Chapter Text
“Rog, hold still!”
Crash
Thud
Those were the first things Brian heard as he jolted back into consciousness. His first thought was that someone was breaking into the flat, but quickly his mind caught up to what he’d been hearing and he remembered that his flatmates had been out with friends. The tell-tale shenanigans he could hear as they crashed about meant they’d finally made their way home after an undoubtably indulgent night of drinking. It was ridiculous, really. Roger and Freddie both had classes to attend in the morning, and Brian had warned them that they would most certainly get themselves too pissed to get up on time for their lectures. Based on the ruckus, Brian was on the path to being one hundred percent right.
“Thirsty Thursday” Roger had called their outing, jubilantly. He’d pestered Brian to go with them all day, promising that if he came they’d only have a few drinks and come home at a decent time. Brian had almost caved, too; Roger could be a persuasive little bugger, especially with the fact that Brian loved to have a good time with his best mates just as much as the next guy, but on a Thursday night he just couldn’t justify it. Roger had only given up when it was time for Freddie and him to leave and meet some friends from uni at a nearby pub.
The rushing sound of running water followed by a wet-sounding slap noise gave Brian an uneasy feeling and he sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes and straining his ears to hear any words exchanged between the drunkards who had made their way to the hall bathroom. Whatever Freddie was saying was drowned out by loud, slightly off tune, and very slurred singing. He could hear a sharp whisper from Freddie cutting off the singing but couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. It was followed by a slurred “Oh FUCk sleeping!” from Roger. There was another slapping sound, a few clunks that had to be falling shampoo bottles, and a string of curses from Freddie.
Brian groaned and swung his legs over the side of the bed, stretching as he stood and pulled a bathrobe on over the tshirt and briefs he’d been wearing to bed. Off to the rescue of the scrawny little terrors he called flatmates and bandmates once again. Sigh. He shuffled sleepily toward the door, noting in annoyance that it was past 2 am and made his way into the hallway. He shoved the bathroom door open and heard a yelp as it collided with something hard.
“Bloody hell, Bri! Watch it!” Freddie hissed.
Brian opened the door again, slower this time and peered in. He was met with the sight of a very wet Freddie knelt beside the tub which held a very naked Roger.
“What the…”
“Brimi!” Roger crowed, reaching a floppy arm toward the confused intruder. “Brimi ’m so glad you’re here!” the blond’s eyelids were half shut and his eyes were unfocused. He clearly couldn’t hold any part of himself up on his own as he was laying in the tub, limps in disarray, and with Freddie’s arm supporting his neck in effort to keep him from sliding under the rising water. The arm he’d reached for Brian flopped unceremoniously against Freddie’s shoulder, effectively explaining how so much water had gotten out of the tub and onto Freddie’s clothes.
“Freddie what on Earth is going on? He’s absolutely trashed, why is he in the bath?” Brian stepped cautiously into the tiny room and winced when his foot collided with a damp pile of clothes. He didn’t even want to know why they were wet.
Freddie glanced up at Brian and the latter internally cursed when he noticed the far away look in the former’s eyes. He was nearly as plastered as Roger. “He went and fell in a bloody ditch, Bri, what else did you want me to do about it, then?”
“He could fucking drown, Fred.” Brian nudged his way beside the tub and surveyed the damage, finding that Roger did indeed smell like street water, piss, and alcohol. He also had a split lip and what appeared to be a bit of vomit at the corner of his mouth. “Christ, Rog, How much did you have to drink?”
“All o’ it!” Slurred the blond, flopping over onto his side as Freddie cried out from the water splashed on him in the process.
“Fred?” Brian asked, raising an eyebrow as he knelt beside him.
“We both had a bit much, I’m afraid.” Freddie sighed, gazing at the inebriated blond who had seemingly settled, eyes now closed and lips parted slightly. “But this one here was trying to out drink everyone.”
“Shit, move over, I got him.” Brian went to push the singer out of the way so he could take over.
“No! No, dear, I am perfectly capable of taking care of him.” Freddie protested. “Here, I’ll prove it!” He grabbed a plastic cup they kept on the side of the tub for cleaning, scooped up water from the bath, and unceremoniously dumped it on the drummer’s face. Roger gasped in surprise and spluttered as he began to thrash, splashing water everywhere.
“Fuck, Freddie!” Brian hissed, succeeding in shoving him away from the side of the tub and taking his place beside Roger. It took a moment for Roger to settle and once the initial panic was over, Brian rolled his eyes and glanced back at Freddie: “I believe that should have been poured over his hair, not dumped in his face, Fred” he hummed as he got Roger to lay still and held his head above the water like Freddie had been doing. He tried to prop him up but the drummer was slipping and sliding back into the water like a wet noodle and whining nearly incoherently that the room was spinning. “Rog, shut the fuck up, you’re fine. Fred, go fetch a washrag and a glass of water for him, yeah?”
Freddie mumbled grumpily and staggered off to find what he’d been sent for while Brian turned back to Roger, grabbing the plastic cup and filling it with water once more. He poured the water over the drummer’s hair before grabbing one of the shampoo bottles that bobbed around in the tub.
“What the hell did you get into tonight?” Brian sighed as he squirted shampoo directly onto the messy blond head. Roger didn’t respond with anything other than a grunt as he let his eyes flutter closed once more. “No, Rog, you gotta work with me here. Stay awake, mate.”
It was evident that he was becoming more and more affected by the minute as the alcohol seeped into his bloodstream. “Mhmn.” The drummer whined in protest, writhing uncomfortably. He then uttered a small burp and his body spasmed, alerting Brian to what was about to happen.
“Shit—“ Brian pulled Roger up and partially over the edge of the tub so that he could be sick into the waste basket. He didn’t even bother pulling his hair up as he hadn’t even had the chance to scrub it clean to begin with.
Freddie chose that moment to return and immediately turned green at the sight. “Oh dear…” he mumbled from the doorway, dropping to his knees and then onto his ass dramatically.
“Freddie, just give me the damn water.” Brian spat, thoroughly annoyed now, cradling Roger’s head in one hand and reaching for the glass with the other. He took the cup from the singer and coaxed Roger to lift his head just enough to take a sip.
The drummer groaned and slid back into the bath like some cold-blooded sea creature. “Mmm, warm.” He slurred as he sunk in, pulling his limbs in close to his body, his eyes still closed.
“You have some explaining to do.” Brian shot a pointed glare at Freddie, who was still staring worriedly at Roger. He started working on the blond’s hair and winced, finding a conglomeration of grass, mud, and vomit in the normally flawless tresses. “Please explain how and why you two are this trashed on a Thursday night? How the fuck did he end up like this? Looks like he rolled down a hill in the bloody rain.”
“Well…”
“You’re joking. You said he’d fallen in a ditch!”
“Well…”
“Freddie!”
“Okay! Okay we went to the park after last call, you know the part for children—“
“The playground?!”
“Ah ha yes, that’s what it’s called then, and it was raining of course, what else do you expect from London, I mean—“
“Freddie, get to the point!” Brian’s patience was wearing very thin at this small hour of nearly 3 am, and while his frustration with Freddie grew, his worry for Roger did as well. The blond was quickly crossing the line between incoherent and unresponsive as his body grew more and more limp with each passing second.
“We played on the swings and Roger sort of, well, he jumped, and er, obviously couldn’t keep his balance when he landed. That’s where the mud and grass and bloody lip come from, of course.” The singer was nervously rubbing his hands as he explained, his slightly unfocused gaze flitting between Brian and Roger.
“And the ditch story came from…?”
“Well he did that too… I lost my hold on him coming home. We’d almost made it, too.”
“Of course you did— Jesus, Freddie!” Brian exclaimed, exasperated, “He could’ve been seriously hurt, either of you could have! Do you know if he hit his head?”
“I don’t think so, no. At least not harder than any normal fall.”
“Jesus, Fred.” Brian repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose and returning his full attention back to the inebriated drummer. He shifted his focus to the task of getting him clean and out of the water. Brian used the cup to rinse the shampoo and debris out Rogers hair and made quick work of cleaning his face with the washrag. He figured since the rest of Roger’s body was submerged in water that would be good enough for now.
“He’ll be upset you didn’t condition.” Freddie piped up, unmoving from his place in the doorway.
Brian didn’t even grace him with a verbal response, choosing instead to shoot him another pointed glare. He pulled the drain on the bath and looked around for a towel, finding one hanging on the rack. Who knew if it was clean or who may have used it but at this point Brian didn’t care: it was clean enough to do the job and they’d shared worse.
“Here Fred, help me get him up.” Brian handed the towel to the singer who scrambled gracelessly to his feet and to Brian’s aid. “Roggie, come on now, time to get up.” Brian gently patted the drummer’s face and only received a slow, lazy peek in response before the blue irises were hidden from view once more. Brian used all his strength to pull Roger into sitting up, then, together, he and Freddie each grabbed an arm and hoisted the drummer to his feet.
They quickly found that he wasn’t bearing any of his own weight and they both nearly collapsed trying to extract him from the tub. They sat him on the toilet lid for a moment so that Freddie could towel him off, then Brian looped the drummer’s arm around his shoulders and motioned for Freddie to do the same with the other arm. “I can’t do it meself, Fred. He might not be very heavy but he’s practically a dead weight right now.”
“You’re going to have to keep your knees bent then, dear, neither of us are near your height.” Freddie copied Brian’s actions on Roger’s other side and together they shuffled out of the tiny bathroom that certainly wasn’t built for three grown men.
By some grace of God they were able to get Roger to the bedroom he shared with Freddie without the trio collapsing, and deposited him more or less safely onto his bed. Brian rolled him onto his side and grabbed one of the drummer’s pillows to support him. He was wholly unconscious now, and that worried both of the others, Freddie seemingly sobering up quickly in order to help his friend.
“I don’t know what happened, Bri, honest. I guess we just lost track of ourselves.” Freddie hummed meekly as he crouched under the drummer’s bed to dig through his bin of extra blankets. Though he often teased Roger over how many blankets and pillows he kept, he was suddenly grateful that there were extras, as there hadn’t been time or energy to turn down the covers before dumping Roger’s limp, naked form onto the bed.
“He’s only 19, Freddie.” Brian sighed as he helped the singer stretch a fuzzy throw blanket over the drummer. “You should’ve kept better tabs on him. I mean think about it: A year ago he was still living with his mum in Cornwall. He probably doesn’t know how to handle himself in a big city like this, in actual city pubs.”
“Oh, bullshit. Rog is an adult. He is the most confident and sure person I’ve ever met, and he was just having too good a time, is all. You make things too deep.”
“Maybe I do, but this—“ Brian gestured to the passed out blond, “this is not good, Fred. This shouldn’t be happening on a Thursday night to a student of the bloody medical college. He was down in the dumps over his marks just a few days ago and he thinks acting like this will help him bring them up?!”
“You shouldn’t be patronizing him while he isn’t awake to defend himself, Bri. Did you ever stop to think he might be acting this way because he’s upset about his marks?”
Freddie’s deep brown eyes bore into Brian, and suddenly the guitarist felt he was under intense scrutiny. A wave of guilt washed over him as he considered the singer’s notion and glanced back over at the drummer in question. He immediately felt awful, remembering how last weekend Roger had been such a good sport to celebrate everyone else’s high marks on their midterm exams while his hadn’t been up to par. Brian had been able to tell that Roger was upset even though the blond had tried so hard to hide it. After a few hours of good-natured celebrating he’d drunk himself into oblivion then, too.
“Oh” was all Brian could conjure up as a response.
Freddie shouldered past Brian to retrieve a waste basket from the corner of the room, and he set it beside Roger’s bed before heading to the door. “Whatever. He’s an adult, he can do what he wants. I’m gonna get him a glass of water for the morning. Thanks for helping us out. You can go back to bed now.” The singer stalked off toward the kitchen, and his tone made his message very clear: that Brian should leave the room.
Brian checked on Roger one more time, checking his pulse and making sure he was safely turned on his side and breathing before the guitarist let out a heavy sigh and padded to the door, throwing one last glance the drummer’s way. He felt sick leaving him there and images of the blond rolling onto his back and asphyxiating on his own vomit flitted through his mind. What if that happened? What if he just stopped breathing? He’d heard the horror stories around campus, he’d read the newspapers whenever a young student died of alcohol poisoning. What if Roger was that sick?
No. Brian couldn’t let himself think that way. He had to convince himself that he would he fine. He always was. So Brian laid back down in his bed, gone cold since he’d left it to help his friends, and tried to go back to sleep. He listened as Freddie walked past, back into the room he shared with Roger, and watched the hallway light turn off. The guitarist tried to put his mind to rest.