In the Year of the Cat (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

34. A Sobering Experience

Thankfully, the rest of our troupe, namely Elton, Paul, and John Holmes, had only just begun to scour their side of the Park, so we found them relatively soon.  And I do mean, relatively.  Manhattan traffic had reached a nauseating level by this point in the evening; had half of us walked and the other half ridden to Central Park's north side, the riders would only have beaten the walkers by maybe ten minutes. 

But there they were, just the same, clustered together on the forked path, in a heated argument about which direction they ought to go first.  Well, Elton, ever the cool cucumber, was generally just standing back and watching; John and Paul were the ones really going at it.  When they saw Freddie and me, their gripes turned to chuckles, as we were apparently quite windblown.  "Street urchins," I think someone called us.  ("Stray cats, he means," I mouthed to Freddie.)

Elton in those days wasn't all that unique in his physical appearance, and to the average Joe was only as recognizable as his costumes.  As we came closer I saw he had removed his cap and all-important glasses ("That was a f---ing stupid thing to do," he remarked later, "I couldn't bloody see the tip of my own nose, let alone you two runaways!"), so that he came off as just some random guy who needed to see a barber some time in the next week. 

The price of fame, I said to myself.  They almost have to have secret identities just to be able to walk down the street without being whispered about or stared at.  I couldn't live like that for money.

"For God's sake, Fred, do you want the world to know we're here or not?" Elton chided. "We were two steps away from calling the coppers."

"This chap here was about to absolutely flip, weren't you, Paul?" John laughed.

 Paul said nothing, but he didn't have to; the look in his eyes when they landed on me suggested he now would prefer to kill me much more slowly and painfully then with a simple, quick gunshot into the cranium.  I just smiled.

Nice.  Paul's upset.  I don't care.  Burn, baby, burn. I don't mind screwing things up for ol' Pudding Face. It's Mary I worry about.  Oh, what would she think, Freddie kissing me like that?  I know they're not "together" anymore, but still... And David Minsy -I mean, Minns.  What would he- oh, goodness...

Nobody appeared to be excessively annoyed that Freddie and I made them wait; they'd enjoyed a fantastic meal, and their faces were rosy and jovial with excellent wine. Only Paul Prenter looked like he felt violently cheated.

"We're nearly an hour overdue," Rudy reminded us all.  That was our cue to head back and start piling into the Cadillac limousine.  So we miscreants did that very thing.  You would think a group as large as ours would draw attention, but the music festival itself had siphoned a majority of Central Park's visitors.  We were safe.

"So much for a day trip," Freddie said to me.  "We'll have to get hotel rooms when we get to Vegas.  I'm whacked."

"This sure would have been easier if we just waited," I hummed.

Freddie folded his arms.  "Do you wish we had?"

I shook my head. 

"Well, then, there you are."

"But I'm just saying, we probably could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we stuck aroun-"

"Oh, would you huuuush." Freddie covered my mouth and began pushing me toward the front seat when he stopped.  "Wait, no.  There's no reason you should be so far away."

"But there's no room back there!"  The rest of the fellows had staked out their seats by this point.

"Look!"  Freddie slid in next to Elton, then patted his thigh.  "See?  Lots of room.  Come on!  Don't keep us waiting."  He waved his hand.