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Ringo didn’t like this. Everything felt wrong.
George had his back turned away from everyone else, was looking at him, was playing this song for him. This angry song, so silently spiteful, so full of pent-up emotion.
Ringo really, really didn’t like this.
George looked up at him, and all the words he had on his tongue died before they could be born on his lips. His memory didn’t serve well enough to remember why they were important. George’s eyes burned. Tiny fires erupted inside those dark windows, those which he’d spent hours just staring into, getting to know the man they were such an expressive part of.
His look was the same one he wore in a fight, battle-tested, hard, penetrating. Daring anyone, anyone at all, who dared cross him to rethink their line of endeavor.
It was… scary. But not scary in the way Ringo cared for, just dangerous around the edges, still holding passion, still holding (dare he say it) love. George’s eyes were scary like real fear, and though they were burning, they were icy cold.
He hated it.
This wasn’t George. This was never George. When had he turned into this? When had he and Ringo become distant enough for him to get like this? Miserable and mean and full of malice.
Though he knew all this ill-will wasn’t intended for him. George may have been looking at him, but nothing about his face was directed at Ringo. He was smart enough to know who it really belonged to.
John and Yoko danced around the studio in time with George’s forceful playing, straining voice, feet that angrily kept time. Ringo couldn’t tell if they were being complimentary or derogatory with such an act, but he knew which one George thought it was.
Even Paul, who stood behind George, just listening and smoking a cigarette, was a target of George’s wrath.
All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine…
Ringo wondered if the other two knew what it was about. They’d be blind not to know, really, but even so… It wasn’t as if they’d been particularly focused on George recently. It was as if they were caught in a battle, though not one fought on a field. Rather, somewhere hidden, in secret, with spies and concealed weapons, with lies and deceit.
George’s look turned soft for just a moment when he noticed Ringo’s frown. But this time, Ringo didn’t find comfort in the emotion all over his face. He wished he didn’t understand why it was there, why George would even bother to change his expression.
Now they're frightened of leaving it
Everyone's weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time…
George looked up then, and explained how the song would change, changing from the waltzy bit to more of a rock-y part. Ringo didn’t want to pay attention. But George looked away for a brief second to address the people behind him, and Ringo took extra care to study him when he wasn’t looking.
Jaw set in a hard line, hands animated in front of his face, somehow able to explain the music, though not his feelings behind it. No matter how many times Ringo had tried to make him do that, just explain, George had never really been able to do it. You can’t put the kinds of feelings I have into words, Ritchie. All you can do is- he’d whispered one night when they were all alone. Ringo pulled the memory from the back of his mind and laid it over the scene in front of him, choosing to ignore the little spat Paul had created with George.
George’s skin. Soft. So much of it. Slipped under sheets and blankets and Ringo’s arms. They were warm in bed together. George leaned over and brushed the hair out of his face.
“You’re so beautiful.” (It was always compliments with George. All the time. Whispered in bed like they were or whispered in the hallway in the studio. Always so sweet, but only in secret.)
“Rings?” Paul’s voice sent Ringo back to reality. (Reality? True, that memory felt like a lost and forgotten dream.)
“Yeah?”
“Wanna do it?”
“Do what?”
“The song.”
“Oh. Are we voting? I’m happy just to sit here and play what you want me to.” Except he said it without any humor in his voice. George gave him a strange look. Ringo just stared back. There was an air of expectation in the room, and he got the feeling they were looking for a real answer. Even John had stopped his dancing.
“I… yeah, I’ll do it. …’S good.” His eyes flickered to George’s and found the slightest bit of pleasure there, which made him wonder if maybe Paul had rejected the idea.
“Good. I’ll keep going then,” George said, and yet, even if this was a happy turn, his face was still set in anger, still holding all his hard emotion. John and Yoko began to dance again. Paul went back to his cig and his vacant face. Ringo just stared hard at his bandmate. He wished he could translate how much he wanted to know the depths of George’s feelings through his thoughts.
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine…
And this was… Ringo wasn’t so sure anymore. The song was so beautiful, so true, it went around their heads to make crowns of shame; that they had been the ones to do this and they had been the ones to mess all these things up. Selfish sorrow for all their perfectly organized sin. If that wasn’t so… George of him to point it out like this. But it wasn’t too, and George wasn’t like this, and Ringo felt that flash again: he didn’t really know George. He never really had.
For what was the knowledge of body and lips compared to matters of heart and head? Next to nothing, it seemed. And now Ringo felt the anger rise inside him, traitorous sparks of desperation. He wished he knew George. He should have, he deserved to. Because it was him who had been there when Paul first left George for John and it was him who was made out to comfort him every time he fell into his moods and it was him on the sidelines with George, watching as John and Paul tore each other and everything that they loved apart.
George looked up from his guitar once more and Ringo stared hard right back at him. The next chord came out wrong as George’s fingers slipped, then put themselves right again. Ringo knew this was it. This was the last moment he’d let George be so aloof, so secretive. All the chances he’d been given, he’d given up. Ringo was tired of letting himself get so hurt.
No one’s frightened of playing it
Everyone’s saying it,
Flowing more freely than wine…
Ringo got up. “Goin’ for a smoke,” was all he said. He heard George’s playing continue for a moment, then stop abruptly, and George running after him.
“Ritchie? What’s the matter?”
Ringo didn’t say anything until they had both gotten outside of the studio, cramming themselves onto the miniature balcony. He didn’t say anything still while George lit them both a cigarette.
“What’s wrong?” George asked again, and Ringo didn’t miss the presence of… not love, but care? Maybe?
“C’mon, Rings, what’s up with you? Why won’t you talk to me?”
“George, who are we kidding?” George appeared to be taken aback by Ringo’s sudden response.
“What do you mean?” he asked, taking a shaky drag of his cig.
“I mean… us, this. It’s not-”
“Please don’t say it’s not working.”
Ringo looked up at George and stared at him again. George’s face had melted, for lack of a better word. He was soft now. There appeared to be no anger on his face only… worry. Maybe panic. And for just one second, Ringo contemplated going back on what he had said. He thought that maybe he and George could leave everyone else behind and rebuild. But as soon as that thought was fully formed, all his other knowledge of George came rushing on. All the anger, the sadness, the unexplained complicated emotions.
“But it’s not.”
“Oh, Ritchie, don't say that. We can make it work, we’ve been making it work for nearly five years it’s not-”
“George,” Ringo interrupted, “It’s not working.”
“Why?” was the only thing George seemed able to ask. Ringo laughed. He laughed, smoke tumbling out of his lips and ash falling off the end of his cigarette. All the terrible coincidence weighed Ringo down and he couldn’t help but find it hilarious.
“Because… do you love me?”
George started. “Do I what?”
“Love me,” Ringo said again, taking a deep breath and leaning against the railing. “Well, do you?”
“I… yes, I do. I think.”
“Then tell me what’s going on with you.”
“What?”
“That’s what people who love each other do, Georgie. They tell each other when they’re upset about something. They talk.”
And maybe that’s when George finally gets it. Because he doesn’t take this last opportunity Ringo’s given him to explain. He doesn’t say anything, actually. He looks at Ringo, stares at him, takes him in as if attempting to get a mental picture before going on a long trip. Then he seizes Ringo’s collar and kisses him. Both their cigarettes are left discarded beneath their feet, because the only thing that matters is that they’re together, right in this moment. If not forever, or ever again, just… right now.
Then George is gone and leaves Ringo on the balcony, lips kiss-swollen and cheeks burning. He knows that it’s over now, even though they didn’t talk about it. Why would they? Why now, when the world was burning anyway, would they stop and talk. Why was Ringo foolish enough to believe they would?
So come a couple of days, when Ringo walks into the studio and Paul announces that George has quit, he isn’t even surprised. He just sits down behind the drums and waits for the rest of the building to fall.
All through your life I me mine…