Not With Those Teeth, Mate (Maylor/Froger/Deacury)

Chapter 4

Sporting a pair of dark sunglasses and a wrinkled, half-buttoned, haphazardly thrown-on dress shirt, Roger trudged through the halls of EMI. The clock on the wall's hands sat at the one and four, indicating that the blonde was very late for the mandatory meeting his stepdad had called. The boy vaguely remembered his father reminding him at some indiscernible time the night prior of the important event, but his mind was in too drunk a haze to properly process what was being said to him. However, he did manage to nod his head, the unconscious gesture serving as sufficient acknowledgement that the manager's reminder hadn't gone unheard.

Roger struggled to light the cigarette he had pinched between his fingers, hitting the spark wheel over and over again before someone popped out from around the corner he was about to turn and accomplished the impossible task for him. The blonde lowered his sunglasses to get a better look at his savior, his bloodshot eyes falling on the one person he wasn't terrified to see.

"You're in a lot of trouble, Roger Taylor," the girl with dark hair and big, brown eyes greeted, her lips curling up into a sly grin.

"Only if you rat me out, Dominique," he teased, pulling the girl in and planting a sloppy kiss on her forehead. She laughed and playfully pushed the drummer away from her, the pair starting down the hallway where Mary and Debbie, two of Roger's three backup singers – the third being Dominique – were waiting outside the conference room.

"Roger!" Debbie squealed, shooting up from the bench she was perched on and flinging herself at the blonde who lost his footing and stumbled back into the wall. "Happy New Year!"

He chuckled, the youngest of the three singers reluctantly detaching herself from him. "Happy New Year to you too, babe."

"Are you ready to tell John your plans for the album, Rog?" Mary chimed in, taking a casual drag from her own cigarette and blowing the smoke out to the side as a smile crawled onto her face.

The blonde let out a nervous laugh, running his free hand through his hair. "Oh, you know I am." He wasn't, despite the fact that he'd been working on the damn thing for months, spending countless, sleepless nights writing songs that, by the time the sun peeked over the horizon to hang high in the sky, wound up in either the trash bin or the front lawn.

Just then, turning the corner with an air that demanded everyone's undivided attention, Freddie Mercury made his grand entrance. He held his head high and was dressed more ostentatiously than normal, sporting a large fur coat that blew in the nonexistent breeze, a pair of rose-colored, star-shaped sunglasses, and pants so tight his crotch entered the hallway before he did.

"Look, the killer queen returned from her vacation in Bali," Dominique sniggered under her breath, smirking as the flamboyant singer strutted by, paying no attention to the group he passed through – for Roger wasn't the only one who hadn't been bestowed with the gift of punctuality.

"I heard he spent the holidays like he always does," Mary tacked on, her eyes following the dark-haired man.

"Yeah, and how's that?" Debbie wondered, forgetting to keep her voice lowered like the others.

"By raiding thrift stores, of course!" Roger finally joined in, earning a hearty round of laughter from – as he often referred to them as – "his girls" and a glare from the singer before he disappeared into the conference room.

"How funny," Chrissie, one of the record label's established studio musicians who had been sitting beside Mary, snarled, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at the group's childish antics. She couldn't believe she'd worked alongside such simpletons for years and had been waiting for someone new to join the team and give her faith in the future of the music industry. Little did she know that her prayer would soon be answered by a lanky, awkward, curly-haired boy who had just finished his tour of the studios with his stepmother.