Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

42. Fever Pitch, Part One

Sal here! This chapter was not meant to be a two-parter, but things got real long and real complicated real fast, and it was one of my goals today to publish the next part before work- and even if I didn't stop now, I'd still have to finish the whole thing later. What's more, I don't like rushing things that do not need to be rushed, so it's just going to have to be broken in half- with a much shorter second part, I promise. ;)

Julia

I found myself unable to move a few seconds after I pushed Freddie out of the bedroom. That is, apart from my fluttering heart and shaking hands; everything else seemed frozen.

It was all in fun, I knew. Freddie hadn't even touched me. All he did was talk a little dirty and make like he was about to take off his clothes while I watched. All things considered, he indubitably had no desire to follow through on any of it- and yet, my flesh crawled.

Which was a very bad sign.

Even worse, he couldn't even give me a chance to sufficiently cool off. "Hurry up and come out," Freddie prodded, "Or I'll cut into this other cake!"

There was no time to lose. I rummaged through the hanging clothes in a frenzy. Granted, I knew deep down that Freddie really was not so mean as to blatantly destroy another cake and make me start all over again with the eggs and the pecans and the rum (Freddie's favorite part of the recipe- it was a lucky thing we had enough after all his "quality checks"); still, only a complete fool would underestimate the Great Pretender. So I hurried.

Breathlessly I pulled a dark green turtleneck over my head. Thank God he didn't see the ring, I told myself. It would ruin everything and then some. I traded my leggings for a pair of blue jeans, smeared my lips with a little frosty pink, and was just about to fly out of the room when I skidded to a halt. That reminded me.

Perhaps I wasn't wearing the ring at the moment- but all Freddie would have had to do was open the nightstand drawer and see it. The fifty year-old ring I wore round my neck, brought all the way back from Las Vegas. I couldn't let him find it, any more than I could let him know how rattled I felt at the moment. But I kept up the speed as I pulled down the metal box, fumbled with the key, popped the thing open. I threw the ring inside and slammed it shut- but not before I ran an affectionate hand over the box which held Yin and Yang.

Don't you know his head would explode, I thought to myself, if he found out I had these? Probably not- or at least, not as much as pretty much anything else I'm keeping hidden from him. In the grand scheme of things, jade cat figurines are pretty small potatoes.

Meanwhile, Freddie huffed impatiently. "My God, how long does it take you to put a f---ing shirt on?"

I rolled my eyes. "That sounds awful funny coming out of you, Mr. Take Forever to Fix My Hair."

"My dear, I'll have you know that every second I take is worth the finished product," he went on, voice playfully pompous while I hoisted the box back onto the closet shelf.

"Are you saying what I do and the time I take doing it, is not?"

"Not at all, I am referring only to myself. So, wouldn't you agree?"

I hesitated, exceptions to this "rule" flooding my head as I flung the door open. My brow arched, and I put my hands on my hips. In this instant I had planned to say something snarky, maybe some crack about his feminine get-up in "I Want to Break Free" or that awkward eyeball-studded number from the video for "It's a Hard Life". Freddie's natural beauty did not immunize him against fashion blunders, after all- and even the most loyal of fans must admit at least one or two throughout Queen's career.