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Brian is a bit embarrassed to admit it has taken him three months to work it out. Alright— more than a bit. Three months of getting to know these boys, of watching them perform and taking them to lunches, meeting their families and negotiating deals and coaxing them out of their leathers and into outfits halfway respectable or to at least comb your hair, for goodness sake, George. Three whole months, and in the end he hadn’t even figured it out for himself, really: he’d had to all but stumble upon the tremendous secret burning at the heart of— of all of it, when he, of all bloody people, should’ve seen, should’ve known. But that embarrassment is currently squaring off inside of him with a heaping helping of disbelief, and anger, and no small smidge of terror, making it a tight competition for top spot of which emotion is going to come burbling out of him like a fountain when he next opens his mouth.
“Are you actually insane?”
Ah. Seems the fury’s won, then. Or is it the fear?
The recipient of his decidedly un-fun cocktail of emotions, however, is staring back at him hard-eyed and cold as marble, completely undaunted. And, as Brian has gleaned a number of times in these past three months, a defensive Paul McCartney is a fearsome thing. The air between them is practically crackling with tension, certainly not helped by Brian’s current position in his seat behind his desk, with Paul standing stiffly on the other side, having refused the proffered chair, his hands hidden but no doubt clenched in fists behind his back. Brian feels distinctly like a headmaster scolding a naughty pupil, which is the last position of authority he ever wanted to hold. Heaven knows he’s faced down his own share of frightful headmasters in his time. Never to be scolded for this particular crime, of course, because Brian knew better than to—
Three months, but the undoing had taken mere seconds. Backstage, after a show, an empty green room and a tiny bathroom beyond, and three whole months of hard work and anticipation and excitement and promise had whittled down to the simple act of opening a closed door and catching two boys tangled together in a way two boys were not supposed to be tangled. It was like a photograph, the way the scene had frozen: one hitched up against a sink, the other pressed close between his legs, two kiss-bruised mouths, two pairs of hands disappearing below waistbands— and two sets of very wide, surprised eyes, staring back at him. A rather beautiful photograph, really, if Brian is to be objective about it, and one he might’ve pursued for his own private collection in another life, what with the electricity of it, the frenzy, the poised-glass moment of suspension. But this is not another life.
Brian had first looked at John, and then to Paul, and it was that final snag of Paul’s eyes as Brian closed the door again without a word that led to Paul being the one standing here in front of him this morning, the morning after. Because there is a reason Brian is having this conversation with Paul, and not John, and Paul knows it too— he’d come to Brian’s office alone, after all. Though God knows how he convinced John to stay behind.
John would’ve been shouting by now, hurling insults and threats to mask his panic. Paul, however, remains stoic, Brian’s question dangling unanswered in the air between them, and that makes this boy all the more unsettling. As though he is waiting to decide how he will judge Brian for how Brian will judge them.
“Are you aware of the magnitude of the risk you’re taking? The consequences that would’ve awaited you had it been anyone else who’d come to find you?” Brian continues, when it’s clear Paul is going to remain silent. He aims for guilt, because even in the few months of their acquaintance, he knows this boy despises being the reason for anyone else’s inconvenience. “And not just for you two, but for your bandmates? Your friends?”
Brian keeps his voice low, because while Alistair may be the only other person in the office this morning, and he is of course privy to Brian’s preference for the sterner sex, he certainly has not been made aware of Paul’s, or John’s. However, Brian can’t quite keep the shrill out of his tone, warping it into something thready and slightly hysterical, a weakness he loathes. He’s never had the most control over his voice: another barrier that led him to management, rather than the stage. And also a reason he usually endured his own scoldings with his head bowed, because if he were to talk back, his voice would no doubt reveal his true feelings straightaway.
Paul, unsurprisingly, and to Brian’s envy, does not suffer from this affliction. After all, he’s seen how the boy conducts himself in the few radio or magazine interviews they’ve done so far: he’s the picture of composure, no matter the subject. Though he’s usually far more polite than he is now.
Brian watches as the boy’s jaw clenches, and his voice when he finally speaks is carefully measured, as heartless as a table you’ve stubbed your toe against.
“We’re care—”
“Please do not tell me you were being careful, because if you were truly as careful as you think yourselves to be then we would not be having this conversation.” Usually Brian hates interrupting, considers it appallingly rude, but he’s ascribing this exception to the hysterics. His heart is a fritzy staccato in his chest, as off-rhythm as Pete’s drumming. “You didn’t even lock the door.”
Paul’s jaw clicks shut again, and Brian sighs. He tries desperately to keep a grip on his fury, because he can’t allow himself to be sympathetic about this, but that fury is quickly waning. He hates having to lecture. After all, he knows firsthand how complicated it is, how isolating, to be young and— and queer, if that’s what these boys even are, in a world so utterly turned against it. A world where they are unable to do all the things other young couples can: no going dancing, no kissing on street corners, no holding hands at the cinema— though are John and Paul even the type of boys who like holding hands? Brian needs to know the full scope of this dalliance, if it is purely physical, a byproduct of ill-begotten curiosity, or if (God forbid) it runs deeper, before he can even begin to “manage” it.
They’ve signed a contract, yes, but contracts can be broken, if needs be— Brian’s already laid in a loophole for acquiring a new drummer, down the line, though he’s sure Pete didn’t read that particular fine print too closely— and it’s still early enough in their business relationship to mitigate any losses; he hasn’t even been able to secure them an audition yet, after all. But still, he dearly hopes that this need won’t be.
But he also knows Paul won’t give easily. He’s reminded of the rabble they were when he met them, all leather and grease and preludin and— particularly in Harrison’s case— bared fangs, more grimace than grin, more manic than joyous. They’d likely still be wearing that leather now, and the whole image of wholesome family entertainment that Brian has been trying to paint would have probably fallen apart, if it weren’t for Paul, so determined in his aspirations, to toe his bandmates back in line when they got unruly. But Brian finds himself cowed on the other side of that resolve.
The boy in front of him wears one of those suits now: ironed, well-pressed, tie perfectly done. Album cover ready. But he might as well be in the leather, for how imposing he is. Brian is not afraid of him, per se, especially as his own inclinations lend themselves towards bulkier, darker types, with heavier hands than the delicate-fingered Paul McCartney, but, well. He’s suddenly very glad he never crossed paths with this boy in a Hamburg alley.
Christ, Hamburg. His mind flickers again to the scene of the two boys in the bathroom, the familiarity in how they were wrapped around each other. How practiced.
“How long has this been going on?”
He hates phrasing it like that, hates making it sound like the crime it supposedly is. Like an accusation, a sentencing.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Now you and I both know that’s a lie, Paul,” Brian chides. “This is exactly my business. You are my business. Now, it’s true that if I had— if you had been with a woman, in that position, I would be significantly less concerned. But this isn’t that. This is…” Illegal. Sodomy. Grounds to have you ostracized from society, and likely chased out of town with pitchforks, if not thrown in prison, where a pretty boy like you would not fare well. “John.” This is John.
That seems to be what finally gets through to the boy— he still doesn’t relax any, but there’s a hesitance to his expression, now, a give that Brian presses on, gently.
“I need to know everything, Paul, because if you aren’t serious, if this is just some fumbling experimentation—” he says the next words without letting himself think about them— “then it needs to end, and end immediately.”
He’s trying to sound firm, managerial. He’s trying to sound— Christ— like his grandfather, really, and that revelation has Brian so nauseous that for a moment he thinks he’ll have to lower his head between his knees. Because these are the words that his grandfather might have used on Brian himself, once, if the Epstein patriarch— or any of them, really— had bothered to care at all what (or who) Brian did with his time. No, instead his family had just exiled him to a record shop in Whitechapel where he couldn’t cause them any trouble, told him to mind his business, and washed their hands of him.
Brian had never wanted to be a record shop owner, or even a band manager. His heart has always been in the theater: he’d thought initially to be a director, once acting had eluded him. But it had been that lack of anything, really, that had fueled Brian’s determination to take this leap in the first place. To make a name for himself without his family. And then the Beatles had fallen out of the sky and into his lap, and Brian had thought, here. Here was his chance.
And they seemed to think so, too: John had trusted Brian immediately, though no doubt lured by the ideal of a father figure appearing from on high to be their guiding hand. And John was the easiest for Brian to love, in return. Wild and unpredictable as he may be, he was artistic, and beautiful, and bright. Paul was the blessing: the cool water that soothed after John’s fire, when he wasn’t blazing bright enough himself to match it. But despite these past three months, Brian knows he hasn’t yet managed to win over the bassist. Something has always kept them apart.
Perhaps, Brian thinks now, that thing is John.
The last dregs of anger finally sapping out of him, Brian sighs again, slumping back in his chair as he scrubs a hand down his face. He’d barely slept last night— how could he?— and he’s exhausted.
For a brief moment, behind the shelter of his fingers, he lets himself wonder if he would have said no. If he had known, those months ago, the truth of what lived between these two magnetic, alluring boys, would he have rescinded his offer of management, sorry, no thank you, the risk outweighs the reward, best of luck to you in your future endeavors, boys, but count me out.
But he has his answer not even a second later, because of course not. Of course not. There is no possible world where he would have seen these boys and the magic they could weave out of thin air and not want to be a part of it. It was that magic that had told him to stay after their set and say hello. Because if he felt it, no doubt others would, too.
But if anyone finds out about this, that magic will be gone quicker than any of them can blink. And then there’s that fear again, surging to the surface, because it’s not just their own secret they risk exposing, but his own. Any revelation would throw open their circle to microscopic scrutiny, and Brian isn’t— he’s not a nun, by any measure, and his truth is known in a few shadowed corners of London, and he has his friends, but— but Brian grew up in this world. He knows how to navigate these unmapped streets, what to say and what not to say and when or when not to say it— and these boys don’t, and he doesn’t know how to teach them. He’s not a teacher. He’s barely a leader.
He tries a different tactic, then, softer now, trying to remind Paul— and himself— that he’s not Paul’s enemy here, but his friend. An ally, fighting the same war, if only tangentially.
“I am sure you’re aware of my own, ah, proclivities—”
“We’re not like that,” Paul interrupts, this time. It’s the first he’s spoken without being addressed, and Brian peers up at him, quizzical.
“Pardon?”
“We’re not— like you.” Paul still looks fierce, but he’s uncomfortable now, too, eyes flicking away from Brian then back again and, well, he’s in good company, isn’t he? In more ways than one, a little voice says in Brian’s mind, and he’s a little pleased to find he hasn’t lost his sense of humor in its entirety, at least, morbid though it may be. “We still like girls. We’re just,” Paul grapples for the words, but comes up short. “Us.”
Us. There is so much in that simple little word. Brian thinks of all the moments of their us that have accumulated in his memories, even in just these three months: the coded language these two speak, that Brian oh so quickly gave up on interpreting. The songs (the love songs) they write together, a seemingly endless font of them. The way they’re always at their best when they’re near each other, and so on edge when they aren’t. They gravitate towards one another on stage, the way Brian had gravitated towards them, and with all that added together, he doesn’t know why it’s such a surprise, to believe maybe they feel the way about each other that Brian feels about them.
Because that’s truly what’s been baffling him, he realizes, this whole time: how the people-pleasing, eternally interview-ready Paul McCartney is the one who is taking this colossal risk, and is here now in front of Brian defending it, no less. John he could understand; John thinks with his heart, for better or for worse, even before it’s stopped roaring in his ears. But Paul? Paul doesn’t take unnecessary chances. Which means this, to him, is something necessary.
Brian’s heart aches. Oh, this is far worse than anything he’d expected. This isn’t just curiosity, or an affair, no.
They’re in love. John and Paul are in love.
Understand now as he may, there is still a hard decision to make. He inhales, making one last valiant appeal to reason.
“If I had been anyone else, Paul—”
“But you weren’t, were you?”
And it is only Brian’s years of experience in the language of shadows that he catches the hidden emotion, tucked away in that question. It’s not anger, or dismissal. It’s a plea. It’s desperation. Brian realizes suddenly that for all his hardened exterior and resolution, the boy in front of him is just as terrified as he is.
Because Brian isn’t just anyone else, is he? Brian is the man who holds this boy’s entire future— and that of his friends— in his hand, and if Brian had been anyone else, he would’ve already crushed it to dust before his very eyes, perhaps the very second he had opened that door.
But he didn’t. Because Brian is also the most likely to understand. He has stood in Paul’s very shoes— the shoes he bought for the boy, no less. And yes, they’re fools, and more foolish than Brian ever was or is or will be, and they are going to be the only thing that’ll ever stand in their own way, and they still just might— but they’re in love, and nothing Brian can say here is going to change that fact, and nor does he want to. No, he knew what he was going to do the moment he saw what was behind that door last night, just as he had his answer before: how could he ever give this up? How could he ever let them down?
And so Brian makes yet another terrible business decision, but also perhaps the best one he’ll ever make in his life.
“Okay.”
Paul’s gaze snaps to his, shocked, before quickly giving way to suspicion, which is fair enough. Brain exhales heavily and says again, perhaps this time for himself to hear, too: “Okay.”
It’s not permission, because Paul clearly doesn’t need that, but it is acceptance. He will help them keep their secret. He will help keep them safe.
“But there are going to be rules, you understand?” He pushes on, to try and keep up some semblance of reprimand. “Rules for how we conduct ourselves in public places, what risks are unacceptable. We’ll discuss with John, too, so he’s aware.”
Paul’s still stunned, clearly, but then he’s nodding hurriedly in agreement. He better be, Brian grumbles internally, though he still can’t squash the wave of fondness for the boy in front of him. “However, we’ll save that for a later date. We’ve a taping scheduled at the BBC this afternoon, and I expect you all on your best behavior.”
“Thank you,” Paul tells him, and Brian can hear the sincerity in it. He nods tiredly and waves him off— though he does call out to him, briefly, just before he reaches the door.
“And for pity’s sake, Paul, lock the door next time, yes?”
Paul at least has the decency to look somewhat bashful, flashing Brian one of those pretty, sheepish smiles, and then he’s gone in a flurry, presumably off to find John. Brian watches as he leaves, and when the door at last swings shut behind him, only then does he let all his strings be cut, to crumple forward and press his forehead to the smooth wood of his desk, to try and make the world stop spinning, and to finally get the air back in his lungs as he processes the choice he just made.
They’re fools, yes, but he can't find it in himself to regret it. And maybe that makes him the biggest fool of all.
Especially as there is still that part of him that envies Paul, because how could he not: to be so young and beautiful and talented and feel so certainly that you’ve never wanted anything more than you want this. To be an us. And what more, to be wanted back, by none other than John Lennon.
But Brian has earned Paul’s trust, here, and he does know that that will take him a long way with the Beatles, on the road ahead. Perhaps even further than Brian hopes he can take them.