Pointless McSutcliffe

TO KILL FOR

Weird psycho-esque AU where Stuart is 10000% convinced Paul's like a serial killer or smtn, and tries to protect John from him.

And John laughs him off the whole time because how could nancy boy Paul McCharmly be anything but a goodie two shoes who tries to get on everyone's good graces except Stuart's? John is convinced they have a war of jealousies or smtn, and mostly ignores Stu's warnings and speculations.

Paul's obviously not a serial killer, but wrong he certainly is.

He started hanging around the Quarrymen a lot mostly because he wanted to impress John because teenage crush and all that jazz, but Stuart caught his eye because he seemed the only one not fooled by his innocent facade.

Paul's... Dangerously protective, of the ones he cares about. Losing his mum made something go off inside of him, and now he cannot stand any harm coming to his loved ones, nor the idea of them drifting away from him. It translates mostly into annoyingly clingy behaviour most of the time, with occasional jackknife violence towards external threats.

So yeah. Paul's kinda weird. And Stu's the only one who notices.

In his attempt to prove it to John, Stu starts following Paul around everywhere, trying to gather some evidence on the guy's supposed crimes.

Obviously Paul isn't blind, he notices right away he's being stalked, but he decides to humour Stuart and behaves perfectly normally under his gaze.

When he finally gets fed up and asks him what the hell is he doing, Stu just avoids him in fear/embarrassment, which Paul mistakes for bashfulness.

And of course Paul's almost immediately convinced Stuart's into him, which he finds endearing. The sentiment, while not reciprocated, is enough to make Paul add him onto his mental list of People To Kill For, and it adds an entirely new twist to their already tense relationship.

Stuart backs the fuck off in fear of upsetting the madman, but Paul thinks he's just shy and decides to have a nice chat about feelings with him. It stuns Stu to learn Paul believes he fancies him, but realizes it's his ticket to making it out alive, so he plays along and apologizes and hams it up for the sake of surviving. Paul is kind to him anyways, reassures him someday he'll find someone who does love him, and leaves Stuart alone to continue with his day. Bullet fucking dodged, Stu thinks.

Paul's even kind enough not to mention the situation to the rest of the band: John would've mocked Stu forever and ever if it was the case.

However, as time goes by and things change slowly, Stu continues to wonder what the fuck is up with Paul. Why would he believe he fancied him, why didn't he attacked him as soon as he noticed he was following him, why would he even care what Stu 'felt'?

He cannot trust the friendly 'I would die for you' facade Paul puts in front of John and George, but eventually he finds no alternative but to do so.

When they all get to Hamburg, Stu has many firsthand experiences that make him realize Paul's not pretending at all. He breaks in and out of fights for his friends, flicks the jackknife as a warning whenever he sees one of them walking on their own, kicks some german arse and generally is the band's bodyguard, tiny little Paul McCartney with the innocent eyes and the giant cowboy boots.

Stu realizes he's starting to admire and appreciate Paul an awful lot more. He saves him from getting jumped on one too many times and Stuart doesn't quite know what to do with himself other than nod in thankful acknowledgement and push down the butterflies on his stomach whenever Paul winks and nods back.

Oh dear. He's really out there, getting real feelings for Paul McCartney, yes he is, god fucking dammit. No amount of denial makes the feeling go away, and eventually he can't even get his eyes off him in and out of stage. It's all a confusing, dizzying situation, and Stu has no idea what to do now.

John laughs at first when Stuart swallows his pride and asks for advice, but then suggests just talking to Paul and see where it goes. It fucking hurts because Stu already knows where this goes: with Paul letting him down gently and himself only falling harder. Deja vu.

So yeah, things suck for a while, Stu may or may not cry himself to sleep once or twice when he's sure no one's awake, tries to distract himself with german birds and even a couple blokes, and nothing seems to work.

It seems all terrible until one day in particular after a gig, they're all tumbling down the stage, tired from playing and not sleeping, and Paul drags Stu away from everyone into a dark alley.

Stuart believes for like 0.5 seconds that he's done something wrong and Paul's gonna kill him for whatever reason, but it's quite contrary. He finds himself with a mouthful of McCartney, pressed between a wall and his body, and he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

When Paul pulls back, he rambles a bit about how he hasn't been able to stop thinking about him and how confused he was because he thought he liked John but he felt bad for Stu's broken heart, and he thought he wouldn't be able to pick until he heard Stuart cry for a few nights in a row and realized just how much he wanted to make things better for him.

'So here I am. If you still want me, that is'

And Stu can't shake off the feeling that this is but a pity party, that Paul's only doing this because he feels bad for hurting him, but he still takes it because hell, when will he ever get another chance like this?

So he pulls Paul close to him once again and they make out in a dark alley on the back of the Indra the whole damn night.