[[ Meme ]] I want to see your muse get jealous. I'm curious as to how you'd play John in a scenario where he's really jealous over someone.
♕ ▌◜【 meme 】 – ( accepting )
It all had started with a distasteful swirl in his stomach, and commenced and manifested itself in eye rolls and cruel mickey taking.
John wrapped his chapped lips around a ciggie and blankly started at the to his right. The newly bought guitar sat on his left leg and his hand laid restless on the edge of it. Paul sat to the left of him and played his own acoustic, perfecting a song he’d bleedin’ dreamed up, not struggling at all. John felt sick, lousy, and wanted to go home, but he knew they’d ask him what was wrong and he was too much a man to admit his ego was wounded. He didn’t understand how Paul did that. Where did it all come from?
John had to milk the songs out of himself. He couldn’t dream up a ditty and have be so bloody marvelous as Paul’s. John knew, as soon as his mate had played the song to him and asked if he’d heard the melody before, that Paul had created something to be envious of. It’d been months, and John had sat and listened to it over and over again. He’d been there when Paul had played it to Alma Cogan, his own lover, and watched as she fell into a puddle. John drank straight rum and scanned her vast record collection. He was filled with hot fury, and couldn’t turn his back towards the pair in fear that he’d tell Paul it was fuggin’ marvelous and he couldn’t he stop throwing it down everyone’s throats now?
❛ Alright, John? ❜ Paul asked. John threw his eyes to the man and nodded.
❛ Yeah. ❜ He nodded firmly. ❛ I was jus’ listenin’. ❜
Paul hummed and returned to his instrument. John turned away again and took the cigarette out of his mouth. He flicked away the ash at the end and blew out a cloud of smoke, relieving his lungs, but not his mind. George was over in the corner talking to Ringo, and they both looked so content John wanted to yell at them for it. They weren’t boiling with jealous. They didn’t want to storm away and not return until they’d created a song tenfold better than the one they were hearing now. George and Ringo didn’t struggle with the suffocation of feeling not adequate enough at the one thing they did best. John had never been further from alright in his life.
❛ ‘aven’t ya got it down yet? ❜ came the unwilling words from John’s thin lips. The end of his cigarette burned red hot as he inhaled and he half expected Paul to quit, but he hadn’t. Instead he fuggin’ laughed with such a mirth John wanted to die. He thought he was playing, fuggin’ prat.
❛ I don’t want t’muck it up. Never done a song be meself, yanno. ❜
❛ Nervous? ❜ John observed him. He couldn’t tell if he looked it or not.
Paul shrugged his shoulders, dismissing it. Had John any sympathy to give before, he didn’t any longer. John sat down his guitar and crossed the dressing room. He slipped on his suit coat and opened a bottle of Coke. Paul played his song in the background and began singing too. John closed his eyes and waited for Brian to come retrieve them to begin the show. He hoped it’d be soon before he said something he would regret to Paul. His tongue was always the sharpest when his heart was the weakest.
❛ Are you all ready? ❜ Brian’s refined accent entered the room. John turned away and looked in his manager’s direction. He stamped out the ciggie in the ashtray and blew out the last of the smoke. He was the first to sway over to the door, Paul following suit and then George and Ringo, too.
As they walked down the corridor, they fell into pairs. John and Paul walked side by side and Ringo and George were behind. John didn’t look over at Paul, and pretended not to hear him when he called his name when they got closer to the stage. Paul didn’t repeat it, and instead stepped closer. His hands reached up to his tie and pulled it tighter. John had forgotten he’d loosened it, and he scolded himself for it now.
❛ Wha’ would ya do without us, Lennon? ❜ Paul laughed. John knew he was only playing but the nasty feeling returned inside of him despite of it.
❛ God knows, ❜ John responded. He let a grin press itself on his lips, putting on, willing away all the stored jealously and self-hatred. Paul smiled back at him, and time seemed to go as John’s mind slipped away into the seas of screams and the muffled sounds of an introduction. All became a blur and they were ushered on stage, and everything felt adrift as they played their way through songs they all knew too well now. Then came the time John dreaded the most. George stepped up the microphone and introduced Paul, and John exited to the side of the stage. He stood beside Brian and watched as the lights dimmed and then it began. The audience was hushed and the light was on Paul, and it was every bit as good as one could expect. John frowned and felt ill, and evil. Thankfully he wasn’t given much time to sulk because a stagehand was handing a thing of flowers to give the man of the hour. John took them happily, understanding just what they would do and how wonderfully cruel it seemed
When the lights came back on, they tapped him on the shoulder and he rushed out. Quickly he handed Paul the flowers, and laughed cruelly as the man’s face fell in confusion. John gave the top of flowers to the stagehand and returned to his front position, straightening what once been Paul’s mike.
❛ Thanks fer that Ringo, ❜ John discredited Paul, feeling better for it, already. He only began to wander if this was how it’d be forever now.
