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Roger sneaks away from the mansion sometimes between too late and too early. He doesn’t spare a thought about the chill clinging to his bones or the dew clinging to his eyelashes. Brian and John have finally fallen into a fitful sleep, curled around each other on the couch in the bedroom.
The hospital had sent Freddie home. They said that there was nothing that they could do for him. That it would be more comfortable to spend what time he has left at home. Roger thinks it is bullshit because Freddie knows John is already looking for a new house.
Always practical, even clinging desperately to hope, his Deaks.
He turns the corner, checking to make sure that he wasn’t followed. His only company is the fog rolling in. London holds its breath as Roger takes the plunge into the darkness. At the end of the alley a rusted door stands. It emits a harsh light, for all that it isn’t lit. Roger pauses, his palms are sweaty, and his throat is so tight he isn’t sure how he is getting air through it.
Lately, he has been trying to own his actions. Not that it matters so much in the end.
He pushes open the door and is assaulted by heat and stale drinks and old sweat. Roger shoves himself through the thick crowd. He ignores the sign that reads “the Damned Drink Free!” The bartender, a pretty redhead, looks the same as she did nearly two decades ago.
She smiles, “well, ‘ello love. Surprised to see you movin’ about considerin’ your situation.”
Roger holds his face neutral, a reaction would just encourage her, “where is he?”
“Oh, you’re no fun,” she drops across the counter, “weren’t the last time neither. One of those pretty boys of yours about to lose their arm again?”
“Don’t bring them up.”
“Tabitha! He is a guest, mind your manners. There are people waiting for drink.”
Tabitha winks at him before sauntering off. Cold dread runs down his spine at the silky voice. Roger turns his head. Leaning against one of the pillars is the man he is looking for. He is dressed in a blue and white pinstriped suit and wears his salt and pepper hair greased back. He only needs a goatee to complete the look. He feels like snakes are crawling up his arms. The anger simmering in his belly makes his shudder weaker, but he knows that the man has seen it.
“I think we should go to my office. I’m guessing we’re talking business.”
“That is correct.”
They weave through the rest of the crowd. Roger keeps his head tilted up and his eyes on the broad back in front of him. Every patron has their eyes on him like he is a trophy. These things could snap him in half. He squares his shoulders.
He enters the office. The desperation and panic he felt the first time he came here echoes in his chest. Roger forces himself to remember Brian’s hands carding through his hair this morning. Brian is alive. The man passes him, brushing his hand across the back of his neck. Roger shivers but bites his tongue.
“Get your hands off me,” he snaps, “what do I call you today?”
The man hums, “Lucy.”
Roger rolls his eyes, careful not to react more than that, “well then, Lucy, care to explain why you broke our Bargain?”
“I’m hurt,” Lucy smiles, “you hired a Holy-Kind, Crystal, right? Never heard of him.”
“Why do you think I hired him?” Roger sneers.
He crosses his arms, “now tell me why you broke the Bargain. They’re supposed to be fine!”
Now isn’t the time for him to cry. He will lose if he does.
“Care for a smoke? No? More for me. When did you stop?” Lucy lights up, “that’s good though, these things are killer. I bet it was when your little darling got sick.”
“Stop,” his voice wavers.
Lucy walks over to a dark mahogany desk, “butterscotch?”
He sits down and props his legs on the desk, nudging the glass bowl of treats at him with a serene smile.
“Roger, we must work on your manners.”
“You gave me two decades. Swore it in blood.”
“Technically, the contract says a decade and a half rounded up,” Lucy holds up a rolled-up scroll.
The seal reads RMT.
Roger bites his cheek and reminds himself to keep his breathing deep and even, “this isn’t bad luck. Crystal told me. Soul sickness.”
“Is this an honor thing?”
He takes a step back, unsure of the change in tone.
“Don’t want anyone thinking that Queen made a deal with the devil? That you got to the top on anything less than your own talent and drive?”
“He didn’t!” Roger shouts.
Devil or not, he’ll be damned before anyone bad mouths Freddie in front of him.
“Cute turn of phrase,” Lucy grins.
Roger closes his eyes and feels the tendrils wrapping around his mind. He steps forward. The anger bubbles up through his lungs and caution taking a backseat. Roger raises his hand –
“Tricky thing, Soulmates.”
He stills.
“Oh pish,” Lucy waves his hand, “did you really think I wouldn’t know? Darling, I hold your soul.”
Roger feels sick.
“Did you really think I’d go to the authorities? Maybe, if this wasn’t so much fun for me.”
“What do you mean?” Roger shakes his head.
“I don’t imagine you mean how this is fun for me,” Lucy leans back further, “the soulmate thing then? Have a seat while we talk shop.”
Roger is forced into a chair. The back is rigid, and it is covered in dark green velvet with gold adornments. A glass of whiskey, along with a full decanter and table, appears next to him. He needs a drink, but he isn’t going to put anything this man offers him in his mouth.
Lucy’s lips curl in amusement, “no? You’ve gotten boring. It’s a good year.”
Roger swallows as Lucy takes a sip of his own glass. He spins the perfectly spherical ice cube with his finger, “now, where was I? Oh, yes.”
“Soulmates,” two tiny spheres of lights rise from his fingers, they twist together like an orbiting star system.
The lights merge, he can still faintly make out the warm and cool tinges to the illumination, “two souls are hard to separate.”
Lucy picks the ball up and tugs, after a few minutes they start to pull apart, “but easy to tell them apart.”
Roger’s heart beats against his sternum. It hurts. He rubs his hands on the arms of the chair trying to wipe the sweat away. Two more lights appear, one a faint green and another a faint purple. These join the other two which have reconnected. The light pure white and so much brighter. He must squint.
“Four souls? Nearly impossible to tell. And, it is impossible to remove one and leave the other’s whole.”
Lucy demonstrates this, he pulls the yellow light free, but along with it comes two residual pieces of the green and purple. The original light is much dimmer, but he can clearly make out the singular whole soul.
No.
Lucy laughs, “what a beautiful face you’re making.”
Roger can’t breathe.
“If it is any consolation, I sincerely thought I was grabbing yours.”
Roger makes a strangled noise. His head is too muddled by the ringing in his ears. It can’t be.
“Maybe I can fix dear old Deaky’s once Freddie dies, but Brian has a very clingy soul. Nearly tore it in two.”
No!
Lucy pops a butterscotch candy into his mouth grinning viciously.
“Don’t say their names.”
“Names are powerful,” Lucy nods.
Roger wants to storm out. The moment he puts his foot down, something darts out from the chair next to him and he barely has time to lift both legs. The cobra darts past him and then slithers up the light and flicks its tongue out at him.
How could he be so stupid?
“Good news is that your soul is completely whole. I do recall you were rather attached to it. Deliciously ironic, no?”
This time he does stand. He ignores the cobra’s hiss, “give it back! I don’t care! Kill me now. I made the deal! It’s my life. Not… I didn’t… the bargain wasn’t theirs. The price is mine to pay.”
Lucy leans back not losing the pleasant smile, “no can do, friend. There is another option though, you’ll like this one I think.”
Roger wipes the tears away, relief flooding him.
“I’m giving you a good deal here, once in an eternity offer,” Lucy raises an eyebrow, “you should really consider it.”
He crushes the hope that is beating in tandem with his heart.
“We void the contract.”
“Brian would die,” Roger whispers.
“Yes,” Lucy nods, “that would be the result. But just think, Freddie will be healthy! Live for fifty more years!”
“If you think for a moment I could trade – that I would be happy if I traded – that they would be happy that I traded –”
“Roger, you’ve already made the trade once. Yourself.”
He backs away. He – he had to. Brian would have died if he hadn’t but now Freddie is – all because of him.
Lucy laces his fingers together, looking far too much like a record executive for Roger’s liking, “I’ll let you in on a trader’s secret. Brian will try and kill himself once Freddie is gone. Having only half a soul, half of your original soul… well, that isn’t much of a life at all. You’d be doing him a favor.”
Roger lifts his hands to his head and tugs on his hair. There is no way – Brian would never – not while he still had John and himself. Lucy pulls his chair closer to the desk, almost sympathetic looking.
“Keep your losses to one.”
He can’t choose. He can’t let either of them die. Not Fred. Not Brian. They’re his everything. He can’t make this choice. John is going to hate him no matter the path he walks. Fuck.
“There is nothing else,” he whispers.
Was his soul not good enough?
Lucy laughs, “I’m a businessman and this bargain is a steal. Practically criminal.”
Roger shakes his head, “please.”
“You’ve got a week. If you’ve got a better offer than mine, pitch it, pretty boy.”
Roger blinks and he is back in front of the mansion. It is dark and quiet and feels like there isn’t a soul inside. He runs in not caring about the volume of his sneakers on the hardwood floor or that he stumbles over one of the fancy runners and knocks over a vase. He rushes up the stairs to the bedroom. John is already on his feet, wielding an iron rod like a sword. Neither Brian nor Freddie have stirred. They’re both on the bed, Brian clinging to Freddie like he is the only thing keeping him tethered. When had Brian moved?
John is staring at him.
“I fucked up.”
He lifts a hand to his mouth, biting his palm to keep his sobs in. John shushes him and then drags him out of the bedroom. Roger follows numbly, all his emotions forming a tempest in his stomach. He is marched into the middle of their music room. Good. Soundproof. John is so smart.
“Roger, what on Earth is going on? You just left without a word. What would I have told Brian or Freddie? As if we don’t have enough to be worried about.”
“I fucked up. So badly,” Roger shakes his head.
He doesn’t know how his legs are holding him up. They’re frozen.
“We’re going to lose both. Brian and Freddie –”
“Roger don’t tell me you cheated –”
“And I only wanted to save Brian. But a devil knows we’re soulmates and it’s my fault.”
John stares at him as though he has gone mad, “okay. From the beginning.”
Roger inhales a gasping ugly breath, “Brian was going to die. My Nan was a seer and she saw that I would make a choice and it would cost me everything. So I thought to make a deal with a devil would go around it. I’d die young but that is worth it.”
“Then the devil tells me that he grabbed the wrong soul, but he didn’t know that he had because we’re soulmates. It’s my fucking fault.”
“First,” John puts his hands on Roger’s shoulders, tightly gripping them, “it’d be the same thing if you were in Fred’s shoes. We would still be devastated. Second, we can try and fix this.”
“We can’t. I tried. He will take Fred and break Brian, or he will void the deal and we’ll lose Brian.”
John hugs him. Roger digs his fingertips into John’s shoulders. He registers that John is warm, but he can’t feel it. One large hand cups the back of his head. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would John want anything to do with him anymore?
“We can – one day at a time. Let this burden go, you’ve carried it for far too long.”
“You’re always the strong one.”
John smiles wetly. Roger’s lip wavers before the first sob rips through his frozen lungs. After that, the pain crashes over him like a tidal wave. He is drowning in guilt. His knees give out and John lowers them the piano bench. It’s hard and cold and it feels like what is currently lodged in his heart. Roger buries his face in John’s chest. He feels like he is being pulled out by a current.
Roger doesn’t know how long he was using John as his anchor. Long enough for Brian to find them and the sky to become pink with early morning sunlight. Brian wraps around his back. The comfort is offered with no questions asks. He swallows the bile.
There is no way he will tell Brian what he did. He prays that John will keep it to himself. Certainly, he will keep what is happening to Freddie because of him a secret. Right now, he must do everything he can to keep Brian with them. Through the clarity of numb exhaustion, he realizes that Lucy only said that he would try but not that he succeeded. Roger is grasping for straws when he knows that he can’t trust a devil’s honeyed wine. Even if he keeps Brian, he’ll lose Freddie. Losing Brian will keep Freddie. What had Brian said once?
Roger wants to turn his brain off. He doesn’t want to think of the time when they were invincible with dumb love. Roger doesn’t get to be happy.
Brian had called Freddie and himself a binary start system and then said he was the moon caught between them and that John was a trapped comet.
“I think trapped gives the wrong impression, B.”
“Not like this. Trapped is better than hurtling through endless emptiness alone.
“That’s almost poetic Deaky, are you sure you’re not a secret songwriter.”
“But why are Roger and I the stars? Other than being too on the nose, dearest.”
“Because without you two we wouldn’t have a galaxy to call home.”
Fuck. There is no fixing this. Should he be happy with the twenty extra years? It isn’t enough time, he will never have enough time, but it was more than the fates promised them. John pulls away when they make out the faint sound of Freddie falling into a coughing spell. He watches John send him a soft but false smile.
It is a cold smile.
Roger hadn’t expected John to be completely okay with his admission, but he hadn’t thought that he would lose John completely too.
What does he do? What can he live with? Not fucking this.
Roger turns his head. Brian is watching him with a patient and a concerned gaze. There is an edge of curiosity in the hazel eyes.
“I love you Brimi.”
“I love you, too, endlessly.”
You can’t make a promise like that, he thinks.
“Brian I really messed up and I’m not sure I can fix it.”
He gets brought to Brian’s chest. Brian is never as warm as John or as comfortable as Freddie, but he is constant. As reliable as Roger’s heart. His gravity.
“Tell me something. Anything. That would make this better.”
Brian hums, his fingers tangling in the short hair and the base of his skull. Roger leans into the hand. He needs to feel alive. Like he isn’t about to shatter.
“There might be a world out there that you can fix this, or that you never did what you did in the first place.”
Roger huffs, too tired to feel any amusement, “the cold comfort of the enormity of the universe, that’s what you have for me, Bri?”
“Sometimes cold comfort is all you have.”
He looks towards the wall. Their gold disks glimmer in the low light. Roger knows they’ve had a good run, but it is his fault that it is ending. Maybe he should take comfort in Brian’s theory. That there may be a world that they all grow old together in. Maybe he should take comfort in the idea that they met at all.
But he can’t. John will – does – hate him. He will – is keeping – keep a secret from Brian. Freddie will be dead. Maybe he could live with it if he never made the choice, it will be damning Brian, but what else is there?
There is comfort in ignorance. He will be devastated at Brian’s death, certainly, but is it a more peaceful grief knowing that there was nothing you could have done?
“Brian, what is the absolute worst thing that I could do that would make you stop loving me?”
Hazel eyes squint at him.
“Kill someone?” Brian tilts his head, “off the top of my head. I don’t know. I never imagined that you would ever do something so extreme.
Roger nods. He knows what he must do. This deal will kill Freddie, but it saved Brian.
“Make love to me?” He crawls in Brian’s lap.
“Now? Here?” Brian blushes.
“Please. I need this. I need you.” I have to say goodbye.
He curls up on Brian’s chest at the end of it. The is guitarist too exhausted to be a good participant in the afterglow. Roger rubs nameless shapes into Brian’s chest. He admires his sleeping façade. He relearns every wrinkle and blemish and paints it into his mind. Brian’s beauty only seemed to grow with age.
He plays with the soft curl, messy because he kept running his hands through them. They are loose, tugging from their tight coil. Roger smiles, Brian is going to complain about it when he wakes him.
Roger spends a moment remembering the soft noises Brian makes in his sleep, between the snoring, little hums that could probably make up an entire song.
He doesn’t allow himself to sleep. Each breath is a gift he cannot miss.
What would they call it, the song Brian makes?
Tabitha almost looks sad when he walks past. He keeps thumbing the bruise Brian left on him this morning.
It is too late and the rain sinks into his bones. No patron stares at him as he walks. The silence reaches a crescendo in his head. He cannot allow himself to think or he will stop. Roger shoves the door open.
Lucy looks up.
Today his suit is purple and gold. His office has changed. Roger takes a moment to figure out how he knows this. The walls are gray instead of pure black. The floor turned from wood to stone.
There are screams in the wind.
“Void the deal,” it sounds like he has eaten an entire bucket of glass,” but give me a chance to say a proper goodbye.”
Lucy smiles, pure white teeth catch the in the candlelight, “always a bright boy, Roggie.”
The contract appears in Lucy’s hand and then it burst into flame. Roger falls to the ground. Tears don’t come, he can’t cry. Roger stares at the stone floor polished enough to cast a reflection. Blond hair and blue eyes are dull. He is nothing like the man who earned the love of the loves of his life. His head is forced up by Lucy’s forefinger.
Roger doesn’t look into the empty depths of his blue eyes, “the strange thing about time? Even turning it back doesn’t get you the same result twice.”
Roger can’t keep his head up and he looks down at the gray stone. Gray? Why would he think that the hospital would have a stone floor? He stares at his reflection, squinting.
“Rog? Roger! Are you quite alright?”
He shakes his head, which clears it of the strange cottony feeling. Freddie has his hands on his hips and dark circles under his eyes. He bites at his bottom lip and Roger nearly tells him to stop.
“Shock, I suppose,” he finds himself answering, “Brian might…”
Freddie pulls him up and into a hug, “will be back and pissing us all off with his perfectionism soon enough. You running off, however, has poor Deaky in fits.”
“How can you be certain?”
“He is pacing a hole in the linoleum,” Freddie kisses his temple, “and clearly you’ve never been at the receiving end of our Brimi’s stubbornness. Now let us go back and worry together.”
Roger takes Freddie’s hand. He prays that this is the right choice.
“I thought you weren’t worried, Fred.”
“I didn’t want to feel left out.”