Bad Mood, My Dear? [Brian/John]

Bad Mood, My Dear?

Being awoken by the intruding sound of the telephone wasn't exactly John's favourite thing in the world. So when the first buzz of the phone reached his ears for the first time in the early morning, his first instinct was to bury his face in Brian's nightshirt, as if to attempt to make the noise disappear into the soft fabric of his cotton shirt. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, this soon turned out not to work, for the phone kept disturbing him from his drowsy state of sleeping, and he sighed softly.

'Brian?' John called as he reached out to shake the other man's shoulder, and his boyfriend frowned shortly at the unpleasant situation of being roughly woken up from his sleep by the touch of John's hand on his shoulder and the noise of the telephone in his ears. He surely wasn't a fan of being awoken all at once, given that this was quite a deterioration of luxury when you were used to being patiently brought into consciousness with a kiss on your forehead and a hot cup of tea placed on your nightstand by your boyfriend. But unfortunately for Brian, there was no time for their usual morning routine now that someone was trying to reach out for them.

'Mmmh... what time is it?' Brian mumbled, obviously still too overcome with sleepiness to really get past that slumbering stage of aftersleep. He didn't even bother trying to open his eyes, let alone making any movements that could have suggested that he was going to stand up and pick up the phone anywhere soon.

'Half past eight,' John answered when having glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand, after which they both shared a sigh. Half past eight wasn't even that early in the morning, not to say that they would usually have been in the studio for at least an hour already. But this Sunday, the first day off they had had since a month, wasn't supposed to start as early as this, especially not since they had celebrated this rare luxury thoroughly the night before by staying up late.

'Can you go get it, John? Please?' Brian asked, and John could hear in his voice, that was still raspy from sleeping all night, that he wasn't in for a discussion – not with him and surely not to the person on the other side of the telephone line. He listened closely to hear if Freddie and Roger were on their way to the living room to pick up the utterly annoying device, but when he heard the sudden sound of water clattering down on the bathroom tiles in combination with muffled giggles instead of hurried footsteps, he sighed. Whenever the phone rang early in the morning, none of the four residents of the small London apartment was particularly excited to jump out of bed and rush over to the living room to pick it up and greet whoever was calling them at that point in time. That was why everybody quickly started to look for excuses not to have to go. This morning wasn't any different – Brian was pretending to have fallen asleep again, and John could tell by both experience and by their quiet giggles that Freddie and Roger were only pretending to be showering; in reality, they were probably just both standing next to the streaming water, waiting for someone else to pick up the phone. Three of them had marked themselves as 'unavailable' towards the caller, which meant that John was once again victimised to go get the phone that was still ringing through their apartment.

'Fine, I'll go,' John gave in as he threw the duvet aside and stood up from the bed, catching a glimpse of how Brian shortly smiled to himself in satisfaction, snuggling closer into his pillow. He was clearly satisfied with this victory, but John didn't let him get away with it that easily. 'You know the rules, Bri – you make us breakfast!'

'Hmm-hmm,' Brian hummed in agreement as he turned around again, not looking like he was going to come out of bed anywhere soon. John had developed a devilish little trick to force him to do so anyway, though. With a cheeky grin plastered across his face, he gripped the duvet Brian was hiding under, and pulled it completely off his body in one quick movement, making Brian gasp at the sudden cold against his uncovered arms and legs.