He Makes Me (Queen AU)

Chapter 3

Roger stared at the two vices in his hand, wondering if the alcohol or the nicotine would sooner drown out the thoughts that swirled inside his head. He hated to admit how much he'd fallen for the Physics student, caring for him like he cared for no other person in his life—not even his girlfriend, Jo, or his own mother. The last two weeks had been absolute torture for the blonde, mostly because the last time they saw each other, Brian left no signs that he'd disappear for the next fourteen days or had any inclination to do so.

The two lay in the curly-haired guitarist's bed, bare bodies draped in wrinkled sheets. Roger's head rested on Brian's smooth stomach—the latter's long fingers gently raking through the blonde's disheveled locks. Though the windows were fogged and the cold of winter waited just outside, the room was warm and their bodies were speckled with beads of sweat.

"I think we should tell Tim about us," Brian blurted out, disrupting the comfortable silence the two of them shared.

Roger tilted his head back, brows furrowed. "Why?"

The guitarist shrugged, taking a single piece of the blonde's hair and twisting it between his forefinger and his middle. "It's only fair." Brian stole a quick glance down at his lover and knew by the stoic expression on his face that he wasn't convinced. "I mean, we're in a band together."

"Yeah, and what does that have to do with us?" the blonde snapped, flipping over so that his stomach rested on the mattress and his folded arms held him up.

Brian sighed, pushing himself up with a slight grunt and sitting with his back against the cold wall. "Wouldn't you want to know if Tim and I were together?"

"We're not together, Brian," Roger reminded him, a harshness to his voice that protected him from the vulnerability that came with the truth—that he wished they were, even though it was wrong. "We're just messing around, having fun, right? So, there's no need for Tim—"

"He saw us, Rog," the guitarist cut him short, draining all the color from the blonde's face. "In the library. A few weeks ago. You...We were kissing, and I saw him through the bookstacks."

"Shit," the drummer murmured under his breath, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and dropping his head into his hands.

Brian frowned and moved to sit beside Roger, holding onto the edge of the mattress and looking down at their feet that dangled by the piles their discarded clothes had made. In that same moment, the silence he'd broken had returned with a vengeance, ripping away the warmth that previously surrounded them and replacing it with a bitter chill.

The guitarist knew that part of what made his and the drummer's arrangement so exciting was the secret of it all, but after catching a glimpse of Tim in that library, an unexplainable guilt began to eat away at him. Every time he and Roger would sneak off, yank at each other's clothes, and do to one another what they should be doing to their girlfriends, he couldn't escape those eyes, those narrow, peering, resentful eyes.

Unaware of the brunette's feelings, Brian didn't know why Tim looked at them the way he did, or why he stayed and watched them, growing more and more upset. Moreover, he didn't understand why Tim had yet to bring it up. Was he waiting for the right moment? Hoping to catch them in act again? Either way, the guitarist couldn't take it anymore. He needed to come clean; he needed to make things right.

"We can do it together," the guitarist suggested softly, once again interrupting the quiet that consumed them both. He glanced at Roger, seeing that—out of the corner of his eye—he'd met his gaze. The corner of his lip pricked up, and he placed a hand on the blonde's knee, giving it a slight, reassuring squeeze. "It's only fair," he repeated, dragging his hand up Roger's thigh and, in turn, bringing their faces closer together as the blonde turned his head. Brian's smirk stretched into a smile, and as his hand trailed back down towards the drummer's knee, he closed his eyes and leaned in for a kiss—except, their lips didn't meet.

"How about you do it alone and let me know how it goes?" Roger murmured, sitting back and grinning at the disappointed yet amused expression that crossed the older, curly-haired man's face. "Maybe then you'll get a kiss," he tacked on, tapping the guitarist on the nose and slipping away towards the door. "Possibly more, if it goes well."

"Less, if it doesn't?"

"Depends."

"You really want to do it this way?" Brian asked, turning the bare-assed blonde around in the doorway—his hands gripping the threshold.

"Well, yeah, you've known him longer than I do," he rationalized, dropping his head to the side. "Don't you think he'd rather hear it from an old friend than the guy he just met a year ago?"

The guitarist kept quiet, biting back the argument that danced at the tip of his tongue. He knew he was helpless against those baby blues boring into his hazel ones, begging him to come on over and make him late for his next class, so he conceded, hanging his head and replying, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I'm always right," Roger quipped, winking at the guitarist who smiled back and playfully tossed a pillow at him.

That was the last exchange the two of them had before they went their separate ways, seemingly never to talk to or see one another again, and Roger couldn't stop thinking about it. It was the first thing on his mind when he woke up, and the last thing on his mind before he went to sleep. It was the only thing he could think about during his lectures, and while Jo planted kisses across his cheeks and neck, running her hands down his chest and over his waist. He just couldn't figure out what he said or did to push Brian away.