Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

27. Get the Picture

Freddie

I had opened my eyes that morning to see myself lying again in an empty bed.  With a sigh, I shook my head.  Softly I hummed my new song's melody for memory's sake, as well as that of "One Vision."  Good Lord, but a little official studio time would have been lovely.  I could practically feel our songs going to pot- with that one new exception. That one stuck, strangely.

As I stretched a little more awake, I noticed that Julia's pillow was missing from her side of the bed.  Well, not exactly.  Rather, it had only been moved; it was wedged under the covers in between myself and where she would have been sleeping.   This was new.  So I pulled it back out, set it where it belonged, and wondered what made her do such a thing.  Perhaps she wanted to put as much space between us as possible.

I shrugged.  Who cared?  After all, it wasn't as though I even wanted to be in her arms anymore.  In fact, late last night when I finally decided to retire, the only reason I had wrapped myself so tightly around her warm, sleeping body was because it was too cold to do anything else.  She was my bedfellow for the interim, and I slept with her because it kept me from being alone at night.

All the same, darling, I sighed to myself, would it really kill you to forget the fucking Modo alarm once in a while, and oversleep just a little every now and then, give me something nice to wake up next to?

I rolled out of bed, put on my slippers and just then I heard a big terrified gasp come from the kitchen. I hurried in to see Julia standing there, her face as white as milk, as a shaking hand flew up to cover her wide, gaping mouth.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

She looked up at me, her big eyes hard and frightening.  For a moment, I was quite worried for my life.

"I'm gonna kill him," she hissed through gritted teeth. 

Oh, good, it's not me this time.

"Kill who?  Stanley?"

Julia snorted.  "Yeah, maybe I'll kill him, too."

"Ooo.  Can I help?"

"Sure.  In fact, why discriminate?  Let's kill everyone.  You grab a kitchen knife, I'll grab the gun, and we'll go postal on everyone's ass together.  Be the new Bonnie and Clyde."

"The gun?"

"Yeah.  I have a gun, remember?"

I blinked.  "Oh- I thought you were joking."

"Nope.  It's right where I said it was.  Little .38 revolver.  It was a Christmas present from my parents."

"Your parents gave you a gun?"

She smiled dryly.  "They're Texans, remember?"

"Oh, right," I chuckled.  "Still, I mean- guns."

"Not like I can hit anything with it, of course, because I can't.  It's there to scare away intruders, I guess- but that hasn't happened to us yet, thank God."

Julia sighed then, looked at her watch.  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why she didn't ask the all-knowing, all-powerful Modo what the time was, but I thought better of it; I didn't feel like testing her aim this morning.  As strangely attractive as she could be when she lost her temper, or else just let her pent-up feelings go wild upon the world, I wasn't awake enough to push those buttons as skillfully as I would have preferred. 

She must have been fairly freaked out about something, though; before my very eyes Julia took out a cigarette, lit it, and breathed it in hungrily after offering me one as well.  I noticed the butt of her last one smoldering down to nothing in the ash tray near her hand.