Growing Up Beside You [John Lennon/Beatles Fanfiction]

19. The girl's a nutcase

"She wouldn't even let me give her a finger pie ya know," Pete said to John as the two of them walked down the dimly lit street. "Not even so much as a little rub." Pete rubbed his thumb and index finger together.

"That's because ya never wash your hands, yer dirty bugger."

BLUUUUURRRGH!!!!!

John instinctively jumped away from the vermin who threw up beside his feet.

"Eh, watch it, ya lousy git! You almost chucked up on-"

"Eh, Winston, that's Celia!"

Underneath the lamplight, John squinted down at the regurgitator to find Pete was right. With her distinctive floral dress billowing out around her, Celia Pooley was crouched over a splatter of her own sick. She was swaying on the balls of her feet with one palm against the brick wall, the other resting on her knee. The girl started dry heaving with her head tucked in between her thighs.

"Looking good, Chetch," John said, acknowledging her with a contemptuous sneer.

Celia turned her head to look up at John, but in doing so, she somehow lost her balance and fell backwards, landing on her arse with a thump. John laughed.

"Fuck..off...Lennon," she said, unsuccessfully attempting to heave herself up from the ground.

"Suit yourself," John replied, taking his last cig from his pocket. "Come 'ead, Pete."

John turned on his heel and continued to walk down Gower Street. He couldn't hear Pete following behind him. Why wasn't he following?

"John, mate, we can't just leave her like tha'," Pete shouted.

John sighed. Why couldn't they? She wasn't their responsibility.

"You heard the lightweight," John said, walking back towards his considerate bastard of a best friend. "She wants to be left alone."

"Yeah but, look at her!" Pete stuck out his hand, gesturing down to Celia who had resulted in lying flat on the pavement, groaning with her arm draped across her face. "She's off her tits!"

"Well, what do you expect us to do with her, son? Stick her in a wicker basket and send her down the Mersey fucking river?" He was getting annoyed now. They had a bus to catch, and they were gonna miss it if they didn't get a move on.

Pete looked down at Celia and scratched his head. "I dunno, maybe we can like...put her in a cafe down here or somethin'."

"Well that's so very thoughtful of you, Shotton, but it's a Sunday," John said, motioning to the shuttered buildings around them. "Everywhere is closed on a Sunday. She'll be fine. She's had too much booze is all. She'll sober up soon."

"And it's your fault," the girl below them snapped. She was leaning back now with her palms pressed on the ground behind her. If she moved her right leg a couple of inches, she'd be sitting in her nasty slosh.

"John's fault?" Pete questioned.

"Yesssss, he-" she paused to burp in her mouth and then stretched her arm out, pointing up at John. "He made me drink whiskey."

"I didn't make you drink anythin'."

"You gave it to me!"

"If I gave you a pint of me piss, would you drink it? You chose to drink the scotch yerself."

It wasn't his fault that she couldn't hold her liquor.

The girl glared at John through squinting eyes. Leaning forward, she slurred, "If you gave me a pint of your piss, I would throw it in your stupid face instead."