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It’s inevitable that they sync together.
Touring as a Beatle is a whirlwind, and Ringo lets the tornado carry her whichever way it blows with a skip in her step and a grin stretched genuine beneath her moptop.
And yet: the ever-increasing ever-louder screaming crowds are only a bonus to the real thing.
The treasure is John, Paul, George. Hell of a trio to hang around. They brawl for priority of the hotel mirrors, steal each other’s lipsticks, cheer louder than the crowd on and off stage, and are - to put it bluntly - rapidly becoming the sisters that only child Rachel Starkey always longed for.
She gets to the band late, but she’s one of them. They tell her they can’t imagine being stars without her, and she teases back, “Of course not! You need your best Starr!”. She glows all the brighter in the responding light of their exaggerated groans.
They share hotels, stages, cars, bathrooms. One memorable time they shared a single toothbrush. It’s only to be expected that they share their menses.
It’ll start with John: rubbing her abdomen like it’s plotting to send in the cavalry. John cramps early. John cramps bad. Only Paul braves her during that first twenty-four hours. They schedule their hotel rooms for those nights accordingly.
Then it’s George’s turn to fall. She gulps down pots of tea like she might die of dehydration and flops into anyone’s lap that’ll have her. She flusters easier.
Ringo and Paul go together, hand in hand, the rhythm team in rhythm. Practically Perfect Paul claims she rarely cramps - something John loves to whine about - but she’ll steal their clothes, complaining about bloating and her own brasseries being too tight. Ringo, meanwhile, operates on the flip of a coin. She’s a little quieter, maybe. She adds extra scotch to her coca-cola, cramps or no cramps.
It’s a bad month - one of the annoying ones where there are cramps, throwing off Ringo’s rhythm and causing her drumsticks to lose beats when she practise-thrums them against the bedside table - when George gets caught worse than Ringo’s seen her yet.
They’re in their usual pairings for this time of month: John and Paul to one room so they can bite off each other’s heads in peace, Ringo and George to the other. George had thrown herself to the nearest bed practically the moment they’d checked in, for once leaving Ringo free to drench herself under the shower in peace.
Freshly-washed and damp, pyjamas sticking gently to her skin, she sits on the edge of her bed and practices her drumming like a tic. It’s a bedtime routine she’s rarely broken since she was a kid in a hospital bed. One two three four, one two three four…
“Shut up,” George grumbles. She’s barely visible between the dark sweep of her hair and the duvet.
“Sorry,” Ringo says on instinct, although she’s not really. She puts down the drumsticks and moves her hands to her thighs, tapping the beat out on her knees instead. “You gonna shower?”
George groans. She’s been groaning a lot today. Copycatting John’s footsteps. “Don’t wanna.”
Ringo taps a little more, then asks, “You doing okay?”
“Do I look okay?” George says, with more bite than she usually uses with Ringo, then winces. “Sorry, I just-” She untucks her hands from under the blanket, places them on her stomach for show. “Hurts.”
Ringo nods in sympathy, winces herself as her own abdomen pulses. “Shower’ll help you feel better, kid.”
George scoffs. “Yeah. Right.”
Ringo chuckles. “Go rub one out. I’ll keep drummin’, won’t even know.”
Ever-so-slightly, as subtle as the flap of a pigeon’s wing, the easy atmosphere in their shared room shifts.
“What good’ll that do?” George snorts, and if you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t recognise the difference, but she has the Look.
It’s something you pick up on, getting to know George. Ringo will be talking with her - nice, easy, breezy - and she’ll mention something that George will zero in like a hawk spotting a mouse twitching in a field. The corners of her eyes tighten, her head cocks, her lips narrow to a flat line.
She gives the Look to Ringo now. Ringo’s not sure what it was she said that’s got Georgie all Looking.
“I did, and it helped,” she says instead, carrying on their conversation. “That and a scotch, and you’ll sleep so grand you won’t complain about my snorin’.”
George frowns and sits up. Winces again as she draws her knees to her chest. “Rubbing it out helps?”
Jesus.
“Yeah, you-” Ringo can’t help the slight flush of her own cheeks. “You know that, right? Right, Georgie?”
They’re not shy, Ringo and her girls. They were in Hamburg together, after all, even if Ringo wasn’t part of their band yet. She’s heard the stories. She was present herself for a few. Even remembers pulling Paul onto her lap one time when they were drunk at the back of the Star. Ringo had palmed Paul’s thigh under the hem of her skirt - no higher, even if she was tempted - with Paul’s breath giggly and hot against her neck.
And now she’s in the band, one of Them… well, sharing rooms inevitably results with Ringo pretending she doesn’t hear the girl on the other side of the room biting back moans in the dark. Ringo pretends she doesn’t bite her own lip for the same reason. Pretends she doesn’t know what John, Paul, George sound like. Pretends they don’t know how Ringo sounds, even though they surely must.
This to say.
Surely George must know that an orgasm eases menstruation cramps.
Yet here she is, beady glint in her eye as she looks at Ringo, like Ringo knows a secret she doesn’t.
“Isn’t it gross?” George says, with a twitch of her mouth. “All that blood?”
Ringo shrugs, tap-tapping away. The back of her neck feels hot. “Uh, it’s. It’s just there, y’know?”
“It’s gross,” George says again, like a confirmation.
“It’s just a thing,” Ringo counters mildly.
George grimaces. “Urgh. Who wants blood on their hands?”
Ringo doesn’t know why she says what she does next. “What, you’ve never had a guy finger you through it?”
George stares at her, chin resting on bony knees. She looks like a teenager again. Like she was when Ringo first met her. Gawky. Still growing into her limbs. “What, and you have?”
Ringo hesitates.
Nods.
She did bring it up, after all. Only fair to give an honest answer.
George frowns in another expression you have to know George to read. She’s thinking.
Ringo’s hands are still. Her foot taps instead, mimicking the beat of her heart.
George curls her mouth and says, finally, “Show me.”
Ringo must not have heard her properly. “Sorry?”
“You brought it up!” George points out. She touches her stomach again, more for theatrics than for comfort. “It hurts. If you can make it hurt less-”
“I meant-” Ringo almost stutters. The heat on her neck spreads to her cheeks, her chest. “I meant, you go do it yourself! You don’t need me, Georgie-girl.”
“I don’t wanna do it meself.” George shifts, leans back and kicks her legs into a sprawl above the blankets. She’s still wearing the base elements of her Beatles uniform: the shirt and skirt crumpled nearly beyond recognition. “Besides, you know your way around girls, yeah?”
“Yeah, but…” Ringo flounders, searching for the right words to explain what a terrible idea this is. She’d never found her way around girls that were her bandmates, for Christ’s sake. She’s onto a good thing here. She doesn’t want to lose this. She doesn’t want to lose them.
“Rings,” George says and doesn’t look away from Ringo, even as she wriggles and twists the skirt hem around her waist, flicks open the buttons. “Rach.” She shimmies them down her hips, down past her knees. Still she’s looking at Ringo. “I trust you.”
The skirt gets tossed to the floor. Ringo finds herself moving across the room. George spreads her legs. Ringo sinks onto George’s bed between them. George’s bare calves are hot where they press against her own, even through her pyjamas.
Jesus. Okay.
George gazes at her like she’s learning. Steady and trusting. Her hands have returned to her abdomen proper now, palms on a small bare strip where her shirt’s ridden up above her underwear, her brow furrowing as she rides out another cramp.
Ringo’s helping, as she places her hands on George’s bare ankles. A tremor runs up George’s shin; Ringo soothes it with her thumb. Helping. That’s all she’s doing.
What’s a little fingering between friends?
“Rach,” George says, quietly.
Ringo smoothes her palms up George’s legs. She still shaves properly to the knee, like Paul. Like a good girl.
George has grown into her long limbs. There’s strength when Ringo kneads her thumbs along George’s thighs, when she reaches the divots of George’s hips under the hem of her creased shirt.
“Rach,” George says again, like a hiccup.
“George,” Ringo says, like an exhale.
Her hands slide back to George’s thighs, her thumbs drumming circles in the dips of her pubic bone. Specks of dried blood flake away. George’s breath hitches.
Once Ringo gets George’s panties off - plain black cotton, the same brand all of them wear, regulation uniform - they can’t go back. This will always be something they’ve done, the two of them.
George squirms her hips and yanks the cotton down herself. Makes the decision for them.
George is red between her thighs. Ringo expected it - it’s why she’s here - yet it’s still a shock, the vibrant crimson soaking the dark thatch of hair like a crime scene. Without tasting her, the back of Ringo’s mouth tastes like a penny. It’s not unpleasant.
George’s thighs tremble, pale against the glinting metal of Ringo’s rings. For the first time, she sounds uncertain when she says, “Look, you don’t have to-”
“I want to,” Ringo interrupts. She raises herself up, meets George squarely in the eye so the other woman has no doubt of what she’s saying. “I want to make you feel good. It’d be an honour.”
“Oh,” George breathes. There’s a natural flush to her cheeks under the usual stage make-up.
Ringo doesn’t kiss her, but maybe she should.
“Can I eat you out, Georgie?” She blurts out instead. When in Rome, and all that.
George’s brow furrows. “Isn’t that gross?”
“Nah,” Ringo says. Her fingers clench on George’s thighs. George tenses even as her breath flutters, and Ringo grins. “I wanna.”
She waits until George nods her consent, and then Ringo goes to her stomach. She props herself on her elbows, George’s legs bracketing her sides, and leans in.
It’s been ages since she’s gotten a chance to do this.
It’s an open secret that Ringo sought the girls in Hamburg. She had men, too, but she preferred the girls, and there was no-one in Hamburg that could pass the news to their neighbour who’d pass it to their neighbour who’d pass it to her Mam.
Paul had known that, when she’d let herself be flung into Ringo’s lap at the Star. The only reason Ringo hadn’t gone further was John shattering her pint at the sight. But she would’ve liked to slide her hand further, would’ve liked to tease Paul with an invitation back to her room.
The girls that she did invite didn’t leave disappointed. Ringo made sure of that.
She does to George now what she did to those girls - butterfly kisses from the knee up the thigh, gentle, teasing. A little more pressure here, a little more there. Careful, careful, don’t touch Georgie’s cunt yet. Let it build. Let her pulse for it. Let the pulse become a rhythm.
It all comes back to the beat. That’s Ringo’s philosophy. It’s gotten her this far.
George has more of a kick to her than most girls. “Thought you were gonna eat me out, Rings,” she grouses, even as her voice pitches higher. “You gonna do it or what?”
Ringo curls her mouth around the bend of George’s knee in answer, drinks in George’s responding shiver.
“Rings,” George whines. Her fingers tangle in Ringo’s damp hair and pull, gently.
She’s teased the girl enough. Ringo allows George to guide her, and this time when she kisses George it’s directly around the entrance of her cunt. The copper tang of menses on the flat of her tongue is overwhelming.
George jolts. Full-body jolts, just from a single touch of Ringo’s mouth. Her grip on Ringo’s hair tightens. A little uncomfortable, but nothing Ringo can’t handle.
She goes in again. Lathes her tongue flat, up-down-up-down in a simple rhythm. Breathes in through her nose and exhales hotly against George’s core. The blood gets undercut by the sharp taste of George herself.
The Quiet Beatle is anything but quiet. She chants variations of Ringo’s name like a prayer, a harmony to Ringo’s beat. Ringo briefly considers reminding her to bite her tongue - they share an adjoining wall with John and Paul, after all - but she can’t bring herself to. A vocal George is a satisfied George. A vocal George informs Ringo that she’s doing her job well.
Something swoops in Ringo’s chest, takes roost like a bird. It tingles. It heats. It has no place being inside Ringo, not when she’s merely doing this to help out a friend.
It’s just Georgie. Just little Georgie Harrison. Who goes shy in band meetings but never on stage, who can strum her guitar with the best of them, who once took a black eye for Ringo and wore it like a badge of pride.
Whose calloused fingers curl in Ringo’s hair as she fumbles her own shirt undone with her left hand, whose strong thighs flex against Ringo’s cheeks and temporarily send her hearing underwater when Ringo sucks on her clit.
Ringo looks up. George has a hand on her own breast, pinching herself through the brasserie. Ringo slips a hand inside her own pyjama pants.
Ringo’s mouth is there to catch George when she peaks. She follows herself, only requiring a few rapid strokes, as she licks George through the aftershocks. Her jaw aches but she could keep going. Take George to a second. A third. They have all night, uninterrupted.
George acts first.
She tugs Ringo up sharply, Ringo caught off guard so that she crashes herself against George’s half-dressed torso. Her sensitive breasts smash into George’s little tits but Ringo barely has time to wince before George kisses her with a clack of teeth, a thrum of urgency, and Ringo’s mind goes deliciously blank.
When the kiss breaks, Ringo’s mouth is thoroughly bruised, wet.
George wrinkles her nose, barely a breath away. Her blown-wide pupils betray her nonchalant expression. “You do taste a bit gross, y’know.”
Ringo snorts when she laughs. She can’t help it. “That’s no way to say thank you.”
“Thank you,” George repeats on cue, obedient, and then goes all shy. “D’you want me to…?”
The thought of George returning the favour prickles all over Ringo’s skin. She thoroughly considers replying “if you’re offering”.
Instead, she kisses George’s nose, butterfly-light. “‘m good.”
“Oh.” George looks - a little disappointed, Ringo thinks. “Wanna sleep here?”
It wouldn’t be the first time Ringo’s slept in the same bed as George. Their current hotel situation - a bed each, their own bathroom - is a luxurious arrangement.
Ringo looks down at the crumpled duvet under them, the damp patches and inevitable splotches of browning red. Christ. She should have put down a towel. “Have that shower, and then my bed?”
George practically glows.
It takes fifteen minutes. George has her shower. Ringo grabs a glass of water and tackles the sheet stains, good little daughter she is, before giving up and bundling the whole thing into a pile. Even hangs George’s rumpled clothes up for her, although they’ll be going straight into the hotel laundry tomorrow.
When George crawls into bed, she smells of hotel soap instead of sweat.
Ringo purposefully lies on her side facing the wall. Prepares herself for the usual back-to-back sleeping arrangement. It was only between friends. It was only friends.
George slips her arms around Ringo’s waist, nuzzles her nose between Ringo’s shoulderblades.
Ringo melts.
“Y’know,” George mumbles. “Thanks for, y’know, what you did, but you didn’t do what you said.”
Ringo frowns. Comes up blank. “Huh?”
“Mmm.” George snuggles in, kisses the back of Ringo’s neck so gently Ringo almost thinks she imagines it. Close. She’s so close. “Didn’t finger me, did ya.”
And then she adds, quieter, before Ringo can respond: “Night, Rach.”
Ringo counts the rhythm of George’s heartbeat where it pulses along her spine. Places her own hands over George’s. Tucks her pinky under George’s palm.
“Night,” she whispers back, closing her eyes.
They breathe together on beat.
Perfect sync.