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The car keys dangled from George’s hand as he glanced back and forth between Ringo’s pensive face and the paper in front of him and John. After admitting that he wasn’t feeling very good and about ready to go home and rest, Ringo looked up from the lyrics he’d been writing down, seeming a bit disappointed.
“I guess I could stay for a bit, if you’d like.” But Ringo wasn’t about to make George sit and wait for him. He sighed.
“John, do you think we could continue this tomorrow? George looks like he’s ready to head home whether I’m sittin’ next to him or not.” George laughed a bit, but John only pouted. This was the first song he and Ringo had written completely alone, and now that they were both in the perfect mindset, things were going phenomenal.
“If you need a ride home later, we could let George go and get some early sleep. I’d have no problem taking you home.”
Ringo furrowed his brows as he locked eyes with George. “I don’t know. Are you going to be alright? If you’d rather I come home, too, I can!”
“You don’t have to, Richie. Why don’t you and John finish up your song, and I’ll see you at home later.” George smiled at him, and while Ringo felt a bit guilty as he stalked to the door and then downstairs, he really did want to stay and finish up with John. After all, George going home to rest would be far better than him staying here when he clearly had no interest in it.
“We can speed this up,” John said, leaning back over the paper. “So here, you’re repeating this same refrain, so I was thinking that here, we could add some sort of instrumental.” He tapped the paper below a block of writing.
“Yeah. We wouldn’t want it to be all words, then.”
The two of them continued on running through the song, and by the time about half an hour had gone by, they were near finished. After one last run through with John on guitar, Ringo smiled at what they’d accomplished as a good rough draft to be fine tuned in the weeks to come.
He stood up, and John started over towards his guitar case to put it away. And then the phone rang.
The sudden ringing noise startled Ringo awake, and within seconds, he was glancing over at the body next to him in the bed. George was thrashing around, and he noticed that what had sounded like pots and pans crashing to the ground in his unconscious state was just their alarm clock having been knocked to the floor.
“George!” he shouted. “Hey, wake up!” He pulled himself back up into the headboard and got a bit closer to his boyfriend, placing a gentle hand on his forehead, feeling the sweat that had accumulated. “Oh, love.”
George jerked his head in his direction, and the moment Ringo saw his horrified expression, he wanted to cry.
Wide eyes met Ringo’s as John turned cautiously back around after having hung up the phone on the wall. Something dropped in his stomach when he saw John’s expression. “What? What was that about?”
“Can you sit down for me, love?” Ringo shook his head, taking a step closer to John. “Please.”
“Why? Just tell me.”
John walked over and began to lead Ringo over to where they had been sitting before. When they were both seated, John put a hand on the small of Ringo’s back. “Before I say anything, George is doing fine.”
“God. W-what happened to George—“
“He was in an accident, Rich.” Ringo shook his head once again, and John bit the insides of his cheeks. “He’s been taken to the hospital, and they said he’s fine and he’s awake.”
“John—“
“And he wants to see you.” Ringo stood up despite his shaky legs, and John stood up with him to make sure he didn’t fall over.
“We have to go. We have to go now, John.” He didn’t argue.
“Yes.” They both began on their way towards the car. “Yes, we’re going to go… we’re gonna go see him, Richie.”
They arrived at the hospital some ten minutes later and were led up to George’s room, where immediately, Ringo ran up to his bedside, reaching a hand out towards his head.
His nails scratched gently at George’s scalp as the younger man rested his head in Ringo’s lap and cried. “I’m so sorry. Richie, it was my fault. It would have been m-m-my…” Ringo shushed him with a finger over his lips.
“We’ve been through this, love. You know that nothing was your fault.”
“You would have been killed.” George began to wipe his eyes on Ringo’s pyjama shirt.
“I’m fine. Everything’s going to be okay.” George sobbed. “Look, George, we’ll just get this all sorted out, and we can get back to sleep.” He gestured down to the covers.
“We don’t have to do anything, Richie. I’ll take care of it.” He grasped onto Ringo’s knee before burying his face in his thigh, still too shaken to get up.
“You know I can’t let you do that.”
“You did it last time.” Ringo nodded. “I don’t know why you put up with me. ‘Specially when I do stuff like this and ruin your night’s sleep.”
“You haven’t ruined a thing,” Ringo whispered in response to George’s shocked ramblings about the car and him and the hospital.
“The car…”
“I couldn’t care less about the car, George! I’m just glad you’re okay!” He bent down to kiss George on the cheek. “God, I’m so sorry about this. This shouldn’t have happened to you, love. This isn’t fair.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It may not be fair, George, but the bed still needs to be cleaned, and you still need to wash up and change.” George glared at him. “It would get done faster if you just let me help.”
“Fine.” He got up from the bed and swung his legs over the edge in a desperate yet useless attempt to hide the evidence from his boyfriend.
“Wait. Georgie, love, you need your crutches—” But George had already stood and begun to walk away.
As George stood alongside the nurse and began to walk away from the hospital bed, Ringo caught a glimpse of the bandages wrapped all the way up his leg.
“What’s that?” he asked. “What happened to your leg?” George blushed and tried to walk faster and further away, stepping just out of reach of the nurse and falling to the ground.
“Fuck!”
“George! Christ!” He bent down to his knees and helped George stand back up. “What were you thinking?? You know you can’t walk on it.”
“Please, can I clean up by myself?”
“Why does it matter so much to you?”
George tried to put more weight on his foot despite knowing he shouldn’t have been. “I feel like I’ve been such a burden these last few weeks.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“So I have been,” George said, suddenly feeling a lot more embarrassed.
“Well, yeah. You’ve been through quite a bit, love. It’s not like I would leave you to deal with it on your own. Besides, I don’t mind taking care of you.”
George frowned. “Richie, I’m really sorry about this.” The nurse got down on the floor and examined his leg to make sure he hadn’t damaged it further.
“S-sorry? Sorry about what?” John glanced between them.
“I know you’re going to have to deal with this until it’s better.”
Ringo sighed sadly. “George, that’s fine.”
“I wish you wouldn’t pretend it’s not a big deal.” George pulled at the pyjama pants sticking to his inner thighs. “I mean, look at me.”
“George, I know as well as you do that it is a big deal. I know that you’ve been subject to this cruel and unfair world, and you’ve had to pay the price for it. And I know that we’re lucky you’ve only broken your leg. And you and I, but especially you, have to deal with the fact that if I was in that car with you, I wouldn’t have…”
George looked up at him.
“I wouldn’t have made it, love. Of course the shock of that is a big deal.”
“So why are you pretending that this isn’t?”
“Because it’s not,” Ringo said. “Because after everything, you having an accident in bed isn’t a big deal. That’s why I said we can take care of it, and we’ll get back to helping you heal up your leg, okay?”
“It’ll be in a cast for about seven weeks. We can check up on it then, and it should be ready to start walking on again.” Ringo smiled.
“Hear that, Georgie? You’ll be walking in seven weeks.”
But George didn’t smile. He kept his eyes on the floor. “I want to go home,” he whispered.
“You will soon, George. I promise.”
“I’m gonna go get changed.” He grabbed his crutches from beside the bed and began to hobble over to the dresser.
Ringo began pulling off the sheets. “Holler if you need anything, love. I’ll be right here.”
“Thank you, Richie. And I mean that.”
“You know it’s not a problem. I love you more than anything.”
“I love you, too.”