He Makes Me (Queen AU)

Chapter 40

"John, it's too tight!" Neil cried as the older of the two teenagers tried to secure the newly tailored apron around his waist—the old one draped over the back of one of the chairs at the card table in the basement's recreation room. "I can't breathe!"

"Neil, I don't know what to tell you!" he replied, tugging at the neat, little bow he'd made with the thin strings. "It won't tie otherwise!"

The sixteen-year-old groaned in pain. "I think you broke a rib."

"I did not break a rib," John sneered, turning the youngest of the group around to examine his work. He heaved a sigh, Neil squirming uncomfortably under the new apron. "You probably just have to grow into it."

Neil scoffed. "Yeah, grow into it." He dragged himself over to the opposite side of the room where he paced back and forth, afraid that if he sat down, he'd rip the apron in half.

Meanwhile, John plopped himself down at the table and snatched up the old apron to play with. He toyed with the fraying fabric, relaxing into the soothing rhythm of Neil's footsteps that mirrored the ticking of the clock on the wall.

Having been here as long as he had, times like these were some of the nineteen-year-old's favorites. It was that time of day when Tim was too in his own head to show interest in them, allowing them to retreat to this room and take a break from the torture and torment that awaited them as soon as the brunette came to. A lot of the others didn't appreciate it as much as John did, but that's because they often didn't stick around long enough to.

John had learned early on what it took to survive in this madhouse, and while he tried to share this knowledge with every new project, they were usually too determined and stubborn to listen to him, believing that they could figure out what the ones before them couldn't. Roger was one of those people.

The nineteen-year-old saw it in the dispirited blonde's eyes as he dragged himself over the threshold separating the recreation room and the hallway and to the farthest corner of the room. His arrival had even piqued Neil's curiosity, the two teenagers watching as he slid down the wall and let his legs sprawl out in front of him, his hands resting in his lap. He curled his fingers into his palms, still feeling the sticky blood that covered them even though they'd been scrubbed clean.

"So, did you talk to him?" John asked, balling up the tattered apron and setting it down on the table.

"Yeah, I talked to him," Roger answered, his bleak response hard to comprehend as he stared at his feet—his frozen toes numb and his blistering heels damp.

"And?" the older of the two teenagers urged, the younger's attention bouncing between the two. Having been absent from the initial conversation, he was left to piece together the story himself.

"And what?" the blonde grumbled, his emotionless eyes trailing up to meet John's grayish green ones.

The nineteen-year-old sighed, throwing out a frustrated hand. "How did it go?"

"Terribly." Roger drew his trembling knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins, recalling vividly the way the curve of the shovel's blade imprinted on the poor, dark-haired man's face; the way his blood spread out from underneath his head and drowned his battered nose, concaved mouth, and flattened eyes; and the way Tim kept hitting him until there was nothing left to hit—his target turned to mush. "He killed him."

John raised a suspicious brow. "Killed who?"

"Freddie."

"Freddie?" Neil gasped, John breaking out in a stifled laugh.

"You don't believe me?" the blonde snapped, narrowing his eyes at the nineteen-year-old.

The youngest of the teenagers looked to the oldest, anticipating his response as much as the drummer. His pressured gaze flickered between the two before he stammered, "I...I mean, it's not impossible, but...Freddie was his right-hand man, Roger. He wouldn't just kill him out of the blue."

"It wasn't out of the blue," he explained, stretching his legs out and crossing his arms over his chest. "He was trying to leave. Tim didn't want him to. Freddie didn't care and wanted to leave anyways, so he did, and Tim killed him before he could get away. I saw it with my own eyes. Everything."

"Well, shit," John whispered, running a hand through his natural hair.

Neil, who had slowly wandered over to the card table and attempted to sit down before remembering that it wouldn't be in his best interest, leaned against it instead and mumbled, "Come to think of it, Gordon didn't like it either when you left without him telling you to. He didn't kill anyone over it, though."

The nineteen-year-old rolled his eyes so hard that if he rolled them any harder, they'd have fallen out of their sockets. "Enough about Gordon, Neil," he groaned. "We fucking get it. He was so great," he waved his hands, sarcasm dripping from his flat voice. "Everybody loved him; he's going to come and save us." He slapped his hands against the card table, causing both the sixteen- and twenty-one-year-old to flinch. "He's not coming, Neil. For the thousandth time, no one's coming for us."

"You know, just because you've given up, John, doesn't mean the rest of us have to too," he spat, pushing himself away from the table and storming out of the room. If there'd been a door on the bare hinges, Roger was sure he would've slammed it.

The remaining teenager shook his head, clasping his hands together and muttering, "He'll be back. He's just upset because his apron's too tight." He twiddled his thumbs anxiously, as if he wasn't convinced himself.

Roger, the hair on his arms standing at the electric tension in the air, tipped his head down and cleared his throat. "I noticed Brian's not here."

"I took him to one of the spare bedrooms," the nineteen-year-old revealed, sitting back in the rickety chair that creaked as it moved with him. "He should be asleep by now. He was pretty tired after today."

"Aren't we all," the blonde agreed, dropping his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. The sound of the shovel gorging out Freddie's face echoed in his ears, accompanied by Tim's labored grunts and the crunch of snow beneath his boots as he traipsed back to the blonde's side, ordering him to dismantle the evidence. He slowly opened his eyes and glanced back over at John, blurting out, "Who do you think he's going to make his right-hand man now?"

"Tim?" The teenager shrugged his shoulders. "'Don't know. He didn't have one before Freddie. It was just him and his dad."

Roger's brows knit together. "The one who died?"

"No, the other one," John deadpanned, earning a small smirk from the blonde and letting the corner of his lips curl too. The lighthearted moment was short-lived, though, a seriousness washing over the nineteen-year-old before he revealed, "It's hard to believe, but Tim's dad was way worse than Tim is. You so much as looked at him the wrong way, and he'd punish you right then and there. It didn't matter if there were people around or not. He was going to put you back in your place if it was the last thing he did. Sometimes I think he'd do it just for fun. He got off on it."