The Less I Know The Better [complete]

37 ;; realisations

By the time the winter holidays began, the streets were now laden with pure ivory snow, glacial and icy - freezing when you waded through it, and several times John was sent outside by Mimi to shovel the snow out of the walkway, always coming back with a frozen nose and shivering slightly, glad to find a steaming cup of tea that she would leave for him after being done with his housework. Relieved to be finally free of school, John now was frequently found at Paul's house, or holed up in his room with said Paul. They never strayed far from each other with their newly found free time, always by each other's side and using the cold as an excuse to cuddle like the smitten bastards they were. George and Ringo could be found joining them every now and then, but more often than not it was just the two of them.

On one particularly chilly afternoon, they were indeed together again, curled up in Paul's lounge room on the couches in front of the crackling fireplace with their guitars in their laps and half-drunken teas on the table between, working through a new song they'd been learning. 'That'll Be The Day' was probably one of his favourite Buddy Holly songs, and now that he was there learning it back to back with Paul, he found himself liking the song even more than he did before. Normally, they'd be up in his bedroom if they were using their guitars, since Jim often complained of the noise if they did it near him, but since he was out at work and Mike was off with his friends, they took the opportunity of the empty house to practice in the more spacious lounge.
John had been concentrating pretty intensely on their practice for the last hour or so, but his attention was beginning to relapse after they'd gotten about halfway through, and now his eyes kept wandering to look out the window into the backyard. The grass and porch had disappeared under thick centimetres of snow, and flakes were continuously falling outside in a never-ending stream, so bright and white that it almost hurt to look at, as if he was staring directly into the sun. He was relapsing into his thoughts again, especially about his and Paul's relationship; it seemed like they were getting closer and closer by the day. And, now that they had more time to be together in the privacy of their own homes, Paul had grown more and more affectionate than he usually would be towards him. They often had to steal moments in public bathrooms or in the shadows of the back of the school, but now that that strain had been lifted temporarily from them, their rowdiness had settled down quite a bit and they preferred to be intimate in smaller, more loving ways. Like entwining their hands, curling up together in bed and whispering late into the night, tucking stray strands of hair behind each others' ears, or just spending long moments in comfortable silence watching each other. John had never been affectionate with his previous partners in the way he did with Paul - and it seemed, Paul hadn't either. He was actually quite tender when he wanted to be (only when they had proper privacy, though, or inebriated enough not to care), and John being the touch-starved sucker he was, he relished every second of it. They'd actually taken a shower together for the first time the night before, and John still shivered at the memory of Paul tracing every inch of his body with his beautiful fingers in a way that made him weak in the knees, like he wanted to imprint every inch of his skin into his brain forever. His cheeks flushed deep red at the memory; it was still incredibly hard to break through their deeply rooted prejudices in order to properly express their feelings for each other, and John felt like he was struggling even more with a disgusted, repulsed guilt that pressed on his lungs as if an invisible weight was pinning him down - screaming at him that he was a revolting queer and that he should bottle up all his bloody emotions because he was a man and all that bullshit, but, he felt like he was breaking through that barrier just a tiny bit more by each day. Growing more comfortable with exposing his true self to Paul. To let his guard down, no matter how badly it fought back. He couldn't bring himself to around anyone else, but he was getting there, at least. Paul seemed to have been struggling with the same thing himself, if not more so - he was always more closed off and impassive than John had ever been, and there had been times when Paul had been intimate or honest with him then the next day he completely closed himself off and acted as if they were utter strangers. It hurt his feelings and damaged his fragile ego, but John knew that stuff wasn't important, and that Paul was just trying to wrestle with the new, daunting changes in his life and wasn't really to blame.