If anyone had ever asked later, George would claim it was a combination of medicine and jet lag and whatever the hell else he could think of to say.
Because if he ever told anyone the truth, the band would be over.
Not that anyone asked. No one had seen it to ask. But George was still scared, even thirty years later when the incident would have been one more piece of Beatles lore, if that. But maybe that's why he refused to confirm or deny even so many years later. It certainly wasn't because Paul had asked him to. Not by then. It wasn't as if Paul knew about it, he just told George that as far as anyone was concerned, nothing like that had ever happened. George had wondered if Paul was hiding something himself, it wasn't like that hadn't been speculated about for years. Though he was pretty sure the speculation in Paul's area was just that.
But thirty years before, there had been no Beatles lore. No status of legend. Just four lads from Liverpool who sang and played guitar and people seemed to like them. Okay so by that time it was more likely to be love, but George tended to understate for a while.
George remembered being sick and pale and shaky, even after he was officially over the flu. It was their first visit to America, and he had been so scared he wouldn't get to go, and then scared he might not even have been able to go on. John had whispered words of encouragement, rubbed his sore muscles and said he was sure John would be okay to go on.
George had curled into that warmth and promise and had known, yes, it would be all right. John had said so and he knew that John could make everything all right if he gave George a smile, so if he actually said the words, they must be true. At least that was how it had looked to George's flu ridden mind.
George wouldn't ever remember much of that first performance on Ed Sullivan. Years later it would be a blur of colour and sound, except for one brief moment that would stay in his memory until he died. Looking over, almost collapsing, he'd seen John's smile, seen him give a tiny thumbs up - almost imperceptible - and George had known he could make it to the end of the song. And he must have, because the next thing he actually knew was collapsing in the dressing room, breathing heavily.
And John had been there. He'd made George tea, saying it was not like the English stuff - which George already knew, but he'd swallowed it anyway because John had made it. And George would do anything for John.
He didn't know if John knew that, though. He didn't know if John knew that he would wait and wait for just a moment of John's time. That he would listen to him play the same chord ten times over to get it right. That he would make John tea if his head didn't feel like it was about to fall off. And if John knew that deep down that there was a name for why he would do all this, and that the name was love.
He'd been taught, all his life, that it was wrong to love another man. Growing up when he did, it was settle down, get married, have kids and live a boring life. Okay so things were different now the Beatles were doing a bit, but they did still all have girls waiting at home.
Not that that made a huge difference. There would still be no chance if the girls disappeared suddenly. George could never say... it was wrong. And John might... well, John's temper was legendary even then. John would not take it well. Look at how he'd reacted to Brian. No, George couldn't risk that. He just couldn't hurt John that way. He ignored that he hurt himself in other ways. That he couldn't help. Hurting John, that he could help.
So George hid his feelings. He watched John. They'd been told that they had an extra spark of on stage chemistry and George liked to think that maybe it was his feelings showing through in the one appropriate way that they could.
Of course he never thought that John could have feelings too. He knew John loved him. He knew that each of them, John, Paul, George and Ringo loved each other. Like brothers. Like family. Not like they knew Brian loved John.
That didn't mean any of them had dreams of the others kissing them. Holding them down. Doing things George had only heard whispers of. And he wanted it all. At the end he wanted John to whisper that he loved him.
But that would never happen. George knew it. So he handed his tea mug back to John, with some remark about how those damn Yanks wouldn't know a decent cuppa if it sat up and bit them...
When he looked into John's eyes. And saw something he never thought he would.
"John?" A whispered question, a plea, a need to know if he was seeing it.
And almost before he knew what was happening, John had walked the two steps across the dressing room and dropped a soft and tender kiss on his lips. "Georgie," he'd whispered. His arms had moved around George's back and he was holding him. And George knew. This wasn't the kiss of a brother or a friend.
Just as he realised that, though, a knock on the door interrupted them and John jumped back as if he were scalded. George hadn't even wondered why. It was how things were, how they had to be. And he'd known it would never happen again.
Ringo had come in, wondering how George was feeling, handing him some aspirin, which, oddly, did seem to help. But he'd wondered if he looked disappointed, because Ringo had asked him if he was missing his girl back home.
George had nodded, played along. Anything to keep Ringo from even suspecting. Not that he would. He didn't think things like George did. Didn't wonder how things might have been different if there had been no knock at the door.
They'd gone back to normal after that. Bandmates, friends, brothers, lads, whatever they used to describe it. But every so often, even after they'd separated as bandmates, George would wonder. Wonder if he'd ever said something would things be different. Wonder if he was crying more for himself or for Sean in December 1980.
And sometimes he would wonder if he would have ever had the courage to say something if the chance hadn't been taken from him. He would always regret never knowing that.
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