Chapter Text
They are, all four of them, spinning wildly out of control.
They turn dizzyingly, zipping through space endlessly, dragged at a hundred and seven kilometers an hour by an invisible force toward an unknown destination.
Well, not completely invisible. The gravity of an object can be determined by its mass and relative distance and by calculating the trajectory it’s more than easy to see where any one body is headed, and besides that the intricate web of push-pull that makes up the cosmos is more a map than a tangle for anyone dedicated enough to look. Complex maybe, but wholly understandable if you can dedicate the time and energy.
He has all his energy to dedicate to the web of his apartment. He just isn’t sure even that will get him anywhere.
Here are the paths of their orbits currently: Roger dozing on the couch after a drink too many the night before, occasionally sitting up to snap at Freddie for playing the piano too loud. Freddie, absently singing to himself and studiously ignoring Roger in favor of working on his most recent heart wrenching love ballad. John, nowhere to be seen since breakfast the previous day. Frowning, Brian shoots him a text.
Are you alive somewhere?
Fine. Working. Back tonight.
The labs, then. It’s no wonder with finals coming so soon.
“Back, bring it back,” Freddie croons. “Please bring it back home to me—”
“If you don’t shut up,” Roger snaps, throwing a pillow in his direction, “I will move out, so help me—”
“Well maybe I’d have something else to do if you weren’t always fucking sleeping one off these days,” Freddie snaps back.
“Why don’t you try studying for a change?”
“Rich, coming from you!”
“Oh, don’t you fucking go there. You know damn well—”
“Do I? What do—”
“I’m going out,” Brian cuts in. “I’ve got class.”
Neither of them spare him a look as he leaves the apartment and heads outside. He shuts the door against the sound of their shouting.
It wasn’t like this always. It isn’t like this always. He knows it’s just what’s happening now—that Roger’s spiraling into his own pit of apathy as he loses interest in his degree and he’s lashing out because of it; that Freddie is more than willing to rise up to the challenge of a quarrel. He knows that just like he knows that John would be home more if he could, but as it is he’s thrown himself wholeheartedly into the challenges of school and left little time for the rest of them. And that leaves Brian, drifting off into his own realm where none of them seem able to follow.
What pulls them back to the middle? Love?
Is that really enough?
The thought isn’t his own; it’s intrusive and unbidden and he throws it mercilessly out of his mind. It’s always been enough before. No matter what happens, that always pulls them back together. They love each other.
Will it be enough again? When is the breaking point, when they’re so far away from each other nothing will draw them back together? When do they fall out of orbit?
It nags him throughout the day. It lingers with him in class, forces its way into his calculations and needles him like an itch he can’t quite scratch. It haunts him. He reads numbers and solves problems, but he sees the ever-rotating cycle of the four of them, the places where they all fall apart. He can’t solve the equation. He doesn’t know how.
He stops in the Engineering building on the way home and paces the halls to the labs. It’s a familiar path. He remembers chasing Roger this way as they searched for the right room; remembers Freddie looking around skeptically the first time he’d visited; remembers following John, guitar in hand as they went to nitpick a finicky circuit or test out a new amp. The warmth of the memories barely touches him.
He peers through the window on the door but he can barely see inside.
“Can I help you?”
There’s a girl behind him, eyeing him skeptically. “Could you swipe me in?” he asks her.
“You’re not an engineer.”
“Astrophysics. I’m looking for my boyfriend.”
She scoffs, digging through her bag. “He isn’t here.”
“Are you sure? His name’s John. He’s a junior. Brown hair, a few inches taller than you—”
“John Deacon?” she asks skeptically.
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t know he had a boyfriend,” she mutters, and Brian’s mouth tastes suddenly bitter. She flattens her ID against the panel and the door pops open with a click. “Go ahead.”
He shoots her a small smile that lacks any actual happiness before opening the door and stepping through. The room is mostly deserted but there’s a light on above a workbench in the back, and there’s John’s head craned low as he picks apart a mess of circuits in front of him. He barely notices Brian’s approach until Brian pointedly sets his hands on the table, and then he starts and tugs his headphones off.
“Brian. How’d you get in?”
“Someone let me in.” He looks him over quickly: dark circles, yesterday’s clothes, flat hair, bitten lips and the trademarked glazed eyes of someone who’s worked too hard to remember to eat. “I thought you were going home.”
“Yeah, in a little while. Didn’t you get my text?”
“That was three hours ago, John,” he says.
He gets a look that’s equal parts defiant and desperate. “My exam is at six.”
“You need to eat something and get some rest.”
“I need to finish this.”
“John,” he starts, but John cuts him off.
“Brian, I love you but I need to get this done. Thank you for checking in on me but I can look after myself, alright?”
“You’re not, though.”
“This is more important,” he says, half-crazed as he turns back to his circuits. He works for another minute, and when Brian doesn’t move adds, “Now unless you’re going to help me solder all this down could you kindly fuck off, please? I’ll see you later.”
His breath catches. John has always been prone to speak before thinking. Freddie’s said as much to him when he retreats after a fight. He doesn’t mean it, dear. Sometimes he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, that’s all. You know he’ll be terribly sorry later. But Freddie isn’t here now, he’s off screaming at Roger about god knows what. And John doesn’t look at him again, tuning back into his own little word where none of them exist. He waits a minute longer to see if he’ll realize that Brian feels seconds away from breaking down, but when he doesn’t Brian has nothing to do but retreat a few paces before leaving the workshop entirely.
He wanders aimlessly until he’s back in the physics building, then wanders through there until he reaches his favorite corner to study in, then feels his eyes prickle when he realizes they know he goes there frequently, so he climbs the stairs to the next floor until he finds somewhere he’s never been and makes a seat for himself by the window. He opens his notebook and flips to the first problem set.
F = (G x m1 x m2) / r2
The force of gravity, the thing holding the fabric of the universe together, the thing tying them down, shifting with relative distance and mass.
What is the gravitational force between the four of them? Multiply the universal gravitational constant by the weight of John’s cold anger, Freddie’s unbridled pride and Roger’s apathy at everything around them. Throw in Brian’s own self-doubt and neediness, too. Then divide it by the distance between all four of them, squared. What did you come up with? Did you come up with zero? Is there nothing holding them together whatsoever?
How does all that add up?
His phone rings, and when he glances at the screen Freddie’s face is smiling back at him. He flips it over and doesn’t answer.
Time passes, then. Six o’clock comes and goes. He imagines John’s shadow dragging itself off to sit its exams, then wonders if Freddie and Roger have strangled each other yet, then pushes thoughts of them out of his mind and does his best to focus on his work for another few hours. Just a little longer, and maybe he’ll come home to an empty flat. Maybe they’ll all finally have pushed each other away and he won’t have to at any of them with red eyes that give too much away.
What does it take for gravitational force to be negative? How long before all four of them repel each other rather than drag each other closer? Has it already happened?
He should’ve studied magnetism instead. Then maybe he’d understand.
He manages to wait until eleven and prays to himself that that was long enough. His phone is long-since dead, homework long-since done. He’s tired of working and worrying. God, is he tired.
He trudges home as snow starts to fall and then quickens it to a march as he feels his fingers start to go numb, and by the time he gets into the building they feel ready to fall off. He opens the door quickly and then remembers and steps inside as quietly as he can, but everything is quiet.
The light is on in the entryway and it smells homey and warm like someone was cooking. The kitchen is spotless but one of them left a plate of food for him wrapped up in the fridge. The gesture sends a pang through his chest which he does his best to ignore. He microwaves it and then demolishes it in five minutes flat when his stomach reminds him he hasn’t eaten since that morning. It doesn’t stop him from appreciating it, anyway. He recognizes his lovers’ joint work at cooking anywhere: Freddie’s fascination with obscure canned sauces, Roger’s determination to add cheese to them, John quietly forcing a vegetable onto everyone’s plate. That’s nice, at least. Maybe they’ve all made up.
He eyes the closed door to the bedroom at the end of the hall and realizes with sudden clarity that he isn’t ready to face them. If they haven’t he’ll open it to an empty bed as the three of them gallavant to god-knows-where in the middle of the night. If they have they’ll be peacefully intwined after a quiet night in, and he’ll be left trying to find where he fits between their spaces.
He sets his telescope up by the window instead and watches the moon make its way across the sky.
The moon always spins that way, steady as a hammer in its orbit. What did the earth do to get it to stay?
“Brian.”
He turns around. He feels guilty like he’s been caught in a nefarious act for some reason. He shouldn’t. It’s just Roger. “What?” he whispers.
Roger swallows. “Come to bed.”
“In a minute,” he tries.
His eyes are as big as the moon in the dark, skin glowing as he pads closer and crosses his arms over his bare chest to ward off the chill. “We missed you tonight.”
“You have a funny way of showing it,” he mutters.
“I’m sorry. I know things haven’t been easy recently but they’ll get better. All four of us, we’ll get there. We just need to stick together.”
“I’m not really tired, Roger,” he says.
“Bullshit. It’s nearly one.”
Brian gives him a long suffering look and he lets out a gusty sigh before stepping forward, plastering himself against Brian’s back and hanging off of him. “Fine then. If you’re not coming I’ll just sleep like this.”
Brian cranes his neck to look at him. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. It’s this or we get some actual sleep. Make your choice.”
He considers that for a moment, but he knows there’s no shaking him once Roger has an idea in his head. He’s testament to that now, slowly letting more and more of his weight lean on Brian until he’s about to stagger forward with it. “Fine,” he relents finally. “Fine. Let’s go to bed.”
Roger sends him a tiny satisfied smile, dimples and all as he tugs him toward the bedroom by his wrist. He lets go halfway to gently start on the buttons of Brian’s shirt, working efficiently so that by the time he gets to their room he’s tugging it down his arms and off his shoulders with careful hands. There’s something domestic about being taken care of like this, something that he’s sorely missed these last few days that they’ve all been so out of sync. He does his best to muffle his sniffle as Roger pushes him lightly to sit on the edge of the bed before tugging his pants off so he’s sitting there in just his underwear.
“Brian?” Freddie murmurs somewhere behind him. “Oh, come here.”
He crawls over the lump he’s guessing is John to lay in the warm spot beside Freddie. A hand runs through his hair and then Freddie’s pulling him closer until their faces are inches apart in the darkness.
“Are you alright?”
He is; he’ll be fine. The sheets are soft beneath him, warm and familiar with the smells of all of them. This is his home. “I’m alright,” he says softly, and Freddie’s fingers rub against his scalp again.
“I tried to find you but you weren’t in any of your usual spots. We were going to have a night in.”
“Didn’t you have one?”
“It isn’t the same without all four of us,” he replies.
“I’m sorry. My phone died and I had work to finish up.”
That makes Freddie sigh. “You don’t need to retreat like that next time. We’re here if you want to talk about any of it, Brian. We’ll always be here.”
“I know.” He swallows a lump in his throat. “It’s just, I don’t want to bug you guys with it if you’re busy. I can work through it on my own.”
“You don’t have to. We want to help. You don’t need to hide from us.”
“Sometimes I feel like I do,” he admits.
“That’s okay,” Roger chimes in from behind him. “We’ll always be here to drag you back, won’t we?”
Like gravity; drag him back into orbit where the four of them circle each other so well, spinning round and round in perfect synchronism, counting beats with the way they pass each other. They’re a perfectly balanced system, holding each other in place through all the chaos.
He’s snapped out of his thoughts as Roger tries to climb over him and John in one fell swoop, nearly toppling onto Freddie before Brian catches his waist. “He’s always stealing my spot,” Roger tells him. “Look at this.”
“That’s what you get for getting up,” Freddie supplies.
Roger huffs and squeezes between them, scooting down until only the top of his head is visible above the duvet and his breath is tickling Brian’s chest. He’s the perfect fit between them, a sentence between their parentheses. And then there’s—
“Brian?”
John’s voice turns low and rumbly when he’s just woken up. He burns like a furnace when he’s sleeping, too. He’s burning right now, attaching himself to Brian’s back and piling his pillow onto the edge of Brian’s own so they’re practically cheek to cheek. Brian feels his arm curl around his chest but then Roger’s grabbing it before he can and curling somehow closer, and then Freddie’s trying to move even closer to him and it’s times like these when Brian wonders why they even bothered getting rid of their full-sized bed when he has no doubt they could’ve all fit on it without a problem.
“I’m sorry for earlier,” John says, and now Brian can feel the rumble in his own chest. That’s nice. “I’m sorry I snapped. I was tired and stressed but that’s no excuse.”
“It’s alright,” he whispers so his voice doesn’t crack. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
“It’s not alright. You didn’t deserve that. We’ve all been such a mess recently and I shouldn’t have pushed you away when you were just reaching out.”
“John, it doesn’t matter,” he says, and then realizes with a breathless little laugh that it really doesn’t. This is all that matters: the four of them wrapped around each other at the end of the day, reigning in each other’s moods and whimsies until only sleepy contentment is left. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it.”
He’s silent for a minute, then Brian feels his lips against his shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you. Tomorrow morning, after we’ve all gotten some sleep.” He nestles closer, and Brian can feel their hair tangling together. Roger lets out a breath against his chest and Freddie curls over him a little further until his face is a scant few inches from Brian’s again. “I don’t know where we’d be without you,” he mumbles, and then his breathing grows even with sleep.
He turns that over in his head as he feels sleep drag him under. Foolish of him not to count that into all his calculations and figures—that he’s dangerously close to spiraling out of orbit, but so are the rest of them. Odd that he can tug them back together, too. Odd that any of them can. Maybe he should revisit that equation.
Take the mass of Freddie’s passion, of Roger’s optimism, of John’s quiet perceptiveness, of Brian’s own affection. Multiply them with the universal constant: them, entangled at the end of each day, content and together. Divide it by the distance between them, if there even is one. A scant few molecules, maybe. Words of love hovering in the air until they can be voiced in the morning.
What is the net force of love? They drive each other apart and yet they snap right back into orbit. No, not even that. They collide into each other in an endless quest to become a single entity, traveling the galaxy together.
Science could conclude that the force is infinite and immeasurable.
When do they fall out of orbit?
When the sun falls out of the sky. When the galaxy stops spinning and the stars in all their fiery glory go cold and dark. As long as they live they’ll draw nearer; as long as he breathes Brian will always be tugging them closer, and feeling their pull in return.
That’s love.
With that last thought he succumbs to sleep, warm between his lovers. Outside the window the moon silently finishes her slow journey across the sky, dipping toward the horizon in preparation for a new day to dawn.