just kept walking — right off set, right through the streets, all the way home.

But then, just as he’s about to bite someone, it starts to rain. Proper rain—fat, heavy drops that hit like pennies from heaven, drenching their uniforms and turning the parade ground into a bog. He stands there in the middle of it, arms outstretched, letting the downpour wash the edge off his nerves.

Sancho emerges from the gloom, cradling a steaming cup of tea.

“Thank fuck, m’feet are killin’ me,”  John says.

“You wouldn’t last a week in the army, boss. They’d toss you out for all that sass.”

“That’s not sass, son, that’s a personality.”

“Could be worse. Least they’ve not got you polishing boots.”

“Oh, give it time,” John says darkly, sipping.

The rain drums steadily, filling the silence between them. For a while, that’s enough. Then John shifts, hesitant. He’s asked one too many times already but there it is again, rising in his chest before he can swallow it down.

“Any, eh… calls for me?”

“Yeah. Mr Epstein rang. Your dad’s dropped the complaint.”

“That it?”

“That’s it,” Sancho replies, flashing a clueless grin.

As the day wears on, boredom creeps in like rot. By mid-afternoon, they’ve had enough of marching, waiting, and being told to stand still while someone fiddles with the lighting. John nicks a half-full flask from the props table and, with a conspiratorial nod, leads Sancho up the narrow fire escape to the barracks roof like a pair of schoolboys bunking off chapel.

The tiles are slick with rain, treacherous underfoot, but they climb anyway, laughing and cursing and nearly going arse-over-elbow more than once. At the top, they unroll a tarpaulin and throw themselves beneath it, breathless, grinning like idiots. The wind whistles under the flap, the rain drums above, but it’s theirs for now—a little fortress against the monotony below.

They play cards in a lazy sprawl, the deck battered and water-soft at the edges, the flask passing between them like a spliff.

“So, what’re you writing, then?”

Sancho looks up, caught mid-sip. “Huh?”

“You said you were a writer. Or were you just saying that to sound clever?”

“No, I write, honest to God, just nothing good enough to write home about.”

“Well don’t keep me hanging. I’m expectin’ a lead role, you know.”

Sancho sets his cards down slowly, thinking it over. “There’s one I’ve been workin’ on for a while. Ain’t showin’ it to anyone yet.”

“Might as well start with me. I’m terrible at keeping secrets.”

Sancho chuckles, but it fades quickly. “It’s about my cousin. Well, second cousin, on my Mama's side. His momma raised him up by herself. Real tough lady, no bigger’n a minute, but she’d cut a man down with just her look, d'you know the type?”

He leans back , listening.

“He’s... slow,” Sancho continues. “Up here, I mean. Took him longer than most to learn his letters, tie his shoes. Doctors put them steel braces on him, said he’d never walk right. Then one day — he must’a been seven, maybe eight — some mean little shits at school chased him down an oak alley. And he just... ran. Braces come flyin’ off like they was never on in the first place. Took off down the street like a coonhound.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Sancho repeats, nodding slowly, his eyes a little unfocused now. “Folks still treat him like he’s broken, but... I dunno. He sees things different. Not simple, just... clear. Makes you feel like you’re the one who’s got it backwards.”

The tarp rustles above them, the rain steady and soft like static. John takes a long sip from the flask and lets the silence sit a while before speaking again.

“And what about the rest of your lot, then? Big family?”

“Not really.”

“You’re a hell of a storyteller, Kafka,” John says sardonically.

Sancho snorts. “It’s just a sad story, is all.”

“Yeah, well. You met me da’. I’m no stranger to those.”

Sancho is quiet for a moment, then says simply, “My old man's dead. Died in prison. Long while ago.”

“And your mam?”

“She’s gone.”

John's heart skips a beat. “She died?”

“No, just gone missing, one fine day. Was workin’ in her salon that morning… by nightfall, she wasn’t anywhere.”

Something cold creeps into John’s chest, sickly and familiar. "When was this?"

"Fifty-seven. I was fifteen."

“They look for her?”

“Some. Cops came round, asked a few questions. Her no-good boyfriend told ’em she was strapped for cash, said she’d been talkin’ like maybe she didn’t wanna be here much longer. But… I don’t know. Ain’t never seen a body, so… you know. Stranger things’ve happened.”

“Well, shit, Sancho,” John sits with that, eyes fixed on his cards. "So you think..."

“Oh. She’s alive. Don’t know where she’s gone, but I one day I’ll pick up the phone or open my mailbox, and…” He trails off, swallows, then sets his jaw. “She would never leave me, nuh-uh. Not my mama. She’ll come back.”

John stares at him, this strange bloke with a golden smile and eyes that give nothing away about what he’s just told him, and realises what he’s looking at: not a man, but a lad still waiting for his mam to turn the key. He used to be that lad. Can’t say which is worse, really — living with that daft hope, or getting the news she’s gone for good. He should probably do him a favour, tell him the harsh, cold truth: that even the best mams bugger off. Even the best of them end up in a hospital bed, or step out into the road at the wrong second. He can tell him all about the nights spent waiting for her, with no one round but the wallpaper and his own breathing.

Sancho’s looking anywhere but at him now, working a shrug into place like he’s buttoning up a jacket. The armour fits him well. John knows it’s better than the truth. Hell, maybe it’s braver, and he doesn’t feel like pushing.

"Lunch break! Let’s go, lads! Twenty minutes!" A shout rises from the set down below—one of the assistants, bellowing about lunch.

Neither of them moves.

They stay crouched, half out of the tarp, half in their own heads. The rain’s gone from a drizzle to more of a mist, and the tarp behind them flaps once in the wind, useless now, forgotten.

Sancho sighs gets to his feet. He offers John a hand, which John takes, and gets lost staring at something off in the distance.

John follows his gaze, eyes scanning past the treeline, past the sodden field. It’s all just grey on grey, until something low and flat catches the light.

“What’s that, then?” John asks, tilting his chin toward it.

“That there, boss… That’s Bergen-Belsen.”

From this far off, you’d miss it if you didn’t know. A scar in the earth, too old and too deep for time to bother healing. And then the thought lands, cold and sudden: when he was born, it was full of people. Full or prisoners. For years, they were still there, and here he is, griping about cold feet and Sancho’s limp deck of cards, with that sitting just over there.

For the second time in as many minutes, he’s got nothing clever to say.

Below, the assistant’s still going—“Curry or schnitzel, lads—make your bloody minds up!”—like it’s all one big farce and none of it really matters.

“Hey. What was—” John stops, corrects himself. “What’s her name?”

Sancho meets his eyes. “Veronica. Veronica Mae.”

John swallows. “Julia.”

“Ah,” Sancho says, like he’s just put two and two together. They stare a moment longer before he jerks his head. “C’mon, if we don’t get down now, Kinnear’ll eat the whole damn table.”

John’s smile is gone almost before it starts, but he heads after him, hands cold on the rain-slick rungs of the fire escape.

By day four, it’s undeniable: signing up to make the film was a colossal misstep. A cock-up of Everest proportions.

It finally dawns on John that there’s a reason he’s picked to be the leader of a four piece band of lads rather than going solo. The reason is that, without the three others guarding him, shielding him from the attention and his mercurial relationship with the world, he's exposed.

Sancho’s camera clicks as he snaps John against the grim expanse of the German sky. The wind pulls at John’s curls, teasing them over the rims of his wire-framed glasses. With his helmet on and hands shoved deep into his greatcoat, his expression lands somewhere between brooding and bored.

The shot is striking and Richard spins it into PR gold, sending copies to every editor who owes him a favour. Before their first week in Germany ends, they call him “reinvented,” “introspective,” “the thinking man’s Beatle,” as if he’s turned into an entirely new species.

To John, it’s the same old bollocks, but Sancho eats it up, keeping a growing stack of clippings in his battered leather bag.

Sancho handles the deluge of calls from the dingy office near the set, doodling spirals on a stack of blank envelopes. “No, sir, I’m afraid he’s unavailable,” he says. “Mm-hmm, I’ll pass it on.”

John takes Pete Shotton’s call; George and Pattie ring from Delhi to congratulate him. Even Mimi calls, her frosty voice softening just enough to mention that John’s name has come up at her Bridge club, her grudging pride slipping through the cracks.

Everyone wants a word.

Everyone, except Paul.

On a surprisingly sunny day — too sunny, almost, for the scenes they're shooting, John isn’t due until late afternoon, so he and Sancho borrow a production car and drive toward a small town nearby, killing a couple of hours nosing through shop windows.

On a street corner, John stops at a wire postcard rack, flipping through glossy shots of church steeples and unremarkable town squares. Wonders, briefly, if he could get it sent to some unknown Paris address, but he can't imagine what to say and what good that'll do, so he tucks the card away and says nothing.

Still, his fingers keep finding the stiff card in his pocket as they head back to set. By the time they’re back, there’s nothing to do but sit in the car and wait. John dozes; Sancho can’t seem to keep still, clicking the radio from one station to another.

"Weren't you listening to some station yesterday…. Radio Liechten-somethin’?"

John cracks an eye open, just barely. “Radio Luxembourg?”

"Whatever, yeah."

John leans over, twists the dial till it hums just right, then slouches back, chasing the nap again.

An hour slides by in fits — Sancho tapping the wheel to whatever comes through the crackle, John drifting in and out while the playlist cycles through the Beach Boys and the Ronettes, adverts for soap, and three Beatles covers that make him smirk in his sleep. Then the MC’s voice returns, bright and smug, promising “a little Beatles surprise for our listeners tonight…”

John half-opens an eye.

“…an exclusive chat with none other than our old friend Paul McCartney!”

That wakes him. His eyes snap open before his brain has caught up.

“Shit,” he mutters, and flicks the volume up.

The MC greets Paul like an old mate. “Paul, where are you calling from tonight?”

“Oh, just knocking about the Continent. Very nice. Bit of a break, you know,” he says, familiar voice drifting from the radio.

“Sounds lovely. Is it lovely?" the MC asks.

"It's fantastic. Nothing quite like it, really."

"Is it all play, or are you working as well?”

"Ah, mostly play," Paul dares to giggle.

“Rumour has it you’re in Paris!”

“Eh, you know me — I turn up all over."

"What’s a Beatle get up to on a night off in Paris?"

“Well… not tellin’ you, am I?” Paul laughs, the sort that slides right under John’s skin.

“Any songwriting happening while you’re away?”

“A little. Can't help it, can you?"

“And are you keeping in touch with the other lads?”

“Yeah, bits and pieces, but we only just saw each other the other week so it's not been that long. George's in India, and John's in… Germany, right now, I reckon."

Reckon, John thinks. Don’t strain yourself, you twat.

“Speaking of John — have you seen his new hair?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s great, isn’t it?”

"Looks different. Will you cutting off the mop top too?"

"Might do. We'll see. We've all been getting on a bit, haven't we? Might be time to move on."

John snorts. Getting on?! That little son of a—

"We love you just the way you are, baby!" The MC says, and Paul demures. "What’s next for you all?”

“Oh, we’ve got all sorts going on. I’ve been thinking about doing a whole new kind of album. Something different.”

“Different how?”

"Ah… a bit of everything. You'll see, it'll be grand."

“So fans can expect a busy year ahead?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Paul is saying with q voice that wouldn't melt butter. “We’ve all been working on bits here and there, and when we get together again it’ll be like putting all the pieces into place. That’s the magic of it, innit?”

The MC all but beams down the line. "That’s fantastic, Paul. You heard it all hear first! I’ll let you go now, but you have to send us off with your favourite track these days."

Paul ends on an easy laugh, then announces Tomorrow Is a Long Time.

Elvis begins to croon, that lazy, melting voice sliding over the air like warm honey, and John cuts him off mid-line with an angry jab at the dial. The car falls silent. He leans back, realising he’s been bent forward the whole time, listening like Paul might be smuggling some private message through the airwaves just for him.

But he didn’t. Paul’s just a man in Paris, having a grand time without him.

“Smug little shit,” John spits, mostly to the dashboard. Sancho gives him a sideways look, and nothing more.

When the knock comes to call him to set, the postcard from the little stand in town is already buried under a wad of crumpled paper cups at the bottom of the bin. He slams the car door so hard Sancho jumps in his seat.

If Paul wants distance, John’ll give him miles — all the way from Paris to the moon. He’ll build the bloody rocket himself, light the fuse, and wave him off.

Sancho never asks to put on Radio Luxembourg again.