Written and submitted by: @iamnotbrianmay
"Could someone please tell him to speak clearly?"
The room went quiet in a foreboding silence and Roger's stomach dropped to his feet. It wasn't often that he let tears of shame prickle at the corner of his eyes, he had mastered the ability to reduce his stuttering by taking the most intricate loopholes, owned the fact that he would never be able to speak as fluently as Freddie, and punched everyone who dared insult or make fun of him.
What's different about this particular incident is that he thought he had been doing so well. He had barely tripped over his words in the two long sentences he had mustered, repeated himself once, and had even managed to make a few reporters laugh with a lame joke.
Throughout the years John had been weeding out reporters that were too harsh on Roger, and those who stayed knew better than to make fun of his speech patterns, in fear of losing an interview in which they would gain some sort of valuable information. But whoever had just said that seemed to have missed all memos.
He quickly tried to clean the tears away from his face. He had been doing so well.
"Out."
Roger looked at Freddie, hoping to see who the asshat that had made him cry was, only to notice that Freddie wasn't looking or pointing at anyone in particular.
"All of you." He barked again, "I want you all outside this room in this instant don't you fucking make me say it again."
Angry was not the word Roger would have used. More like outraged. Fuming. Furious. Freddie looked about to murder every single person in the room.
He had been focusing on Freddie's fury so much he forgot about Brian's fire and John's protectiveness. Roger found himself in a cocoon, surrounded by his bandmates as if he was some child in need of protection. As if he couldn't fight them off by himself.
Once the room was cleared Roger slammed his fist on the table, "You didn't... need to do that."
Frustration starts to creep up on him, because not only is his speech deteriorating, but his bandmates seem to become exponentially more worried as the stutter grows.
"I co-co-co-could—" His sentence gets interrupted by his frustrated scream, one who only gets louder when Brian (He assumes its Brian, Freddie and John don't have hands that big) lays a hand on his upper arm.
He tilts his chair backwards, letting it clatter to the ground. He exits the room as swiftly as possible, pulling at his hair, and letting the angry tears roll down his face. Angry for letting a single reporter tear his carefully built walls. Angry for letting his guard down.
Angry for being treated as if he can't deal with his own problems.
"I-I," He tries speaking as slowly as he can, willing his mouth to open up and visualising what he wanted to say before saying it.
"Don't," He tries, and the vowels don't quite sound right, but it's a beginning, "Need."
"Your help."
it takes a few tries, a few minutes of him pacing up and down the halls of the hotel their press conference was being held at, but in the end, he manages to choke out something resembling what he normally sounds like. It's not perfect but it's enough, enough to get his nerves settled and the words understandable.
"We know you don't," Freddie's voice ring's across the empty hallway and bounces around Roger's skull, "but we can't help it, darling. We want to make sure nobody hurts you."
Roger has his fists clenched, his words rehearsed, and his walls up, but at Freddie's words he has no other alternative but uncurl his fingers and stumble into Freddie's open arms, "I w-w-w-was doing so... well."
Roger's sobs had Freddie's heart breaking into a million pieces, and he vows to find the reporter and tear his career to pieces. No one should do that to his sweetheart. Brian and John find them a few minutes later, and quickly come up to Roger, wrapping the shortest member of the band in a hug.
"I was... doing so well."