Chapter Text
The day had slipped out from under Eric, but he didn’t mind. Time always seemed to do that when he was with George, and he’d find himself swept along. For those afternoons that stretched into evenings, then nights, then mornings, he was in George’s slip stream. Orbiting him happily, in a world of shiny new cars and shinier old guitars and no matter which way Eric set off from his own front drive, the winding country roads of the home counties would find a way to deliver him to Friar Park. The sound of the jukebox, Woodie Guthrie wafting from the windows called like a siren song.
Or that had been the story tonight at least. He and George lounged on a low sofa – well, George lounged. His long thin limbs hung loosely about him like a dropped marionette. Eric tried to look at ease, as confidently comfortable as George always did but the boarding school in him kept his back straight and his hands folded in his lap.
“Toke for your troubles?”
A soothing Scouse drawl brought him back from his reverie. George held the half-smoked joint in front of Eric’s face, tilted upwards like a little Olympic torch. “Oh, yes, sir, don’t mind if I do,” he hummed while all his words seemed to bump into each other. He had, of course, already smoked half of the thing. And all of another before that. His face felt hot, and his eyelids were heavy, and the latent smell of sandalwood that hung in the air about Friar Park made the air feel dense and heady.
A blinding white flash and he blinked – but it was only George’s teeth, as the guitarist grinned mischievously at him. Eric puffed away, and grinned too, marveling at just how much George’s face transformed when he smiled. Like the clouds of his dark, heavy brow and solemn gaze had suddenly broken, and there was the sunshine. And George’s smile really was lovely. Big and toothy and faintly carnivorous, but lopsided in a way that always made him look boyish. They’d just returned from holiday together, so beneath his long hair George was fabulously tanned. Tall, dark, and handsome, Eric thought vaguely but without jealousy.
“I offered you a toke, not the whole thing,” George chuckled drily.
“Christ, sorry, yeah,” Eric spluttered back, passing it hastily and their fingers brushed for a second, “Terrible house guest, me. Don’t know why you still answer the door to me,”
“Masochism,” came the sage reply. George’s red eyes wandered about the room under heavy lids, always looking for something that he never quite seemed to find. He brought the joint to his lips, and Eric watched. The top lip was thin and angular and sneering, the bottom full and round. Jesus, had his mouth always looked so…?
“What d’you think about love, Eric?”
Non-sequitur was not unusual from George, whose brain seemed to work in a way indecipherable to anyone who hadn’t taken enough acid to kill a small mammal.
“All round pretty good thing I’d say,”
“It’s everything, you know?” George sighed a little plume of smoke into the air, “And we put so many restrictions on it. Y’know, who can go with who and when. Whether you’re married, your colour, ‘n’ creed, ‘n’ whatever-“
“Gender,” Eric offered absentmindedly, and then found his heart was somewhere in his shoes. But George was agreeing.
“Yeah, exactly. I mean y’know, you can’t limit love and all men and all women are just part of God, and all love is love of God so it’s all the same. Doesn’t matter if it’s a girl and a guy, or a girl and a girl,” George waxed his well-practiced gospel then, perhaps with a little less conviction than usual, added, “Or a guy and a guy. It’s all ‘whatever’, y’know?”
It really was hot in this room. Or maybe Eric was blushing. Christ, he hoped he wasn’t blushing. He wasn’t sure if the joint had muddled his brain or if what George was saying didn’t really mean anything at all, except for one little phrase. A guy and a guy. It stuck in Eric’s brain like a fishhook, and suddenly it was dragging him along and he spoke.
“Have you ever? With…like a guy and a guy?” and then, in a nervous hurry, “You don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry,”
George had paused, mouth open as if he were considering very carefully what he was about to say. A verbal filter was, of course, wildly out of character for George and Eric felt a flutter of anxiety in his stomach.
“Billy. Preston, I mean. ‘E tried it on with me once,”
Eric’s eyebrows rose but before he could respond George continued, rushed and a bit rueful as if he were confessing. “-I didn’t do it, or we didn’t- didn’t do anything. I told him it wasn’t for me. But it sort of, y’know, it got me thinking. ‘Cause I like Billy, and if he does it can it really be so bad?”
That anxiety was now less like a handful of butterflies and now like a swarm, twisting its way up Eric’s throat and out of his mouth as he nodded along feverishly.
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely,” he was trying very hard not to sound over-enthusiastic, “I mean all love is just sort of love, isn’t it? And all love is just love of Krishna, according to Yogi Harrison at least,”
For a second he thought he’d blown it, steering the conversation back to faith. What if George went into one of his funny religious turns and fucked off to go meditate for a decade in the Himalayas or something? George’s eyebrows were knitted together in one harsh line across his brow, but, fantastically, he nodded again.
“Yeah, exactly. And Krishna’s a man,”
Now that one hung in the air, along with all the thick smoke from the joint still smoldering between George’s fingers.
“I’ve sort of…you know at school, when you’re young. Boarding school,” Eric’s voice was low as he stared at the ashtray.
“Hardly counts when you’re that age,”
“Well, precisely…but I have…I’ve thought about it,”
George shrugged casually, but didn’t look over at Eric either.
“I mean, we’ve all thought about it,”
Another beat, and then Eric gritted his teeth. To get what you want, you have to speak up – that’s what he and George always reminded each other. So he sat up straighter and turned till his body faced George who was still tucked away in the corner of the sofa.
“Would you?”
God, George was lovely. Those long dark curls, and his thin, deft fingers toying with the roach as he took a few more puffs then stubbed it out, before glancing sidelong at Eric.
“I don’t know,”
Well, that was it then. Eric was half relieved, half disappointed, but then George cleared his throat and shifted to face him properly too.
“It was…I never had the option. In my position, with all the press and stuff. Couldn’t, when I was with the Fabs. Couldn’t just go out and pull someone at random, y’know, in case it got out. But there wasn’t anyone I trusted enough…”
“Not the other Beatles?” Eric blurted out and immediately regretted it as George gave him a funny look.
“God, you’re as bad as the tabloids. No, they’re like my brothers anyway,”
They lapsed back into silence and without the joint governing their movements the space between them seemed very big and very small all at once. Their hands rested on the sofa a few inches a part.
“Not the other Pythons?”
Eric laughed at that, which sent him a little off-kilter and he let his body relax. He was leaning towards George now. Always stuck in the gravitational pull of those dark, unreadable eyes.
“No, but I mean,” George spoke again, “I couldn’t then. But maybe…maybe I might…might now if…if…”
And, God, that was real anxiety in his voice. His gaze fell on the carpet, then skipped back up to Eric, then back to the carpet and his leg bounced nervously. Eric felt a great relief that he wasn’t the only one in a state of terror, but it was quickly subsumed by the aforementioned terror again as he realized what George was implying.
“Yeah?” Eric breathed and he wasn’t even sure George had heard him, and wasn’t sure if he was the one leaning closer still or George was.
Their lips met. It was nothing, really, just a very light brush. Barely even a peck before George had pulled back. Eric didn’t think he could remember how to breathe, as their eyes met for a second and suddenly they’d kissed again, and then again. The connection of their lips lingered now, and Eric didn’t know when he had shut his eyes but he had.
George’s lips were soft, and warm, and George was holding him firmly by the shoulders as if afraid he might run off. He had no such plans and so his hand rose shakily to cup George’s cheek. He was bony, and pointy, and Eric could feel the prickle of stubble on his palm and the sensation shot right to his spine.
His fingers wove into the hair at the top of George’s neck and God now that was soft, and thick, and George exhaled gently through his nose. It tickled a little, and Eric couldn’t suppress a smile but George seemed to read that as an invitation and his tongue slipped into Eric’s mouth.
Their lips were locked together, and Eric wondered if anyone in the history of the human race had ever felt like this. It wasn’t Friar Park that smelled of spliff and sandalwood it was George, his hair and his skin and his clothes.
Eric slipped backwards to lie on the sofa and pulled George with him, their tongues in each other’s mouths as their breathing started to become heavier, their movements clumsier. George was half propped up between Eric’s legs, so close Eric could feel the heat from his body but not touching yet. There was an unspoken hesitation.
And then George’s firm hand began to drift downwards across Eric’s chest, then down his side to rest at his hip. Of course, George had been the one to cross the barrier. He could do anything he liked. Eric wondered if he was going mad and gave a stoned sort of giggle, but let his hand run down George’s clothed back. His shirt had ridden up slightly; Eric’s fingers brushed warm skin and George shuddered and made a shy little noise. Christ, it might’ve been the most attractive thing Eric had ever heard.
If he feared for a moment that the contact would make George pull away, he was wrong. The guitarist leaned in closer than ever, breath coming in huffs as his mouth slipped away and down Eric’s jaw to leave a wet kiss, and then to his neck. He could feel the slight scrape of those bright, sharp teeth across the sensitive skin and he only half managed to stifle a groan.
George’s hands were at Eric’s hips, holding firmly but gently while his mouth teased Eric’s neck, licking and sucking and nipping cheekily. Eric had the sudden, wild thought that this is what all those Beatle girls must’ve felt. Powerless underneath a rockstar, in his practiced hands, suffocating in the delicious smell of lemongrass and marijuana. Eric was a screaming teenage girl, while George played and played and played. He wasn’t kissing a man, he was kissing a Beatle.
A Beatle whose soft skin was still tanned from their holiday together, whose sneering mouth twitched into that big giddy smile when Eric quoted Python bits, who talked with him until the small hours of the morning and wouldn’t do this with someone he didn’t trust. And all of a sudden it wasn’t a man or Beatle on top of him, it was George.
He pushed George away, lightly, playfully.
“Hey!” he was panting, and George was staring at him with those heavy eyes, “How come I’m the girl?”
He said it jokingly, but with an edge of real indignation and embarrassment too as the heat crept up his neck. He could feel a similar heat creeping somewhere lower too but he was trying very hard not to think about that.
George looked bewildered for a second. His lips were red and wet and a little swollen from their kissing, his hair mussed from where Eric had been running his fingers through it.
“Because you’re shorter than me,”
“You’ve got longer than hair than me,” Eric countered, shifting himself to sit up a bit more and catching a glimpse of something in George’s eye.
“Well, that’s true enough,”
And then they were moving, fluidly, as Eric crawled forwards and George slid back until they lay together again, now reversed. George’s legs were a slightly spread and Eric slotted between them, careful – very careful – not to let their crotches touch. Not because he didn’t want them to, but because he didn’t want George to feel what must be at least a semi, and getting harder by the second.
He caught George’s lips again and now George’s hands were running down his sides, into his hair, pulling him closer. The front of Eric’s jeans brushed the front of George’s and he shivered, praying that it’d gone unnoticed as they kissed harder. Eric could hear George’s moans stifled into his mouth and George clung to him, barely an inch between them. Oh God, Eric was hard and- fuck, George was hard too, he could feel it through the tight blue jeans and their tongues moved in one another’s mouths and then-
This time George was the one to push him away. He sat up suddenly, awkwardly, nearly knocking Eric backwards off the sofa and cleared his throat.
“Yeah, well, y’know, now we know,” George spoke in a voice of forced calm. He’d swung his legs off the sofa, hands in his lap and legs pressed tightly together. He looked like a frightened schoolboy.
“Yeah,” Eric spoke shakily, mustering something that was nearly cheerful, “Yeah, we know,”
He felt the frantic urge to pacify George, to console him, or persuade him, just anything to slip that thin, lithe body back underneath his own. Maybe he should apologise.
“And? Did it? For you?”
George was stared dead at him, brow low and eyes unreadable above those agonizingly sharp cheek bones. Eric imagined this is what facing a firing squad must feel like. He might just burst into tears under that impenetrable gaze, because George had turned on him, was about to laugh at him, swear at him. Hit him, maybe.
Eric didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Just have a single quick nod.
“Yeah,” George’s eyebrows were one thick line again, harsh and frowning. And then, softer, “you promise you won’t tell anyone?”
Hippie, free love, spacey George was gone, and so was slick confident Beatle George. In front of Eric sat an exhausted, hounded man.
“Yeah, of course, man, of course-"
“I’m serious, Eric. Not your friends, not your wife, not your shrink. Swear you’ll never tell a single soul about this, ever,”
Those black eyes bored into him and Eric’s skin tingled. His head swam. But George’s tone was so urgent, so earnest.
“I- I swear, George, I promise,” Eric thought he himself now sounded like a school child, trying to please the master. He felt sick.
“Right. Okay then. Cool,”
And without time to take a breath George had practically smashed their lips together again, and something must’ve snapped in Eric from all the strain of the last few minutes because he moaned into the kiss and George redoubled his efforts.
“I’m so fucking hard, Christ,” George murmured, more to himself than anyone else but Eric shuddered. Back down onto the sofa and, well, if George was going to bring it up then Eric would meet him there so he snaked a hand between them and began to palm George through his jeans.
“Oh-" and George gave a lovely, breathy sigh. Eric could feel the heat of George’s hard-on under his hand even through the layers, could feel his length, his hardness.
“Can I-?”
George was already shimmying out of his jeans, pulling them to his thighs. There was a damp patch on his boxers that made Eric throb painfully in his own trousers, and the head poked out ever so slightly from the waistband.
When he reached into George’s underwear to wrap a hand round his prick, Eric became convinced that his joint must’ve been spiked. Nothing except his darkest, most inebriated fantasies could have come up with the groan that spilled over George’s lips, or the way his narrow hips twitched up.
He stared almost hungrily at George’s swollen cock, and then back at his face – his eyes were closed, just those thick lashes fluttering.
“Eric, please,”
He was going to cum in underwear if George kept that up and so he began to pump him gently, his own breath unsteady. Eric was so preoccupied that he didn’t notice George’s fingers at his belt until a guitar-calloused hand wrapped around his own erection.
“Oh, Christ, yes-"
Their movements had synched up, Eric following George’s relentless rhythm and their lips met again if only to pant into each other’s mouths.
“Eric-" George murmured, and then slightly bolder, “Eric- d’you want me to- I could…”
George’s face had gone red and he seemed to struggle meeting Eric’s eye.
“I could put it in my mouth if… if you wanted,” he finished shyly.
Eric had never wanted anything more in his life. Maybe the way his mouth fell slack made that a little too obvious, because George smiled coyly and slid out from under him.
George slipped down onto the rug, on his knees, his hands flat on each of Eric’s thighs. He looked up with eyes as dark as Beatle boots and Eric shuddered. Slowly, he took Eric’s cock in his hand again and stroked it lazily. George’s cheek rested on Eric’s bare leg – his trousers were pooled somewhere around his ankles- as he watched his own fist slide up and down.
“I’ve never done this before,” George said quietly but calmly, inching closer to Eric’s member.
He thought he might start laughing, or weeping, or feverishly crack a joke to ease the tension wound in him like a coiled spring. Mercifully, before he could do any of these, George had leaned forward and placed his mouth experimentally on the head.
Eric groaned aloud and then George looked up - God, those eyes again - but now his mouth was red and wide and slowly sliding further. Eric stared, he couldn’t help it, and squirmed slightly as George raised a hand to hold the shaft, beginning to bob up and down about half his length.
And still those eyes, watering now but always gazing up at Eric, in curiosity, in the search for approval – Eric wasn’t sure. His hands curled into George’s thick hair and he did approve, he really did, as George’s cheeks hollowed with each suck and his perfect cheekbones stood stark against his face.
“Fuck, George-"
George gave a muffled hum in response and Eric groaned again. He was definitely going mad. His dick, throbbing and harder than he’d ever been, was in George’s warm, wet mouth pushing at that plump lower lip. He was getting sucked off by a Beatle, whose clever little tongue darted under the head and whose throat opened up with each stroke. His hand worked the base, and Eric pushed the hair away from George’s face to see him better, beginning to steer him very gently up and down.
George gagged a little, breathing roughly through his nose but making no attempt to stop.
“Oh God, fuck-" Eric gasped.
He could feel the back of George’s throat now, soft, tight, engulfing him, and fuck it felt good, fuck-
He pulled George off his cock, one hand still in his hair the other now cupping his jaw. His lips were certainly swollen now, his face flushed under the tan and his lashes wet and so unbearably pretty. George looked like sex itself.
Eric didn’t want to cum just yet. He had to make this last and, some frantic part of him hissed what if George wanted to properly fuck?
There flashed in his mind the image of himself slowly sliding into George’s hole, how he’d moan loudly, languidly, and whimper into Eric’s ear, whispering that he’s never had it as good as this. As special as this.
George gazed up at him from the floor expectantly.
“Didn’t- didn’t want to finish,” Eric explained a little lamely, heat rising to his cheeks but a smile cracked across George’s face.
“You were gonna? Was I good?” the words seemed to trip out in an excited rush before George cowed himself and looked a little embarrassed.
“Very good. Could do that professionally, you could,” Eric said as a wave of tenderness washed over him. He still held George by the chin as he leant down and kissed him again, slowly, deeply. Past the spit and cigarettes, he could taste his own pre-cum.
The frantic rush had abated, though. They had all night.
“Do you want to keep going?” George murmured into his mouth, “There’s a lot of bedrooms in this house,”
Eric did.