Faking It • Queen FanFiction

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 24

꧁ 𝐴𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟'𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒. ꧂
𝐻𝑖 𝑎𝑙𝑙, ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝑟! 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 is 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟. 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑎 𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑁𝑌𝐵𝑂𝐷𝑌 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒, 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡. 𝐴𝑛𝑦𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠, 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑑𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 - 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟! :)

"How was college?" Roger asked the road, but aimed at Bernie. He expertly weaved in and out of the rush hour London traffic in his zippy car, heading in the direction of her dingy block of flats. Even the outside looked dull, sombre and grey: it definitely didn't let off an air of welcome, the steely concrete slabs were industrial and slightly weathered.

"Yeah, not bad. Bit crap that my return from breaking my bones is spent on the field." Bernie rubbed her sore, tired basil green eyes and suppressed a yawn. Roger made a thin lipped smile of sympathy and patted her leg tenderly, being careful not to touch her sore knee. She didn't push him away.

"It'll get better." Was all he said, stealing a sideways glance at her withering face. With a nod of her head, Bernie looked down at Roger's hand that was sat between her thigh and her knee. All of a sudden, like glue touching paper, Bernie had the irresistible urge to take his hand and guide it further up her leg. She stared intently and contemplated whether or not that'd be a good idea. And also why did she want Roger to be as intimate with her as he often tried to be, all of a sudden?

Almost reaching out, her mind was frozen in its tracks as she remembered what was safely nestling in the breast pocket of Roger's jacket. The number of a random girl who he likely didn't even know the name of and would probably remember as nothing but a good shag in the future. Bernie's brain snapped back to reality and she silently judged herself for her ludicrous desire.

"Here you go, cada de Bernie," Roger rolled up outside the block of flats.

"What?" She gave him a confused look, eyebrows furrowed.

"Cada de Bernie."

"Do you mean casa, Roger?"

"What?"

"Well you said cada de Bernie, but cada doesn't mean house in Spanish. Casa is house." She corrected him wisely and she couldn't help but see the impressed raise of his light eyebrows.

"Sorry, didn't know you were entering the linguistic police force," he laughed cheekily and offered her a hand to reach her flat.

"Oh shut up, Taylor. And I should be fine from here, it's only a short walk and there's a lift. Thank you for the lift, you're a lifesaver," clambering out of the car, she shoved her backpack onto her back and leaned on the open-window frame of the passenger door. Leaning over too, Roger came closer to say goodbye.

As she walked away slowly but confidently, she didn't hear the rev of Roger's car pulling away. In fact, when she peered over her shoulder once she reached the main door, she saw him waiting there patiently, watching her. Waiting to know that she had gotten in safely. Despite being an amorous bugger, Bernie had to hand it to him, he certainly knew how to be a gentleman. Perhaps that was what her episode in the car was all about, he was nice to her and had an even better penetrating blue stare, which surmounted to attractiveness. But Bernie knew deep down that eyes and a few kind gestures here and there didn't mean he was a nice person. It only took one glance at his next destination plan to twig that.

Limping ever so slightly slowed Bernie's walking speed down significantly and there was nothing she could do to quicken her pace as she passed Holden's front door. Subsequently, she heard the door click open and his square figure emerge from his flat. "Good evening, princess," he smiled thickly, almost slurring each word. The rich smell of alcohol coming from him permeated through the air and hit Bernie's nostrils suddenly, almost causing her to choke on the intoxicating odour.

"Holden, you're drunk," she tried to push past him, but his hand met her shoulder and pushed her back sharply, so she was stuck between the top of the stairs and his front door. "Get inside and let me past, please." The sternness in her voice was no reflection whatsoever of how confident she felt and suddenly she envied Roger, who was driving away, away, away.

"I may be drunk, but that doesn't stop you from looking beautiful, my precious princess." Holden wobbled precariously on the balls of his feet, so much so that he looked in danger of coming careering over. Heaving a loud, fed up sigh, Bernie put her hand to her head, but didn't close her eyes to ward off an oncoming headache. Drunk or sober, closing her eyes for a second in front of Holden was suicidal. "C'mon, show me a good time," holding his arms out loosely, his attempt to drunkenly coax Bernie into his house was met with her feet being firmly bolted to the floor. Anybody else and she'd be flooring them, but this was Holden and this was different. The difference was that she was scared of Holden.

"No. Now let me past, you drunk bastard." It was very rarely that Bernie had ever seen Holden drunk, but he'd gotten intoxicated enough times in their time of knowing each other for her to know that his memory was wiped entirely the next morning, like somebody had erased his previous thought processes using a human-size rubber.

"Don't talk to me like that, you fat whore." Bernie was extremely taken aback, so much so that tears sprung to her eyes, mainly at the shock of his audacity, even he wasn't sober. He took large, imbalanced steps towards her, causing her to go backwards in turn. Fear raked through to her very fingertips and her blood ran cold.

"Bernie? You out here?" A voice. A female voice. Flo's voice! She was home and had heard the commotion, and now was coming to her sister's refuge! Dams of relief broke entirely as Bernie swung her fist in the vague direction of Holden's face. It definitely came in contact, but what with she'd never know as she used all the energy left in her body to propel her body forwards into her flat, into the arms of her sister, where Bernie collapsed entirely. "Oh, Bernie. Are you alright? All I heard was the projection of the word 'whore'." Flo stroked her sister's hair and sat her down on the sofa with the blanket from the back of it.

"That was fucking terrifying." Bernie mustered, pulling the soft blanket up to her neck and snuggling into it whilst her sister's arms were around her. Not even bothering to take her restricting uniform off for a little while as yet, she brought her legs up to her chest and sat watching whatever was in the television for the rest of the evening. So much pain. The physical pain of her knee throbbing at today's exertion, which had possibly been too much. The emotional pain of Holden's drunken abuse, which she knew she shouldn't have let get to her, but she couldn't help it; old feelings resurfaced. But not good feelings. And there was another type of pain, one that evoked confusion and frustration. Roger was off with some random woman, but why? Why couldn't he stick by one and be devoted to her? Even though Bernie didn't know it, that form of pain was one of jealousy.

"We've got to move." Flo announced at dinner and Bernie threw her arms up in support. Time with her beloved sister had perked her up a lot and by bedtime her head was significantly clearer than it was when she entered through the door. Clear enough to sleep, anyway.

27/11/22