A/N: Well, here we go! Chapter 2 of Life is What Happens.
John's POV
To the average listener, the song that Paul had helped me with was from a generic guy to a generic girl. For awhile, I was the generic listener to my own song. It sounds sad, believe you me, I know, but I wasn't listening to the subtle hints my subconscious mind was giving me.
"Boys? Get up!" Brian's voice cut through my blissful sleep. There was a simultaneous groan from all four of us. I felt like someone had beat me over the head with a sandbag.
"What, Eppy?" I groused, scraping my unruly mop of hair out of my eyes.
"You have a recording session today. Get going." George rolled a little too far and rolled right out of bed onto the floor with a muffled clunk.
"Ouch," he muttered, trying to wiggle out of his blankets that he was now entangled in. "Goddammit."
"Language, Geo." Paul was awake enough to teasingly chide the youngest Beatle. He sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with one hand while his other fumbled for his watch so he could see at what hour he had been jolted out of his slumbers.
I heaved myself out of bed and staggered over to where my clothes were. God, I was tired. I felt like someone had glued weights to my eyelids. Paul and I had been up writing yet another song until the wee hours of the morning again. The beginnings of a headache was starting to grow in my temples. I took a minute to slowly massage them to try and alleviate the pain. To no avail, they still resolutely throbbed.
"John?" Paul's soft voice called out behind me. I turned to him. His hazel, puppy-dog eyes were worried.
"Yeah?" My voice was still croaky and my throat was scratchy like I'd just swallowed a handful of sand.
"You okay?" he asked in concern. I forced a smile on my face that he'd be able to tell was fake right away. I didn't want him to worry about me.
"I'm fine, Macca." He nodded, but I could tell he didn't believe me. Paul could see through me so easily, I may as well have been made of glass. I could read him quickly and accurately too, and sometimes we didn't even have to speak, we knew what the other was thinking.
I made my way into the bathroom to take a shower and change. My headache was growing, and I could hardly move my neck without it paining me, it was so stiff. I really hope I'm not getting sick, I thought, toweling off my hair. I pulled my jeans and short sleeved t-shirt on and walked out of the bathroom. Ringo stood outside the door, belongings in hand, still drowsy.
"'Bout time you finished in there," he mumbled, walking past me with dragging feet. "I thought you fell in or summat." Ringo was never too tired to make a humorous comment, well, almost never too tired.
I felt absolutely godawful by this point. Maybe I just need a cup of coffee, I thought. Yeah, that's it. I made my way into the kitchen. George and Paul had finished eating and were sitting around the table nursing cups of coffee.
I poured myself a cup and sat down. I wasn't hungry at all. The very thought of food repulsed me.
"John, you want some breakfast?" George asked, running his hand through his unruly hair.
"No, thanks." I waved him off. Paul started to say something, but George nudged him under the table and he closed his mouth. Knowing Paul, he was probably going to tell me that under no circumstances was I going to live this house without at least some food.
Ringo came in, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down with an expelled sigh. I took a gulp of my coffee and it made my stomach churn sickeningly. Looks like that's enough of that, I thought, taking my mug to the sink and rinsing it out.
"We have to go now, boys." Brian stuck his head around the doorway.
"Don't go getting your knickers in a twist, Eppy. We're coming." I just couldn't resist teasing our manager. I shot him a smirk and received an exasperated glare in return. We filed out and piled into the car. A shriek assaulted my eardrums.
"It's the BEATLES!" A collection of girl's voices screeched.
"Here we go again, fellas," Paul said, peering out the window. "How'd they manage to recognize us from all the way over there?" he asked incredulously. The screaming was doing nothing for my head. I resisted the urge to drop my head into my hands and moan.
"I think they have a built-in Beatles radar." Ringo said in wonder, glancing out the window to see a bunch of crazy girls attempting to catch up to our car.
"Probably," George affirmed, peeking out the window nervously.
The crowd was growing by the minute, as was my headache. I rested my head on the welcome cool of the window. Paul watched me sharply. His concern for me sent a peculiar little flutter through my stomach. I dismissed it as part of my oncoming illness.
The car pulled to a stop in front of the studio and the hysterical girls converged on the car. "They've absolutely gone potty out there!" Brian breathed, his face paling a little.
"That they have," Paul agreed. "How're we gonna get in without getting killed?"
"Get out fast and run even faster," Brian said. We gave him a look. "I wasn't planning on a bunch of girls seeing you, this isn't my fault!" he exclaimed.
"Never mind, let's just go," I said, shifting my weight so I was facing the door. "One, two, three..." The doors flew open and a wave of solid sound pounded against my eardrums. We made a beeline for the door crouched in a defensive position. Hands tore at my hair and clothing, making me stagger back and forth. My head felt like it was going to burst, and then we finally dashed through the door.
Ringo's hair stood on end in the weirdest of places, George's shirt was quite rumpled, as it had nearly been yanked over his head, but Paul was the worst of all. There was a chunk ripped out of his shirt, his belt loops were torn, and most worrisome of all was a split lip that refused to stop bleeding.
I grabbed a tissue and handed it to him. "Thanks," he dabbed at it, wincing. It looked so painful.
My head was pounding like Ringo's drums as we went into the studio. "Let's go over the new song a bit," Paul suggested. I snapped out of the reverie I was in, watching Paul's nimble fingers tune his Hofner.
"Okay," I picked up my guitar and ran my fingers over the strings, checking the tuning. I discovered that one of the strings was flat and adjusted it accordingly. I felt Paul's eyes on me again. They seemed to be burning right through me.
"Oi, Paulie, is my face just too beautiful for you to keep your eyes off it?" I asked, winking at him. His cheeks turned pink and he mumbled something unintelligible instead of coming back with a snappy retort like usual. I wondered what was up with him.
A half-hour later we were attempting to record our other song and Ringo just couldn't get a handle on keeping a steady beat to this one. I reached my breaking point. "Ringo, is it that fucking hard to keep a fucking beat?" I growled, stalking over to him. His big blue eyes widened in shock and he inched backwards.
"John! What the hell, man?" Paul grabbed my wrist and I turned to look him in the face. Doing so made my anger drain, for some reason.
"I dunno," I mumbled. "Sorry, Rings." Ringo looked even more shocked to hear me apologizing. I returned to my microphone. Five minutes later, we started recording again. During one of his pauses, George reached down to pick up a spare pick and the head of his guitar collided with his microphone, making a loud bonking noise that would be clearly audible on the recording. I waved at George Martin to cut and then fixed my stare on George.
"Fabulous George. Now we have to do the whole fucking thing again." He blanched. "Did you really need that bloody pick so God damn much that it couldn't wait until between takes?" My voice escalated into a roar. My head was throbbing and my face felt like it was burning. I took a step and the world swam dangerously in my eyes. I took another step and the world began to spin like a child's top.
I felt myself reeling backwards and the last thing I heard before I passed out was Paul's voice calling my name. I realized then that I was in love with James Paul McCartney, the best friend that I'd ever had.
A/N: And that's how John fell for Paul! Review? :)