Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a stage that’d always felt too big for him, while simultaneously feeling too small, where they’d once declared their love for him, they’d declared their hatred. The times had changed, he’d warned them before - he knew how to swim so he swam. And watching him swim, one might think they’d wanted him to sink with the rest of them. 

The Beatles, though, all they’d ever done was swim. Giants on a stage that just kept getting bigger. Ballrooms, Ritz, Royal Variety, Ed Sullivan, Carnegie Hall, Shea Stadium. 

Sometimes Bob felt as though he was living in their America, their world. Late ‘64, you could feel their arrival as if they’d been here the whole time, a distraction for the nation. A bandaid or maybe open heart surgery. 

‘65, you could still feel their presence. They were out there: in a hotel, on a stage, on the radio, in a magazine, in the newspaper. Their faces plastered across every buyable item one could imagine, marketed towards everyone. Their haircut on top of almost every head, their boots on almost every foot. 

In a room where everyone loved him, or pretended to, they’d tell him he was better, he didn’t need to compete. Man, he ain’t tryin’ to. It’s all an art, just different representations. Different canvases, different paints, different mediums. Two different genres entirely.

Sure the industry’s a fight, the charts are competitive, some ears can only hear one thing at a time. But everyone tries painting them as dogs, at each other’s heels. And honestly, Bob had no intention of fighting the Beatles, in fact, he thought they got along pretty well. 

If the newspapers and the magazines weren’t looking for a feud to cover, they were demanding answers to unasked questions. What does this mean? Do you care? Do you not care? Why do you do it? What are your intentions? What’s your attitude? Are you religious?

They’d called him Judas. The betrayal of picking up an electric guitar over an acoustic. Not just the voice of a man and the sound of a guitar, but a band. Johnny had a band, why couldn’t he?

If he was Judas, who was Jesus? The audience of the Newport Folk Festival? Folk music as a genre? 

Was it the Beatles? Or were they the same because it was their music he was conforming to? A poet going pop. 

Oh, but they’d treated them like Jesus - it was only when John had tried putting the occurrence into words, a misinterpretation, had they backpedaled. The world didn’t know that yet. 

John, their unspoken, undeclared leader. A pioneer, a founding father of the band. John, Paul, George, Ringo. Lennon, then McCartney. Maybe John was Jesus to his Judas. Funny, though, how’d he worshipped another Johnny under the same vein. 

Maybe his life was always to be dogeared with Johns. Or Joans. Sounded similar enough, anyway. Maybe it was just that he had a type. 

Sitting in a hotel room with all four Beatles and their manager, John had told him he’d first heard about him in Paris. Freewillin’ Bob Dylan. With Bob’s accent, it rhymed - with John’s, it did not. The ‘wi’ picking up too much of a ‘wh’ sound, almost like he was pushing the syllables through his teeth. Bob liked it, though, he liked hearing John say his name. 

Paul had chimed in, “That’s all we listened to, for days .” 

Bob had smiled, toothy and instantaneous. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” John returned the word back to him, the same starstruck breath. “We thought it was great.” 

It’s odd, thinking of them as peers - even within the same age group. John, only a year older than him. The Beatles, with the whole nation watching their every move, listening to their every word, hanging on to it. Himself, the voice of a generation - he’s been told - a poet, a sensation. Trying to pin him down and slip some corny label on him like a tailor made suit. Beatnik, folk singer, guitar player, a choirboy, an artist. It helped the headlines though, he supposes. 

Bob laughs, almost instinctive, still smiling, he can’t stop smiling. 

Paul laughs too, quick and short, his finger going up to his mouth, a fingernail hooking in between his teeth. John’s expression is caught somewhere between a smirk and a grin. Like they’re all flirting with each other. 

“Well, y’know, I think your stuff is great too, I mean,” Bob gestures with a hand, aimless. “You can’t go outside without hearing something, you’re everywhere.” 

“Like a disease, really,” John says, and the room laughs. 

It’s just like the interviews, it’s just like - but it’s not. A look shared between the two of them like an inside joke, something a bit too harsh and too on the nose to be said to any interviewer, might it be taken the wrong way. 

“A good disease,” Bob says. “A good virus.”

John laughs this time, before pulling a voice - stern and broadcaster-esque,  “Beatlemania: A Good Virus.” 

But, they invite him back. Back and back again. Different hotels, different cities. 

They get bigger and bigger each time he sees them. Not one movie but two . Another album, they’re getting them out about as fast as he is. 

Bob briefly wonders what the inside of their minds look like, if there’s just bits of scattered lyrics dancing around in their brains like they do in his own, just waiting to be picked and brought into fruition. 

When he comes to, Bob realizes he’s been staring at the top of John’s head. His hair a darker shade of auburn through the shades of his sunglasses. John’s hair reminds Bob of Suze, almost, and the thought makes him laugh. Maybe he does have a type. 

As if reading his mind, John chuckles with him. A duet, not as polished as the ones he shares with Paul. Not as intentional as the ones Bob shares with Joan, not as puzzle-pieced together.

Bob brings his guitar - he doesn’t go many places without it nowadays. 

He plays Don’t Think Twice, then Baby Blue. The room’s quiet while he plays, John stares at him through a haze of cigarette smoke. Bob stares back in between the part glances down at the strings of his guitar. John’s eyes leave his only briefly enough to share a look with Paul. 

Maybe Paul is John’s Joan - he’s pretty enough for it. Dark hair, dark eyes - doe-like in a way that will capture you like a spotlight. 

If John is Jesus, and Bob is Judas, maybe Paul would be Sin. A beautiful face, a beautiful voice to match, all purposed for lure and temptation. Bob briefly thinks back to his time at Riverside Church, the Paradise Lost description of Sin he’d heard while sitting in the pews trying to make conversation with Suze. A beautiful woman who was a serpent from the waist down. 

But John and Paul - the two of them always find each other in the room. They’re always at each other’s side, not an inch of space between them. More than enough room on the hotel sofa for them to make room but they’re still practically on top of each other. 

Bob finishes, applause overtakes the silence, Bob does an eccentric little bow that gains a few laughs. He fishes a cigarette out of the inside of his jacket before pushing his guitar over to the sofa where Paul and John sit. “You play something, now, I’m not the only musician here, you play something.” 

Paul’s grabs the neck of Bob’s guitar because he’s closer. John says he’s a hard act to follow, but asks if he has any requests. 

“Something new, man, gimme something new.” 

Paul starts off with the first few bars of She Loves You, just to get another laugh, before launching into Another Girl. He hands it off to John, who plays You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. It’s not the first time Bob’s heard it - John played it for him when the song was still half-written, just jumbled, messy words on a scrap piece of paper. But, it still hits him the same way it did the first go around. 

A melody inspired by him, by his music, by his lyrics, by his sound. 

Bob listens, taking occasional drags off his cigarette, his legs crossed, his head nodding along to the lyrics. John Lennon of the Beatles, playing a song inspired by him, on his own guitar. Doin’ Dylan on Dylan’s guitar. 

Another flirtation, or maybe pure seduction. 

Like the grazing of fingers when John leans over the coffee table to hand Bob his guitar back, like his eyes that never leave Bob’s face throughout the remainder of the night, even as people begin to file out of the room as the hours go by. Like the compliments John throws Bob’s way. 

Like the way John takes Bob’s harmonica when he’s trying to play it and the sound isn’t coming out right - an outstretched hand and a “Give it ‘ere, son.” He plays something short, something that almost sounds like I Should’ve Known Better before handing it back. “I think it’s just you.” 

Purposely, Bob brings the harmonica back to his lips, any other time probably not even thinking a thing about it. 

Whatever it is, it works. 

John kisses him while he’s seeing him out, it could almost be romantic given the context. Bob has one hand wrapped around the neck of his guitar, ready to lug the thing out into the hallway and back on the crowded streets. The other hand’s on the doorknob - offering small apologies for staying so late, but they should do it again real soon, man, it was a good time, he knows how it is, being on tour so much, but hey, your crowd isn’t walking out on you so there’s that - and John leans in and kisses him as if it were nothing. 

The room is empty except for the two of them, distant chatter from somewhere in the hallway floating in through the slight opening of the door. Bob leans up into the kiss, returning it - through his eyelashes he sees John reach up past him, closing the door, before backing Bob against it. 

Maybe Bob saw that coming. He’s not naive. He’s usually good at predicting that sorta thing, like when he comes over to visit Joan, depending on if she’s accepting of him or finally and fully annoyed with him and telling him to get lost - if there’s a middle ground, Bob can usually tell. If they’re actually gonna play for each other, help each other write lyrics, if Joan is gonna stand behind him and look at his scribble and sing it ten times better than what the song sounded like in Bob’s head. (That’s something Bob can never really predict, what his words are gonna sound like on Joan’s tongue, and it surprises him every time.) Or if the tension’s gonna be high enough to break them, and they end up in bed together. Only for Joan to be catching up on lost sleep, and Bob, unable to sleep, is trying to make up for lost time, lost chords, and lost jumbles of lyrics. 

Maybe he knew he’d be in John’s bed that evening, pressed into the hotel sheets like John’s trying to brand them with the outline of his body. 

Another time happens, then another after that. Then another. 

‘65 bleeds into ‘66. When he comes to the mic with anything other than an acoustic guitar, sometimes they still boo and yell, heckling him. Telling him to play already. Sometimes, they say nothing at all, and there’s just silence. 

Sometimes, the jeering follows Bob into his dreams, and yeah, maybe sometimes it does make him a little hurt, or angry. New headlines with every show, he can’t walk by a newspaper stand without bold letters screaming to him about how absolutely gutted his fans are with his new direction in music. Almost like the interviewers and journalists and critics are saying, Look. Look what happens when you just try doing what you want. Take Bob Dylan for example. 

There is no doing what you want, only doing what they want. Bob knows the Beatles don’t have it any easier, really. The world’s heard John’s quick remark about them being bigger than Jesus, and suddenly, Beatlemania has gone forgotten. No longer nice young men from Liverpool in their matching suits, but long-haired know-it-all’s, getting too big for their place in the world, the stage, and in people’s homes all alike. 

Standing in the spotlight for that long will fry your eyes out, blind you, or make you acutely aware of just how much you’re being watched. John’s told him that they were stopping the tours, retiring to the recording studio. 

John’s paranoid, the world too heavy on his shoulders. 

Bob’s tired, the world already fallen off his shoulder and dragging him down with it. 

Bob had heard Norwegian Wood already and the rhymes had stuck with him. The simplicity of the story being told. John, his voice carrying the lyrics, then him and Paul in a perfect duet for the bridges. 

Bob and John’s duets - they stayed haphazard and messy. Like a ring that just didn’t fit, no matter how many times you tried it. 

4th Time Around had remained incomplete for months, lyrics on paper, corrections marked over them. And just like John had played for him their inspiration love children, Bob had done the same. 

Trickery. A Skit. 

A Judas.

Chapter Text

“I saw your book, y’know, I didn’t know you’d written a book,” Bob says suddenly, his voice breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them. John looks up from the newspaper he’s flipping through, eyes settling on Bob - his body still hunched forward into an uncomfortable looking acute angle. 

“Oh,” John says. “I thought I’d told you - could’ve sworn I did.” 

“No, man, you didn’t,” Bob shakes his head, something lacing his voice that sounds a bit like disappointment, or casual hurt feelings. Like maybe Bob thought that’d be the sort of thing John would phone him about. “‘Cause I would’ve told you that I was writing my own book.” 

“You are?” 

“Yeah, it’s sort of a poem book - kinda like yours, except there’s no drawings in it or anything, or at least I don’t think there’s gonna be,” Bob continues. “They thought it’d be a good idea - wasn’t really my idea.” 

“A little friendly competition, then, eh?” John leers at him playfully over his thick-rimmed glasses. This makes Bob suppress a smile, tight-lipped and hidden behind the palm of his hand that’s supporting his jaw. “Poem book for the poem singer, they’ll be using my old thing as a doorstop soon enough.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m not a Beatle ,” Bob sways his legs a little, his whole body following the movement. “Definitely not the Writing Beatle. ”

John fluffs the newspaper in his hands, still playing the dramatics to Bob’s support. “Flattery’ll get you nowhere, son.” 

“It’s gotten me places before.” 

Bob’s so careful about everything he does - every word and every action being thought out in a head that gives the impression of the exact opposite. It must be unnerving when there’s places people think he’s put this much care and thought, only to find there is none. 

Some things he does on passion, on inspiration, on whim. Some, time is paused and Bob is meticulous. 

It’s something John really admires about him, it’s something that makes John just sit and watch him - before Bob’s glancing up, telling him to fix his face and knock it off. 

They’d ordered room service. Filet mignons, roasted chicken, french fries. 

Bob’s seated on the arm of the chair he was sitting in before, leg crossed over the other, the steak knife he’d used earlier - now hastily wiped off with the towel napkin and cradled in the palm of his hand. Blade sitting against his skin, pressed into it - Bob’s eyes glued to it all. 

As are John’s. 

He decides to speak up - voice cutting over the Dance Party album Paul had picked up earlier in the week, “What’ve you got, Bob?” 

“C’mere,” is all Bob says in return. Without a glance, without acknowledgement. He could’ve been talking to himself, but John gets up anyway. 

“What’re you doin’, man?” John asks again when he reaches Bob’s side, peering down at Bob’s fist - closed around the blade, fingers securing the top of it. 

Bob pulls the blade out with a half-sigh, his eyes darting up to meet John’s. Heavy, weighed down by the bags under them from a lack of sleep - but there’s something ignited there, from what John can see. Like sunlight reflecting off the surface of a blue, blue lake. 

“Gimme your hand,” He says and John scoffs, his mouth a gaping smile.

“You’ve gone mad, Bobby.”

“Already was,” He replies with a half smirk, still exhilaratingly sleepy-eyed. “Me and you, Johnny.” 

“We’re bound by music, bound by history - the history of our music,” Bob continues with John towering over him. “Bound by blood. I want you to know I’m for real, man.” 

“I know you’re real,” John says, still smiling. “Man.” 

Bob takes his unscathed hand, warm, indented and irritated by the knife, and presses it into John’s - adjusting it so their fingers interlock. John can feel Bob’s pulse from where their palms meet. Like a low bass strum. 

“A deal with the devil, then?” John says, his voice almost reverberating against the room. The track on the record ends, leaving the sound of static behind. “The magazines say you sold your soul, y'know.”

Their fingers are still interlocked, and Bob breathes out a laugh. Airy and slight. “If I’m selling my soul to anyone, it’ll be you.” 

John almost wants to retort on that, a back and forth between them that always leaves him wanting the last word. Is that a promise, now, Bob? But, instead, he lets the silence that’s settled between them once again be his final agreement. 

As though it was expected - the main course of a meal, or the main event, he and Bob ended up in the king sized luxurious hotel bed. This time just like the rest. A bit less clumsier, a bit more practiced and smooth. They didn’t have to figure out what each other liked or how to move or what to predict. 

Maybe it wasn’t like breathing - like it was with Paul or Cyn, but it was easy enough. 

Bob still chattered away sometimes, seated atop John’s lap or pressed into the mattress below him. Man, they don’t give me hotel rooms this nice, y'know - I’m gonna have to talk to someone about that, gonna have to get me a room like this one, like these are actual silk sheets, I’m not kidding you I swear I think they give you actual silk sheets in some places. Or maybe it’s satin, hell, I dunno. How much d’you think these sheets cost, anyway? Five hundred? Six? 

Other times, he’s quiet - with his fingers drumming out whatever melody’s in his mind against the skin covering John’s scapula. Sometimes, they don’t even do anything - they just lie there together, underneath the sheets made of satin or silk, skin pressed together, sharing each other’s warmth. 

“They keep askin’ how I write - do they ask you that? How you write your songs and stuff?” 

“They?” 

“The reporters,” Bob mumbles against John’s spine. He’s got an arm thrown over his side, hooked underneath John’s elbow. “That’s all they ask me about anymore - and I really don’t have an answer for ‘em. It just happens, I just write it.” 

“They expect an answer that reveals your talent,” John tells him. “Like they think it’s accessible, repeatable.” 

“You wanna know what I told them once?” Bob chuckles, a warm gust of air against John’s skin. John turns his head to peer over his shoulder at Bob. “I told ‘em that I would write a song on a piece of paper then cut it up into pieces and mix it up and try putting it back together.” 

“And they believed you?” John smiles at that. 

“Course they did. I told em that’s how I got my songs, my poems, anything. Like a puzzle.” 

In the early morning hour, John will walk Bob to the door of his hotel room. A sheet or a hotel robe wrapped around him, hanging loosely from his frame. Bob will be haphazardly dressed, thrown on his clothes in the dim light of the bedside lamp or complete darkness altogether. His hair tousled in a way that doesn’t look like it’s on purpose. 

He’ll smile at John like he knows a secret but he’s choosing to keep it to himself. Boyish and coy. Before leaning in and pressing his lips against John’s in a quick, chaste goodbye kiss. When he pulls back, Bob’s eyes look heavy, but his grin is still there. 

“Until next time.” John says, pulling a voice that’s over-courteous, like the hero in some old Hollywood film seeing off his romantic interest. 

Bob will pull on his sunglasses like a mask - one that John sees himself in. His own reflection and remorse and contradictions staring back at him through the black lenses, distorted. 

“Fare-thee-well,” Bob reaches up to the top of his own head, pulling up a hat that no longer sits atop his curls, before turning and disappearing out into the empty hallway. 

The door shuts behind him, and the room is, once again, bathed in silence.