If I Fell│John Lennon/Beatles FanFiction

Chapter 5 - 26.Feb.1960

Chapter 5

February 26, 1960

The pounding in my head woke me up. It was too damn early, but I couldn't get back to sleep, and I had a laundry list of things I had to do with my day. Careful not to wake John, I removed his arm from my waist and crawled out of his small bed. I dragged my feet across the matted carpet and made my way down the hall to the bathroom.

I cringed when I saw myself in the small, ornate mirror. My eye was half closed, the black and blue flesh around it swollen. I placed my fingers on my cheekbone and applied a little pressure.

Pain. "Fuckin' hell," I whispered. How in the bloody hell was I supposed to get my job back looking like I'd gotten into a bar fight just hours after getting fired for hitting a customer? Sunglasses and a fuckton of makeup. There was no other way.

With careful fingers, I rolled up the sleeve of John's shirt, the one he'd thrown at me the previous night telling me I smelled of smoke and sweat. I pulled the makeshift bandage from my shoulder to peek at the wound. It was still bleeding. I grumbled a few more swear words.

I splashed cold water over my face, trying to bring life back to my pale skin and tired eyes. My hair was a wavy mess, tumbling over my shoulders and kinked to one side. How had the entirety of the previous day gone from one shit show to the next?

Then my eyes widened as I remembered. Shit. Shit. My camera. I left my damn camera at the pub. I gripped the sink and sunk my head to my chest.

"Fuck me." I said it a few times, each louder than the last.

"Oi, Liv!" John hollered from his bedroom, clearly awake now. "You only have to ask once, ye frisky bird."

"In yer dreams, Lennon," I grumbled as I let go of the sink and walked back to his room. His head was propped up on one hand, his eyes only partly open. "My camera...."

He rolled his eyes. "Is downstairs. And yer apron too. Thought you'd want them even after you threw a wobbly."

Now it was my time to roll my eyes. "I was gonna say I could hug ye, but not after tha."

"We went from fuckin' to huggin' to nothin' pretty quick." He smiled his cheeky grin at me.

I stuck my tongue at him. It was childish, but it got my point across. "Turn around, wouldya?"

He groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. "First ye wake me up at the crack of dawn screamin' from the toilet, and now you won't even let me watch you get naked?"

I pulled my skirt and shirt on, only swearing once when my hand knocked against my swollen cheek. Then I pulled the bloodied cardigan over my shoulders.

"You've got to get out of that outfit, Liv," he said once I was fully dressed. "You've been wearin' it for days. And it's covered in blood."

I winked. "Tryna get me starkers?"

"Cheeky." He pushed his head into his pillow. "Just had ye naked, didn't I?" He flitted his hand in my direction. "Not my type."

"You wanted to see it a moment ago." Something in my chest twitched at his words. But I ignored the feeling and batted my lashes. "Black eye not doin' it for ya?"

And that was when the banter that I so loved ended. John's face sobered as his eyes peered at my bruised face. "Yer eye looks proper awful."

"Cheers John, always know how to make me smile."

He pushed himself up into a seated position. "Need ice?"

"I'm fine." I was short with him, and I didn't mean to be...especially when he was being kind. But I didn't want to think about how my face looked or why it looked that way. I was going to have to stay away from the other lads until the swelling went down. No one needed to see me like this. And I certainly didn't want to answer the inevitable questions that would come along with showing up with a black eye.