Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

21. Bad Bluffs

Sal here. I'm sorry this chapter took so long in getting out, but what with Thanksgiving and choir rehearsals and, in general, LIFE getting in the way, I fell a little behind. What's more, Freddie doesn't make his chapters easy, perfectionist that he is. ;) But here it is, finally, and I will try in the future to post these in a more timely manner!

Freddie

Right. Apparently it's once again my turn to play the narrator- and I must say, for the first time I think I'm actually looking forward to it. In the beginning I wasn't all that wild to participate, to be honest, because I'll be the first to admit, I'm not as skilled at telling a good tale as others might be, and it must be quite clear by now that words are not, nor have they ever really been, my greatest ally. And yet, I keep hearing that all you people are just dying to hear more of my side of the story, so you darlings must not mind all that much, which makes you even more lovely in my eyes.

So, here I am again, back by popular demand, because clearly you can't get enough of me. Can't say I blame you, of course.

But anyway, let's get on with it, shall we?

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The hardest part of the next morning was waking up.

Well, no. Let me put that another way. Waking up in itself was no trouble. It was what happened only moments after awakening that proved difficult.

I don't sleep very much on a regular basis; as long as I have about four hours, I can take on the next twenty with ease. So I wound up stirring a couple of hours before Julia intended to and tried to move my right arm a bit only to find something warm and soft was lying on top of it. Very slowly I opened my eyes, and found that I was in a much more dangerous position than the one in which I'd drifted off.

Last night, being as loath to sleep in an empty bed as I am, I had snuggled up as close to Julia as I could manage without looking like I had any ulterior motives. And I had none, of course; simply because I rested my hand on her waist and kissed her shoulder, it didn't mean I desired anything more from her. It wasn't Julia, it was me. Very me. I do things like that all the time.

But it seemed that during the night, I had had a few second thoughts.

For I had awakened to see both my arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, my nose nestled against her shoulder. No funny business, she had kept saying- and here we were, spooning away, on scarcely the first night of this new sleeping arrangement.

Well, isn't this just fucking perfect.

Although I knew Julia would very likely kill me for letting this happen, were she to find out, I didn't panic. In fact, this would be a very easy fix. So it was with quite a cool head I began to unfasten myself from around her, leaning back, brushing her hair back in case the feathery ends should tickle my nose and betray me with a sneeze. Sliding my arm out from under her side would be the hardest part, she was laying so heavily against it. But little by little, I started dragging my arm away from beneath her.

That's when she shifted a bit in her sleep, let out a small, soft moan, and rolled over to face me, settling once more on top of my forearm. I drew a heavy sigh.

Now I had to wake her up and explain what was happening; it seemed a better idea to take care of it now than to have her interrogate me later. Not that I necessarily wanted to, but it didn't look like I really had a choice, as it were. So I lifted up my dead right arm, reached over and poked my finger into her ribs twice to rouse her. Or intended to, anyway.

Before I could follow through, Julia moved her little hand along my chest, pushing it further and further across until it had slid around my waist and was holding on. Her head was resting on my shoulder now, and I watched in stunned silence as she nuzzled her nose and lips against my chest for a bit. At last, with one more quiet sigh, Julia settled back in and lay still from then on.