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Paul is used to talking about everything with John. About girls, sex, fantasies about Bridget Bardot - everything. They even talk about Mary and Julia, when they've had enough to drink. He doesn't talk like that to anyone else, and he senses from the way John speaks in such a rush about all the important things that he doesn't either.
So when something happens that they don't speak about, he knows it must be serious.
He is still half asleep and lazy when it starts; listening to the sounds of Forthlin Road waking up, hovering on the edges of sleep. The thick, heavy weight of John beside him stirs, shifts and then -
"Bloody fucking hell, Paul, what time is it?"
An arm scrambles over him searching for the alarm clock. "Oh, shit!"
And then a moment later Paul gives in as the weight of John climbing over him to get out of bed forces him further into the mattress.
"What's wrong?" He asks, leaning up on one elbow to watch John dash around the room, trying to find his clothes. He is still groggy from sleep, his hair a mess and Paul wants desperately to laugh.
"If Mimi wakes up and finds out I'm not there she'll have my skin."
Paul yawns. "Just tell her we were writing songs until late so you stayed here."
John pauses in the process of pulling on a sock and looks up. "Oh aye, she'll be fine with that." And then as he scrambles to find his jeans he does his best impression of Mimi nagging at him, which is far too accurate and Paul feels himself grin.
He goes to take a swig of water from the glass on his bedside table but before he gets there, John's hand reaches out and grabs it, draining it dry.
"Hey!"
"My need is greater," John says, pulling a t-shirt over his head. "I've got a two mile bike ride." He has picked up his jacket and is going out towards the door when Paul realises something.
"Hey, that's my t-shirt!"
John stops, turns around and examines the black t-shirt he has just pulled on. His own is still lying on the bed at Paul's feet, similar but minus a stark white pattern at the neck. And even though a few moments ago he was in the rush of the century, John seems to visibly still. His fingers go to the edge of the t-shirt, pull it down as though trying it for size, and then he looks up at Paul carefully. His eyes are unreadable this early in the morning, but Paul catches him squint, momentarily thoughtful.
"What?" Paul asks. "Give us it back."
But instead John just stares a second longer, eventually smiles slightly and then says, "No."
It is the 'no' of a child asked to put it's toys away before bedtime and there is something strange, something Paul has never seen before in John's expression. Defiance? Teasing? Nerves?
Then suddenly he snaps back into frenetic energy, picking up the alarm clock from where he'd dropped it on the chair and flinging it at Paul's head, just to piss him off. By the time Paul has ducked away from the flying object, John is gone, calling, "See you later!" as he dashes loudly down the stairs. He hears a brief, "James! Michael! How delightful to see you!" to his father and his brother (already up and about) in a fake posh voice before the front door slams shut.
Then Paul is left staring at John's t-shirt lying at the bottom of the bed as the sound of whistling fades away outside.
He doesn't think about it again until nearly a week later; they are at the Jacaranda club amongst the smoke and the noise and the music when Dot nudges him in the arm. "Hey," she says, "Isn't that your t-shirt John's wearing?"
Paul glances over to where John is sitting with Cynthia on his knee, one hand conspicuously up under the back of her shirt, claiming his territory. He is whispering something to her (Paul can only guess what) and she is blushing furiously, fingers playing with the collar on his jacket. But looking past her Paul can see clearly, yes, that is his t-shirt.
Dot must see the frown of recognition on his face because she giggles beside him. "Aw! I think it's cute - here was me thinking only girls swapped clothes."
"I don't know where he got it from," Paul hears himself say, though of course he does know. And it strikes him as odd that John would just keep wearing the thing instead of returning it or losing it at the bottom of his wardrobe. He wonders if he ever would have spotted it, if Dot hadn't pointed it out.
He attempts to forget it, but it won't seem to go from his mind and his eyes keep being drawn to John's collar where the t-shirt is easily visible underneath the half opened white shirt he is wearing. Paul watches it rise up over his collarbone as he moves then settles again, fitting him snugly. It still seems such a strange thing to do, to wear it out, where Paul can see it. And if it'd been anyone else - George, Pete - Paul would have said it was a mistake, the first thing they grabbed whilst getting changed, but he knows John isn't like that. Nothing he does is a mistake, it's all done for a reason. He might be manic but he's precise.
So when the girls are dancing later and Pete is busy with his hand on the knee of a leggy blonde, Paul slides along the seat next to John.
"You're wearing my t-shirt," he says. And from the way John's eyes instantly glint with recognition, from the slight smile that curves suddenly at his lips, Paul knows he was right - this wasn't a mistake.
"You only just noticed?" John asks, then tuts in a dramatic fashion as though saddened by the world. "Ah, and they say I'm the one who's half blind."
A strange sense of not being in on the joke comes over Paul; it's unnerving - he's spent so long being inside the loop of what's going on inside John's head that it seems very cold and lonely on the outside.
"What? Why?" he asks.
"Well, I think they say it because I wear these big ugly specs - " John starts, and Paul frowns at his ill-timed stupidity act.
"No, I mean, 'why are you wearing my t-shirt?'"
John just shrugs. "I like it," he says, and suddenly Paul gets an odd flash of them sitting together on John's bed at Mendips, working on a song. Because John is giving him that look - that unique look he gives him when they're in the middle of something so intense no one else can possibly get it.
"You - you like it?"
"Yeah," John says, glancing down briefly, tugging at the hem where it drops down slightly further than the edges of his shirt. Then he looks back up, makes sure he has Paul's unwavering attention and says, "It smells like you."
Even though he is surprised at an answer like that, Paul is even more shocked by his own response - he suddenly flushes very warm, feels an unmistakable flare of arousal in his stomach and swallows hard. With John so many things could be jokes, traps laid in order to get you to say or do something stupid so he can berate you. Is this just a trap? Line your mate up, tell him you're borrowing his clothes because you like the smell of him and when he shows a bit of weakness, tell the entire band? He can't be sure.
So Paul searches John's eyes for some sign that this is one big joke, but all he can see is that he's deadly serious. And that produces another burst of something dangerous and strange inside Paul's belly.
But before he has a chance to say anything, Dot and Cynthia appear beside them, giggling about some girl they bumped into on the dance floor and then the moment is gone.
He lies awake in bed after that, wondering what the hell is going on. He's not stupid, he knows he's a teenage boy and that the oddest things can turn him on (saw a girl giving her friend an innocent kiss goodbye at a bus stop last week and was hard for hours afterwards) but this is different. The thought of John in his t-shirt, of him liking his t-shirt is just -
It's dangerous. Paul feels scared by it.
They've shared a bed before, hundreds of times and he's never been... It's never been any different to sharing a bed with George or with Pete. And they've always had that ability to shut out the rest of the world and just focus on each other but that's just the song writing; that's the creative thing that he just doesn't get with anyone else. Everyone has a best friend; it doesn't mean anything.
But the thoughts he gets just before he falls off to sleep, they're not just platonic at all.
They don't speak about it. The next time they see each other it is at practice two days later and John is wearing the ugly black shirt Cyn bought him for his last birthday and Paul is achingly grateful. They don't avoid each other, but they don't cling to each other like usual either. Afterwards, George asks him if they've fallen out and Paul says, 'No, no, nothing like that.'
But still they don't see each other after practice, like they normally do. Mimi wants John home for tea and Paul has a date with Dot, so they cycle off their separate ways, Paul ignoring the crisp, lonely feeling in his stomach.
Oddly enough, they bump into each other the next day, outside the Jac at lunchtime when Paul goes down to drop off some of his dad's old sheet music for a mate and John is leaving Cyn after lunch. She goes off into the distance, blonde hair bobbing like a Bardot doll and John coughs the way he does when he's nervous. Paul wonders if he's the only one who has figured out John does this.
"We ah... we alright?" John asks. He refuses to look at Paul, stares away down the street as though pretending he can see further than the end of his nose. Paul feels weird; they talk about everything - why aren't they talking about this?
But instead of saying all the things he could possibly say to make this uncomfortable, to force the issue ('Alright about what?' 'Why wouldn't we be alright?'), he just nods. "Of course we are."
And this earns him a glance, just a quick, suspicious one as John's eyes dart over his face. "You still coming to practice tomorrow night?"
Paul nods. "Definitely. You?"
John shrugs. "Course I am - my band, isn't it?" And then he walks away into the distance, whistling defiantly.
If Paul feels like the world has just crashed in on itself, he manages not to show it.
By the end of that day, it gets to the point where he can't stop thinking about it.
The t-shirt that John left in place of Paul's is slung over the back of the chair that sits in his bedroom, has been under another pile of clothes until Paul gets home and roots it out. He stands in his bedroom with the door shut, holding it. It's very strange; why does he feel so guilty just standing there holding a t-shirt?
It feels like he's doing something embarrassing.
Eventually he chucks it at the end of the bed and goes downstairs, ends up falling out with Mike because he's in such a bad mood.
The next morning when he gets up, he puts it on. Doesn't think about it (can't think about anything else) and pulls it over his head, dragging his jeans on next. He goes, barefoot, through into Mike's room (where Mike is still asleep, grumbling at him when he puts the light on) and looks at himself in the mirror they share inside the wardrobe.
It fits. Looks nice. The plain black makes him look a lot less soft than his own version with the pattern to break it up.
It smells like John; like Mendips in the summer when Mimi opens the back door and lets the breeze blow through.
Paul gets an odd, hot, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and realises that he's blushing in the mirror. He tugs at the fabric, unsure of whether to take it off or not.
"Christ," Mike says from the bed, face buried in the pillow. "It's just a t-shirt."
By the time Paul gets back into his own bedroom and slams the door, he is hard and doesn't know what to do about it. Damn stupid John and his stupid t-shirt.
Paul isn't sure whether it's the right thing to do or not, but he wears it to practice. He buttons his jacket up before he goes in so that if John is in a foul mood he won't ever have to see it, but as he arrives he hears John laughing about something with Stu, so he shrugs it off when Mrs Best asks for his jacket in the hallway.
The second he walks in he knows John has spotted it.
Paul doesn't look; goes over to George instead and makes a show of helping him out with a new chord change they're working on, but he knows John keeps looking at him. It gives him a jumpy feeling in his stomach, like he's on a roller-coaster at full speed and they're dipping down over the bumps. He feels terrified, wonders what the hell he was ever thinking to actually wear it to practice, but he didn't know what else to do; John is the sort of bloke who needs signs - Cynthia is always saying that, buying him pressies and saying, 'He needs to know I love him,' then ruffling his hair. So Paul had decided that if John has been wondering whether they're alright - well, there wouldn't be a bigger sign than this.
It's amazing how long he can go for avoiding John's eyes, he discovers; there are guitars to be tuned and Mrs Best to thank for the drinks she brings them and Pete to talk about Everton's latest win with, so that by the time Paul eventually plucks up the courage to look at John, they are about to launch into a song.
And John is looking... suspicious. He glances down once to the neck of the t-shirt and then back up to Paul. He narrows his eyes, then gives a very obvious frown.
Paul shrugs, feigning as much innocence as he can. "You ready?" he asks, indicating the mic. Then they're singing, so the not talking thing isn't a problem anymore.
If he expects something after practice, he doesn't get it - John leaves whilst they're all still packing up, vanishing out of the door before Paul gets a chance to turn around.
He is just about to drop off to sleep when he hears the scattering of hailstone on his window. One short burst and then quiet.
It doesn't register that it's the middle of July and the sky has been bright blue all day until another, short bout of tinkling hits the glass. Paul sits up in bed, eyes frowning into the darkness.
When he gets up and goes to the window, he sees the figure on the lawn straight away.
"Let me in!" John hisses in a loud whisper when Paul draws up the frame and a burst of cool air assaults him. He can't deny the ripple of relief and pleasure that swim through him when he realises who it is.
"Go round the back!" He motions to the alleyway and then suddenly John is gone.
He crosses the landing (stomach somersaulting and listening for the steady snore of his father) and by the time he gets to the bathroom and opens the window, John is already latching the back gate shut, making his way to the drainpipe.
"What the hell are you doing here at one in the morning?" Paul asks when John is close enough to hear. He tries not to smile too widely, give the game away.
"Aye, nice to see you too, son," John grunts, having trouble getting a foothold for his climb up.
"You never said you were coming."
Paul isn't sure why he's still whispering now that John is right there, finally at eye level.
"Gentleman callers usually ring ahead when they do this sort of thing, do they?"
Paul has to stifle a laugh when he realises how ridiculous he must sound. He's just so relieved things suddenly seem normal. And that John is here. John's face cracks into a grin too. "Come on then, soft lad, get out me way; unless you want me clinging on to the side of your house all night?"
Paul backs away from the window, watches as John crawls through. He winces as John jumps down onto the lino, noise cutting through the silence of the house. "Shush!" he says.
"You shush," John counters, just to be difficult. They're standing like that, a few inches apart in the bathroom, shushing each other, when Mike finds them.
His face is scrunched up with sleep and he has one eye shut, his hair sticking up at all angles.
"Ooh, I bet he makes all the girls swoon!" John says in his best camp voice, until Paul grabs at his arm and pushes him outside onto the landing.
"You never saw him," Paul warns Mike, shutting the door on his confused little brother in the bathroom.
"Aren't you supposed to sneak people out instead of sneaking them in?" John asks, clearly amused. Paul shuts them both firmly in his bedroom and leans against the door.
"Not when 'people' are you. You're a terror. You'll give me a bloody heart attack."
John sits on the bed, starts taking his boots and socks off.
"Why are you here, anyway?"
"Had a row with Mimi," John explains. He tugs off his jeans and gets into bed. "Come on. I don't mean to be rude but you're keeping me awake with all this talking; it's way past my bed time."
Paul swallows the lump in his throat whilst crossing the tiny room in the dark and gets back into bed. He has no idea why John is here, but he's glad he is. John pulls the covers over them as Paul lies down then goes through his usual exaggerated routine of getting comfortable, turning over and then back, 'accidentally' throwing the covers up over Paul's head ("Sorry!" In a tone that says he clearly is not). When he finally settles, Paul opens his eyes.
They are inches apart.
"Hello," John whispers.
Paul feels himself smile. "Hello."
"Come here often?"
"Yeah, quite a bit. You?"
"Sometimes," John shrugs. "Service is a bit shit, no breakfast in the morning and the bed's bloody tiny." Paul tries not to laugh. "And," he says, leaning even further in, imparting a confidence. "They sometimes steal your clothes."
Paul feels himself blush immediately. Which makes John smirk.
They both go quiet. Paul fears briefly that something might happen, something beyond his control. He tries not to think about what. If he thinks about what it is that may happen, then he suspects he'll start wanting it to (can feel himself bordering on the edge of 'wanting', is scared of it). He looks at John's eyes, tries to work out what he's planning (utterly impossible with John) and waits. Because there is something, he knows there is. Started with the t-shirts and somehow ended up here.
He doesn't let himself think of all the things he'd like to do. This is a small bed and John has endless ways to mock people.
"Stop thinking," John eventually says. "You're distracting me, I'm trying to get to sleep."
"It's - you're in my bed!"
"Only 'cause I couldn't get to sleep in my own!"
Paul feels a slow smile cross his face. "Thought you were here because you had an argument with Mimi?"
"Aye, well," John says softly, "Would have had, if she'd have known that I was thinking about under her roof."
Paul can't stop himself grinning. John is implying -
God, that causes his stomach to topple over like he missed a step going downwards. He feels immediately frightened and exhilarated and warm. Very warm. He turns his face slightly further into the pillow, trying to hide his grin. John laughs quietly, watching. "God," he whispers gently into the darkness of the bedroom, "I can read you like a book."
"Can you?" Paul asks, slightly shocked. "I can't read you at all."
They lie there staring at each other for a moment before John rolls his eyes. "Go to sleep," he says. The idea throws Paul for a moment - sleep? Now? - but then he wonders what the hell else he expects to happen. It's still him and John, still friends, still both boys, lying in his bed. Yes, John looks like an angel now with one hand tucked underneath his pillow and the other curled under his chin, but he won't be an angel in the morning. And they clearly aren't going to talk about this. Even if Paul was sure what 'this' is.
"Right," he says, more to himself than to John. "Sleep." John cracks one eye open at him, smirks knowingly and then disappears behind his lids again. Feeling twitchy, Paul tries the same thing but his mind is reeling - John is here, in his bed, things are still alright, wearing the t-shirt to practice was a good thing - and it won't shut down.
"Stop it," John whispers again, and Paul smirks.
"Piss off."
John kicks him under the sheets and Paul feels almost dizzy with pleasure. Sleep feels like the furthest thing off in the entire world. In the end he turns over, hopes that will quieten his mind. But he finds himself lying on the very edge of the bed, afraid to move back in case he touches John - usually they never think about that, it's just about getting comfy in the small confined space but now... He's hanging there, wondering how he'll ever get any sleep, when a hand slides onto his waist.
He almost jumps.
"C'mere," John's voice says quietly, sounding utterly serious. "Move back."
Paul shifts under the covers and - Christ, John's hard. He isn't sure what else he expected (he is too, they're teenage boys, after all) but soon discovers it's extremely difficult not to move against him. "Now go to sleep," John says again, for the third time.
But it's like giving him a brand new guitar and asking him not to play. Everything in Paul's head is screaming at him to stay still but his body simply can't. He pushes back against John, can't believe how satisfying it feels. An ache he hadn't been aware he had in his stomach suddenly subsides - he wants this, this, this. Nothing else. Feels himself slip into that mindset where nothing else matters but getting off, being with someone. Being with John.
The hand on his hip suddenly tightens, but John presses forward against him, his whole body so warm it feels like he's got a fever. Paul moves again, feels a responding push and almost moans, has to catch himself at the last minute. As they lie there moving slowly, Paul feels John press his face into the back of Paul's neck, warmth breath covering his skin and his eyes flutter shut of their own accord. Not much more of this, he thinks, not much more at all.
But eventually John stops him, hand on his hip suddenly defiant. Paul tries to push back again, frustrated, but John's voice, strangled and different in the dark says, "Don't, Paul. Seriously."
And Paul knows what that 'seriously' means, has said it a fair few times himself, so he stills. "Night," Paul eventually says. It takes John so long to answer that Paul thinks maybe he's dropped off to sleep already.
John huffs out a quiet laugh and Paul shivers at the feel of his breath on his neck again. "Yeah, good luck with getting to sleep."
Paul actually laughs, smiling into the darkness.
The next morning, they don't talk about it. If Paul didn't have the memories and the ghost feeling of John pressed against his back, he'd never believe it had happened. They talk about Pete's new girlfriend and what they're taking Dot and Cyn to see tonight at the flicks on their double date, but nothing about last night. Paul wants to broach it, knows John won't want to, so he doesn't. Inwardly he wants to know when, if, how they can ever do it again. He feels like he might go mad with it, all the wondering, and they haven't even made it to breakfast yet.
After two slices of toast and one of Mike's famous slightly poisonous, half cooked eggs, John disappears back to Woolton. Paul lets him out of the front door and John turns at the end of the path then waves before turning up his collar and heading left off the estate.
Paul avoids Mike and goes straight back upstairs, gets into bed and pushes his hand inside his pants, groaning quietly into the pillow when he comes in case anyone hears him.
The Woolton Picture House is busy, but they find seats on the back row and the film is pretty bearable. Paul sits on the end of their foursome, hardly concentrating on the picture, all his senses tuned towards John. He knows when he is leaning in slightly, listening to Cyn's thoughts on the characters, knows when he is leaning forward to snag the popcorn off Dot's knee before she can stop him. And he knows when John's fingers dance quickly over the back of his hand; they both have their arms around the girls and when he feels the touch, Paul leans back, looks along the row. John is glancing sideways at him, smiling. Paul sticks out a tongue; John lifts his hand from Cyn's shoulder and flips him the V.
Paul has to stifle a laugh, doesn't quite manage it until he gets an elbow in the ribs from Dot.
When the girls hug and kiss each other goodbye outside the cinema, John pulls a stupid face and comes at him with his arms open, just to make the girls laugh. Paul tries not to think about how much he'd have liked a kiss himself.
He tries not to go. He tries to count sheep and list all the guitar chords in his head, but it doesn't work.
At one fifteen am, he is cycling through the quiet streets of Woolton, turning onto Menlove Avenue, counting down the houses until he gets to 251.
It only takes one lot of stones to get John to the window, who grins when he sees him.
Paul opens the side gate in the trellis and tries to be as quiet as possible, clicking the latch back into place. When he gets to the back door, John is already there unlocking it, moonlight pouring through into the kitchen.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asks, but he doesn't even try to sound confused.
"Ah, my bike needed the exercise," Paul says, already embarrassingly hard, embarrassingly unable to stop looking at John. He is wearing Paul's t-shirt again, with nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
"Gotta be quiet," John says, "The new student is a light sleeper."
They make their way through the breakfast room, into the hallway and up the stairs. They are on the fifth step when John stops suddenly and Paul almost walks into him. "What?" he hisses, when John turns around.
"The floorboard outside my bedroom creaks," John whispers.
Paul pokes him in the side, roughly. "I know that, you soft get; I'm not some bird you're bringing home for the first time."
John flicks him on the nose, then carries on walking before Paul can retaliate. They make it into John's bedroom, floorboard successfully avoided.
When the door shuts, Paul immediately feels nervous. The only light in the room is filtering from the streetlamps outside, casting all the posters of Bardot on the walls slightly orange. John gets back in bed, burrows under the covers. When Paul doesn't join him, he leans up on his elbow.
"Now you're acting like some bird I've brought home for the first time. Get in."
Stripping off his shoes, socks, jeans and jacket, Paul crawls into bed. The sheets are cool and he shivers.
"You're wearing it again," Paul says quietly, tugging at John's (his) t-shirt. He feels the heat of John's chest through the fabric and shivers again, totally different this time.
"I stuck it on clean after the bath," John says, lying down with him, so that they're facing in the dark. Up close, Paul can see clearly, even without the light. Which means John can see him clearly too, even without his glasses.
"You sleep in it?" Paul asks, slightly surprised.
"I do a lot of things in it."
Paul blushes, and John doesn't smirk so he knows it must be true. He thinks about himself in bed earlier that morning, lying in the space John had just vacated and feels a familiar tug in his groin.
"Suits you," he says quietly, using the excuse of touching it to touch John. He runs his hand down the side seam, fingers ending up resting on the exposed skin of John's waist. Paul lets his thumb dip down onto the flat of his stomach, tracing circles. He feels John shiver.
"This isn't conducive to sleep," John says, the shiver apparent in his voice. But underneath the sheets his knee moves up to nudge against Paul's and when Paul parts his legs slightly, John slides against him, his thigh warm nestled between his.
"No," Paul says, voice sounding much smaller in the darkness. "It's not, is it?" The bed is only tiny so they hardly need to shift at all to be closer, and when they do Paul immediately feels his mind go blank. All that matters is the heat of John's body, his thigh resting between Paul's legs so that the bottom halves of their bodies are flush and the closeness of John's mouth. He realises, as though from nowhere, that he doesn't just want to touch John, he wants to kiss him too. Desperately. He has been explaining this away in his mind as being something physical, something spurred on my his erratic hormones and the fact it is something different, something he's not supposed to have. But it isn't that at all - it's John.
Paul hears himself exhale loudly in the quiet of the room and he sounds shaky. John is so close it's almost unbearable, but Paul senses that kissing him, closing the gap between them there, would be crossing a line. It doesn't matter that they're both hard, pressed against each other and that John's nails are skimming lightly up the back of Paul's thigh - this can be explained away. Kissing can't.
"I hope you're not a screamer," John whispers, slipping his hand up, agonisingly slowly, over the curve of Paul's behind. Paul feels his eyelids go heavy, shuts them tightly and wonders if it's possible to pass out from too much pleasure. John's touch is firm, heavy in a way that a girls isn't. He isn't tentative, waiting for permission, and Paul arches into the warmth of his body as his hand slips up, underneath the t-shirt Paul is still wearing. He loses himself in the sensation of the calloused pads of fingers tripping over his spine, then realises John is saying something. "Paul?"
His eyes flash open. "What?"
John looks amused, but his eyes look heavy too, which is a good sign. "Off," he says, and Paul realises he is tugging at the corners of the shirt he's wearing.
Not even sure if he remembers about simple things like clothing, Paul leans up slightly, giving John space to move. When the t-shirt is gone, hitting the floor with a gentle thud, Paul fumbles inelegantly with what John is wearing - the t-shirt that started all of this. He lets it fall onto the floor near his own and then lets his hands rest on all the unfamiliar skin of John's chest. Paul feels a confused ripple of pleasure at just how obviously different this is from being with a girl. It is the difference which thrills him, and the fact that it is John, looking at him as though he's not sure what to expect next.
Paul shifts so that he is on his back, John lying on top of him. Just the thought of that causes him to arch up, pleased when he finds John pushing back down, ready to meet him. If the friction last night had been delightful, this is twice as good, but still Paul's hands go to the last pieces of material separating them. "These too," he hears himself mutter, his tone urgent and fraught. John scrabbles off him to remove his boxers whilst Paul does the same, eager for skin on skin.
When John climbs back over him, Paul spreads his legs as wide as the bed will allow him to, making room for John between his thighs. John never breaks eye contact as he settles down, shifts so that their dicks rub against each other and Paul immediately pulls him closer, aligns their hips. His breathing is erratic now, he can hear it in the still of the room and briefly worries it will wake the whole house. But John is panting just as unevenly and Paul grasps onto one of John's arms, holding him up, and tries to tug him down. He needs him closer; knows he can't have his mouth (though that's the one thing he wants most in the world, can see John's lips shining where he has just wet them) but at least wants them together, as close as they can be.
Understanding, John eases down, pushes his face into the side of Paul's neck and burrows against him, wet lips meeting Paul's skin and making him shudder. John feels like he's on fire and though he suspects this too is crossing a line, Paul slips his hand up, brushes the damp hair away from John's eyes and then buries his fingers, turns his face so that they are closer and plants a kiss on John's ear. John bucks his hips, falters the sloppy rhythm they had created and whispers, "Oh, fuck," into the curve of Paul's neck.
"'S okay," Paul tells him, though actually he suspects it's not. This is too good, too nice. He feels like his nerve endings are on fire; everywhere John touches, even by accident, pushes him closer to the edge.
"Please," John mutters, "Please, please, please..." And though Paul isn't sure what he's pleading for, he slips his fingers down between them, ignoring the film of sweat on their bodies and wraps his hand around the both of them at once.
John gasps. It is quite loud in the otherwise stillness of the house so when he starts to groan and thrust into Paul's hand, Paul has to still them both with his free hand on John's hip.
"Shush," he whispers, his voice gravelly. "Too loud, John - too loud."
With what appears great effort, John raises his head. It doesn't take him a second to grab eye contact from Paul; they're so used to it after all. It feels safe and right and normal, even in this position.
"I've been doing this," John whispers, confession coming out in a rush of words. "I've been doing this wearing your t-shirt every night for the past week, coming on my own hands and imagining it was you."
Paul isn't ready for it but he suddenly feels his orgasm about to rip through him. Bucking up into his own fist and forgetting any lines he might have drawn for himself, he reaches up and claims John's mouth with his own, wet lips sliding over each other - discovers John is a more than willing participant.
He feels John's hand join his between their bodies, squeezing gently as Paul's thrusts become more erratic. The ability to kiss with any dignity is lost, becoming a delicious jam of tongues and hot breath and bumped noses. It is the image in his mind of what John has just told him that eventually finishes Paul, panting hotly into John's mouth and trying desperately not to make a sound. When he opens his eyes (unsure of when they fell shut) he realises John is close too, kisses him in a sloppy, wet press of lips and feels his hips jerk in three harsh thrusts, adding to the mess Paul has already created between them.
When they both collapse, all sense of time and place disappears - Paul hardly even feels the dead weight of John, something he usually complains about in the morning if he wakes and a leg is thrown over his.
Eventually John shifts, glances down at the sticky mess between them and groans quietly. "Great," he mutters, rolling off Paul and onto his side. Paul turns too, facing the same way so that they are lying as they had the previous night, curled against each other. He feels a deep sense of pleasure as an arm that is still a considerable dead weight is dropped around his waist. He doesn't need to be told to go to sleep tonight, though.
Just as he is drifting away, John places a kiss on his exposed shoulder and Paul shivers in a lazy fashion. "If this is what happens when I borrow your t-shirt," John mutters, lips still on Paul's skin. "Then next week I'm borrowing your jeans."