dancing in the street.

eight ➶ spring time in hyde park.

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credit to seromreven.

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1964,

It was a sunny and clear day in Hyde Park, birds singing as kids ran around playing with balls and dogs. Swans lazing it on the bright blue water, basking in the sun, and all seemed to go well enough. Well, mostly well enough. George couldn’t quite complain about the weather but there was something else- something gnawing at his insides, like a bad portion of fish ‘n’ chips. It was choking him up, making him nauseous, making the fresh air good for nothing against the warm haze that surrounded his head. Paul walked beside him, talking excitedly about something George failed in paying any attention to. All he could focus on was the back of a young man walking in front of him, laughing loudly and talking with great zeal to a grinning Ringo. John. Who was unknowingly the source of his emotional… torment. 

“You doing well there, George?” 

George snapped back to his immediate reality as he heard his name uttered and looked to Paul, his friend he had otherwise completely ignored. He swallowed deeply- he wasn’t really okay- and nodded with nothing said as he cast wistful glances towards John. He couldn’t recall when it had first started… this crush… this longingtowards the other man. He had always looked up to him, admired him, but when had it… evolved into something more? He could only think of one night in Hamburg that could have set it off, but it rested in a fog in his mind- the only thing he could remember being John’s hoarse laughter and his warm touch on George’s shoulder.

“You just seem… distracted… s’all,” Paul muttered as he watched his friend’s attention slowly drift away from him yet again, worried by the lack of response.. The group parted from the path laid before them and stepped onto neat and bright grass with the intent of sitting on it against a large, imposing tree further into the park. It had been Pauls idea- a makeshift picnic of shorts. They had had a rough few weeks of work and he thought they deserved something peaceful and simple. The park was, in a rare occurrence, almost completely empty and John wore his glasses for once. It suited him very well, George thought, and it caused butterflies to flutter about in his chest- something that made George confused and hot-faced as he looked at the older man folding out the wide blanket they had brought along for the trip.

George watched the group in silence, only listening and eating as he watched them- only rarely throwing in a comment or a laugh on something that had been said. His mind was completely elsewhere. His eyes rarely left John, too focused on the various things that made John so… alluring. And what was it exactly? His eyes that seemed endlessly brown? His strong jaw that mesmerised George so? Or how the thick frame of the glasses framed John’s face so perfectly? There was many a thing and George was deeply lost in all of them- utterly and completely staring as the others chatter so excitedly amongst him. Soon, Paul and Ringo left for they had caught their eyes on some girls and fell over themselves to check them out. They asked the others to follow but George shook his head, mouth still full of food, while John merely grunted in refusal. 

Which left George with John. Not something out of the ordinary, of course, but this was the first instance of it since George’s feelings for the man had… shifted to the unknown, to something that was slowly tearing him apart. Was he gay? Queer? He had never felt anything… romantic-like for a man before but it felt very much like that. And there had been a short instance when they all first met Ringo in Hamburg that a hard shiver had travelled downwards at the sight of the man’s rugged and rough look- but that had quickly gone away, much unlike now as he looked (or stared) at John. Brian was queer- and they liked him fine enough. Surely, if George was… that would be okay too?

John’s eyes finally turned from where they seemed to have been staring for ages- at Paul and Ringo as they chatted up some girls in voluptuous spring dresses. His eyes met George’s with a perplexed look as he cocked a brow and with a huff, tore off his glasses. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed ye staring,” the now practically blind man muttered rather angrily. “It’s me glasses, isn’t it?” John scowled down at his hands wrapped tightly around the frames. George’s eyes widened, and he shot forward on the blanket with a violent shaking of his head. “N-No! Not at all-” he stopped himself before he just about crashed into John, the distance between them were now minimal, “I think they suit you very well!”

John’s eyebrows furrowed as he continued looking down at his hands, bending them and unbending them around the black frames to hear them give a slight creak. “I’ve always hated them,” he gave a venomous snarl at the hated spectacles and forced his eyes shut. Again George shook his head, not thinking about the fact that John wouldn’t be able to see it, and carefully placed a hand on John’s wrist. “You shouldn’t,” it was stated so matter-of-factly that it was hard to believe anything else had ever been thought by the guitarist. “You look v-… very handsome in them,” George heart beat so fiercely he was sure it was going to pop right out his chest as he watched John finally look up at him, his eyes depicting something unknown. Something soft but unsure. His voice cracked as he questioned George whose hands still rested delicately on the singer’s.  “It’s true… I think you’re very dashing.”

“Oh,” John giggled nervously as his face got to a clear pink colour, “you won’t get any more songs on the album with flattery, y’know.” He laughed, but it was clear to George that the joke was more than that- a distraction. A diversion. George was unsure what to do- not sure if the feelings he tried to relay had landed false or John was trying to spare his feelings with humour, so he let his hands gently leave John’s and pulled himself away from the older man, but he didn’t get far before John’s much stronger hands grabbed his in return. “I-,” John rushed to say with no clear forethought about what to say next, “you’re… you’re not bad for the eyes yourself…” his eyes were unfocused and sighed as he gave in to his bad eyesight and took on the infamous glasses, still with one hand on George. His eyes travelled around the park in a hurry- no one but Paul and Ringo were near, still chatting endless with the two girls. He nodded to himself and carefully leaned closer to George, stopping just short of their noses bumping into each other. 

“A… A kiss?” 

Both their cheeks were burning hot when George didn’t just nod but let their lips meet in an awkward but fulfilling embrace. They made it work with the little time they dared to give themselves in the imposing public place they had found themselves in and when they pulled away- all they wanted to do was go in for more. “That was nice,” George whispered as he stared down at the flushed lips that had just left his own. John gingerly touched the tips of his calloused fingers as he nodded and sighed, “yeah.”

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