lowkey wishing i'd made roxanne part of someone to love. i think she and Rebecca would get on swimmingly
++|++
Roger and Freddie's shop in Kensington actually had a couple of nice things in it.
Roxanne was in the middle of looking over a leather skirt when Roger came in from out the front, where he'd been trying to talk a woman into buying a truly hideous brown blouse.
"How'd it go?" Freddie asked, walking behind Roxanne and dropping a large sun hat on her head.
"She told me to piss off," he huffed, "Can you believe it? It's almost half past two in the afternoon, the street is mobbed and we haven't sold one thing."
"Well, you know why that is, don't you?"
He narrows his eyes at his cousin as she tries on a pair of star-shaped sunglasses, "No. Please enlighten me, Sherlock."
"You're setting your prices too high. If I were you guys, I'd write a higher price on the tickets, more than what you're actually wanting. That way, when they try and haggle with you, you're still making a profit and they think that they're getting a deal."
The two men look at each other.
"Is it just me or did that actually make sense?" Freddie asks.
"Genius," Roger mutters, kissing her cheek, "You're a fucking genius."
She grins at him, laughing when he bats the lid of the hat down over her eyes, "Do you want a hand? There has to be something I can do around here."
"Er..." he thinks for a second, "Oh, you could dress the mannequins for the window if you'd like. Freddie normally does them but I'm sure he won't mind letting you do it."
Freddie waves a hand, he's busy making a start on rewriting their tickets, "Go ahead, darling. Though I do ask that you let me see your choices before you put them on."
"Of course, Mr Mercury," Roxanne giggles, ruffling his hair as she walks by him to get to the small storage room to hunt through some of their boxes.
As she digs through the boxes, she listens to the small radio that they've got plugged in.
"Now Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo..." she sings quietly, laying out clothes that go well together.
"You're pretty and you can sing," Freddie says from behind her, scaring her half to death because she didn't know that he was there, "You really are Roger's cousin, huh?"
She shakes her head, "I don't sing very often."
"Hm," he picks up one of the shirts she's got laid out, "Maybe when we make it big, we can have you feature on one of our songs."
That wouldn't be happening. The singing, she means. Not the band getting big. She didn't know when or how, but those boys were going to be going places.
++|++
Brian stops by the shop on his way home -he's doing a placement as a maths teacher for the next year at a school not ten minutes away, though they too have just broken up for the summer.
Roger snorts as he comes in with his fancy outfit and briefcase, "Bloody hell, mate. Look at you. But you're an hour early too early. We don't shut till five. You'll have to walk home."
"'m not here for a lift, Roger," he rolls his eyes, "I'm here for Roxy. She is still here, isn't she?"
Eyebrows furrowed, Roger nods and calls for Roxy, "Brian's here for you!"
"Oh!" they both visibly wince when there's a crash from through the back, followed moments later by an I'm alright before the blonde in question makes an appearance, "Brian! Four already?"
He nods, giving her a grin.
"Hang on," Roger grumbles, watching as she starts gathering her bag, "Where are you going?"
"Back to the flat?" she asks, "Brian's going to show me how to make veggie burgers."
"Veggie burgers?" he repeats, mouth agape, "I don't want a veggie burger, Roxy, I'll take a normal burger but-"
"Oh calm down, carnivore," she mumbles, "I'll make you a meat one. Stop panicking."
"Oh, alright," he shrugs, "Carry on."
"Wait!" Freddie calls, stopping them before she and Brian can duck out the door, "Roxy, darling, we haven't finished these tickets."
"Oh," he pulls her bag over her head, "I'll come finish them tomorrow, promise."
Brian shakes his head at the pair, "Making her work when she's on her holidays. Shame on you two."
"She offered!" the two young men all but yell but there was no point, the door had already swung shut behind them.
++|++
Roxy loves talking to Brian. Granted, she doesn't quite understand a lot of the stuff he's talking about but there's something about his voice that is soothing and the way he gets so excited about things...it's lovely and she swears that she could listen to him talk all day.
But because she's been listening to him talk, she hasn't exactly been helping him with the burgers and by the time she realises that, they're finished and he's putting them in the fridge until Roger got home.
"Sorry," Roxy says sheepishly as Brian closes the fridge door, "I didn't help there, did I?"
"It's alright," he shrugs, "Quite enjoyed talking to someone without being told to stop talking about shit no one cares about."
Roxanne frowns. Her cousin can be a real arsehole sometimes.
They both look at the buzzer for the front door when it goes off and she hops down off of her stool and goes to answer it, "Hello?"
"Oh, Roxanne," she just recognises John's soft voice on the other end, "Hello. It's John. John Deacon."
"John," she giggles, "Hi, come on up. Door is open."
"Thank you."
She pushes the button to open the main door for him and turns to Brian, "It's John."
"So I heard," he muses as she sits down, looking over the top of her head as the door to the flat opens and shuts, "Alright? Wait, what is that? John, is that - no."
Roxy spins on her stool to see what Brian's problem is and sees that John has come bearing gifts - a rather large...well, she's not entirely what it is but he's got a backpack on as well.
"Just for a couple of days," John says quickly, "Just until my roommate goes home for the summer."
Brian doesn't really put up much of a fight and sighs, "Fine. Put it over by the kit."
The bassist looks relieved, feeling Roxy's eyes on him as he puts it down where Brian instructed.
"What is that?" she asks once John has joined them at the kitchen counter.
"It's an amp," Brian answers, "Where'd you get this one?"
"In the alley behind Europa Records," he shrugs, "It was just sat there."
"When you say in the alley," Brian sips his tea, "Do you mean it was actually in the alley or that it was in the bin in the alley?"
John squirms, "Technically, it was beside the bin."
"John, we've talked about this. You can't keep doing that. They're going to notice that they're rubbish is going missing." Brian sighs, putting his mug down in the sink.
"But it was just sitting there!" John argues, "Just waiting for someone, waiting for me to walk by it and take it. You know what they say, Bri; one man's trash is another's treasure."
"That's true," Roxy nods, "They do say that, Brian."
"Thank you," John gives her a grin to which she returns.
Brian shakes his head and excuses himself, leaving the two of them.
"If you don't mind my saying," she says quietly, "But if you found it in the bin, wouldn't that mean that it no longer works?"
John shrugs, "I haven't had a proper look at it yet so I don't know what kind of nick it's in but I reckon I could fix it."
"Yeah?"
"Well, I study electrical engineering and so if I can't, I'm clearly studying the wrong thing."
"Oh, I didn't know that."
Looking over her shoulder at the sound of the door opening once more, Roxy waves at Freddie as he enters the flat, followed closely by Roger.
"Hey John?" she asks, looking at him with a small smile, "You have plans for dinner?"
"Um," he thinks for a second, "No?"
"Great," she hops off her stool once more, "Do you like burgers?"