The Shadow

Chapter 23 (Cloud Nine)

John could feel the cold through his bones. He moved his hand shortly in an attempt to cover up himself but nothing was near him. Where was the bloody comforter?

Even though he still hadn't opened his eyes he knew it should be early in the morning, the sun up for good now and the horns of the busy streets bringing him slowly but surely back to consciousness.

He tried to get back to sleep and even though he felt awfully exhausted he couldn't manage to drift back to his endless dreams. After all, he had to get ready for work and he did not wish to be late. He hated lectures especially coming out of Lennon senior.

Maybe just one more minute and then he would be up. The only still present problem was where the comforter might be. He stretched his arms around the bed but once his long fingers touched the comforter and tried to grab it something stubbornly held it back.

In a flash John's eyes were wide open.

Paul McCartney himself was lying by his side, both his arms wrapped securely around the comforter, wrapped like a cocoon in it, his head resting unconsciously half on his pillow and the other half on John's right shoulder. He was truely beautiful. He smiled adoringly as he noticed the younger boy drooling on his shirt, his mouth slightly open while he was enjoying a good slumber.

It was amazing how sleep seemed to reveal the most innocent side of people, the most naive and childlike. John caressed the boy's cheek causing him to shiver in his sleep and pushed away his fringe from covering his face. Paul stirred in his sleep and John feared he had woken him up. Thankfully, he only turned around under the comforter's heat and ended up intertwined their legs as he drifted back to unconsciousness once again.

He could be looking at Paul's form for an eternity if it hadn't been for the door creaking open causing him to panic inside out.

"Shit, shit, shit." he huffed and froze on his seat.

What a fool had he been?! What an idiot?! If doctors were to walk in on them like that he was not only doomed, but also his father would be informed and John didn't give a shit about humiliation. But, seeing them, him mostly, in a patient's room without need to be there, and having a close relationship with them as well, that as enough for him to get fired.

He should have left once he woke up. Damn it, he shouldn't have stayed in the first place! Damn Paul for being so manipulative.

The door was fully opened in less than five seconds.

'I'm dead, I'm dead...' John cried and tried to pull away as fast as he could, something that eventually caused the other boy to come back to reality.

Paul couldn't master to say anything, trying to balance between his dreams and between the real world. He stared bluntly at John's terrified face and only turned his face toward the door once he heard someone calling his name.

"Paulie?"

Inside walked a teddy boy with thick dark eyebrows, dressed in leather. Paul and John gaped at him.

"Sorry for coming that early. Am I interrupting something?" he cautiously asked as he eyed the two men sitting close to each other on the bed. First, his friend who obviously was sleeping just a few moments before, and then the other man with the auburn hair and honey colored eyes, who he had never seen before but his face seemed oddly familiar.

"No! You don't interrupt anything. We were only sleeping." Paul's raspy voice came out and smiled at his younger friend apologetically with a look that said 'I'll explain later'. "Ugh, this is John by the way."