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George wasn’t sure why he’d decided to go stay at Ringo’s while he was back in Liverpool for the holidays. All of them except John were, and he was down at Mimi’s place. Paul was staying with his father and brother, Ringo with his mum and step dad, and instead of George going back home, he was also staying with Ringo.
At first, he thought it might be better to get his own guest room than have to share with his brother, since all of his siblings were at home for the holidays, but now, he wasn’t so sure. Now, he was standing at the side of the bed, wet pyjamas clinging to his body relentlessly despite the desperate effort he made to get them to stop.
That wasn’t even the problem, though. The problem was that the guest bed of Ringo’s house was completely soaked in his urine, a huge stain spreading from the pillows down to where his knees might have been. There was no doubt the mattress was probably ruined, too.
His thoughts flickered around from ‘how the fuck was there that much?’ to ‘what am I gonna tell Ringo?’ to ‘should I even tell Ringo?’
Of course, there was absolutely no way he could clean this himself, let’s be honest here. He didn’t even know where Ringo’s laundry was, and he couldn’t very well just shove it all under the bed.
Deciding to just get it over with, he took a deep breath and started to hobble awkwardly towards the door of the bedroom. Making his way down the hall, he eventually found Ringo’s room and snuck inside, fighting back the stinging in his eyes. It was a lot brighter in here than in his room thanks to the little night light decorated with stars plugged into his wall outlet. He always thought it was cute that his mother had kept that after all this time.
But now wasn’t the time to get soft at her hoarding habits. He had to tell his friend the truth, despite how embarrassing it was to be pissing the bed at twenty years old. It was his house, his bed, and it was the right thing to do.
Making his way over to the bed proved to be a difficult task, though. His feet were heavier than before, probably his mind playing tricks on him. In the extra time it took, he wondered what the drummer would think of him. He knew that Ringo had some bedwetting issues in the past, but that was when he was no older than ten. It wasn’t just yesterday that he woke up in that situation.
Still, it might be enough for him to have some kind of sympathy for him. Poor baby Georgie, so young and immature enough to be peeing in the bed. It was better than absolute disgust at the least.
Before he could even work up the courage to wake the older man up, though, Ringo groaned and sat up in his bed, rubbing the sleep from his right eye. “George? That you?”
He opened his mouth to respond, or maybe even tell him now and get it done, but instead, his throat contracted, and he involuntarily sobbed. Ringo didn’t move, clearly confused. He’d never seen George cry, being northern boys they never would. It just wasn’t what they did. But now here he was…
“What's wrong?” George shook his head. “Something obviously is, because I’ve never seen you cry, love!” The closest George knew of that he’d seen him was at Stuart’s funeral. Then, his eyes were redder than they ever had been in public, but he was still able to hold back the tears.
“Erm…” It was all he could say, heart beating too fast to even form a full sentence. Ringo noticed how nervous he looked and started to get up out of the bed. As soon as he started to step closer to George, the guitarist noticed the way his eyes drifted down and then lingered on his pants.
Then again, who wouldn’t stare at it? The right side of his pants were completely soaked from the way he was laying, his shirt too dark to tell it was also wet. And he was just standing there, waiting for Ringo to say something, anything at all. A small apology dripped from his mouth as he kept his eyes focused on the old, dirty carpet.
“Did you… er…” George, once again, couldn’t say anything, so Ringo sighed and stepped even closer, close enough to wrap an arm around his shoulder and start to lead him out of the room. Walking back to the guest room, George started to actually cry, creating even more shame in him.
Ringo still hadn’t said anything about it, and he was getting worried. What if he really was mad and was trying not to show it? Surely it was annoying to have to deal with this. “I’m so sorry,” we’re the first words he could get out of his mouth, and Ringo sighed once again.
“It’s okay.” Without another word about it, he walked into the room George was staying in. Only then did George realise how awful it smelled, and he wanted to curl in on himself.
“I can’t believe I pissed the bed, Rich. I didn’t… I don’t know what happened.” Ringo gave him a weak smile, inspecting the bed to find the giant spot and pulling back the sheets to a mattress that was definitely ruined. “Oh, god…”
Ringo didn’t even mention it, though. He walked out of the guest room and immediately went right into his mother’s room. Was he not even going to try to spare George’s pride and clean it up? But he didn’t hesitate to shake his mum awake, and he stayed in the doorway awkwardly.
“Mum?” Ringo whispered, and Elsie turned her head just a bit, shifting away from his stepfather. “Hey, could you help me with something?” He really didn’t want to have to say it, but she was too tired to understand the clues he was giving.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Mum, you’ve just got to help clean something, it’s really nothing.”
Then, her face softened, and she sat up in the bed, placing a hand on Ringo’s forearm and whispered, “Oh, love, did you soil the sheets?” George’s face burned in second hand embarrassment, wondering why that was the first thing that came to her mind. And the way she said it made it sound like such a childish thing, and he felt even worse about it.
“Erm, no. But… George did.” He saw her glance past her son to see George sitting in the doorway, his silhouette fiddling with its hands.
“Oh, gosh. Er, okay.” Making her way out of the bed, her husband sat up as well. “Oh, Harry, get back to sleep. I’m just gonna go clean something up for Richie.” Harry mumbled something about a wet bed, and George just got even more confused. Why did they both know what was going on?
Being led back to his room by Ringo and his mother was the most humiliating thing ever. He would’ve given anything to not have to be in this situation, but there nothing he could do about it now. They were in the guest room soon enough, and Elsie frowned.
“George, would you like a shower?” she asked, and he shook his head. He didn’t want to be any more of a bother.
“Geo, you sure?” Ringo muttered, and he just nodded. “You know you can take one if you want.”
“I know! I just don’t want to…”
He watched carefully as Elsie pulled the sheet all the way back and winced at the stain deep in the mattress. “Richard, I’m going to have to clean this up, and I don’t think he’ll be able to sleep on it anymore tonight. Would you mind if he shared with you?”
“Of course not! George, you okay with that?” George nodded. It’s not like he had any other choice.
“I just think it might be best to keep him in your bed instead of on the couch or anything just in case.” Just in case what? Did she think he would end up doing it again? And what was so ideal about it happening in Ringo’s bed? That kind of thing would be awful if it happened anywhere.
“Alright. Why don’t you just get changed, Geo, and you can come meet me in my room.”
-
After he had changed himself into a fresh set of pyjamas, he started his walk back to Ringo’s room, glancing in his as he walked by to see Elsie gathering up the sheets and he peeked his head in with the wet clothes in his hand.
“Erm…”
“Oh! George! Hey, I’ll take those from you, love.” He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to, but she really did, and she would only start to argue with him. Handing her the pyjamas, he hurried to Ringo’s room just to escape her gaze.
Once inside, he saw Ringo making up the bed with bigger blankets, and his stomach churned. “I’m so sorry about this, Richie. I know that you didn’t want to be woken up so late and then have to share your bed with me.” It was the first actual sentence that came out of his mouth.
“It’s not a big deal, Geo. It happens.” He got into the bed, shuffling around. “And if it happens again, this ones protected, so it’ll be just fine, yeah?”
He really hoped it didn’t, though, because ‘soiling the sheets’ was not something he particularly enjoyed. But instead of addressing that, he said, “It’s still protected?” Because he knew that Ringo had grown out of his habits years ago.
“Yeah. And, er, please don’t worry about my mum cleaning it up. She’s done it plenty of times.”
“I feel so awful about it. She hasn’t had to deal with that in, like, fifteen years, and now here I come—“
“Fifteen years??” Ringo chuckled, hopping into the bed. “It definitely hasn’t been that long, George! Y’know, I used to have incidents every once in a while when I got older. Even after I met you!”
“W-what? Really? But you were—“
“Nineteen. I know. But why do you think the plastic sheet’s still on here? I could have just as easily soiled the bed last night, too. Never grew out of it.”
George winced at the way he said it just like his mother. Soiled the bed. Soiled the sheets. As if they couldn’t be washed or anything, it made his stomach drop. “Oh, Rich, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Doesn’t bother me much. Nothing to apologise for.” George gave him a forced smile. “All I’m trying to tell ya, Georgie, is that it’s fine, and it’s fine if it does happen again.”
“Okay. You won’t tell anybody else, will you?”
“Of course not.” He laid his head down on the pillow and sighed. “Goodnight, Geo.”
“Goodnight, Richie.” For the first time that early morning, he felt actually relaxed, glad to have Ringo as his friend.