SHARON!!!

my writing blog because i dont want to post unfinished things on ao3

[sharon-ozzysaidcalmly]

The Papershredder

ao3 version

"I only kept Cozy in the band because he would bring stacks and stacks of English chocolate."

1979

Cozy Powell was not the type of man to quickly find others strange. After all, he was a person with so many unusual, diverse hobbies. Climbing, racing, horseriding, drumming, practical jokes, just to name a few. He truly believed nothing could ever faze him anymore.

And then, he met Ritchie Blackmore.

Ritchie definitely wasn't normal. Perhaps it was the many seances having altered his neurons or the amount of sawdust inhaled while splintering his guitars to pieces; Cozy had no clue. What needed to be said, however, was that (admittedly) Cozy had found a worthy opponent. He could sit and judge Ritchie all day and night, but he could never dispute how similar the two of them were.

And despite his initial thought, 'he certainly can't be stranger than me', Cozy was still proven wrong on the promotional tour for the album Down to Earth.

He'd noticed something was amiss when he started paying attention to the bin in Ritchie's hotelroom in Long Island. At any time of the day, it was empty. You may wonder how that could possibly be relevant. Well, Cozy and Ritchie had a shared love for chocolate. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, with or without filling... most chocolate would soon find its way into one of their digestive systems.

But what about the bin? To explain, when travelling, Cozy only brought bite-sized, fancily-wrapped chocolate pieces to avoid the problems of sealing an opened chocolate bar on the road. And Ritchie's bin had not a single wrapper inside of it.

Surely, he wasn't flushing his chocolate wrappers down the toilet, and going out of ones way to a whole other garbage bin just to throw out some pieces of paper? Why on earth would a person do that? It was completely illogical. If he stuffed them in his pockets, surely it would've been noticed! Cozy was almost suspecting Ritchie just ate the wrappers, too lazy to stand up and throw them out.

"Hey, Cozy!" Graham shouted out, jumping into the tourbus and making his way over to Cozy's seat, startling him out of his thoughts. Graham flopped down beside him, leaning to the back of his seat as comfortably as was possible. "How's it going?"

Cozy grinned. "I'm great. I'm thinking of asking whether I can drive this thing", he responded. From the other side of the isle, Don leaned in. "I really don't want to die today, Cozy. I'll tape you to that seat if I have to!"

"Now, now", Roger butted in as he entered. "What violent things I'm hearing today. Be nice to one another and you'll be repayed in kindness!"

Graham pulled a face, to which Cozy elbowed him. That was Roger Glover from Deep Purple, after all! In secret, even though Roger was much kinder than Ritchie, they were all a bit afraid of him. (That didn't stop Cozy from stealing his furniture, but hey. Roger wouldn't ever know it was him, so that didn't count.)

Don, the most daring of the three, spoke out quasi-mockingly, "Always so inspirational! We should put it on the wall."

Roger simply laughed, taking a seat across Don.

Cozy looked around. "Where's Ritchie?" he questioned. He'd not seen the man all morning, now he thought about it.

With a shrug, Roger replied, "He'll show up. We've got about ten more minutes before take-off." The three other guys were satisfied with that answer and went to turn on the TV to watch cartoons.

A few minutes later, Ritchie entered the bus and sat down across from Cozy. He was chewing down on something. Either chocolate, breakfast or both, Cozy presumed. "Hey!" he gave a wave.

"Hi." As always, Ritchie's responses were short, but Cozy was used to it. If anything, he was less intimidated by Ritchie than he was by Roger! Perhaps that was the result of having played so many pranks on Ritchie that the man had started fearing him.

Graham tilted his head. "What have you got there?" he asked. Ritchie visibly stiffened up even more than he usually was. "Nothing. It's just a snack."

"Well, that's not exactly nothing, then", Don pointed out. Ritchie gave him an unimpressed glance.

The five of them switched between chatting together and watching cartoons as the car ride begun. About fifteen minutes in, as usual, Ritchie went to sit somewhere alone. At the beginning of getting to know him, Cozy'd occasionally try to sit with him. However, when Roger came along, he'd explained how explosive Ritchie could be when his privacy wasn't properly respected, so Cozy'd given up.

That didn't stop him from occasionally glancing over. He noticed Ritchie was reading the Sun. Nice, he didn't know someone'd brought that paper on the bus! He'd have to check it out when Ritchie was done.

Ritchie looked over just as Cozy was about to turn away, and they made some awkward eye contact. Ritchie almost looked as though he was busted with something. He was still chewing on something. Probably chocolate, Cozy assumed. That would explain why Ritchie looked so guilty. After all, it wasn't all that healthy.

"Hey, Cozy!" Graham nudged him, pointing at the TV. "A new episode from Tom and Jerry's airing!" Cozy quickly averted his attention back to the show.

Ritchie sighed out in relief as Cozy turned his attention away, quickly stuffing another piece of newspaper into his mouth.

-----

Cozy frowned as he flipped through the paper, half an hour or so later. Page two, page four...

"Oi! There's a page missing", Cozy called out. Ritchie's head snapped up from the crossword puzzle he was making. "Weird", he said. "I saw that too."

Cozy frowned. "It's not like it fell out, either." He knew the paper was often not stapled together, just a few pages folded in with another, and it was common that it fell apart. However, the other side of what would be the third page was still inside of it with a distinct tear line down the middle.

Ritchie looked out of the window. "Strange. I don't know."

"I bet the person who's got the page is having a lot of fun with it." Cozy looked around the bus. "Who do you reckon it is?"

"I don't know!" Ritchie snapped. "Stop pestering me!" He stood up and stomped off to the on-board restroom, locking himself inside of it. Cozy was baffled.

He could see Roger looking over at him, questioning. Cozy defensively told, "I didn't even do anything this time! Just asked him about the missing page three!"

Don opened his big mouth, "Hah, that explains why he's on the loo now!" at which Graham snickered. Cozy merely rolled his eyes.

Inside the restroom, Ritchie was miserably munching on a piece of toilet paper. It wasn't exactly his favourite flavour, but it would do. The taste and texture of the snack made him cheer up at least, though he feared Cozy was onto him. If he found out, Ritchie would never live another restful day. The bland taste of the layered paper prickled his tastebuds positively, and after eating the entire left-over roll, he was satisfied and came out again.

Don was laughing quietly, hiding his smile behind a book. Ritchie instantly feared the worst and glared at Cozy. He'd better not told anyone! If he'd even realized, that is.

Cozy's goofy face didn't give him much to go off, though. He just looked the same kind of stupid as he always did! Well, whatever it was, Ritchie had to keep it together until the next chance for a quick snack.

The next opportunity was at the Long Island MacArthur airport. After checking in, Ritchie hurried off with the excuse he wanted to go shop somewhere. He hurried his way over to one of the more discreet paper bins, grabbing a handful and, before quickly checking if no one was there, taking a bite.

And then, Cozy came around the corner.

"Ritchie, what the fuck are you doing?" said Cozy.

Ritchie quickly stuffed the paper back into the bin. "I'm just... throwing out some garbage."

"Then why", Cozy continued, "is it in your mouth?"

Ritchie stared at Cozy for a second, trying to regain his composure and to think of an answer good enough to convince Cozy he wasn't addicted to eating paper.

Then, Don, Graham and Roger came around the corner as well.

"What's going on? Ritchie, are you eating paper again?" Roger said sternly. "We've talked about this!"

Cozy, Graham and Don looked absolutely bewildered. "Again? What do you mean, 'again'?!" Don exclaimed. Graham shushed him to keep his voice down.

"He means nothing!" Ritchie cried out before storming off.

Eventually, they resolved everything and Ritchie got to eat paper on tour anytime he wanted.

[sharon-ozzysaidcalmly]

Dented Art, Ch. 2

<- Ch. 1 || Ch. 2 || Ch. 3 ->

The following day, the living room of 40 Ferry Road was almost entirely silent. Brian had been right, the scarf hadn't sold and he'd earned a few quid from Tim, who was still a bit bummed he hadn't won their little bet. The thought of Fred purposely not selling the scarf to make him lose had crossed his mind a few times, but when he brought it up, Fred shut it down and said it was 'utter rubbish, a good salesman would never lose a deal over something as trivial as you and Brian's shenanigans'.

(Fred had said that so fast he'd ended up choking on his spit. Roger, who had just been leaving to go smoking, had laughed hard enough to momentarily lose his depth perception and bumped into the door.)

As for at the moment, Roger was doing his laundry in – you guessed it – the laundry room. The man didn't fancy doing it on a regular basis, so he saved it all up; shirts, knickers, towels... all of it in a big pile. His monthly laundry was nothing short of a work-out.

One of the other flatmates, Jon Lord, had come out of his room to go for a smoke, then spotted the newly bought beers and decided a few Stella's couldn't hurt either. Tim and Fred were both drawing, by the table and on the couch respectively.

The relatively peaceful enviroment was shattered when Fred ripped the paper he was drawing on out of his book. "Anatomy is so hard", he groaned as he crumpled it up. Tim looked up from his own sketchbook. "What's up with it?" he asked. Fred showed his reference photo, a flimsy little thing he'd gotten at the college both men went to. "Love, there's clothes covering up all the parts I can't get right – how am I supposed to improve?"

From the laundry room, Roger shouted something. "Ask the naked guy at my school to pose for you, Freddie!"

A bit of rustling came from Brian's bedroom before the door swung open. "What? Why is there a naked guy at your school?" He had moved his hair out of his face with an atrocious headband and wore a concerned expression – somehow, he pulled it off. Opposed to Brian, Fred felt awfully interested. "A naked guy? Send 'im here! I could use a model." Across from him, Tim gave him a look.

A huge pile of clothing came through the door of the laundry room. "'Kay, so – y'know that one guy, right? The one I talk about, the gremlin... who sits next to me in anatomy?" the pile asked.

"Blackmore?! He's a naked guy?" Fred made a face. "I don't like him, nevermind."

"No!" Roger's face peaked out from behind the pile, looking past it. He had to do trouble balancing the big stack and looked so silly Tim burst out laughing. "One of his... friends." Fred looked even more suprised at that. "He has friends?!"

Getting tired, Roger dropped the pile on the floor. It gave a flat thud. "My arms are gonna fall of, fuck." He sighed, re-orientating himself back into the conversation.

"Well. So, uh, I was going to smoke and Blackmore – the gremlin – was screaming at this half-naked guy. Man wasn't half-ugly either, I think you wouldn't mind havin' 'im here." He took a seat on the edge of the couch Fred was sitting on.

"That floor is not clean", Tim pointed out. Roger rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"Back to the naked guy!" Fred clapped his hands. "Could you perhaps charm him up to let me draw him? Maybe make it a commission? I'm dying for a day out or an evening at a restaurant."

"Doesn't sound very proper", Jon Lord yelled out from the kitchen. "You make it sound like a whore job."

"And where do you get off on being a prude?" Roger sputtered. Fred tilted his head in a nod. "Yeah! You and Judy've been caught here in the living room! Traumatizing, that was." That made Jon choke on his beer. "She's my wife, not a bloke you'd jump onto upon hearing about him!"

"Rotter!" Fred yelled.

Fred Bulsara hated it when people stole looks at his works. Sneaked glances at his projects. Nicked sights of his processes. That was something rude, a thing you just didn't do if you had any self-respect – oh, who was he kidding. Bloody hypocrite. He did it himself just as often.

The fact proved itself in fashion design class, when Fred sat next to Ringo Starr.

Now did Ringo not seem inherently mean, but better safe than sorry. Fred was pretty good at boxing (source: himself), but he'd rather not end up like that unfortunate woman.

Obviously, that wasn't his real name (or well, Fred hoped no one would name their baby Ringo), but his real name remained a mystery to Fred and digging in Ringo's business? Digging your own grave, that is! He didn't necessarily know Ringo, but in the entire district of West-London and its schools, people watched out for him. There had to be a reason for that, people don't get intimidated by someone for no reason! Rumors were that he'd once beaten up a girl so hard that no one was sure if she was still alive.

Well, back to the point. When Fred looked over at Ringo's notebook, the page was filled with something that maybe resembled a face.

"What's that supposed to be?" Fred asked. Ringo slid the notebook to Fred so he could see better. "This is my mate George, lad", he explained.

Fred looked over the table at their classmate, George Harrison. He didn't say anything, but surely... George wasn't that ugly! Poor George! In Ringo's drawing, he looked like a cow's bum! Fred kept his mouth shut, though – saying that would be rude and Ringo was someone who you didn't want to offend.

"Looks like a cow's bum to me", Ronnie Dio, who was less polite, pointed out from besides Fred on the other side. Luckily, Ringo could see the humor of it and laughed. "It's abstract, lad. George doesn't actually look like this. Good for him."

"And what are you midgets talking about?"

Fred flinched at Mr. Osbourne's sudden arrival, and the reek of drugs didn't go unnoticed to him. Ringo seemed unbothered (why wouldn't he be), but Ronnie's mouth dropped open in offense. "Midgets!" he repeated angrily in offense. He was a bit on the shorter size and Mr. Osbourne always picked on that.

You might be wondering: huh? Didn't Roger Taylor's school – the Barts and London Dentistry School, yada yada – have a Mr. Osbourne too? And Fred's on the Ealing Art College... how does that work?

Well – you see, Mr. Ozzy Osbourne was an avid diva when it came to substance abuse ('abuse?! I take very well of my substances', he'd say when the topic was brought up), and that was expensive. He worked two jobs in education (yes, the ETA between schools was about an hour) and still didn't have a solid home. He lived in a hotelroom.

"Well, aren't you quite short?" Osbourne said. "How tall are you again?" Ronnie was furious. "I'm not even in this class!" he exclaimed, stood up and left. Heaving a sigh, Fred followed. He needed to bleach his nostrils because Mr. Osbourne stank.

Art History. The most boring class in the world to many. Well, Fred didn't necesarily hate it, the board was just so far away. It was hard for him to read what was written on it. He'd noticed that for the past days, ever since he'd moved seats to sit closer by the window that was always open - in the back.

Not today, though! He was thoroughly prepared, not in for an eye-killing period. The lion-maned guy beside him – Robert Plant – squinted and looked over as Fred took a pair of binoculars out of his bag. "What the fuck", whispered Robert. Fred flashed him as much of a smile as he ever did, carefully.

And as expected, Fred could read the board with the binoculars in front of his eyes. He felt himself start to relax into his better-eyed position. No more squinting and headaches - now he could enjoy the slight breeze from the window *and* have access to education! Perhaps he'd even saved himself from a very possible headache-induced death - he was a genius. An absolute genius!

His thought process was cut short when suddenly, everything went black. The sudden scent of substances didn't go unnoticed as well. He blinked. Was some junkie blocking his view? He lowered the binoculars in wonder and was met with someone who, not unlike Osbourne, stank enough to confirm Fred's suspicions.

Mr. Bob Dylan, teacher of art history, held out his hand to confiscate Fred's binoculars. Filled almost entirely with pure reluctance, Dylan's stench was the persuasion to listen. The quicker that's done, the quicker he leaves and let's me breathe normal air again, Fred thought to himself as he pushed the device into Dylan's hands.

"What in the world?!" Brian's glass shattered on the floor as he emerged from his bedroom. He was met with the sight of Fred on the couch with a man entirely in the altogether, both turning to look at him. The pencil-sharpener stuck in his hair matched perfectly with the look of absolute flabbergastment on his face.

...

Fred was goldfishing, opening and closing his mouth and unable to produce any sound, but the naked man smiled. "Hi! I'm Ian, schoolmate of Roger, who lives here!" He didn't seem at all fazed by a stranger seeing him nude.

"I'm aware Rog lives here", Brian whispered, slowly retreating back into his room. He'd clean that glass later.

[sharon-ozzysaidcalmly]

Dented Art, Ch. 1

Ch. 1 || Ch. 2 ->

Queen in college, except all the other people are random other rockstars

± 1968

Roger ran through the halls of the BL, bag clutched in his arms. He'd love to have it on his back, if only he had the mind to put it there. He was rushing; overslept again. Well, that's what one gets for staying up all night watching trash telly.

The bell rang as he made it into his classroom, just in time and barely avoiding a bad grade. For some reason, in this specific class, attendance got graded just as much as test results — absolute bullshit, he thought to himself for not the first time as he sat down.

"Hello", his seating neighbour – Richard Blackmore – whispered curtly as ever. Roger smiled as politely as he could at the moment, pulling out his books. Richard (or Ritchie) was wearing a ridiculous hat and it was hard not to laugh at him. Roger himself liked medieval fashion, but wearing a pilgrim hat to school was too far even for him – especially if it was Ritchie, who always took himself way too serious.

The professor anatomy – Mr. Keith Richards – clapped his hands. "Time to start class, lads!" Roger already knew that everything Richards would say would ente one ear and leave the other immediately. Over Ritchie's shoulder, he eyed the desk and spotted a few Jack Daniels. Maybe he could sneakily nick a bottle.

"What are you looking at?" Ritchie, next to him, hissed. Hissed!

Roger then realized he'd, lost in thought, stared at Ritchie's ridiculous hat. It needed a name, he decided. 'Hugh' would be a good name. Hugh the Hat.

Ritchie's intensifying glare snapped him out of it, and he focused back on his book. "Nothing", he whispered. In the corner of his vision, he saw Ritchie roll his eyes and sighed. This was going to be a long hour.

When the hour was over, Roger indeed felt dead. Luckily, his day was short enough, one more class of oral pathology with Mr. Ozzy Osbourne (who was a bit terrifying and, according to some, recovering from rabies - ironic).

He had a break first and decided to go to cafeteria with his lunchbox. It consisted of one cookie that was left in it from the day before, but he ate it anyways.

Then, he went out for a smoke. Sadly. Ritchie was in the spot Roger always smoked in, speaking angrily to a guy who was in his knickers. Roger recognized him as the guy who often got escorted towards the school's dressing rooms - dresscoded for nudity.

When Roger lit his cigarette, Ritchie looked at him like he'd just massacred his mother, grandmother and sister in front of him. "Don't", he ordered from beneath Hugh the Hat, as if he owned that little piece of land.

"Don't what?" Roger asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Smoke!"

"– on the water", sang the almost naked guy. He got slapped by Ritchie. Roger sighed. Ritchie was a ridiculous little bugger with an ego the size of a mountain and a brain the size of a larvae; he didn't need to stop smoking for his sake, but for a moment he was curious. He'd humour Ritchie for a moment. He hid the cigarette behind his back and hoped Ritchie would forget it was even there as he asked innocently, "Who's that?"

"I'm–" the guy started, and Ritchie finished, "an utter buffoon who should invest in clothing!"

Roger gave up, shook his head and decided to find a place to smoke in peace.

"Hyperdontia", Mr. Osbourne simply said when everyone was seated. For a few seconds, he stared at the paper in his hand. Then, he paced from one end of the classroom to another, where one of Roger's classmates in this class – John Lennon – was asleep. John sat behind Roger and thus, Roger could get a close-up from Mr. Osbourne. Nightmare fuel, really! Forget 'recovering from rabies', this man looked like he'd contracted every illness in the world!

To wake John up, Mr. Osbourne leaned down and put his mouth as close as he could to John's ear without it being weird (it was kind of weird anyways), before screaming, "ALL ABOARD!"

John shot up, screamed and almost jumped into his seating neighbour – Paul McCartney –'s lap. Roger winced away from the movement behind him before sighing and covering his face in his hands.

While John (and Paul too) was/were recovering from a heart attack, Mr. Osbourne walked back like nothing had happened. "Hyperdontia", he said once more. "Who knows what hyperdontia is?"

Roger obviously knew what it was - his flatmate Fred Bulsara had it. Still, he didn't feel like doing anything and so he leaned back silently. No one else seemed to be interested in responding, and Mr. Osbourne also seemed to lose interest. "Just read those pages on it in your book, then. Index is in the back, y'know." He sat down behind his desk, lighting a joint.

No one really did anything that hour, besides John eating mints. In Roger's personal opinion, that didn't make John less smelly.

"Ey, John", Paul whispered to John. "Give me one of these, won'cha ?"

John responded quietly, "Oh, aye. Open up, then."

Roger looked behind himself just in time to see John spit his own mint into Paul's mouth. He'd never looked away quicker from something, his head reeling.

By the time Roger was walking on the hallway on his way to the exit, his name was called out and he looked around. It was Kurt Cobain, one of his flat- and schoolmates! "Roger!"

"Hey, Kurt!" Roger responded. "How's it going? I had Osbourne today." He shuddered at the memory of seeing the man up-close. Then, he remembered the John-and-Paul-mints thing and made a mental note to wash his eyes with bleach later.

"Do you have anything against gay people?" Roger asked Kurt spontaneously. Kurt raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "No. Aren't you literally gay?"

"What?!" Roger stopped in his tracks.

"What? No? Oh, okay", Kurt said casually. Roger rubbed his face with his hand.

"– and this here, found it at a thrift store!" Fred Bulsara enthousiastically pushed a vod up Roger's face. He held it up to take look at it and he couldn't see what was the top or bottom. Brian May – another of their flatmates – raised his eyebrows. "Ah, yes. A curtain. That'll sell."

Fred shoved at him. "It's a scarf and it'll make a fortune, you bitch!"

Brian shook his head and walked away. Roger could see a pencil sticking out of that perm.

"What's all this about?" Tracy Marander – Kurt's girlfriend and another flatmate – asked as she went to pour herself a glass of water. Fred snatched the scarf back from Roger and held it up for Tracy to see. "For our market stand in Kensington, y'know. It'll buy us out of this bloody appartment, that's how gorgeous it is..." Fred trailed off when Tracy, after downing her water, slipped back into her room to escape Fred's never-ending monologues.

Roger laughed at him and Fred gave him a shove too. "Just you wait!"

The Kensington Market was, as usual, bristling with activity. Brian had come along to see if that scarf would actually be worth a fortune (he and Tim Staffell – yet another flatmate – had made a bet). He was waving his hand around in front of his face. "Do you ever clean this place?" he asked pointedly.

"Get out, if you're only going to bloody complain!" Fred exclaimed dramatically. Brian scoffed out a, "That's rich coming from you. Chronic complainer, that's what you are!"

From behind a rack of clothing, Roger shouted, "You're smelling yourself, Bri! This place is clean." The response was a piece of clothing flinging into his face and he stumbled backwards. "Watch out, you idiot!" Fred screamed in horror and pulled Roger away before he could bump into the mirror behind him.

Roger pulled the piece of clothing – a jacket with flared sleeves, on closer inspection – off his face just in time to spot Fred chasing Brian out of the stall with a broom.