He Makes Me (Queen AU)

Chapter 16

"Oh, don't act surprised," Tim scoffed, tossing the shirt he'd been playing with to the side. "You already asked me how many people I've done this to, and I told you you're my best one yet." He shortened the distance between him and the blonde and raked his fingers through the wig secured atop his head. "You knew there were others."

"Yeah, but I didn't know they were still here," Roger murmured, turning his head away from the bassist and making him retract his hands.

The brunette chuckled. "Of course they're still here. Where else would they be?"

The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, guiding Roger's thoughts to a place that twisted his stomach in knots. It had become increasingly clear that, when Tim said that he wasn't going home, it wasn't because he wasn't finished being made over, it was because he wasn't finished with him. Now, Roger didn't think he ever would be. After all, Tim did say this was only the beginning.

"Come on, tell me. Humor me," Tim urged, tucking his finger underneath the blonde's chin and bringing his head back towards him. "Where else would they be?"

"I-I don't know," Roger stammered.

"Exactly." The brunette grinned, the smile faltering as he swiped his thumb across the drummer's pale cheek. He slowly dropped his hand back to his side and tucked it inside his pants pocket, along with the other one. "It's pretty late," he sighed, glancing over at the boarded-up window. "What do you say we call it?"

"And do what?" the blonde dared to ask, clueless as to what followed the makeover in his friend's so-called project.

"Wait for tomorrow," Tim answered curtly, shrugging his shoulders. "We're done for today."

He slipped his hands out from his pockets and reached behind the blonde who instinctively tensed up, watching over his shoulder as the brunette threw the assorted makeup back into the caddy and swept the hairbrush and extra hair clasps into the drawer he'd pulled them from. The loud slam of the drawer startled the drummer—the bassist neglecting to offer an apology as he grabbed the naked mannequin's head and put it back in its place, stepping down the wobbly footstool and wiping the dust off on his pants. Crossing the room, he stopped in the threshold, clutched the doorframe, and looked back at Roger—the blonde still situated in the vanity's chair.

"What, are you just going to sit there all night?" He tipped his head toward the hallway, inviting him over. "Let's go."

Roger swallowed the lump that formed in his swollen throat and lifted himself up out of the chair with a tinge of difficulty—his limbs still heavy. He reluctantly joined Tim's side and followed him out into the hall, trailing behind him to the next floor down. To his right was a lift, an old one with a retractable gate stuck halfway and a flickering ceiling light, and to his left, down the hallway cast in shadows, thanks to the window at the end of it that had been blocked off with a sheet of plywood like every other window in the building, were four doors—two on each wall, identified by a number 1 through 4 and followed by the letter C. One of the rooms seemed to be missing its C, though, and another had its number written on a piece of paper that once might have been attached to it by a piece of tape or tack but since had fallen to the ground and now lay depressingly at its doorstep.

Abandoning the blonde's side, Tim approached the door closest to the covered window and disappeared into the dark atmosphere that played on Roger's fears, luring him in with a false sense of security he believed staying with the bassist would provide him.

The blonde stumbled blindly into the room after the brunette, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness brought about by the lamp perched atop one of the two nightstands positioned at the head of the bed big enough for two. Across from the foot of the bed sat a dresser, and on that, a television.

With the bed separating them, Tim pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the side before undoing his belt. The metal buckle clinked against the floor as he dropped his pants and stepped out of them, kicking them to the side and pulling back the sheets that appeared relatively clean, though worn. His tired eyes drifted up to meet Roger's—the pair of baby blues wandering over from the corner of the room where a larger-than-normal sized doll sat with her short legs extended outward and her arms hanging limply by her sides.

Tension filled the room as the two exchanged silent stares, Tim forfeiting the unspoken contest by grabbing the remote from the nightstand and turning on the telly. An old movie appeared on the screen, one that neither of the men were familiar with but was suitable enough for background noise.

Setting the remote back down on the nightstand in its original place—a dusty outline marking it—Tim slipped under the covers and made himself comfortable, the dirty, brass bed frame creaking horribly beneath him.

Roger stood still as he contemplated escape. With the brunette lying on his side—his back to the blonde—it would be easy. He'd just have to be quiet, take light steps, and move slowly. However, before Roger could even lift his foot off the ground, Tim muttered, while still facing away from him, "Don't even think about it, Rog."

"What? I wasn't thinking about anything," the drummer lied, the bassist humming at his defensive response.

"Sure you weren't," he grumbled.

Defeated before even given the chance, Roger heaved a sigh and trudged towards the bed, taking a seat on its edge and hanging his head. He surveyed the room with a slouched back and hands clasped together in front of him—his posture in stark contrast to his newly feminine appearance. It was hard not to notice all the cracks in the paint and the cobwebs strung along the baseboards and crown moulding.

What stuck out the most to Roger, though, was the doll in the corner. She looked so real, almost too real, like a little girl of no more than five or four years who had wandered into this terrible place and got lost years ago.

She wore a yellow-and white polka-dotted dress, dirtied with age, and her skin was blue and pale, though the blonde suspected that might've been due to the shadows surrounding her, and not because she was once alive and now dead. Her dark, smooth, shiny hair was pulled into short pigtails by soft pink ribbons, and her brown eyes appeared glasslike, glistening in the glow of the television beneath the straight bangs sitting across her slumped forehead.

The longer Roger stared at her, the more he realized how closely she resembled the young girl who went missing when he was a child. He remembered the ordeal because the poor girl's parents had taken to the news in search of her, hoping that someone, anyone would know where she'd gone or at least share where they'd last seen her, and the blonde vividly recalled his mother snickering from the opposite end of the couch about how she would never let something happen like that to her own children.

If only she'd known her son would wind up in the same place years later.