beloved // BRIAN MAY.

II

TWO YEARS EARLIER...

You woke up to soft music. You felt Brian's arm around your shoulders, rubbing small circles into your arm. You could hear the gentle murmur of voices, could feel every bump in the road that the tour bus hit.

"Could you keep it down, please?" You heard Brian whisper. "You're going to wake (Y/N)."

"She should be awake by now, she's been napping for hours," Freddie said. You could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"It's been an hour and a half. You know, that's the ideal length of a nap. Besides, she's not used to the tour sleep schedule," he said softly. Ever careful not to wake you.

"Oh, shut it with your facts," Roger grumbled.

The bus started shaking from a particularly rough patch of road, and he cradled your head in his hand to keep you from jerking around.

You could open your eyes. You could alert Brian that you were awake. But at the moment you were really enjoying listening to them talk. It sometimes slipped your mind how much he cared, how soft he was when he was around you.

So instead of opening your eyes and ruining the moment, you just snuggled closer to him. He laughed softly, and it was music to your ears. He pulled you closer slightly, his hand rubbing your arm.

"She has you wrapped around her finger," John pointed out. "Not in a bad way, per se, but she does."

"What's that supposed to mean?" You hoped to god John didn't have bad intentions (you knew he didn't), because you really didn't want Brian to get upset. You were very comfortable feigning sleep, and getting up seemed like an enormous task.

"You've only been together a month," he elaborated. "I don't mean to say that it's bad. I'm just saying that you seem very devoted already."

"So what?" Brian tightened his grip on you ever-so-slightly. "I love her."

Love.

The word made flowers blossom in your lungs and butterflies manifest in your stomach. You didn't hear the rest of the conversation because you were so unabashedly happy.

PRESENT...

A journal sat on your bedside table. It was leather-bound and had a label on the front: Letters I'll Never Send. You used it almost like a diary, but formatted to whoever you were upset with at that moment. Almost all of your recent ones had been to Brian.

Brian,

I miss you. I miss you more than I can describe. I miss your lips on mine and your hands on my skin. I miss your sweet words and your gentle voice. I miss when we'd lay in bed and you'd tell me things about space that I didn't really understand but I listened anyways because I loved you. Loved you? Not in the past tense. I love you now. I don't think I'll ever stop. I'm rambling, but you'll never read this so it doesn't matter.

You stared at the paper. You'd written so much lately that you'd run out of things to say. Not that it really mattered, because no one would ever see it. No one but you. It was a nice, safe place to store your thoughts without having someone worry over you. You could say how you felt without any prying questions from whoever was listening. You didn't have to worry about pleasing anyone.

Lately, you'd tried to make a habit of talking to Freddie. Even before you and Brian split, he was always a great person to be around, and now he was being even more supportive. You didn't understand it, really. Here you were crying over one of his best friends and he was still helping you. You didn't deserve a friend like him.