Chapter Text
He sighed as he reread the message from Paul again.
Then his phone rang.
“Geo?” Paul asked when he answered, voice full of concern. “You’re alright, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘s fine,” George nodded, standing from where he had previously been on the couch. He stretched then grabbed his cup of tea, already trying to figure out how he was going to explain the situation to any of his friends. “But, Paul--,”
“We’re glad you’re happy,” Paul interrupted. “We won’t be upset with whoever you bring, so long as you’re happy,”
“Right, but,” George started, making his way to the kitchen and setting his cup on the counter, but Paul’s attention was taken by someone talking to him from wherever he was at.
“Sorry, Geo, I have to go--talk to you soon, yeah?” Paul did sound apologetic, as though he knew George had something important to tell him.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. See you soon,”
The call ended and George stared at the wall for a moment. “Shit.” he eventually muttered, the situation settling deep now that he could process it.
He reread the message from Paul yet again, sighing and running a hand through his hair as he tried to figure out how to tell him that he did not, in fact, have the date that Paul was under the impression he had.
George put his phone on the counter, deciding to deal with what he could while he could, and set to doing his dishes in the hope that it would give him some time to think.
He scrubbed furiously at his mug as he mentally went through his list of friends, crossing off the ones that he knew were definitely busy that day--it wasn’t a great number, but enough to help him narrow the list down some. He sighed as he put the cup into the dishwasher and grabbed his phone. I might as well get this part over with, he decided, since he wasn’t being that productive on his dishes--save for the one very scrubbed mug.
“Tommy,” George started when Tom picked up.
“George! What can we help you with?” there were voices in the background from Tom’s side of the phone--almost definitely his own band, though what they were doing George couldn’t even try to guess--but they got quieter as Tom moved away from them. Stan shouted something and Tom laughed. “The guys also say howdy,”
“Tell them I say hi too. And I think Paul’s convinced that I have a date to his wedding,” George just threw it out like it was regular news, somehow, surprised at his own unwavering tone.
“Do you need one?” Tom asked, and George could hear him close a door.
“He’s expecting one. I think he wants me to have one,”
“You can always just tell him,” Tom reminded him. George shook his head--Paul had sounded very pleased with the idea of George being happy with someone.
“I just need to find someone that can come with me for the weekend or so. Would you be willing to come?”
“Y’know I’d love to be able to help somehow, but Jeff’s coming this weekend to help us with some stuff, remember?” Tom’s tone was gentle, and George groaned. “You can see if Roy has any ideas?”
“I will, thanks, Tom. Good luck with everything,” George sighed. “You know where to find me if you need my help, too. I’m more than happy to disappear after a certain point and go help you,”
“I know,” Tom laughed. “I appreciate your offer, but you should stay. It’ll all work out, alright?”
“I know that. I just gotta get a little worked up first,” George almost-teased. “I’ll see you all soon, though, hopefully. Love you, bye,”
“Don’t get yourself worked up too much. Love you too, mom, see you later,” and then Tom hung up, leaving George to stare at Roy’s contact while trying to come up with a mental script.
Then Roy called him himself. George jumped when his phone rang--the ringer had been on for once--and then answered it once he had registered who it was.
“Tom told me,” Roy told George, bypassing a regular greeting because he saw the importance of the situation to George.
“What do I do?” George asked, also bypassing a normal greeting.
“You could tell him that you’re perfectly happy alone, and most definitely not pining after anyone,” Roy suggested, and his tone held a hint of teasing that made George shake his head.
“He’d call bullshit in an instant,” George leaned back on the counter with a sigh, then let himself slide down so he was sitting on the floor. “I’m pretty sure he’s at least a little onto me,” he added.
“It’s a bit hard not to be,” Roy agreed. “You could ask Bob,” he eventually suggested instead.
“You know why I can’t just… do that,” George shook his head quickly, then let his head fall back against the cabinets.
“He’d do it, you know,” Roy reminded him. “He would probably do a great many things if you asked him to,”
“I don’t want to force him into it,” George objected. Roy laughed.
“You wouldn’t be forcing him to do it. You know that if he really doesn’t want to do something, he won’t.” There was some shuffling on Roy’s end. “And he won’t feel like you’re trying to take advantage of the fact that he’s your friend, either. At worst, he’ll probably think it’s funny,”
George made an almost pained sound in his throat. “I don’t really have any other options, do I?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know that you do,” Roy admitted. “But I do know that he would be more than willing to help you, if you asked him to. He’d do a lot for you,”
“I’ll ask him,” George finally agreed, even though the idea made him feel almost sick. If the situation were slightly different, it would be fine, but as it was he wasn’t sure if he could pretend to be in love with Bob (and for Bob to pretend to be in love with him!) in front of a group of people, then pretend to not be in love with Bob in front of the man himself, for an entire weekend. “Thank you,”
“Good luck,” Roy wished him, then hung up.
George sat in the floor with his head in his hands for a moment. Bob seemed to be the most likely candidate here, even if George was becoming increasingly convinced it might kill him a little bit to ask him.
He called Bob anyways--at the very least, his friend could probably help him figure something out.
“Yellow?” Bob sniffed, and George could hear him move--probably sitting up more properly.
“Are you alright?” George asked, almost without thinking.
“M? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I was, uh,” Bob paused. “Are you alright?”
“Relatively,” George admitted. “What happened?”
“The cat decided I was a bed,” George could hear said cat meow in the background, almost like a protest, as Bob spoke. “What’s going on with you?”
“Paul’s getting married,”
“That’s… a good thing, right?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m happy for him. He thinks I have a date to said wedding, though,” George admitted.
“Do you?”
George sighed as he finally stood up again, going to make another cup of tea. “No,”
“And you need to find one so he doesn’t figure it out,” Bob guessed. George nodded before remembering that Bob couldn’t see him and flushed with what was at least partially embarrassment.
“Would you be willing to come? I can pay you back somehow,”
“As long as I can find someone to watch the cat, I’ll come,” Bob agreed. “You don’t have to pay me back,”
“If there’s anything you need, I can help,” George corrected his offer. Bob puffed a laugh.
“Fine,” Bob relented. “I’ll keep it as a raincheck for later, then,”
“I can pick you up and take you to the place it’s at--bring some extra clothes, just in case,”
“Alrighty, will do,” there was shuffling from Bob’s end as he started to look around for a bag to put everything in. “See you soon, then,”
“I can get you Thursday, that way we have enough time to figure everything out,”
“Two days,” Bob said, and George shrugged.
“I can go over earlier, if that works better, too,”
“Come whenever you want,” Bob was entirely serious in his offer, and George knew that if he wasn’t as good at controlling this by now his stomach would’ve almost jumped at the fact that Bob would let him go over whenever he wanted to.
“See you soon, then,” George said instead, grinning.
“‘Course,” there was some more shuffling. “We were bound to run into each other again at some point,” it’s almost teasing in an odd sort of way--partially because it really hadn’t been that long since they had seen each other in person.
“Day after tomorrow, then,” George finalized. Bob made a sound of assent then hung up (though it was more likely that it was the cat that had hung up, because George had witnessed himself on more than enough occasions that the cat was more than willing to knock the phone away from Bob and hang up on whoever he was talking to, especially if he tried to start another task during the conversation. It had still been funny when the cat had tried to knock George himself over.
He had been visiting Bob for a week, and they had decided that George would take Bob home with him for a week or so--they were working out the details as Bob packed his bag, George sitting on the bed next to it. The cat had cried for about half a minute before jumping up onto the bed and attempting to move George, then cried at him for not falling over.
It was still amusing after a while, though George could imagine Bob was getting more tired with it as time went on.
George finished his tea and then went to go and pack his own bag--time was dwindling, and he still had to double check to make sure he had something to wear for the wedding and double check the details for that (Paul had asked him to stay for a few days, too, because of how long it had been since they had seen each other) to make sure he had everything he’d need.