Some Day One Day (Maylor AU)

Chapter 83

Brian popped the white stick into the corner of his mouth and crossed his arms, watching as Roger hesitantly examined the journal. He turned it around so that the words scribbled across the page faced the right way, scanning them over and quickly realizing what they were.

"It's a song," the blonde whispered.

"Not just any song," Brian corrected him, plucking the cigarette from his lips and blowing the smoke out to the side. He tapped the top of the page where the title sat. "Your song."

Roger blinked away the pathetic tears that began to build in his eyes, thinking about how not even Tim had written him a song before, and if he had, the blonde doubted it would be written as beautifully as this.

"It's not finished yet," the professor admitted, taking another quick drag that nearly sent him into a brief fit of coughs. "But I think it gets the point across well enough, don't you?"

The blonde chuckled but said nothing, too choked up to speak. All he could do was stare at the scribbled words that seemed too good to be true.

"Well?" Brian asked, interpreting the silence as a sign that he'd taken things too far; that showing Roger the song was nothing but a mistake he'd later regret, similar to a lot of things in his life.

This wasn't going to be one of them, though.

Roger shook his head and glanced up to meet Brian's anxious gaze, shaking the book in his hands and confessing, "You know, I told Tim today that I didn't want to be with him." The professor's eyes grew wide. "Well, not exactly," the blonde quickly corrected himself. "I told him I couldn't pretend to want to be with him anymore." His cheeks grew red as he explained, "And he just gave me this look that...that made me doubt what I said, and I tried to take it back—you know, say I didn't mean it—but he said that I did; that I just didn't have the words to say it before."

Brian swallowed the lump that formed in his throat and stammered with furrowed brows, "W-Why are you telling me this, Roger?"

"Because I've never been good with words, Brian," Roger muttered, shoving the notebook into the professor's chest. The latter instinctively grabbed it, dropping the half-burned cigarette to the floor and watching the blonde brush past him and take a seat on the couch. "I've just never been able to say exactly how I feel, and...and now look where I am." He snatched the discarded pack of cigarettes and pulled a new one out for himself, which just so happened to be the last. Lighting it, he rattled off angrily, "I'm performing with a band tomorrow night whose music I can't play to save my life; my boyfriend's roaming around London, waiting to strike when I'll least expect it; and then..." he plucked the white stick from his lips and exhaled, sinking into the couch with a sigh, "...there's you."

Brian waited patiently for Roger to elaborate on what it was about him that was so hard to put into words or affected him so, but the blonde just kept smoking, one long drag after the other. The silence that filled the room angered the professor, just as much as Roger's woes angered him. However, there was no more cake to bury his feelings in, nor were there any more cigarettes to "help him think"—not that he even wanted one. His throat burned, and the taste in his mouth was something awful. All he wanted was a mint.

Just as Brian was about to ask if Freddie had any lying around, Roger blurted out, "I don't know what I want, Brian." He stared at the cigarette in his hand, rotating it in a small circle. "But I do know that I don't want to run away again." He took another quick puff from it, explaining through a wispy cloud of smoke, "I already did that, and it didn't change a goddamn thing. I still got hurt; I still did things I wasn't proud of. The only fucking difference was that you weren't there to make it better."

The professor's cheeks burned once again, the genuine tone to the blonde's voice striking him in a way he hadn't expected. It was rare for the blonde to be honest and not instantly take back his words. Part of Brian was afraid that he was going to, the long pause that filled the conversation worrying the professor to no end. It was only when Roger chuckled that the growing tension was relieved, the blonde wondering, "Who ever thought that I'd be you and you'd be me?"

Brian's eyebrow arched in confusion. "What?"

The blonde glanced back at him with tired baby blues, his lips curled into a smirk. "A year ago, you were the one who didn't know what he wanted. Now I'm the one who doesn't know what he wants." He faced forward once more and bit his lip, looking down at the cigarette pinched between his fingers once more and muttering, "Don't you think it was easier when I was you and you were me?" He brought the white stick to his lips and inhaled dejectedly.

"When I was you and you were me," the professor repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

"You know, I'm starting to think that I was wrong for wanting to get away from prostituting myself out," Roger grumbled, his thoughts beginning to spiral. He rested his head on the back of the sofa and blew a steady stream of smoke at the ceiling. "Would you believe I found myself doing the same exact fucking thing in America that I did here, except this time dressed as myself and with girls? Well, girl—there was only one, but what if Tim was right? What if that's all I'm good for?"

"When I was you and you were me," Brian echoed himself, utterly blind to the crisis that was building in the blonde. Suddenly, he rounded the couch and shuffled through the remainder of the bridal magazines scattered about the coffee table with one hand—the other holding the notebook to his chest. His erratic change in behavior threw the blonde to the opposite arm of the couch that had seen better days.

"What the hell, Brian?" Roger snapped.

"I need a pen."

The blonde's eyebrows wove closer together. "What do you need a fucking pen for?"

"Just find me a pen, Roger!" the professor shouted, continuing his search that gained a member after Roger took one more drag from the cigarette and smashed it in the tray with all the others.

Getting on his hands and knees, the blonde found what Brian was looking for underneath the couch. He bent his arm in a way that it hadn't been bent in since he last adorned himself in makeup and slipped into skirts and snatched the pen with some difficulty, extending the writing utensil to the professor. "Here," he mumbled.

Without so much as a thank you, Brian took the pen into his possession and reclaimed his seat on the couch, putting the ballpoint tip to the paper and scribbling away. Roger joined his side with an undeniable sense of suspicion, their legs brushing as he looked over the professor's shoulder and watched the words that had previously been bottled up flow out of him with ease.

"Together took us nearly there, the rest may not be sung," Roger read aloud the words written underneath the ones he'd spoken just moments ago.

It was difficult for the professor to keep his focus with Roger's voice tickling his ear and sending a shiver down his spine, but he did, murmuring the new lyrics as he jotted them down, "So still the cloud it hangs...over us, and we're alone...but some day, one day—"

"We'll come home," the blonde finished for him softly, Brian's wide eyes slowly lifting from the page to meet his that glimmered in a way the professor hadn't witnessed in over a year.

Just then, the world around the two slowed to a dead stop, leaving them to embrace the moment that had been long in the making. They both knew what was going to happen next; there was no doubt about it. The question was, who was going to lean in first? Most of the time it was Brian bringing them together, with Roger stepping in only when the professor was hesitant. The blonde could tell that this was going to be one of those moments, and so without saying another word, he dove in, denying the professor the chance to hesitate a second longer by capturing his lips with his.