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Brian hadn’t felt this sick in years.
He should have listened. He knew he should have listened to you as soon as he stepped onto that stage and felt the uneasiness coming off of you in waves. You’d barely made eye contact with him during the show like you usually did, and he was starting to miss it, as your attention was focused on something else.
He knew what you were looking at; a small structure of temporary scaffolding to the right of you, supporting the lighting rig for that half of the stage. You’d come to him earlier that day, after tech had finished setting up the stage, as a bundle of nerves - babbling about how the rig didn’t seem quite right, and how you were certain that the whole thing had been put up by interns who had never set up concert tech before. And he’d brushed you off.
Not for the first time in his life, Brian May wished that he could change the past.
He’d known something was wrong the minute they’d started playing. The stage felt incredibly wrong, and every note from your bass shook the ground beneath his feet - not even slightly in a good way; it was too clumsy, too rough. They’d scraped it through most of the night, though, but as soon as the opening piano trills of ‘We Are The Champions’ came through the speakers, his heart had dropped to his stomach. Something was off, but what?
He’s ashamed to say that he notices the panicked murmurs rippling through the audience before he notices you stumble towards the middle of the stage, knocking your mic to the floor and making the speakers pop and ring with a high-pitched wail of feedback. The vocals falter a little, and Roger - on time as ever - merely begins to hit the drums with more force, as if he were unable to do anything else.
Brian looks over, and sees that the scaffolding rig is at a worrying angle, jutting out over the stage. And then he processes that it’s falling.
He doesn’t understand how you’re still playing; rooted to the spot with fear, and yet your fingers are flickering along the frets like nothing is wrong. His blood runs cold as the rig falls ever closer, and you’re still not moving-
“Y/N, move!” A distant voice he vaguely recognises as his own shouts, hoarse over the music, and you look up, snapped out of your reverie by the use of your name - your real name. And yet you stand still, shoulders tense, like a deer in the headlights as the scaffolding eclipses the stage lights overhead.
The guitar rattling through the speakers stops, and the audience gasps, as he feels himself surge forward, grabbing you by the back of the collar and yanking you towards himself. You stumble back into his chest, clutching your bass to your torso, and still plucking away at the strings. The rig hits the floor with a crash, and he feels a scream tear through your frame, pulling your bass closer to your body and curling yourself around it - as if to protect it.
You whirl around to face him, your eyes wide and terrified with what he can only describe as raw, animalistic panic, as you stare up at him. What you say next is something that he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand.
“Keep playing!” Is what you’d yelled to him over the audience’s shouts of alarm and the thrumming of your own bass, steadfast as it always was. Roger seems to pick up on the message, turning his attention back to his drums, so Brian follows suit; taking a moment to twist the sixpence he used as a pick between his callused fingers and assess where they were up to in the song. The singer launches into the last verse, aiming to bring the show to an earlier close, and the rest of the band follow suit, jumping to play the appropriate parts.
‘Keep playing’. You’d just nearly been crushed by a piece of scaffolding and you’d wanted them to keep playing. Brian was starting to think that you’d rather die than inconvenience anyone - and here you were, nearly proving him right.
Alive or not; when he caught a glimpse of red in the corner of his vision, he was suddenly flooded with panic, relying on sheer muscle memory alone to play the rest of the song.
Red. Red means blood. There shouldn’t be blood.
There was blood on your arm, an awful-looking gash ripped into the side of it, and looking down at the fallen rig provided an explanation through the sight of a jagged, exposed edge, stained in the same red colour that was now dripping down your bass and elbows in rivulets. You were still playing, whirling around on the spot so the audience couldn’t see the slowly blossoming crimson stains on your shirt, your fingers becoming slippery with the substance and losing their grip on the strings - you nearly brought them up to your mouth to lick them and get a better grip, but immediately decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Brian could see your face twisted into a pained grimace, and glanced up at Roger, who was practically stood up behind his kit, looking increasingly worried.
The song ends, and the singer tries to close up the show in the most appropriate manner they can muster. You’re already stumbling about, ripping off your bass and thrusting it into the hands of a techie who comes sprinting onstage to take it from you. Brian hands off the Red Special, and Roger hurries down from his drum risers to guide you towards Brian’s side of the stage, where you’re herded into the wings.
“B? Are you okay?” He’s asking, and you’re visibly distressed and disoriented, opening and closing your mouth without any actual words coming out. You blanch, and then your knees buckle as you stagger towards a bin, retching into it. Several crew members reach out to steady you, but Brian and Roger get there first, pulling you up by the elbows. “Y/N? You alright?”
Roger is shouting at everyone within a ten-mile radius to ‘phone an ambulance, for fuck’s sake!’ and you flinch at the sound of it, leaning into Brian as the world lurches around you. Finally, you speak, your voice small and lost in the hubbub around you.
“I’m okay.” You mumble, and Brian takes your face in his hands, looking into your eyes, which are glazed and unfocused with panic.
“There’s one on its way!” Roger calls, over the commotion, and Brian turns to nod at him, before brushing strands of wayward hair out of your face with the lightest touch he possibly can.
“Are you sure?” He asks, and your face crumples, though it seems as if you’re too tired to cry, swaying on your feet as the hands supporting you gradually pull away. He sees you hesitate, before looking down at your own bloody arm, your expression immediately contorting into a dazed grimace.
“Can you catch me, please?” You whimper, and Brian barely hears you before your eyes roll back in your head and your body goes limp. You fall, and he scrambles to catch you, your head hitting the wall with a dull thump, and he pulls your slack form into his chest to protect you from further harm. Somehow, he manages to manoeuvre you to the floor, and Roger is rushing back over with a balled-up tour t-shirt in his hand, kneeling beside you and pressing the fabric into the wound to stifle the bleeding.
“Roger.“ His voice calls, although he’s not quite sure what he’s going to say after that. He can feel his heart hammering at the top of his throat, and swallows thickly, noticing that Roger’s own hands are trembling where he’s pushing the fabric onto your arm. His bandmate simply looks up at him, eyes wide, and says nothing.
And, for you, it’s dark.
-
The first thing you hear is ambulance sirens.
Honestly? Not a good sign. Especially not a good sign if you can’t remember what happened before you fell asleep. You don’t quite remember falling asleep either, now that you think about it.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” There’s a voice now, distant and muffled - like you’re underwater - followed by far-away muttering that you can’t quite decipher.
“Have they ever mentioned anything about allergies to painkillers?”
“I don’t know-“
You feel like you’re submerged in honey, weighed down and listless, and you involuntarily gasp for breath, gagging on the hot, thick air of the room. Suddenly there’s a light being beamed into your eyeballs, and you recoil, batting your hands about your face to try and swat it away, only for a sharp pain to shoot up your arm and rip a wounded cry from your throat.
Almost instantly, there’s the panicked rustling of coats and jackets surging towards you, only to be pushed away, and quietened down again. Instinctively, you press a hand to your arm to identify the source of the pain, but instead brush against something wet.
Your eyes snap open to see your fingers covered in blood.
And you scream.
“Please, you have to calm down.” The voice says again, but you’re already kicking your legs out, screwing your eyes shut against the sting of the fluorescent overhead lights. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Fuck!” Is all you manage to choke out, barely more than a hoarse, terrified whimper, and then there’s a hand on your leg, which you scramble away from, chest heaving. “Where- Where’s-?”
“Hello? Y/N?”
“Don’t touch me!” You sound awful, your mouth scratchy with panic and dehydration, and there are tears welling in your eyes; a rough, burning, choking sensation racing up your throat - like you’d swallowed a tangle of barbed wire.
Then there’s a new voice, and a sudden calm washes over you, your breath hitching, and the trembling that had been slowly building in your limbs ebbing away. You can’t quite identify it, but you latch onto it, your whole body listening for their every word.
“We’re right here, Y/N.”
It sounds warm, and familiar, and trustworthy - but you’re still so incredibly terrified of what you might see. The image of red coating your fingers, hot and slippery, flashes through your mind and you flinch, bowing your head and raking your hand through your hair, pushing it back against your scalp. The voice speaks again, concerned and shaky.
“B?”
“Brian-!” His name comes naturally to you, and your eyes shoot open, seeing him sat across from you in the enclosed room - looking incredibly ashen and pale. Roger is next to him, similarly grave-looking, and you see that they’ve both been stuffed into tiny chairs opposite the stretcher you’re in. When did you get onto a stretcher?
The room jostles, and you’re thrown into the wall with a sob, quickly realising that you must have just driven over a speed bump. You’re in the ambulance.
“How long have they been out?” The voice belongs to a paramedic, with long, blonde hair scraped back into a bun. You instantly don’t like her, your gaze flicking between her and your band-mates, who try to muster smiles to calm you down. It only works a little.
“Out?!” You squeak, your breath coming in uncontrollably short gasps, your heart racing in your chest. The walls seem to be closing in on you, and you feel like a trapped animal; only staying awake by the sheer amount of adrenaline in your system.
“I’m not sure, it was just after we rang.” Brian answers, Roger nodding for confirmation, and the paramedic presses a wadded-up gauze to your arm to try and stop the bleeding - Jesus Christ, that was a lot of blood-
“They- They hit their head on the way down, I don’t know if-.”
“They’re most likely concussed, we-“
“Where are we?” Your voice rises, cracking painfully as you curl around your injured arm, as if you were shielding it. You feel dizzy and your mouth is dry - all cottony and sticky, and you strongly suspect that you’re going to burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Roger and Brian share a worried look that you don’t notice, before shuffling closer towards you. “Roger, where are we, I don’t-“
“We’re on tour in America, remember?”
You take a single, shuddering breath, gripping at the bed railing; though you had to squeeze your eyes shut when you saw the smeared, bloody handprint you left there. “No.”
Brian’s stomach plummets, and Roger turns to him, looking more tired than he has in years. You whimper from the bed, shielding your eyes from the aggressive lighting with your hand, before the paramedic pulls your arm away and back to your side.
“I’m sorry.”
“Wh- No, B, don’t be sorry,” Roger says, and you do nothing more than shaking your head in reply, gritting your teeth.
You feel heavy, like you have your bass strapped to you and it’s weighing you down - pulling you down and down towards the bottom of the ocean, where no one will find you. A stab of panic shoots through you when you realise you don’t actually have your bass with you, and you feel around your shoulders for any hint of the body strap, whining in distress.
“Sammy- Where’s Sammy?” You hear yourself babbling, and the paramedic frowns to herself, pushing you back down onto the bed from where you’d bolted up, your eyes frantically scanning over the ambulance. You almost fight her, before Brian inches even closer to you, still in his shiny stage-coat, the long tails of it bunched up around his hips in his seat. “Brian, where’s Sammy?”
“Who’s Sammy?” He asks, furrowing his eyebrows, and your stomach lurches, throwing your head back against the pathetic excuse for a pillow they’d given you. There’s a dreadful pang of pain in your skull, and you groan, your vision swimming.
“Make it stop, I don’t like it-“ Your bandmates are still managing to shuffle as close as they can to you, without getting told off, and you whine like a wounded animal, pulling your knees to your chest. The paramedic roots through a bag of equipment, eyes narrowed behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Don’t worry about the crazy talk, we just gave them a painkiller for the concussion - we’ll be at the hospital soon so a doctor can stitch them up.” She hums, and you make another pained noise, gritting your teeth as your arm throbs. You wonder for a brief moment if it’ll get infected, and then it’ll have to be cut off, or you’ll die, and you’ll never get to play again- “Just try to keep them calm.”
You’re not calm, you’re nowhere near calm. Your vision has gone blurry, and you cry out, screwing your eyes shut and flinging out your arm to where you think Roger and Brian are. “Where are you?”
No one answers, and your ribcage feels like it’s folding in on itself, your sternum crushing your heart and making every fast, thumping beat painful. You bat your hand around blindly, reaching out into the darkness.
“I’m scared, I don’t-!”
Hurriedly, a hand grabs at yours and squeezes it tightly, anchoring you down to Earth. Brian’s voice comes breaking through the shadows, somewhat lessening the vice of panic crushing your chest.
“I’m here. Deep breaths, B.” He says, and you squeeze his hand back, taking in a gasp of air. “You have to calm down.”
He hears you start to mumble to yourself between each breath that shudders through you, and he strains his ears to understand you. Then, it clicks.
“We Will Rock You. Tie Your Mother Down. Somebody to Love. Fat Bottomed Girls-“
You were reciting their set-list.
He hears you falter, your breathing stuttering; and Brian looks back at Roger, who leans forward in his seat.
“Killer Queen.” He prompts, and you suck in another desperate breath, before continuing.
“Don’t Stop Me Now, Bicycle Race-“ Ah, you were back on track now, finally managing to wrestle your breathing to a normal rhythm, with the odd hiccup here and there. “I’m in Love With My Car, Another One Bites the Dust, I Want It All-“
You get as far as ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ before you start to feel very sleepy, lulled into a trance by the rocking of the ambulance and the steady spinning sensation that had been building within your head for a while. You lean your forehead against the bed railing, letting your eyes slip closed for a moment, before Roger pokes at you.
“B, open your eyes.” He says, but you don’t, instead choosing to tip your head back on the pillow and adopt a sing-song tone to your voice.
“Look up to the skies and see...” You sing weakly, hoping to draw a chuckle, but no one obliges. Roger’s voice comes again, sterner and shakier.
“Jesus, Y/N, stop messing around and stay awake.” He snaps and you frown, ducking your head and taking in a sharp breath, suddenly flooded with the familiar iciness of fear.
“Are you angry?” Your voice mumbles from far away, and Roger’s eyes instantly soften from behind the dark circles that are printed into the skin below his eyes. “You never call me Y/N.”
“...No.” He murmurs softly, reaching out a hand to pat at your leg - the only part of you he could reach, and that he was sure wouldn’t hurt you. “No, I’m not angry at you.”
You’re silent for a while, burying your face into the crevice between the bed and the railing, trying to force yourself to take deeper breaths.
“Tired.” Is all you slur, before your hand slips out of Brian’s, flopping over the precipice of the bed, and he panics, tugging it back into his grip.
“B, you have to stay awake.” Roger’s voice echoes, from what seems like miles away, but you’re already locked away in the dark confines of your aching head, and your limbs feel too heavy to lift. You think about the blood soaking the bandage strapped to your forearm, and the room wrenches violently to the side. It feels like you’re dissolving, slowly, just fading out of existence. Roger doesn’t seem to be going the same way, as his panic picks up, and you can hear it in his voice as someone shakes you by the shoulder. “Y/N, come on! Who Wants to Live Forever, Brian’s solo, The Show Must Go On-“
“You have to do your best to stay awake, yes?” The paramedic is speaking to you, but you’re not paying attention. Words just don’t seem to make sense anymore, and you’re floating through a weird sort of limbo, halfway between sleep and consciousness. “Hello?”
“Radio Ga Ga, Bohemian Rhapsody, Ay-Oh-“
Ay-Oh. You parrot that back to him almost instinctively, your voice cracking. A bolt of yellow flashes through your muddled head, and you cling to it for dear life, flooding your veins with something akin to comfort. Brian stiffens beside Roger, who’s pushing your blood-dried hair out of your face, before being told to sit down by the paramedic.
“Yes! Ay-Oh, We Are the Champions-!“
“‘M sorry.” You mumble, feeling an extra hand grasp onto yours, but you don’t have the energy to squeeze back, your eyes slowly slipping closed. “Just a nap.”
“Stop it! You have to-!”
“Roger, calm down-“
You were too far gone to hear Roger desperately calling your name, sinking into the dark.
-
You wake up on a hospital bed.
That’s the first thing you noticed. You were on the bed, not in it, covered in something incredibly reflective and warm. You were still in your stage gear, though the heavy boots you often favoured were neatly unlaced, and tucked away under the bed.
Brian was there too now, hunched in a chair next to you, looking unusually casual in just a t-shirt. It’s then that you realise that it’s his stage coat that’s been draped over you, tucked carefully under your chin and around your shoulders to protect you from the chill of the room. Almost instinctively, you burrow further into it, breathing in the distinctive scent of faux fog and stage wings, trying to shut out the hammering ache in your head.
Brian stirs from where he was sat, glasses perched on his nose, in the middle of typing out a message on his phone. He smiles at you, and you try your best to return one.
“Glad to see you awake.” He says, his voice hoarse from all of the shouting earlier in the evening, and a very unsuccessful attempt at having a nap. You feel like you’ve been asleep for years, your stomach turning and your lips dry - fortunately, Brian had dimmed the lights as low as they could get, as to not shock you into reality when you woke up. “Twitter is having a meltdown - I’ve been tweeted hundreds of times in the past hour asking about you.”
“What’s happened? I thought we were in an ambulance...” You mumble, rubbing at your eyes and stifling a yawn. There’s hair in your face, and as you push it away, you realise that it’s stiff with blood. Instantly, you’re trying to sit up and scrub it away, but Brian is quick to move to your side, pushing you back down onto the bed.
“Hey, easy with it, okay?” He says, and you swallow thickly, before nodding. There’s a cup of water being handed to you, and you down it, washing the acrid taste out of your mouth. “You don’t remember waking up after that?”
Echoes of memories float into your head, but they’re faded and scrambled, and you feel far too shit to try and decode them. A hand gripped onto yours. The beeping of machines. The piercing sensation of a needle being pulled through your skin. Someone calling your name.
“Bits and pieces.”
“Okay. Well, they patched you up.” Brian points to your arm, which now has a neat line of stitches stretching across it. It wasn’t terribly long, fortunately, but the sight of it still made your stomach sour, and you thrust it back under Brian’s coat - out of sight, out of mind. It didn’t hurt as much anymore, it was just bizarrely numb, and the slight tingle that was sparking along your nerves was certainly a foreign feeling. “How’re you feeling?”
“Mhm.” You murmur noncommittally for an answer, trying to convince yourself that you were fine. Insistent on putting on a brave front, you muster a smile for him, though it’s a little hazy from the sheer amount of painkillers in your system. “Like I’m two steps nearer to my grave.”
Brian chuckles politely, even though you must have made that joke a thousand times since you met him, and rifles a hand through his curls, which are frizzy and sticking out in a million different angles.
“Yeah, you’ve been pumped full of co-codamol or something, so you didn’t feel anything.” He says, twisting the penny he used as a guitar pick between his fingers, letting it fall over his knuckles in a mesmerising loop. “Looks like you’re living the classic ‘sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll’ life, hm?”
“I’ve never had sex!” You blurt immediately, your face going red, and Brian can’t quite tell if you’re telling the truth or lying for his sake. Instead, he just laughs, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. You giggle to yourself, slightly giddy, and pull the collar of his coat up to your cheeks, mumbling into it. “You guys were wrong by the way, pain is nowhere near close to pleasure.”
“Hey, Freddie and John wrote that one.” Brian holds up his hands in mock surrender, and you laugh again, tucking your legs up into your torso, and Brian adjusts the end of the coat so it covers your feet. The gesture is small, but it melts your heart. He shuffles in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs, almost nervously. “You- uh, you kept asking where ‘Sammy’ was..?”
Instantly, your face heats up and you groan, flopping back against the pillow and letting out a puff of air. God, this was embarrassing - you were hoping to get a little further along the tour before anyone found out about it.
“It’s my bass’ name, it’s silly.” You mumble, picking at a loose thread in the hospital bed sheets. You had lovingly bestowed the name upon your bass, after being inspired by one of John’s tracks; ‘Spread Your Wings’ - but it was more of a thing you did in your own head, not in front of techies. You’d already seen them giving you scathing looks when they saw you scratching the letter ‘B’ into the back of the body, as you did with your other instruments, and you didn’t want to freak them out any more. Hell, the electric piano had your whole name carved into one of the legs, as well as the double bass you’d taken to using during ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’.
“It’s not silly, my guitar has a name.”
“Yeah, but The Red Special is a cool name! The Fireplace! The Old Lady!” You protest, screwing your eyes closed so you didn’t have to see the incredulous look on Brian’s face at your outburst. “And mine’s called Sammy! The triangle and the triangle stick are called Moet and Chandon-“
“The ‘triangle stick’?” Brian raises a teasing eyebrow at you, and you scowl, not in the headspace to be remembering the technical names for the glorified musical cookie-cutter you'd been put in charge of for ‘Killer Queen.’
“Whatever it’s called - you know what I mean! The double bass is called Elvis and the electric piano is called Pluto.”
“Pluto?” Brian asks, and you suddenly forget how to speak, opening and closing your mouth uselessly. “Why Pluto?”
“It’s a planet, innit?” You grow bashful, trying to hide your flushed face beneath Brian’s coat. He doesn’t seem to be convinced, raising an eyebrow at you. “Like Mercury...”
“Technically, it’s not anymore.” He says, and you roll your eyes, groaning, much to his amusement. You often forgot that he actually had a life outside of music - and a very busy one at that. He always seemed like he was working on a project or planning his next one, and you still had yet to figure out how he had time to do it all.
“Oh, leave me alone, I’m high!” You whine, and he chuckles, watching you pick at your nails, your eyes rolling around inside your head - you were practically drugged into the next universe, judging by the glassy look in your eyes. He’s not used to seeing you like this, all small and broken and scared. It was hard enough for him to sit there and watch over you while you slept, squeezing your hand every time you woke up in a daze and instantly reached out for him, mumbling his name.
“Where’s-“ Your hand was flittering around the bed sheets erratically, skimming over the railings and cabinets surrounding you. There had been an urgency to your voice, soaked in pain and fear, something that had made his stomach turn beneath his skin. “Where’s Brian?”
“I’m here, B.” He grabbed at your hand, and you had clutched onto him with all of your might. Then, your grip had slowly lessened as you dropped off back into darkness, slumped against the pillow.
This process repeated itself far too many times for Brian’s preference - sometimes you’d call out for Roger, or even your flatmate - but it never got any easier.
Brian May had been a musician for a very long time, and yet the sound of your terrified scream was one of the worst noises he’d ever heard.
“You’ll have to teach me stars, won’t you, then?” You smile at him weakly, the first genuine one he’d seen from you all day, and he chuckles, folding up his glasses and letting them hang over his chest from the chain around his neck. He’s wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Freddie on it, and your smile softens.
“Yeah, I’ll teach you stars, as long as you promise to never do this again.”
“I’m not planning on it.” You reply dryly, hoping to draw another laugh from Brian, but he stays silent, ripping a tissue from a box on the bedside table and dipping it into the jug of water left on the side for you. Then, he sits on the edge of the bed, leaning forward to press the wet paper against your face, ignoring your grimace. “What’re you doing?”
“Cleaning the muck off your face. I can’t stand to see you looking like that.” He’s frowning softly to himself, in the way he always does when he’s remembering something. He couldn’t look at you like that for any longer - a dried-up, bloody handprint smeared across your cheek, raking into your hair, pressed there during the panic of the ambulance ride. He thinks that he’ll have the image of you burned into his memory for the rest of his life, another horrid dream for him to have.
Because he did that to you - that was his fault. He’d hurt their bandmate.
You’re humming softly to yourself - the melody dazed and looping as he wipes the blood from your face. He recognises it as ‘Comfortably Numb’, and finds himself, yet again, astounded by your ability to find a song for every situation.
“My hands feel just like two balloons...” You’re singing softly, not quite remembering all of the lyrics, and he lets you muddle your way to the end of the first chorus before he starts talking, throwing the soiled tissue into a bin.
“I’m being serious, Y/N - I don’t want to see you like this again, okay?”
“I’m sorry.” You mumble, and then his hand is dropping to his side abruptly, unintentionally raising his voice at you in frustration.
“No-” He cuts himself off when he sees you flinch at his harsh tone, your eyes going wide, and he instantly re-evaluates his body language, softening his voice and releasing the tension in his shoulders. “No, I'm sorry, B. You told us something was wrong, and we didn’t listen. This is our fault.”
“Don’t say that.” You frown at him, shaking your head, and pushing the coat thrown over you aside, to free up your arms. “I told lots of people that something was wrong. It was my fault that I didn’t get out of the way fast enough - I don’t know what came over me, and you really didn’t have to put yourself in danger for me-“
“But I did, and I’d do it again!” He sounds stern, and you shrink into yourself, swallowing back tears. “You can’t say those things, Y/N - none of this is your fault. No one is going to blame you for it.”
You fall quiet, fiddling with your own fingers and finding a sudden interest in the pattern of the bedsheet - ugly and over-crowded. You sniff, swiping at your nose with the back of your hand.
“Really, though, Brian - thank you. You saved my life.”
There’s a moment of silence between the two of you, and Brian reaches out to put his hand on your shoulder, attempting a comforting smile, but you can tell there’s something bothering him.
“Why did you say that?” He eventually asks, and all of a sudden the ticking of the clock across the room seems too loud, echoing around between your ears. You furrow your eyebrows in confusion, and he crosses a leg over the other, running his hand over the fabric of his trousers to try and smooth out the non-existent wrinkles.
“Say what?”
“You told us to keep going.” He clarifies, and your heart drops, your face falling. It’s one of the last things you remember, stumbling into Brian’s grip, pain ripping through your arm, and wanting to just ignore it all; to finish the concert and then worry about it. “‘Keep playing’. That’s what you said.”
Words fail you for a good while, and you resign yourself to sitting there, your tongue feeling numb in your mouth as your stomach turns. There’s a weight pressing down onto your chest, crushing your ribcage into your lungs and aching heart.
You can’t help but think that he was going to be angry. Another little present from the frontman of your last band.
“I didn’t want to let you down.” Your answer is honest, and that’s what Brian thinks he was so scared of hearing, because he looks so incredibly sad, and he reaches out to run a hand over your hair, frowning. His voice is thick and watery, when he speaks next, causing your own throat to tighten.
“You could never do that, B. Never.” He says, looking straight at you, and you feel as if you’re on stage again, under the spotlight in an empty arena. “Never, okay?”
You nod, giving him a small smile, because you think that if you do anything more, you were going to end up crying. “Okay.”
Brian remains on the edge of your bed, and you end up shuffling over to give him a little more room, which he accepts, rearranging his legs into a more comfortable position, brushing fragments of stage glitter from the bedsheets. He nearly laughed - that stuff seemed to follow you wherever you went, nowadays.
“Roger says he’s sorry for snapping at you earlier; I don’t know if you remember.” He hums after a moment - and, you do, vaguely. It’s now that you realise you haven’t seen Roger in however long you’ve been asleep, and there was no evidence of him ever stepping into the room; no coat, or bag, or pair of shoes to be seen.
“Where is he, anyway?”
“Talking with the legal team- you’re not coherent enough yet, and he’s very good at getting what he wants. I should know.” Brian answers, and you chuckle, before you suddenly feel like you’ve been dunked into an ice bath. You hadn’t even thought about the legal mess that this whole situation was, much less about who was going to deal with it. The stitches on your arm burn lightly, and you resist the urge to scratch them; even though you feel like ripping them out and running home to your bed and cat, flinging yourself under the covers, and staying there for the next few decades.
“I don’t think locking himself in a cupboard is going to fix this.” You quip, but there’s no humour in your voice - just a strange sombreness that Brian still isn’t used to hearing. He just sighs softly to himself.
“This whole thing kind of threw him through a loop. You could have been seriously hurt, or...” He trails off, and you drop your gaze, not wanting him to finish his sentence.
“And he was stuck behind his drums - too far away to do anything,” Brian says, his voice low; quiet and gravelly, like it usually is when he’s talking about something that upsets him. Your eyebrows wrinkle, the cold grip of sadness closing around your heart.
“Brian-“
“The last time something like that happened - when he couldn’t be there for someone who needed him... Well, it was Freddie.”
Freddie’s name always sends shockwaves down your spine, and tonight is no different, as a painful shiver rockets along your nerves, Brian’s tired face is lit up in front of you by the yellow glow of the lamp on the bedside table, highlighting the hollows of his cheekbones and the slope of his nose. Yellow. It was quickly becoming one of your favourite colours.
“He still blames himself for it, you know, even though there’s nothing he could have done. He was going to see him, and he was only about three hundred yards away when they rang him.” There’s a pained tone to Brian’s voice, and you can’t help but think that he’s two steps away from tears himself. Gently, you reach out a hand to comfort him, and he takes it with a small squeeze.
“‘Don’t bother coming, ‘cause he’s gone’ - that’s what they’d said. He was so close, and yet so far away. Helpless. In his mind, he let Freddie down.” He continues, letting his gaze wander over to the window behind him, a small sliver of the moon visible between the gap in the hastily-drawn curtains.
“I think that’s how he felt tonight; he wants to protect you, like he protected Fred, and he couldn’t. He’s afraid of losing you.”
There’s another beat of silence as Brian looks to the moon, the brilliance of it highlighting the silver in his hair.
“We both are.”
“Brian,” Your voice is soft, and he looks up at you, your eyes glassy and rimmed with a sharp red. And yet, all you can say is what you’ve said many times before, though you never mean it any less. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s just-” Brian swallows thickly, trying to cover up the tremble in his voice, but the sudden glossiness to his eyes betrayed the emotion he was desperately trying to hide from you. The sight of him shattered your heart, and you ache to reach out and hug him tight. “We’re supposed to keep you safe, and we didn’t.”
“But I’m still here, aren’t I?” Your words are barely a whisper, and he smiles weakly at you, watching you look down at your arm and ghost a fingertip over the rows of stitches pressed into your skin. “We only have one more show-“
“That’s not happening.” He interrupts you, suddenly rising from the bed, and you instantly miss his presence, letting out a noise of protest as he paces the room. “You’re absolutely not playing. You can’t.”
“What do you mean I can’t?” Your face drops to a worried frown, and you try to get out of the bed, only for him to surge over, and push you back down onto the mattress again. Your voice takes on a panicked tone to it, breath catching in your throat. “Brian?”
“You’ve got stitches, Y/N. We can’t make you play, it’s not right.” He shakes his head, and you manage to sit up this time, brushing away his hands, even though the motion of it made your head spin. You realise that your heart is pounding, your pulse thrumming rapidly under your skin.
“I can’t play? Brian, are you serious?”
“The doctor put extra stitches to give you a little more mobility, and you could play, but-“ You cut him off, knitting your eyebrows, and attempting to fold your arms, before the stitching scratches against your other arm, making you jump.
“Then I’m going to.”
“B, I can’t let you do that, not in good conscience-“
“I said- I said I didn’t want to let you down! And I’ve fucked it all up!” All you can hear is the rush of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. Brian opens his mouth to speak, but you get there first. “John did it, so I can!”
Brian had forgotten that he’d told you that story, when a young John put his hand through a window, and soldiered on through the tour with a row of stitches and a bandage hidden beneath carefully-chosen, long-sleeved shirts. It had been a turning point in his relationship with John, and now, it seemed that history was repeating itself.
He doesn’t say anything.
The silence between you is thick and heavy, before your breathing stutters, and you crumple in on yourself, feeling tears burn down your cheeks, and your shoulders shudder.
“Just let me do this for you, Bri.”
The bed dips a little as Brian sits back down, placing a warm hand on your back and smoothing his thumb slowly over your shoulder.
“Don’t cry, Y/N.” He says gently, and you clap a hand over your mouth to stifle a sob, feeling him smooth a hand over the back of your hair, brushing it out of your face. And then he’s wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into a hug. “Come here.”
You cling to him, burying your face into the soft material of his shirt as you ride out the sobs wracking your body. You hands make fists in the cotton, and through the painkillers, you feel his hand rub comfortingly at your back, and he presses a kiss to your temple, before leaning his cheek against your forehead.
“What do I do?” You whimper, and he simply tightens his grip, smoothing his hand over your hair. “Brian, what do I do?”
“It’s okay.” He murmurs, low and soft. “You’re okay, now.”
You sit there in his company, and for a while, all you can hear is the thump of his heart and the rustle of his stage coat, now rumpled up over your legs. After a few moments, Brian starts to talk about nonsense in an attempt to distract you, and it works, as your crying eventually subsides into shaky breaths and hiccuping.
“Here, come and sit by the window.” He helps you off of the bed, and into the chair he was sat in earlier, pushing it to face the curtains after you’ve sat down. Then, he flings them open, before sitting down, moonlight flooding into the room and washing it in a pale blue-silver. Your phone illuminates itself on the tabletop, and you pick it up to look at the screen, which is overrun by notifications.
‘ok so @yourusername just nearly got crushed by a piece of scaffolding onstage wtf!!’
‘Hey @yourusername ! Are you okay ? Everyone is freaking out ?’
‘Does anyone know if @yourusername is alright?? I thought I heard an ambulance outside the concert... I wonder if Brian and Roger are with them?’
‘@brianmayforreal tagged you in a photo: No need to worry about our resident bassist, folks! They’re a-okay as of...’
You swipe on the notification, seeing a picture of you bundled up under Brian’s coat on the hospital bed, barely visible from under the collar apart from a glimpse of your hair and your drum-patterned socks sticking out of the end - a present from Roger after he ended burning holes into your last ones (it was a long story). You double tap the picture to like it, and then hold your phone up to take a picture of Brian from where he’s staring out of the window, chin resting on his hand and bathed in the light of the moon. You save the picture to your camera roll, and then add an assortment of heart emojis and a guitar emoji for the caption, before posting it to your story. You’re instantly bombarded with screenshot notifications, and you set your phone down again, leaning back in the chair.
“How come we moved?” You ask, and he smiles knowingly at you, giving you a wink and tapping at his nose.
“I’m teaching you stars.” He answers, pushing his glasses back up his nose so he can see the sky. However, there is nothing to see, as the light pollution from the city is too strong, and there seems to be a thick coating of clouds blocking your view of the night. Brian sighs again, chewing idly on his lip. “Oh, that’s disappointing...”
“It’s okay, Bri.” You murmur, slumping into the chair, and he moves to pick up his coat again, pulling it over you and you nestle into it gratefully. Already, your eyes are sliding shut, and you feel your limbs grow heavy, fatigue sinking into your bones. Somehow you manage to fight the urge to fall asleep, and operate your muscles enough to speak. “You did your uni thing on space dust right?”
“My thesis on the Zodiacal Dust Cloud?”
“Mhm. Tell me about that?”
You could practically feel Brian grin from beside you, hearing little more than an amused chuckle and the sound of him shifting in his chair.
“If you want me to; can’t say it’ll be interesting though.” He jokes, and you shake your head against the back of the chair, your eyes still closed over.
“You’re always interesting.” Your voice is slurred, but Brian laughs and appreciates the sentiment all the same, his heart growing warm with fondness at the sight of you curled up in the chair, knees drawn to your chest.
“Thank you, B.” He says, and there’s an ease to his voice that hasn’t been there for a while. It’s comforting, and the heavy arms of sleep wrap around your middle, tugging you down and down as Brian begins to speak.
“Zodiacal light is fascinating to me, you know - it’s when the sky begins to glow in this sort-of triangle formation, and it’s caused by sunlight hitting these tiny particles of interplanetary dust; which-“
Brian can already tell that you’re asleep before he’s even finished a sentence, and he smiles to himself, trailing off as you breathing slows to a soft rhythm. A real sleep this time, not passing out or put under by drugs, thank God, but a proper rest for the first time in a while.
He decides to draw the curtains, trying to be as quiet as he can, before he settles down in the chair opposite you, opening up his messaging app to a barrage of worried messages from Roger, riddled with spelling mistakes.
‘Rog Taylor: How’s the baby? This guy is making me want to rip my hair out!!!’
‘They’re an adult, Roger, you can’t call them that ! Haha. They’re asleep now, finally !! I’ll tell you about it when you’re done with legal... Also, what hair ? 💥 - Bri’
‘Rog Taylor: Fuck off!! I’ll be over in a few after I kick his shins in’
‘See you in a minute. - Bri’
Brian reaches out to turn the yellow lamp off, the wash of it cast over your form, reflecting off of his metallic coat, and lighting you up in a brilliant canary-yellow hue. He admires the colour for a moment, a soft smile pulling at his lips, and then the click of the switch bounces off of the walls of the room.
And, it’s dark again.