Falling

III

A/N: I should feel bad, putting these two in the hospital et al, but at the same time, even I want to see where this goes. I'm horrible. But a good horrible.

Paul got into the car, humming to himself a part of a song that had been in his head for weeks. He was probably going to hear that same song live later that day and act like a total idiot when the band starts to play it.

"And I say please don't take your time, 'cause I just really wanna call and show you love, show you love now," George sang, going along with what Paul was humming in perfect sync, picking up where Paul left off. Which wasn't hard, since he listened to it every waking moment without fail.

Paul smirked, bobbing his head to the drumming that was going on in his head that was in the song. Finally, he opened up his mouth to sing, "And I say please don't change your mind,
'cause I just really wanna call and show you love, show you love now."

"You can show me love right now," George suggested, wiggling his eyebrows at Paul and smiling without a care in the world.

Not wanting to be a bad boyfriend, he brought George in for a tight hug from behind. His head rested ever so lightly on the younger's right shoulder and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. The giant blush that was left behind on the skin his lips had touched let him knew that he certainly got the job done.

"You're making it so tempting to stay at home," Paul whispered into George's ear. "But, we've got a big concert to get to. Last moment of freedom we'll have before finals. Plus, the tickets were expensive."

"So we're going no matter what?"

"Wanted to make it seem like you have a say in this, or is Georgie too smart for me now?"

"Always was, always will be. Just wanted you to feel like you have a few working neurones up there."

Paul moved back, snickering at what George said. He was slowly losing his cool as his shoulders continued to shake, which then intensified to near body shaking laughter, head thrown back, eyes closed kind of laughter.

"Thanks for the confidence booster."

●

Paul jolted awake, breath heavy from what he just woke up from. He closed his eyes as he did in the drug-induced dream, trying to calm himself down. All he could see behind dark eyelids was Georgie, still smiling at him, suspended in a time where hurt, harm or danger came near him.

It was obvious at that point that closing his eyes wasn't going to help.

He opened his eyes to see Buddy leaning against the door, just staring at him with all kinds of emotions Paul couldn't properly identify swirling around in his eyes. For that short minute, they didn't say anything, not quite ready to say anything that could ruin the peace that was so hard to come by in the last couple of hours.

Buddy pushed himself off of the doorway, eyes just as unreadable the closer he got to Paul as they were far away.

"You seem calm," Buddy said as he sat in the small chair by the bed. It took Paul a moment to try to figure out how to properly look at him without bothering his stitches and gave up in the end. A small frown flitted on his face, finally giving the elder one noticeable emotion. "They have a remote for that. To move the bed up and down and all that. You shouldn't use it right now, though."

Still, he leant over to the small table next to them that had said remote on it and placed it in Paul's hand. There was no move to close his hand around the remote or even to say a quick thank you, not even a look over to his friend just to acknowledge that he was there.