Let Me Take You Down Cause I’m Going To

What a night. What an amazing, exhilarating, thrilling night. As you lay flat on your back, the sheets pulled up and laying indifferently over your bare chest, you turn your head over to Paul, laying similarily beside you with the covers draped low across his equally bare waist. His smooth, broad chest, slightly shiny with moisture and heaving quickly up and down, reflects the dim glow of the lamp beside you in an even softer, yellow gleam, and you’re momentarily mesmerized by it.

He runs a hand through his damp, tangled hair and, when his hand is once again free, he moves his whole arm to lay it over your shoulders and slide you closer to his warm, muscular body. You graciously snuggle closer to him. He plants a tender, smiling kiss against the skin of your forehead.

The longer you both lay there like that, your breath steadying and the comforting grips of sleep tugging at your eyelids, the more you realize this is all you need. As long as you can doze off each night in the warm embrace of Paul, feeling his warmth and his love in every movement, bathed in the warm shine of that lamp on the bedside table, you really can’t ask for anything else.

Paul sighs contently and his arm lazily drifts over towards you to lay his large hand comfortably on top of your own. Soon, he tenderly wraps his fingers around your hand and brings it up to examine in front of his face. He interlocks his fingers in yours, turns and twists it every which way, a look of leisurely fascination and affection on his sleepy face. He turns his head to face you, and plants another light kiss on your temple before letting go of a content sigh.

“Such pretty hands…” he mumbles almost to himself, and you giggle as he takes each finger to his lips and gives it a tender kiss. He splays his own fingers out and kindly pushes your wrist towards his so your palms are pressed against each other, your shorter fingers straining to reach his. He smiles a playful grin looking at the contrast between you two, and his fingers slide to the side to wedge them between the gaps and hold your hand tightly.

You had to do something. It wasn’t a simple matter of what was best for him, what you thought was right, now you know that if something didn’t change soon it would render you both helpless. If you didn’t take a hold of his outstretched hands and pull him to safety, he would surely drown in the perpetual sea of empty bottles, of cigarette butts and hazy, drunken days followed by restless, sleepless nights. He would drown in the rough, black sea of depression.

You know the breakup has been extremely hard on him. If anything, you know it better than anyone. It was a blatant fact that The Beatles were not going to last forever to anyone standing on the outside and peering through the metaphorical windows, but to Paul, that bond that the 4 men shared was something that would undeniably last forever. And maybe it was; just because the band had ceased to exist doesn’t mean that life will not go on, it doesn’t mean that they will never speak to each other again or at least do some sort of reconciliation. You just need to get him to see that. He had devoted an incredible portion of his life to that, and now that it was over, it seems like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, like he can’t even begin to conceive of a life without the constant of The Beatles, so he’s just given up even trying to. This whole situation has prompted him to do something you never thought in a million years that he would do; he let himself go. Grew a beard. Drank much more than he should have. Just slept and moped around all day. He was not only barrelling down a very dangerous road, but now you fear he’s going to take you with him.

You find yourself beginning to miss the times you used to share before all this, when you would go out with friends, when you would carve an hour or two out of both your days for a slow meander down the road, or around a park. Sometimes, the crisp London air would be filled with laughter and senseless chatter, sometimes all the words would run out and a comfortable silence would settle, which was almost just as nice. You would walk hand-in-hand as long as your legs would permit, and when you arrived home those feelings of comfort and solace would not end.

You have an idea. You raise your voice a bit to call Paul’s name into the silence of your large house, and when he doesn’t reply you walk into the living room, where you think he would most likely be. Sure enough, there he is, slumped darkly on the couch reading some sort of book. You hurry over behind him, and he cranes his neck to smile up at you.

“Hey, luv,” he says somewhat cheerfully, “what’s up?”

“I thought we would take a walk or something, just you and me,” you offer feebly, shrugging your shoulders a bit and giving him a humble smile. He looks at you doubtfully for a few seconds, not completely understanding. He sighs and thinks it over for a second, but you already know that he’s made up his mind. You place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“C’mon, Paul, it’ll be nice to get out,” maybe he’s just decided to humour you, maybe he’s realized that this is a battle he’s not going to win, but you’d like to think that you had actually gotten through to him. Either way, he agrees somewhat less wholeheartedly than you had hoped.

With your coats and boots on, you set out silently and gaze out at the dark green and yellow landscape stretching around you. Now, on a beautiful and serene property like this, you could walk right off the golden horizon and just keep going. Paul, with his long, curling hair rippling ever so slightly in the breeze and his dark, rustic beard nestled between his face and the collar of his grey coat, wraps his soft, warm hand around yours to lead you down the cobblestone walkway. When you catch up to him, his hand tightens and he begins to leisurely swing his arm as you walk, so close together that your shoulders bump against each other with each step.

You walk together in silence for a few minutes, each occasionally pointing to something that has caught their attention

You place a gentle hand on his broad shoulder and slow your footsteps to a stop, your gaze caught to the west across the wide, verdant field, all the way to where the lush green-yellow meets the bright, golden sensations of the upcoming sunrise. Paul looks confusedly at you for a moment, and when he doesn’t seem to notice what had made you stop in your tracks with such a look on your face, he follows your eyes across the landscape. Still he doesn’t seem to see it.

You raise a preoccupied hand towards the horizon, and point a finger directly at the bright orange, glowing fat orb. If you squint hard enough, you almost imagine you can see it slowly descending to the line where the painted sky meets the grass.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” You breathe, a smile dancing behind your eyes and coming through on your lips. Paul looks into those eyes, seeing the brilliant sunset reflected on their identical glassy surfaces, and puts an arm over your shoulders.

He wonders why the things he often sees reflected in those eyes of yours, like the sun on a bright day, the television late at night, or sometimes even the silhouette of his own face, always look so much brighter, so much more contrasted and saturated, when a smile graces the lips below them. And suddenly, he knows.

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes glued on the dazzling pinks and oranges of the western horizon as the sun lowers itself into the sea of green, and brings behind it a colourful twilight. “It is,”

You sit leaning against the side of a light grey garden shed, watching the sky and basking in each other’s closeness until the faint remains of the sun have faded away into a blue, starry darkness. When you begin to walk again, only the sounds of your footsteps on thin grass and your quiet, happy conversations accompany you. You can’t remember a time when you had felt happier.

2 days later

It has been two days since you and Paul had decided to take a quick, sunset walk around his extensive property. And still, whenever you think about it, you can’t help but get into a good mood. You hadn’t seen much of Paul in the past couple days, but you can tell when you do see him that there’s something new; it seems as though some kind of light had broken through his increasingly dark face.

As you consider asking him to accompany you once again later this afternoon, you hear his quick footsteps approaching you. You straighten up a bit, and when he gets closer you see a warm, almost giddy expression on his face.

“I need to show you something,” he says, with the first excited, genuine smile lightening his face that you had seen in what felt like forever. Before you can respond, he eagerly grabs your hand, encasing it in his own rougher, larger one and leading you into the den, filled with a soft yellow light, with a shining black piano nestled in the corner. Your chest immediately fills with an excitement that you had all but forgotten, a shaky, anxious kind of excitement that runs in waves across a room whenever a man like Paul sits down at a rickety piano bench.

He theatrically cracks his fingers and clears his throat, smiling up at you with a familiar sparkle in his dark eyes and a loving smile dancing on his lips. Finally, he lowers his hands to the piano as an air of seriousness encases him. His fingers crawl across the keys, signalling the start of a slow, beautiful melody. You’re immediately entranced, your eyes glassing over and unfocusing and your jaw slackening. And then, he takes a deep, shaky breath, and begins to sing.

“Baby, I’m amazed at the way you love me all the time,”

His fingers, already so passionate, pound against the weathered ivory keys of the piano with such force and comfort that you just stand there, temporarily dumbfounded beyond words.

His voice, so intense and raspy, like he’s pouring everything he has into it, radiates around the two of you in soft, smooth, intangible tendrils. You close your eyes and let it encase you, let it invade your head and blow the dust off the newly awoken space in your mind.

“And maybe I’m afraid of the way I love you,”

He tears his attention away from the piano for a second to look into your eyes, his face happy yet unsmiling, loving yet so serious you freeze. Your lips part in complete awe, and only then does he return to the piano.

“Maybe I’m amazed at the way you pulled me out of time,”

For the entire rest of the song, you stand transfixed, your eyes darting from Paul’s majestic hands dancing across the piano, to his angelic face. Nothing runs through your mind but the beautiful lyrics, so intent on their purpose, and the radiating melody of the full, deep piano. You feel as if this moment can’t possibly be real, and if you even flinch it will all go away, but deep down you know that these words would stay with you until you’re old and grey, and they are the last thing left in your mind.

When the final chords ring throughout the room and Paul shakily removes his hands from the piano, he glances up towards you to nervously gage your reaction. You don’t know what to say. Paul had written a song. For you. A beautiful, heartfelt, incredibly deep melody just for you, just because of you. He has touched the darkest, most hidden corners of your heart, and invaded them with a warm, shining light just like the painted sunset you had witnessed together only days before. Except you know that this glow will never go out, never eclipse into darkness again.

“Oh, Paul, it’s wonderful,” you breathe, not trusting yourself to speak. Your eyes well up with glimmering tears of awe and happiness. Seeing your reaction, Paul slowly stands up from the cushy bench and you immediately fall into his open arms.

“I thought you might like it,” he mutters, and you can tell just by his voice that he’s smiling. He wraps his arms so tightly around you that you can barely breathe, but you wouldn’t have it any other way, and picks you up so your feet dangle a few centimetres off the ground. Your hands wrap around his neck to steady yourself.

“Come on, it’ll be fun, trust me,” says Paul in his low, reassuring voice as he drives you both down the busy road towards the studio. He had finally succeeded in dragging you along to a session, much to your dismay and embarrassment. He had wanted to take you for so long now, but you had always found a way to get out of it. Until now.

Your sigh, not at all convinced, but smile at his attempt anyways.

“C’mon, luv, you need a break,” he says as he pulls into the parking lot. Okay, you can give him that; life had been a lot lately, and maybe this was just the thing you needed to just take a step back for a second. Maybe being around some new people, just forgetting everything else and goofing about with Paul and his mates would do you some good.

You walk hand in hand through the doors to the studio, and the other 3 men are already waiting patiently, warning up their instruments for a few hours of playing. When you walk in, heads turn and 3 warm, genuine smiles welcome you both. Paul nods at the men with a look you weren’t supposed to see, warning them to behave.

“Paulie, who’s the lady?” Asks John, with a sly look towards Paul and a wink at you.

“Watch it,” Paul replies, recognizing that look instantly and shutting him down. John looks at you and rolls his eyes, and you can’t help but laugh.

The boys rehearse and goof around for an unknown amount of time, and you laugh along with them the entire time. By the end, you have gotten to know each one of them at least a bit more, and Paul had made a wonderful introduction. You couldn’t tell for sure yet, but you think they like you quite well, and you certainly like them, too. You find yourself startled at your excitement to come back, and you can tell by the smug, satisfied look on Paul’s face that you’re not hiding it well.

Quite suddenly, Paul stands from the chair he had been sitting in and sets his bass in the empty seat, stretching with his hands as high as they would go.

“Alright, I’m makin’ tea, anybody want some?” He asks, already standing in the doorway to the small kitchen. 4 hands shoot eagerly upwards in unison, and he chuckles a bit before turning and getting the kettle ready. His quiet, musical whistling fills both rooms, along with the occasional metal clanging of the kettle and stove.

“Y’know, he really likes you,” George plops down in the chair beside you as soon as Paul is out of sight and leans sideways towards you, speaking in a low, sly tone. He looks up at you, awaiting your reaction.

“Really?” Is all you can manage. “How do you know?”

“Oh, he won’t shut up about you,”

“Every song he writes, it’s, oh, wait’ll Y/N hears this one, and, oh, she’d love this. It’s exhausting, really,”

A warm smile spreads across your face, and you feel the blush in your cheeks. All 3 men seem very pleased by your reaction.

At that moment, Paul strides in, distractedly fixing a button on his shirt. When he looks up at you 4, each wearing identical, silent expressions, he raises one eyebrow in suspicious confusion.

In perfect unison, the other 3 burst out in knowing laughter, all slyly glancing towards you with identical looks that say, this never happened. Paul lets the subject go and leans over to hand you your tea. Then, he plops himself down beside his friends again.

“You guys seem so tight,” you laugh.

“Yeah, you could say that,” replies Paul jokingly, as John ruffles a mocking hand in the younger man’s seemingly perfect hair. Before long, all four grown men are on the floor, laughing and joking and playing like children.

You had always seen yourself as a bit of a loner, but you would be lying if the way you had been treated before hadn’t hurt you, hadn’t taken its toll on you. Lately, it had seemed as though the people you thought had been closest to you had been distancing themselves, like they were trying to cut you out of their lives. You couldn’t help but think it was somehow your fault, but struggled to figure out why. These increasing feelings of loneliness had been beginning to get to you, and you had the helpless feeling that your life was changing right before your eyes, but there was nothing you could think of to do about it. It seemed like lately, a lot of the change hadn’t been all that good, but it had made you a lot more appreciative of at least one change of which you had been grateful time and time again; Paul. He had come into your life at the perfect time, and had introduced you to the kind of lifestyle and sense of friendship you had been searching for. Watching the way these 4 lads talked with each other, the way they played and teased and made fun and fought, but also the tremendous amount of love behind everything. They would do anything for the others.

“God, I wish I had something like that,” you mumble, a warm, humourless smile painting your face. Paul looks over towards you, and distances himself from the roughhousing to stride over to you. He drapes his arm heavily over your shoulders and pulls you in towards his warm body.

“George, stay still!” You nag for probably the fifth time, putting your free hand on the back of his head to steady it so he won’t pull away again. Bunched up in your other hand is a faded white cloth you had soaked in cool water from the tap, and he winces each time you try to dab it on the small cut just beneath his eye. “I need to clean it before you can put ice on it,”

“George, stay still!” You nag for probably the fifth time, putting your free hand on the back of his head to steady it so he won’t pull away again. Bunched up in your other hand is a faded white cloth you had soaked in cool water from the tap, and he winces each time you try to dab it on the small cut just beneath his eye. “I need to clean it before you can put ice on it,”

When the cut is finally clean, you lean back to examine his face before picking up the frozen bag of peas you had set down beside you.

“How do I look?” He asks in a mockingly tough tone, raising one eyebrow and then wincing at the soreness. You chuckle, and put a hand to the side of his face.

“Hmm, it’s gonna swell,” you say. He huffs a disappointed sigh as you hand him a small mirror that had been sitting on your dresser. He holds it up to his face and examines his eye, already shifting from the sunken, white complexion to a puffy, darker one. You expected that that eye of his would turn every colour of the rainbow before the bruise finally faded away. He turns his face every which way, carefully inspecting his eye and the small red cut below it. He doesn’t seem impressed.

“Makes me look tough, don’t ya think?” He asks in a purposefully low, husky voice. You can’t help but burst out in laughter, and before long he’s giggling along with you. You shake your head with a smile and push the bag of peas into his hand, and he gingerly holds it up to his face.

“Y’know, that was pretty brave of you,” you admit. “defending your friend like that,”

He shrugs shyly with a proud, yet still modest smile.

After a moment, he takes the bag from his face (the swelling had gone the slightest bit down, but the colour was still steadily darkening, as you had expected) to look directly at you, one eye deep and filled with love, the other swollen half-shut.

“Paul?” You ask tentatively as you walk into the living room. He whips his head up to look at you, trying to put on a pleasant face even though you can see the frustration behind those eyes. “Everything alright?” He nods with a smile, but scoots over graciously on the padded bench when you reach him. You sink down directly beside him and he lays his head moodily on your shoulder.

“Paul?” You ask tentatively as you walk into the living room. He whips his head up to look at you, trying to put on a pleasant face even though you can see the frustration behind those eyes. “Everything alright?” He nods with a smile, but scoots over graciously on the padded bench when you reach him. You sink down directly beside him and he lays his head moodily on your shoulder.

“God, I don’t know why this is so hard,” he mumbles. “It used to be so easy, I don’t know what’s wrong with me…”

“Nothings wrong with you,” you reassure him, putting a gentle hand over his shoulders. He sighs, not completely agreeing with you.

“Paul, just give it a minute. It’ll come.”

“I’ve given it almost a month!” He says, raising his head to look at you with worried eyes. He shakes his head in defeat and turns his attention back to the piano. “Y’know, if this was, say, 20 years ago-”

“Paul, you have to stop thinking like that.” You interrupt him firmly. It seems as though lately, he’s been saying things like that quite a bit. He’s beginning to doubt himself more and more as the days of endless writing and rewriting drag on, and you struggle to find a way to show him what the entire world thinks of him, not just as an ex-Beatle, but as an incredibly talented solo artist. All he does in response is look up at you with those sad, puppy dog eyes, his face unsmiling and the sides of his mouth pulled downwards. He shakes his head again.

“Honestly, I don’t even know why I try anymore,” he says shortly, almost as if he had regretted saying it before the words even left his mouth. He looks away, hoping you hadn’t heard, and attempts to stand up to occupy himself with something less frustrating. He rubs his eyes in exasperation, but you snake a hand around his upper arm to keep him still as you stand quickly up.

“You’re Paul fucking McCartney!” You exclaim. He looks at you with a kind of appalled confusion, as if you had just told him that two and two made four. And suddenly you get it; he doesn’t see himself in the same light that you do. While you see him as a practical musical genius, an incredibly smart, talented, amazing man, he sees himself as a regular has-been who’s just been grasping at straws these last few years, someone who can’t seem to let go of the life he lead all that time ago, someone who should just accept that things will never be like they used to be, and maybe he should just stop trying. You can’t bear to see what this has done to him, how much he truly misses his mates.

“Y/N, have you ever thought that that just isn’t enough anymore?” He sighs, hanging his head and looking up at you with stern, flaming eyes. He splays his hands out at his sides in a helpless gesture, but your grip on his arm doesn’t loosen one bit.

“No.” You say defiantly, not breaking his gaze even though you can tell he’s incredibly uncomfortable. “Not for one minute.” You take a deep breath and pull him back down to the cushy piano bench.

“I just wish you could see yourself like I do. Like everyone else does. You need to stop being so hard on yourself; I love you so much and it hurts to see you like this,” at least that seems to break through to him. He looks downwards and one side of his mouth turns up in a rueful smile. “You’re the most talented person I know, Paul. Your music does so much for so many people, you can’t stop! I know it seems really hard right now, and I know you might think you’re not making a difference, but trust me,” you give his hands a tight, reassuring squeeze, “this is what you’re meant to do.”

You put a hand on his back and patiently await his response. When he raises his head to finally look into your eyes, he is wearing a small, slightly teary-eyed smile. He leans slowly forward, his eyes sliding shut as his lips softly touch yours. After a second, he pulls away to wrap both arms around you.