Funny How Love Is (Maylor AU)

Chapter 48

The professor didn't know what to do. He'd never seen someone so broken before.

The blonde looked down at the stretch of handwoven cloth in his hands and mumbled, "I'll be fine, Brian. Bruises go away and cuts heal themselves. It's nothing a little makeup can't hide in the meantime." He smirked. "Besides, it's not only cigarette stains I'm a pro at getting rid of."

Brian had been struck speechless. The words coming out of Roger's mouth, they didn't belong to him. None of them had except maybe that last sentence. The rest of them belonged to someone else; perhaps the person holding the strings attached to Roger's arms, shoulders, legs, and feet, because his mouth was moving, but a different voice was coming out of it.

"Can you just leave me alone for a while?" the music instructor tacked on softly to his previous statement, a shameful expression washing over his face as he glanced back up at the professor.

It took a moment for Brian to process what Roger had asked of him, caught up in his own thoughts about the blonde and what had happened to him while he was gone, but more importantly, what he could do to help. What did Roger need?

"Please?" he added when the professor still hadn't responded to him.

Brian cocked his head to the side, a devious smile appearing on his face as he built up the courage to object to Roger's simple request. "No."

"No?"

"No, because I don't think you want me to leave." The professor was truly grasping at straws with his accusation. What he meant to say was that he didn't want to leave, but making that confession would be selfish, and this wasn't about him. It was about Roger. "I think, deep down, you really want me to stay." I really want to stay.

He lowered himself to the ground and crossed his legs, sitting a few feet away from the suspicious music instructor and heaving a sigh as he hung his head and twiddled his thumbs in his lap. "I also think you want someone who isn't going to scream at you or hit you when they get upset," he explained calmly, being sure to maintain the safe distance between them, "Someone who doesn't come inside your place of work and threaten to tear down the walls just to find you. You want someone who actually cares about you; someone who trusts and respects you enough to let you be your own person." He looked up, a blush creeping up in his cheeks as he implored, "If you'll let me, Rog, I...I'd like to be that person, and I think you'd like that too."

"Tim didn't hit me," the blonde corrected him coldly, seemingly having missed everything else the professor had said to him, "I told you, I tripped."

"Yeah, and I'm the King of England," Brian retorted sarcastically.

His response elicited a small laugh out of the music instructor, who replied so quietly, his remark almost went unheard. "If only you were." The smile on his face faltered but somehow remained, the blonde sniffling before muttering, "Then you could have me whichever way you wanted, and no one could stop you. But alas, you're just some lousy professor at a university." He met the curly-haired man's gaze with saddened eyes, though they quickly filled with mischief as he started to come back to himself and finished with, "And the headmistress has your balls in a vice. One wrong step and you're toast, Professor May."

"Oh, fuck off," Brian laughed, snatching a stray pencil off the ground and playfully chucking it at the blonde whose arms snapped up, acting like a shield as he chuckled himself. It made him feel good to see the genuine smile on the blonde's face; he couldn't stand to see him frown. It just didn't feel right.

Their laughter eventually died down, and a blanket of silence fell over the two as they drifted off into their own thoughts, asking themselves the unanswerable question that always came to mind when they were together. What do we do now?

Luckily neither of them had to deal with the weight of the decision, because a knock rattled on the door to the makeshift classroom and the source provided no time at all for the music instructor to respond before it was pushed in to reveal the woman he'd just made fun of, clearly flustered by something neither men knew about. Her eyes quickly darted to her boyfriend who sat on the floor, her cheeks growing red as she stuttered, "B-Brian! I...I mean, uh, Professor May, what...what a surprise to see you down here."

"Y-Yeah," he stammered, picking himself up off the ground and brushing off the back of his pants. "I saw Roger trip down the stairs, and I wanted to make sure he was alright," the curly-haired man lied, looking down at the blonde whose eyebrows furrowed together. It didn't make sense to him why the professor suddenly was okay with the story he'd given him. Was he just trying to save Chrissie from the impending argument that was bound to ensue had Brian told her the truth? Or was he just trying to be nice and keep this between the two of them?

"Oh, how terrible," Chrissie commented, clasping her hands awkwardly behind her back before averting her apathetic attention to Roger who still sat with his back to the leg of the piano, the scarf now back around his neck, "Are you alright?"

"I'm feeling a bit better," the music instructor answered, his gaze flickering up to the professor and the corner of his lips perking up into a smirk.

"Well that's good," the headmistress remarked, regaining the blonde's attention as she continued to say, "Because I was wondering if I may so have a word with you, Mr. Taylor. Alone."