javelinbk

[javelinbk]

Paul McCartney listening to Searchin’ by the Coasters on Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982)

[javelinbk]

I finally finished a fic! And it's set in 1965! And it's John's POV!

I am surprised by all of the above things.

It's a kinkmeme prompt fill for:

Fic where either John or Paul get drugged in a party with something akin to a truth drug. Angst and love confessions ensue.

(We'll all totally ignore the fact that I watched Get Back last night and now realised I DON'T KNOW WHO JOHN LENNON IS and thus might never write him again. His voice is waaaay off anything I've ever written. Please imagine you haven't watched Get Back when you read this 😁)

[javelinbk]

8/6/2025

Our fag of the day is Paul McCartney!

[javelinbk]

It’s what John would have wanted

Reading ao3 on your phone is for cowards. Print it out and read it on the bus like god intended.

[javelinbk]

Reading ao3 on your phone is for cowards. Print it out and read it on the bus like god intended.

[javelinbk]

Re-read this recently, still like it, you should read it too!

Fic: Plausible deniability

‘On nights like those, he stares at the ceiling, and he remembers. Hamburg, Paris, Chicago, Tokyo. He imagines sighs in the darkness, hot breaths ghosting against his skin, and he finds his hand edging across the mattress to a body that isn’t there.’

Fill for this kink meme prompt

[javelinbk]

‘To sum up the whole thing’, Paul chooses a song called Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) by some guy called John Lennon, and makes the biggest mistake of his professional career

Danger: Proceed with Caution ⚠️

Paul McCartney taking to Roy Plomley, Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982) - part five (part one, part two, part three, part four)

[javelinbk]

Paul chooses Searchin’ by the Coasters, for Chris and Val

Paul McCartney taking to Roy Plomley, Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982) - part four (part one, part two, part three, part five)

gifs here

[javelinbk]

I know you said that h+h won't have a sequel, but I really want to know what would be brian's/the public's reaction to paul joining the band and beatles in your universe haha

I haven’t really thought about it too much tbh, but it would be interesting to see how different Brian’s relationship with Paul would be with them meeting later… especially as Paul is a lot less cocky and self-assured in this universe. Brian is definitely closest to John of all the Moondogs, but Stu appeals to his artistic side, so I think he might be a bit wary of Paul at first. But I’m sure they’ll get past it… especially after the first Lennon-McCartney number one!

As for the public… I did put a little hint of this in one of the chapters if anyone noticed it. But the full answer is that it will be a mixed bag… if you thought ‘Ringo never, Pete Best forever’ was bad, just wait until you see the reaction of the Stu girls! But they’re all future George fans, so they’ll be fine. Of course, Paul will soon get his own fans when he looks like that, but the most significant change will be all the John fans who notice how happier he seems recently, and aren’t his songs so much more meaningful since Paul joined, and have you seen how he looks at Paul?

I guess this is a long way of saying everything ends up as it did in real life, it just takes a different route to get there!

Would love to hear your thoughts though anon!

[javelinbk]

Paul talks about earning his bivouac badge in the Boy Scouts, and his hopes for wood

Paul McCartney taking to Roy Plomley, Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982) - part three (part one, part two, part four, part five)

[javelinbk]

Paul describes his ideal desert island, and immediately makes it sound like some kind of sex fantasy

Paul McCartney taking to Roy Plomley, Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982) - part two (part one, part three, part four, part five)

[javelinbk]

Playing songs from Double Fantasy on the radio should be illegal

[javelinbk]

Paul McCartney, most famous man on the planet, is asked how he endures loneliness

Paul McCartney taking to Roy Plomley, Arena: Desert Island Discs (1982) - part one (part two, part three, part four, part five)

[javelinbk]

please tell me there’s going to be a sequel to half + half! i’m dying to know what happens next!

No sequel plans I'm afraid… the problem with happy ever after is that it makes for quite a boring story!

But to answer your question of what happens next…

(spoilers of course)

Paul plucks up the courage to quit his job and tell Jim he’s moving to London to join a band… and more importantly, he finally tells Jim that ‘Johnny Moondog’ is actually the John of his youth

meanwhile, John breaks the news to Stu, who is quite rightly cautious that John’s getting back with the boy that he’s been pining over for the past 5 years. But he can see how happy John is, and it gives him a good excuse to leave the band and head to Germany with Astrid, so he’s off! (don’t worry, his brain remains healthy)

Paul joins The Moondogs, and they make what is essentially Beatles for Sale (currently accepting suggestions for alternative album titles)… unfortunately Everybody’s Trying To Be My Maybe is replaced with Leave My Kitten Alone (sorry George!)

speaking of George, he joins the band when Pete and Jeff leave through mutual arrangement (for some reason it’s getting to be too much like hard work), and John, Paul, George and Ringo rebrand themselves as ‘The Beatles’ (I know, weird name - don’t question it)

George immediately clocks that something’s going on with John & Paul but he soon learns to live with it

…and John, Paul and Martha (and various cats) buy a house together at 7 Cavendish Avenue

The End! (again)

[javelinbk]

Sometimes you just need to listen to Thas Boy

[javelinbk]

The Beatles performing Thas Boy This Boy on The Ed Sullivan Show in Miami, 16th February 1964 (gifs here)

Featuring someone singing the wrong words and John making a funny noise, part one

[javelinbk]

After lunch, we all returned to the Dakota, where I hoped the repartee might become somewhat more sparkling. Yoko and Linda paired off for a bit and chatted amiably—the two of them got along famously, bonded by the shared experience, perhaps, of being married to a Beatle—while John and Paul stood by the windows overlooking Central Park, watching as the afternoon sky turned a whiter shade of pale over Manhattan. They remained silent for long stretches, until awkwardness forced one of them to take a stab at conversation.

“Are you making any music?” Paul asked at one point.

“Well, you know, I play some stuff for me, but I’m not working on anything. Music isn’t what’s driving me at this point. It’s all about the baby. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m always recording,” Paul said. “I couldn’t live without the music in me life.”

Then, for a spell, they fell back into silence.

It seemed that these two rock ’n’ roll behemoths, men who in their youth had all but defined the zeitgeist of the ’60s—who had inspired an entire generation and redirected music’s very destiny—were now, a mere decade later, struggling to find things to say to each other.

A part of me found it sad. But then, what was I expecting? Even the best of childhood friends eventually slip into separate lives. It’s called growing up. Now they were just two old chums who no longer had all that much in common. It was unreasonable of me to presume that merely being in the same room together would somehow ignite the genius and energy of John and Paul’s initial creative partnership.

Still, on the walk back from the Dakota to the Plaza that evening, as I passed all the glimmering Christmas lights and heard snippets of holiday melodies wafting out of the few restaurants and bars that were still open and serving, I couldn’t help but think that history might have been made on this day.

“Are you making any music?” Paul had asked John.

What if John had said something like “No, but me guitar is in the next room. Let’s sit down and make some…”

God only knows what classic Lennon-McCartney creation might have been born that afternoon.

Excerpt From ‘We All Shine On’, Elliot Mintz

Christmas 1978, Lennon-McCartney-style - part two (part one)