He Makes Me (Queen AU)

Chapter 22

Important changes to last few chapters (because I rushed getting them published, wasn't satisfied with what I wrote, and don't want to make you re-read them all if you read the chapters before I edited them):

INSTEAD OF: From what he'd witnessed so far, Tim dressed men up like women and took pictures of them to put on that cursed wall, but then what? / Roger doubted that he paid them a few pounds and sent them on their way. If he did, there would be no "others" still lurking about, and he wouldn't have bumped into John. The question was, then, what did he keep them around for? And why were they so complacent in all of this? Had they been waiting around for some sort of reward they were promised? Was there any light at the end of this dark tunnel?

IT'S NOW: From what he'd witnessed so far, it seemed like Tim dressed up men like women to take pictures of them to put on that cursed wall, but then what? He kept them around as company? Drugged them when they wanted to leave? Threatened them into staying by playing nice? What was it all for?

And...

INSTEAD OF: He glanced over at the stairwell, his last chance to escape only a few short strides away, but he discovered his feet glued to the floor. He couldn't leave, realizing that he had to stay. Not for Tim's sake, and not for his own, but for Brian's. He had to figure out what happened to him; what Tim had done to him. He had to find him.

IT'S NOW: The blonde glanced over at the stairwell, his last chance to escape only a few short strides away, but he found his feet glued to the floor, coming to the sudden realization that this wasn't only his home or life now, but John's, Brian's, and any of the other people that Tim lured in with a false sense of security. It wasn't even security the brunette offered, but fear and manipulation, and Roger knew that if there was any way of getting out of here, it wasn't going to be done alone. / He'd need all the help he could get.

Now that that's taken care of, I present to you, Chapter 22...

The blonde's eyes fluttered open, the room he awoke in lying on its side. With blurry vision—the glasses he desperately needed but refused to wear long-forgotten—he focused on the television across from him, squinting his eyes to try and clear up the images flashing across the screen. For a second, he thought he was back in Jo's living room, and that the horror he experienced the night prior was just a terrible dream; that, really, he'd gotten so plastered while watching the Coronation Street marathon that he claimed the couch for the night and was completely unstirred by his girlfriend's attempt to wake him and have him join her in bed after returning home from her class.

However, the ignorant bliss he enveloped himself in was short lived, because when he turned over on his back, he noticed a pair of feet inches away from his face. Beyond them, the brunette sat at the head of the bed with one leg crossed over the other, sewing a near invisible string of thread through a white piece of fabric that looked to be the size of a waist apron—which it was. He'd gotten himself dressed, throwing on a pair of worn-out jeans and an old jumper littered with small rips and tears—the biggest being on his shoulder, where the sleeve had been separated from the rest of the shirt, as if someone had yanked on his arm and pulled the jumper with it.

He almost looked normal.

It didn't take long for Tim to pick up on the newly acquired attention, meeting and holding Roger's discouraged gaze without losing a single beat in his stitchwork.

"'Morning," the brunette grumbled, his lips drawn into a straight line.

"'Morning," the blonde echoed hoarsely.

"Your shirt's over there," Tim announced, tipping his head towards the far side of the room. Suspended from a wire hanger, the button-down the blonde had shed last night hung from the boarded-up window, scrubbed of the blood that stained it and expunged of the snags that tarnished the sleeves.