If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 59 - 23.Oct.1964

Chapter 59

October 23, 1964

A fist barreled toward my face, and I couldn't move. I pinched my eyes closed as I waited for the impact. I knew what it was going to feel like because it wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last...but it never came.

I pried my eyes open, and my mother was there. Beaten. Bloodied. Bruised. She was shouting at my father, and instead of hitting me, his fist flew toward her, connecting with her flesh. But I felt her pain. I felt his fist. I felt all of it.

Something was on my shoulder, the touch gentle. My insides twisted as I pushed to my feet, desperate to get between my father and my mother. But before I could reach them, I bolted straight up, and my eyes snapped open. I held back a shriek as I looked around John's dimly lit guestroom, trying to ground myself in reality.

"Aye, it's just me, y'loon," John whispered. I turned my head toward his voice, and he was standing beside the bed, his hand nudging my shoulder. He eyed me through thick lenses. "You all right? Why're you breathin' so bloody heavy?"

"Yeah, yeah...I'm fine." I pushed out a breath and leaned back, the dream fading and the ache in my head no more than a nuisance. "What time's it?"

"Close to midnight. Only two more days till yer birthday, y'old decaying bird."

"You'll always be two years older than me, John...so what does it say about you if I'm an old decaying bird?"

He climbed over me and found his spot, the one where he'd been sitting whenever possible over the last few weeks. He had been in and out of the house since the tour began, usually showing up late into the night. He was always beyond knackered as he collapsed next to me, but never too tired to check on me. We didn't usually talk. Instead, he sat beside me, smoking and unwinding from his day as I drifted back to sleep. And when I woke up, I'd be alone in bed, with John's tabby cat at my feet. He'd named the bloody thing Mimi after his aunt, which was awfully confusing considering she was also staying at his house.

"You smell a bit, John," I whispered as I pressed my eyes closed and tried to get my damned father out of my head. It was maddening how I couldn't get him out of my subconscious. Sometimes it was like he wasn't even dead. "Like sweat and smoke."

"And have you smelled you in the last few weeks?" John pulled his shoes from his feet and tossed them on the floor. He leaned back and pulled a cigarette from his pack of smokes and lit it, relaxing next to me. "When's the last time you took a bath, anyway?"

"Oi, bugger off." I leaned against the pillows, my lips pursed. "Brain surgery means I don't have to bathe. Or do me hair...whatever bloody hair I even have left. And I don't care what you say 'bout it."

"There's my little ray of pitch black again." He smirked and took a drag of his cig. "Missed this side of you."

I grumbled at him and flicked my gaze upward. "Good show tonight, then?"

He hummed in response but didn't expand his answer. We sat in silence for a moment, my leg bouncing as John focused on smoking his cig. My eyes moved around the quiet room, and I wondered if he'd hired someone to decorate for him, because so much of what I saw didn't seem like John. Almost everything looked brand new and unused, like we were on the set of a bloody movie. There were a few exceptions, like an old poster, Stu's art, and bits of antiques that were so very John, but the rest felt oddly out of place.

Without looking, John reached to the side and crushed his cig into the ashtray on the nightstand, finishing it in record time.

"What's all this like for you?" I asked suddenly, trying to find a distraction.