Reminded of Nirvana
Title: Reminded of Nirvana
Pairing: George/Ringo, John/Paul
Rating: G
Summary: Ringo can't handle being alone on George's birthday.
Author note: I've been reading around for a while, and quite frankly, I'm impressed. strokeslash hasn't updated in forever, and The Strokes are still together! You guys are really productive, nice, and really great writers. Overall I feel very welcome here! And you motivate me to write more myself. Anyway, here's a pretty quiet fic for now. I might write a J/P PWP in a bit, as I've noticed is a fad around here, heh heh.
Disclaimer: Completely fictional, do not own The Beatles
He’d almost been counting down the days until he suspected Ringo to call. It was always around George’s birthday-somewhere within a week before or after it.
This year, Ringo rang the day before February 25th. At 4 bleeding 30 in the morning.
“Hey, Paulie?” Ringo mumbled.
“Oh, hey, Ringo.”
“I need to talk to you. Can I talk to you?”
“It’s-it’s four fucking thirty in the morning, man.”
“I know, I’m sorry, I just-I need to talk to you about-you know.”
Paul sighed. “I know. All right. You want me to come over?”
“No, no, let’s-I don’t know. I can’t stand the sight of this place.”
“I see. I suppose it’ll have to be coffee, then.”
“Coffee, yeah, sounds fantastic. See you soon.”
Paul hung up, rubbing his eye with his wrist.
-------------------
Ringo was dressed in an old red T-shirt with a mosaic yellow sun on it, sitting silently at the diner table and staring at an evaporating smear of water on the surface.
“Hey, Paulie,” Ringo mumbled again when Paul took a seat across from him. He looked so tired since Paul had last seen him three weeks ago.
“Hi, Ringo,” Paul replied. He nodded. “I like your shirt.”
Ringo’s chin fell to his chest. He commented, “George gave it to me.”
Paul knew this, and Ringo knew he knew this, but still Paul said, “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He said it reminded him of nirvana and he gave it to me.”
Paul watched Ringo trace the rays of the sun with his eyes and said, “Here comes the sun, eh?”
Ringo nodded. “Hopefully.”
The waitress came by and with a cheerful smile despite the bags under her eyes. Paul said, “It’s just coffee for us today, love.”
“Actually,” Ringo butted in, “let me get an ice water.”
“No coffee for you, sir?”
“Maybe a little later.”
The waitress nodded, smiled again, and left. Paul looked at Ringo. He had that look on again, that look of dry emotions and stale thoughts.
“George always was the cheap one, wasn’t he?” Paul blurted.
Ringo visibly jumped a little out of his seat and his memories and said, flustered, “What? Oh. Yeah.”
“Getting water when we could all afford cases of pinot noir.”
“He came from a pretty poor family.”
Paul didn’t mention that they had all come from pretty poor families. Ringo looked at Paul and tentatively asked, “Do you ever wish-you could go back?”
“Go back?”
“And live your life without the Beatles, I mean.”
Paul nodded. “Oh, sure, loads of times. But then I never would have met you.”
Ringo’s eyes widened a fraction and then focused on the ketchup bottle on the table. He said in a voice just above a whisper, “And I never would have met George.” Ringo frowned and then looked back at Paul and quipped, “What was George like before he was a Beatle?”
Paul frowned as well, but in thought rather than in bleakness, and put his elbow on the table. “Georgie? I can’t remember. I can’t remember past my last birthday and the last time John talked to me.”
“And when was that?”
Paul wrinkled up his face. “November 15, 1980. But we’re not here to talk about that, we’re here to talk about George.”
“Yeah, well, what’s there to talk about when you can’t remember past your own birthday?”
Paul snapped his fingers and chirped, “I remember. He used to come over to my place and try to play on me dad’s piano.”
A smile tugged at Ringo’s lips as he asked, “How was he?”
“He was complete shit at it.”
Ringo smiled and chuckled a little. “I guess he wouldn’t have been able to help me with my own songs by then.”
“Do you remember the first song he made?” Paul asked.
“Of course. It was brilliant for a first timer.”
“No, no,” Paul said, shaking his head and smiling. “Not Don’t Bother Me. The one he played when we were fooling around at practice.”
Ringo thought for a bit and then grinned and laughed, “Oh yeah, I remember that.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember.” Ringo put on a high pitched voice. “‘I’m so hungry, I could eat you, eat you out with love!’”
Paul laughed. “I hated that song!”
“He only did it to annoy you and John!”
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Paul exclaimed. He took a deep breath and continued more calmly, “He always was hungry all the time, though.”
“Yeah. He asked me to take him out more than you and John asked me combined.”
“Always beggin’ for more food.”
“Yup.”
The waitress came by again and placed a coffee and a water on the table.
“And this one’s on the house,” the waitress added, setting a piece of pie in front of Ringo. “You seemed a bit down, so I got the cook to throw something together for you, blue.”
Ringo froze. Paul quickly thanked the waitress, shooed her away, and then murmured across the table, “Are you okay, Ringo?”
“For You Blue.”
“She didn’t mean it.”
Ringo blinked and stared at the pumpkin pie as if he were staring at his reflection. He whispered, “I know.” He looked up at Paul and said, “That really bugs me, it does.”
“What?”
“How people don’t know George. They know John because he was killed and they know you and me because, well, we’re still here,” Ringo spilled. “But they don’t know George. Not really. He never really got to show who he was because he was always in someone else’s shadow.”
Paul’s shoulders slumped guiltily and he mumbled a small, “Sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry to me, mate,” Ringo said. He took a gulp of his water and then said, “You know he wanted to do so many things before he went? He used to talk to me about it, just hours on end, talking about all the shit he wanted to do.”
“Yeah? What was on there?”
Ringo paused in thought. Paul took a sip of his coffee as Ringo answered, “I remember inviting me over for dinner with his family was on there. Buying a 12-string guitar. And having an unannounced free tour, all on people’s rooftops.”
Paul laughed. “Like a chain of Apple Corps?”
“Something like that, I suppose,” Ringo said. He froze again and repeated, “Something.”
Paul cleared his throat loudly and changed the subject. “So, er, you gonna eat that magnificent-looking home-made pie sitting in front of you? It does look rather lonely over there. Unattended.”
That seemed to do the trick. Ringo dramatically inquired, “I can’t tell, Paulie, do you want the pie?”
“Oh, no, of course not. I was just saying it looked lonely.”
Ringo scooted the pie over to Paul, who immediately started picking at it like a bird. Ringo watched Paul eat for a bit and then wondered aloud, “Do you think George met up with John?”
Paul looked up at Ringo, still chewing. Ringo was hardly ever philosophical; that was George or John’s job. But he supposed someone had to be the philosophical one.
“I don’t know,” Paul finally answered. “I try not to think about it. It makes me feel old.”
Ringo looked disgusted. “That’s awfully selfish of you, Paul.”
Paul nodded and then shrugged. “You know me. I’ve always been selfish. Too proud to admit it often, though.”
“You and John both,” Ringo added.
Paul finished the pie, took a gulp of his coffee, and then said quietly, “I do think about it occasionally, though. I imagine-” Paul had to swallow a tiny, tiny lump in his throat. “I think he did meet up with
John. And they yelled at each other for a bit and then became good mates all over again. And they made music together, sort of like a second Beatles but minus, you know, you and me.”
Ringo offered a small smile. “I guess they’ll be waiting for us to complete their band then, eh? But who’ll drum for them while I’m stuck down here?”
Paul sipped his coffee and then suggested, “Stu, I suppose. He’ll have to do for now.”
Ringo made a face. “I guess I’ll need to hurry up before he gets too comfortable then.”
That worried Paul. He watched as Ringo drained his water and then firmly said, “Don’t talk like that, Ringo. It scares me.”
Ringo placed his empty glass on the table and breathed, “Have you thought about it, though?”
“I told you, I don’t-”
“I know, but have you ever thought about it?” Ringo pressed. “Have you thought about seeing his face again? Seeing his smile and knowing it’s there because of you? Feeling his touch? Tasting his breath? Being happy just because he’s near? Have you ever thought about feeling all that again?”
At this point Paul didn’t know whether Ringo was talking about George or John anymore, but he didn’t care. He just pursed his lips and averted Ringo’s demanding stare and croaked, “Yes.”
The waitress came over, took up their empty cups and plate, and handed Paul the rather small bill.
Ringo immediately motioned for the bill, saying, “Let me handle it, Paul.”
“I’ve got it.”
“Let me pay for it.”
There was a certain glint in Ringo’s eyes that intimidated Paul, so he handed the bill over to Ringo. As he eyed the bill and rummaged through his wallet, Ringo explained, “I always tried to pay for George’s meal, but he wanted to ‘be the gentleman.’ He said that my beak was too big for me not to be the bird.”
Paul snuffed out a laugh as Ringo fit a couple bills in the bill sleeve, and the waitress took it away with a smile.
A tiny sparkle of light caught Paul’s eye. He turned to the window and blurted, “Hey, look, here comes the sun!”
Paul realized what he had said as soon as he closed his mouth and he quickly turned to Ringo, but he just found Ringo silently watching the speckle of light creep up slowly from a low cloud. Paul said nothing and watched the sun as well.
“‘Bout that time already, eh?” Ringo said. “We should get going. Don’t want to worry the girls.”
“Or George,” Paul added. “If he’s watching, you know.”
Ringo said flatly, “George is dead.”
Paul blinked in surprise. Ringo continued, “I’ve come to realize that. But with that I’ve realized the way to cope with it isn’t by hoping he’s still alive, but by remembering all the good times I’ve had with him, yeah? Talking to you about it.”
Paul paused and then nodded and said, “Yeah.”
The waitress came back with Ringo’s change and smiled at them for the last time before leaving. Once out the door, Paul gave Ringo a tight hug.
“See you later, Rings,” Paul said.
Ringo replied, “Yeah, thanks for everything, mate.”
Paul hadn’t walked two steps before Ringo called out, “Hey, Paul!”
Paul turned. Ringo gave him a serious look, one which meant that he meant every bit of what he was about to say, and said in a hushed voice, “I’ll be there for you in eight months.”
Paul swallowed, whispered a “yeah,” and left.