Chapter Text
Some people say these are the worst of times ...
Brian May needs sleep. He has been told to get more rest many times over the years, starting when his mother ushered him inside as he stared, open-mouthed and wide-eyed into the universe, those trillions of stars blinking far above his curly ten-year-old head. He has been told to get sleep as much, possibly even more, than he's been told to eat. He wishes he could say that he takes the advice.
He tries, really; he does. But his mind keeps on whirling endlessly and will not stop, and his heart is buzzing after every show and his fingers are warm and aching after dancing with his old girl expertly, carefully caressing her strings.
She is the only one who has never failed him--never reprimanded or scolded, never told him he was wasting away his time and his talent. She simply begged to be played with all that she was, all she is, all that she has been since he and his father crafted her years ago.
She is home--the mahogany fireplace, the click-clack of his mother's knitting needles. She is a promise to play, a hope and help for a poor family, too poor to afford to purchase a guitar, even a knock-off Gibson, much less a real Stratocaster. She is blood and sweat and tears--the first in colour, second in work, and third whenever Brian feels utterly exhausted and spent, he curls up around her case and cries sometimes. No one has caught him in the act yet; the lads are busy, and they love the work as much as he does. And even when they all are out or busy or working in the studio, or anything, Brian is never alone; he always has his Red Special.
Mayhap he has begun anthropomorphising her--and how; seems ever since he finished sanding her and held her in his arms touching her strings tenderly for the first time, he's called her his Old Lady, his dear red love. She sticks by him: steady, steadfast, familiar, warm. He always carries her with him.
"You practically make love to that guitar," Roger had told him once, blond tresses swaying as he shook his head incredulously at the guitarist from behind his drum kit in rehearsal. "I've seen you on stage, Bri. The way you move as you hold her, how she makes that particular sound--" he raises and waggles his eyebrows cheekily. "Oh, and the fact that she, well, is a 'SHE'--"
"Oh, piss off," Brian grouses back. "You and your car-fucking song."
"I told you it's a meTAPHOR, Brian!" Rog snaps at him then and Brian ducks his head, dark curls obscuring his face to hide his smile, but he cannot hide his chuckling quite so well.
After a moment Roger laughs too and lays off the joke. But Bri's guitar is always there for him, Roger's naughty ridiculous insinuations nonwithstanding. That, at the very least, is true. She has been here with him through thick and thin, and even when nothing else makes sense to Brian, his music does. He can always play, through anything.
That much he knows.