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iamnotbrianmay · 5 years

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call me when it’s over (and myself has reappeared)

Part 1 of 2, lovies. If you want to be added to the taglist please send me a message! Also If you want me to write anything for you, my ask box is always open!

Trigger Warning: Just know that this will not be a very happy fic, so I'm sorry if you came here looking for that. Depression is not something you fix with a kiss and a cuddle, so yeah, don't expect that to happen here. Needless to say, this fic is a very heavy piece, so if suicidal ideation, self harm, or any theme related to those two things triggers you please, please, stop reading.

Now onto the fic!

This was originally posted in @disabled-queen-hc but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to write more about this, so yeah. I hope you all like it!

***

Nobody ever bothers to ask why Brian May only wears long sleeved shirts. Just like nobody ever bothers to ask why he owns a collection of bracelets which he wears on the rare occasion that he does wear short sleeved shirts. Maybe it's the fact that people often only see what they want to see, or perhaps it's fear of hearing something that they don't want to hear.

All he knows is that it's been a long night, filled with the overwhelming lights of the night club Freddie had dragged them too, and the sinking feeling that filled his chest every time John's boyfriend rolled his eyes at Brian. He didn't really understand why the older man hated him so damn much, all he knows is that Daniel can't stand him. And that he isn't very subtle about it.

The other thing he knows is that Daniel, regardless of having known Brian for, give or take, two months already seems to know more about him than his four friends combined.

They had been dancing, the five of them, having the time of their lives and helping Brian forget about the sinking feeling that passed over him every time he caught Daniel's stare. The alcohol is helping him feel like himself again, lightening his mood and making the tension leak from his muscles. He definitely wants more.

He leaves them in the middle of the dancefloor with the promise of coming back with shots for all of them and misses the way that Daniel walks after him. Brian leans on the bar, bracelets that decorate his arms digging into his skin painfully, but he pays no mind to the sensation. Then someone slots himself beside Brian, pressing their shoulders together.

When he turns, he finds Daniel glaring at him. Brian's heart sinks, "Look, I really don't want to fight you. You seem to make Deaky very happy and I—"

"You know I love John, right?"

Brian frowns, "Yeah, but what does that have to do with—?"

"I don't think he should be hanging out with you."

Brian's frown deepens, "Look, mate if you think that I am in any way going to get in the way of yours and John's relationship you are wrong."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Then what—?"

Daniel's eyes flicker to Brian's wrists, and the penny drops. He feels his eyes widen and his breath shorten because oh god this can't be happening. He instantly cradles his hand to his chest and wishes that he hadn't worn the ridiculous Rolling Stones t-shirt he is wearing.

"You should be more careful when you play. If the wrong people were to find out..."

Daniel lets the thought linger on the air between them, and Brian's breath hitches, "You haven't told them, have you?"

Daniel shakes his head, his striking blue eyes never leaving Brian's face, "I'm not going too. And I won't tell the press either. I just want you away from John. He is way too precious, way too soft, and that," Daniel points at the hand Brian is holding to his chest, "will kill him."

The worst part is that Daniel's argument is reasonable. He can see the way that it would kill John, the way it could destroy Roger and Freddie. Brian knows that if it were to get out if any of his boys were to find out, it might tear them apart. So he just nods.

He clears his throat, blinks his tears away, and nods at Daniel, "Tell them I wasn't feeling alright."

Daniel nods, and gives Brian a faux smile, "I wish it could be different, Brian. But sadly it isn't."

Brian only notices the numbness that has spread over his body once he is left the bar. The cold air hits him like a truck, and Brian realises that everything he had been feeling that night seems to be locked away. The tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and a sob is clawing it's way up his throat.

He starts walking. Away from the bar. Away from his bandmates. Away from all the damage he has caused.

He finds himself at the banks of the Thames, an hour later. Staring at the water and fiddling with his bracelets. He started collecting them when he had turned fifteen. The first night his parents had found him in the bathtub, with crimson staining his shirt.

He still remembers his mother's tender hands, his father's worried eyes, and the kind words of his psychologist as she handed him his first leather band.

That was the first bracelet to go.

He gently undid the knot and threw the ugly thing as far as he could. He looked down to find three thin lines. All of different lengths, two older than the longest one of them all. He traced a finger over the lines, shivering lightly as the scab of the newest line fell away.

It was like a damn broke then, and Brian couldn't rip his bracelets fast enough. The beads of some of them rolled away as the string snapped, and the leather of others got caught in the fresh wounds, making them sting and bleed again. One by one they fell to the floor or got chucked away into the Thames.

Once his mind came back into focus Brian found that his arm now looked bloody and stung like hell. He had made a mess of himself once again, making the blood from the reopened wounds stain his pants and shirt, and /oh god/ what would they think if they found him right now?

Which of his friends would be the first one to scream at the sight? Which of his friends would be the first to leave him on the banks of the Thames? Which of his friends would ask him never to go back to their apartment? To get a new house and a new band?

He started crying, curled up into a ball and wishing for the ground to swallow him whole.

Hours later, when the cold had made his fingers numb and his legs practically useless, Brian decided that he needed to face the music. He needed to find the closest Underground station, clean up his arms and go home. He would put on a fake smile, tell his bandmates that his parents wanted him back for the weekend, and then disappear from their lives.

Maybe Daniel was right, if John, if any of them, were to find out it would kill them. It would kill them just like it had killed his parents years ago. He couldn't do that to them. They didn't deserve it.

The trip went as expected. He washed under the fluorescent lights of the Underground bathroom, he avoided the stares from everyone in the cart who wondered why a man was wearing a bloody Rolling Stones t-shirt. Then begged to every deity known to man that their newfound fame, regardless of how small, wouldn't come to bite him in the ass.

When he got home and looked at his watch, he realised that his bandmates were probably inside already. Three in the morning was usually past their bedtime.

Brian stuck his key into the lock and turned the thing around, trying to be as silent as possible. He was glad that he had changed the squeaky lock a few days prior. He did everything as softly as possible, kicking his shoes off, and locking the door behind him. He was so cautious that he completely missed the fact that the house was unusually quiet.

He couldn't hear Freddie's snores or the mumbling sounds that Roger made in his sleep. Brian frowned and stepped inside the living room only to find that John and Freddie's room was empty.

He flicked the lights on, "Guys?"

There was a loud crash from inside his and Roger's room, the sound was so loud that for a second Brian was worried Roger had actually harmed himself. But then the door was thrown open, and a flurry of blonde and white threw himself into Brian's arms.

Roger was sobbing, clinging to Brian like he hadn't seen him in a couple of years when in reality it had barely been a few hours. Ice trickled into Brian's veins, and he pried Roger away from his chest to look into his red-rimmed eyes, "Roggie, is everything alright? Where are Fred and Deaky?"

More tears flooded Roger's eyes, and he shook his head, "I have called every single fucking hospital in the region. Every single one of them. And none of them had anyone matching your description."

"Roger, what are you talking about? Why did you call the hospital?"

There is a moment in which Roger tenses, then his hands are on Brian's arms, trailing lightly down his biceps, his forearm, and finally coming to rest on his wrist. His cut up, cursed, wrist.

He has never had someone touch his scars before, and the reaction he has is visceral. He feels like throwing up and crying at the same time. Shame burns all the way from the base of his neck to the tip of his ears, and the sound that leaves his throat is one of a wounded animal.

"We were worried you had done something stupid," Roger whispered, then pressed a kiss to his temple, "the bartender overheard your conversation with Daniel and decided to tell us."

There is a second of silence, and then a sob escapes Roger, "God fucking damn it, we were so scared, Brimi. We thought we had lost you."

Brian feels painfully aware of everything around him, "Daniel told you about—?"

He can't bring himself to say it, and something deep inside him chastises him for it. You are such a coward. First, you can't stop yourself, then you can't say what you did out loud.

Roger's hands are on his face, cradling Brian like he is something precious, "No, Brimi. Lord no, he didn't have to say anything. We've known for ages, darling."

Brian feels as if the air has been sucked out of his lungs.

"We've known for years, Brimi. Why do you think we never let you come home alone? Or why we have the no locked doors rule? Or why there literally is only one razor in this house?

Love, we have known for so long, we were just waiting for you to tell us. To ask for help. And lord was that a mistake. We were so worried about driving you away from us that we never once stopped to think that maybe we were making a mistake."

Brian is left speechless, hands trembling slightly, and dizzy as hell, but it feels like a knot inside his chest untangles itself. He can deal with the feelings of betrayal in the morning. Deal with the fact that they knew and didn't do anything about it.

But for now, he just feels his legs give out in relief because they knew. They knew, and they didn't think Brian was less because of it. Didn't want him gone. Didn't feel the need to take him to a hospital and stuff him in the psychiatric ward. They knew and had decided to stay by Brian's side regardless.

His knees hit the floor just as a sob escapes his mouth, and Roger is there to comfort him. He wraps his arms around the smaller man and weeps in relief because oh god they know and they don't care. They know, and they won't stop being by his side. They know, and they decided to stay.

He doesn't know how long passes between his arrival and the moment where Freddie and John burst through the door. All he knows is that suddenly there isn't only one set of arms wrapped around him, but three.

He doesn't know which one of them is the one rocking back and forth. Which one of them is the one repeating the phrase 'you're here' over and over and over, and which one of them is sobbing uncontrollably. All he knows is that, yes, he is in their living room, encased in the warmth of his boy's hug. Yes, he didn't do anything stupid. And yes, maybe the world isn't as bleak as it had seemed a few hours before.

***

The thing with the morning after, Brian later realises, is that if the situation had been different, it would have been Brian's dream scenario. He woke up to the sound of cars passing by and John's soft breathing. The younger man was stroking his face lightly, tracing slow patterns on his cheek and making goosebumps rise on the back of his neck.

In another Universe, the beauty of the scene would have made Brian wonder if he had finally gathered the guts to kill himself. If the scene he was looking at is what his Heaven is supposed to look like. But the horrible taste of his breath, the puffiness of his previously tearful eyes, and the awful feeling in his chest make him realise that even if he had actually managed to gather the guts, this would be hell, not Heaven.

John gives him a weak smile and places his hand over Brian's cheek, "Morning, sweetheart."

He doesn't know what to answer, doesn't know if he wants to kick and scream, if he wants to cry and be held by the bassist, or if he wants to give John a warm smile and answer something equally sweet. The feelings mix together in an undecipherable knot, leaving Brian numb, so he opts for rolling over to face the ceiling before speaking, "Where are Freddie and Roger?"

John stays right where he is at, looking at Brian's profile, "Down at the stall. They had to work today."

Brian's eyebrows crease into a frown, "Shouldn't you be at university?"

There is a beat of silence, "I thought it would be better to keep you company."

"Better than your education?" A little bit of anger manages to slip into Brian's heart.

"Definitely more important if you ask me."

Brian decides to sit up then, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and shaking his messy head of curls. He doesn't need to look at John to know what part of his body the younger man is looking at. He has to restrain himself from hiding his wrist away, "You shouldn't have stayed."

The bed creaks behind him, "We weren't about to leave you alone."

Brian lets out a bitter chuckle, "You did before."

"We never—!"

"You know that's not what I meant."

Because yes, Freddie or Roger had always stayed behind on mornings like this, claiming that the stall only needed one person that day. Or John would always make an excuse about his professor cancelling last minute. But where had they been when Brian took out the razor blade tucked into one of his old physics textbooks? Or when his thighs were scratched beyond belief? Where had they been then?

"You knew, John. You knew. The three of you knew, and you did nothing about it."

"We did Brian, we talked about it, we—"

"And you never thought to include me?" Brian was shaking now, "You never thought about gathering us all up in a little fucking reunion and saying'Hey Brian, we know you slash your veins open, but it's disgusting, so please stop' ?

'Hey Brian, we know you can't be left alone because you might do something stupid, but we can't afford a new guitarist so we'll just have to stick around until you feel better' ?

'Hey Brian, we know you want to throw yourself off a bridge at any given circumstance, but we don't want to deal with the mess afterwards, so please don't?'"

He stood up sometime in the middle of his rant, and he is facing John who is looking at Brian with tearful eyes and broken expression, but Brian can't bring himself to care he only feels angry. Brian's fists are shaking, his legs feel weak, and he wants to cry but the tears won't come and that makes him infinitely more frustrated. There is a little voice in his head whispering that it knows precisely what Brian needs to unleash the feelings he knows he can have.

"I'm sorry."

Brian's anger inflates, "Come for me when you have something better to say, I'm sorry won't cut it this time."

Johns reaction is immediate, "Where are you going?"

Brian walks towards the door, ignoring John, and then realises that might be a little counterproductive. John is everything but stupid, he will follow Brian out of the room at the first sign of Brian feeling a little bolder than usual, "I won't kill myself if that's what you are worried about."

Then he walks out.

The flat is unnervingly quiet after that, but Brian doesn't notice that. He can barely hear anything past the ringing in his ears and the small voice on the back of his head as he makes tea. He only realises he has made two cups after he's already served them, but he refuses to go into that room again. If anyone is going to start the conversation, it's going to be John.

The younger man emerges from the room after the tea had gone cold. He sat beside Brian on the breakfast island, taking sips of the disgusting thing, and staying quiet for the better part of an hour. For a second Brian remembered Daniel's words. Maybe he had just killed John. Perhaps this was the final straw, and the younger man would remain like this for the rest of his life. Then John speaks.

"We found out six months after we had moved in together."

Brian looks at John, but the bassist is staring straight ahead, almost as if he could see the exact moment when the ugly truth had been revealed.

"It was your birthday, and we had managed to get you shit faced enough for you not to be able to stand from the couch. We had to help you up, give you water, and change into your pyjamas. We took your shirt off after a long struggle and... we saw your cuts."

John wiped his tears with the hem of his shirt.

"D'you want to know what you said? 'Don't tell them. Please don't tell them, I would kill myself if they knew.'"

Brian remembered that week particularly well, it had been possibly one of the shittiest weeks in his entire existence. And the number of cuts had grown almost exponentially. He had remembered everything up until the point when Freddie had taken out the stolen bottle of Grey Goose, and then he was a goner.

"Fuck we were so young. So scared. We didn't know what to do. We didn't want you to go... do anything stupid. Didn't want to wake up one day and find that you were gone, leaving us a note, and if we were lucky, a love confession. So we kept quiet and made our stupid plans. We pretended to be in love with other people because it didn't seem right to do it without you, but we couldn't risk things getting worse than they already were. And then I go and fuck it up, and the person I'm trying to like nearly gets you killed."

"So you are trying to justify yourself with a love confession?"

"Brian, shut up." John slammed his now empty mug on the table, glaring at Brian, "I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm just trying to explain. Because yeah, one of the people I love the most in the world tells me that he will kill himself if we find out right after we do. I couldn't take that risk. We couldn't take that risk. And yeah it was fucking selfish of us to do that to you, but I was— no fuck that, I am so scared of losing you by taking the wrong step. So scared of losing you that we decided to keep quiet instead.

I'm sorry we weren't there all the time, Brian, I really am. But not, for one second, think that we did nothing about it. That we didn't care. We even had sleeping schedules, okay? We would wake up every once in a while to make sure you were still there, you were still breathing. And God you are so unlucky that you never crossed any of us in one of your breakdowns. But Brian Harold May you need to understand that we never left you alone."

And it is bizarre, watching John break and Brian feeling so far away that he can't bring himself to comfort his friend. He can only watch from the sidelines as John dissolves into a series of broken apologies and guilty words. He can't bring himself to feel anything because the anger has been reduced to nothing and now all he feels is numb. And God he wishes he was still angry.

"Introductory Physics, Volume Nine," Brian's voice cuts through John's words, "Page thirty-eight."

"Brian, what are you talking about?"

"You want to help?" Brian asks, "Go get my textbook. Introductory Physics, Volume Nine, Page thirty-eight. There is a razor blade there, I put in last week after I did this." He holds up his wrist and lets John openly stare at his cuts, "Go get it and get rid of it, before I can do anything stupid. Then come back here, and we will keep talking."

John is up from his chair in a flash, nearly running into Brian's room before stopping at the door. He looks back and gives Brian the sweetest smile he has ever seen, "Thank you, thank you so much."

This doesn't feel like much, but something, anything, is better than nothing.

#Brian May #roger taylor #John Deacon #freddie mercury #Queen #My writing #tw: depression #tw self deprecation #tw self harm #tw suicidal ideation #tw suicide mentions #angst #poly!queen #maylor #breaky #frian #breacy

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