Work Text:
Late night, supremely past three— Ringo isn’t sure why he’s awake now; with his dream and sleep already fading from his mind. He’d biked to Kinfauns on George’s call and ate supper there, afterwards they had drinks and not talked about JohnandYoko or Paul or how Martin might want all their heads on silver platters. Ringo had helped clean up, and George had kissed him goodnight; held him close.
But now, in leering light from the hall, Ringo sees clearly that he’s alone in the bed. No George materialises next to him, no matter how he skims and rustles the sheets. When he shuts his eyes he hears some strain of songs and strings, and never once knows where they come from.
The pitfalls of being a musician; and being in love with a guitarist.
It takes a few minutes for him to realise that the music is real and playing just outside the door. The conclusion that George’s gotten up and at it again comes with it, but Ringo’s strength now slows in coming back to him. Leave it to being tired or the changing of seasons, but Ringo knows plainly that he misses George, wants to look at his face, wants to know just what the hell he’s singing now.
He drapes the quilt over his shoulders, and it drags behind his feet like some daft bridal train. When Ringo finds him at last George is only in his trousers atop the counter, his guitar balanced and humming across dark knees.
Ringo thinks for a fleeting moment that he might be dreaming, still.
“I woke you,” George says when he looks up. He grips his guitar closer in guilt.
“Ye didn’t, I was lookin’ for ye.”
“Oh.”
“Come to bed.” He hadn’t meant for it to come out as a sigh, but George would never comply otherwise. “Please?”
“In a minute.” George tunes his guitar hastily and strums another set of chords. Ringo might as well find himself a seat.
“Which one is this?”
“Uhm. It’s for you.”
“...really?”
“It sounds different, but I thought of you,” George says. Something stills before he smiles, smiles, in what seems like the first time all night. He dismounts from the counter and stands. “If I may be so bold.”
“If ye would.”
From George, then, comes the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. Despite the name it sounds like everything, all things at once.
You know I love that woman of mine
And I need her all of the time
“Now I’m telling you,” he sings, soaring, “That woman, that woman don’t make me blue—”
Blue as me, blue as you.
George is in pieces when he sets down his guitar, even more so when Ringo lets him crawl upon his lap and fall into his arms. Ringo clings to George as the tears come, and when both their shirt sleeves are sodden through George kisses him hungrily, then tenderly, until they’re barely whispering promises into each other’s mouths.
“No matter what happens, I love you,” George rasps. He does it like there’s some part of it he can’t bear. “Don’t forget ‘bout me. Please.”
“I won’t, ye know I won’t,” Ringo kisses him, kisses and kisses him. “You’ll always be mine.”
With one final note, the song ends with the sun. Ringo holds George's song tightly in his heart.