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John put up with months of merciless teasing from his friends after his license got revoked for drink-driving.
The mocking was well-earned for the foolish decisions that led to a police car following him for three blocks after a party at 4 a.m., which ultimately led to a one-year driving ban. His friends were allowed to poke fun at him for having to readjust to public transport and pay off the hefty fine that came in addition to his revoked license. However, John draws the line at telling his mother about this ordeal and will do anything within his power to evade her wrath.
That is how he finds himself strutting across his shared London flat at the break of dawn on a Saturday morning.
John is a man on a mission. Without bothering to knock (Roger won't answer to any knocks on the weekends before noon) John invites himself into Roger's single-bed bedroom. He has to step over some clothes and nearly trips over a pair of platform heels while he sneaks up to the bed.
The alarm clock next to his bedside reads 5:26 a.m.
On top of the mattress, Roger lays curled up on his side with an arm slung over his face. Overnight the sheets have slid down to his midriff, leaving the upper side of his chest, shoulders and neck exposed for John's eyes to rake over his bare skin and flexing muscles underneath.
Pressed by the limits of time, he pinches himself out of his fantasy (in which it's not his eyes that trace up and down the sensitive patches of Roger's perfectly scattered blemishes; freckles, birthmarks and scars).
Without a warning, or any kind of explanation, John grabs Roger by the shoulders and drags him out of bed.
He wakes up almost immediately when he is forced to put weight on his sleeping legs, still John has to support him to keep him from immediately crumbling to the ground. After several years of both flat and room sharing, John is experienced in dealing with Roger first thing in the morning state and makes sure not to let go of him until he's actually woken up enough.
Even with the lights off it is clear Roger's not sure what's going on or why John has an arm around his waist.
Roger's eyes are barely opened where he sways on his feet. "Morning?"
"Good morning, put this on."
John grabs the first t-shirt within arm reach and throws it over Roger's bedhead. Roger's arms automatically flop upwards in an uncoordinated attempt to push his hands through the sleeves. "What's happening?"
"Just stop squirming, I'll help you through."
John grabs his wrists to guide him through the holes, followed by a comedic effort of hoisting Roger into some trousers he finds discarded by his bedside. Roger doesn't do much but lean on John and occasionally shift his weight or lift a foot.
Within two minutes John nearly has Roger completely dressed, which must be some kind of record.
"Looking great today, let's go get you freshened up." John grabs Roger by the arm and guides him over to the bathroom without leaving any room for thought or protest. Roger's brain isn't functioning enough for protest yet and he'll take full advantage of that.
After switching on the lights and pushing Roger up against the sink, he thrusts Roger his toothbrush, already coated in the paste. "Stay right here," John guides Roger's unresponsive elbow and lifts his arm up until the toothbrush aligns with his mouth. "I'll be back in a minute."
John marches himself out of the bathroom to pack Roger an overnight bag. It's actually a miracle that he finds not one but two pairs of clean underwear in his drawer. One goes in the bag, the other is thrown on the same pile as the clean socks and vest Roger will be needing for on the road today.
A few moments later Roger comes into the bedroom blinking blearily in the morning light that's flooding through the gap in the curtains. Nobody has the right to look this good with a toothbrush dangling from his foaming mouth.
He's finally woken up a little when he catches sight of John throwing articles of clothing into his backpack.
"What's all this about?"
"Just finish brushing your teeth. Spit that stuff out and meet me downstairs," John zips up the bag and throws it over his shoulder. He tosses Roger his socks and underwear before brushing past him. "We're going on a road trip."
"Where are we going?" Roger asks in a characteristic sense of adventurism that questions nothing but how to move forward. Were the roles reversed, John couldn't imagine himself readily accepting something so sudden getting jumped on him before 6 a.m on a weekend. Not even for Roger.
That is what makes John pause in the doorway and look back at his friend standing in the middle of the bedroom like a sleep-rumpled mess and he actually takes pity on him.
"Breakfast is packed and ready for the road, your shit is packed. I've got us a car, fueled up. Dress yourself, take a leak and meet me downstairs."
He doesn't wait for a reply before quickly making it out of the flat.
The car his mother bought from the dealer is a fairly new Ford Falcon (XA), the dealer got it parked right outside of their flat. John throws their bags in the spacious trunk and shuts it without any trouble. The car still smells new and the first rays of sun is catch the glimmering coat wonderfully.
Today, John thinks hesitantly, might be a good day.
John is leaning against the hood of the car having a smoke when Roger finally comes stumbling down the stairs. In less than five minutes he has managed not only to tame his hair and wash his face, but he also looks much more awake with a broad smile on his face when he sees what car they will be driving in today.
"Wow, Deacks," he makes a low whistle when he approaches the car. "How did you get your hands on this baby?"
"Let's talk once we're on the road."
John opens the door for him and pushes him into the driver's seat. Roger isn't fully registering what's going on yet. He blinks up at him, slightly puzzled. "Wait, your license got revoked."
"Jup." John shuts the door and walks around the car. He gets into the passenger's seat with a grunt and continues the conversation. "My mum needs this car in Leicester by Sunday, which is tomorrow. And you're driving us."
"I don't drive."
"You do," John fishes Roger's license out of his wallet and presents it to him. "Found this at the back of the drawer in your bedroom. It's not expired, or falsified. I checked."
"I don't drive," Roger insists once again without showing signs of letting up.
To John, this is just another hoop he has to jump through to escape his mother's judgement.
John reaches across to turn the key in the ignition and get the ball (or in this case, the car) rolling. What he does not expect is for Roger to slap his hand away and make an inhumanely high-pitched noise of terror. "What are you doing?! No!"
Before John can open his mouth and defend himself, Roger has scrambled for the door handle and jumps out of the car.
John cradles his tingling hand to his chest while he watches Roger rush back up to their flat in a panic haste.
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A lot of what happened that evening was repressed amongst the most nebulous of memories held within Roger's mental vault. The details are as foggy as that traitorous night.
He remembers the after-buzz of a good gig and the one beer he'd been allowed to down under the supervision of his older bandmates.
He remembers the darkness and how they all laughed in the void of oblivion.
Although he was the youngest of their musical clique, Roger often found himself at the centre of attention and decision making of the group.
That night hadn't been an exception. The girls in the car were all over him, laughing and singing along to his lead when the radio couldn't connect to any local stations. The boys were no different, although slightly more drunk, they'd shout out of their windows or play jokes on Roger in constant failed attempts to distract him.
Roger could laugh, grin and chuckle, but his control over the car was immaculate, his steering remained flawlessly linear.
The van rolled forward through the muddy roads in foggy landscapes with Roger behind the wheel and his friends on a mission to break his resolve. Roger was young, too young for such a burden to carry. Even when he wore his glasses, without any lights along the countryside trail, there was no way he could have seen the truck in front of them.
In its grey unlit mass the vehicle blended into the anonymity of the night. Nobody noticed that it was there, until the darkness consumed them in the crash too.
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Evidently, plan A did not work, so John regroups for plan B.
Roger is seated at the dinner table picking apart the breakfast John had made for the road. John watches him pick the bacon off the sandwich to have something to chew on.
"Alright," John throws his hands up in surrender and sits down on the opposite end of the table. "Tell me what happened."
Roger gives him a long look, as if he were contemplating his options. They are limited when it comes to dealing with John because he never let's go and is a skilled interrogator. Roger must realize this, but still the far away-haunted look is quickly masked by a closed-off expression. "I got in a car crash when I was sixteen and haven't driven since."
John wasn't sure what to expect, but that certainly wasn't it. Roger has this condition called chronic oversharing. Yet, somehow they never talked about this.
"What? You-" John clears his throat. "Did someone get hurt?"
Of course someone did. Roger gives him a hard look. "I'm not driving, John."
All Roger's cards are on the table, it's only fair if John returns the favour. "My mother can't know that I have my license revoked for drink-driving."
"And I told you not to drive after you've been drinking." Which is true, Roger had told John on multiple occasions not to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He'd never understood why Roger so often made a point of it when John only did it on rare occasions, but it is beginning to make sense.
"I didn't have any money on me! I needed to get home, I wasn't thinking," John argues, knowing full-well that he was wrong. "I was drunk."
"Someone could have gotten hurt."
"Maybe someone should have stopped me. Weren't we there together?" John has half-risen from his chair. He pinches the bridge of his nose when the room falls silent and Roger has finally stopped ripping his strips of bacon to pieces. "This is a separate discussion, Roger. You have a problem."
"You have a problem," Roger childishly counters.
"We are talking about your problem. What kind of person knows everything there is to know about cars and all the latest trends but can't be arsed to relearn how to drive?"
"It's not that I can't be arsed!"
"Be arsed then," John folds his hands together in prayer on the table to show Roger how serious he is. The gesture has his friend's eyes widening in surprise, John knows immediately that Roger will cave. "I'm begging you, drive my mum's car to Leicester."
"John."
"I'm begging you. I've never begged anyone for anything."
Roger's eyes drift sideways, as if he can see through their poorly insulated walls right at the car. He doesn't look too sure about himself, but finally he shoves another piece of bacon between his teeth. "I haven't driven in years."
"I know you can do this, it's mostly freeways anyway. Just driving straight ahead."
"I don't know..." He chews on the inside of his mouth and wrings his hands together. John has never actually seen Roger nervous on this side of the spectrum, hesitant and drawn inwards, when he's usually hyperactive with jitters. "You don't suppose you know anyone else willing to drive you across the country on Saturday morning at 5:47 a.m.?"
"Nope," John says, pushing his chair away from the dinner table with a finality Roger can't muster to fight right now. "Just you."
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His hearing only came back long after the initial crash.
Roger never excelled in physics, but when their van hit that truck, every sensible thought was punched out of him alongside his breath.
With the speed with which the van drove into the truck, a force was created that fortified the collision.
According to several of their testimonies, the van somersaulted and landed on its roof.
Roger can't remember that part, only when the noise came back, which was the awful screeching of scraping metal, broken glass and screaming. His eardrums were damaged by the collapse. There is a blank space between the moment he tried to hit the brakes and when his hearing came back with a piercing ringing sound.
And that he was no longer inside of the car.
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They're back inside the car with John in the passenger's seat and Roger in the driver's side.
Roger takes out his glasses from his breast pocket and puts them on his nose. He looks more like someone preparing for a job interview rather than a drive.
He breathes through an onsetting panic attack. He makes a point of strapping himself in his seatbelt and glaring at John until he follows. Roger grips the wheel, staring straight ahead.
All John can do is look and offer some words of encouragement. "You are okay."
"Shut up. Please."
The words come out through a strained whispered breath. John turns his attention on the cassette recorder that still had a copy of Janis Joplins Pearl inside. It plays on Mercedes Benz, not exactly the car they are driving, but close enough. The soft thrill of her rich voices floods through the silent car, filling it with warmth. John looks at Roger again. "You remember how to do this, right?"
"I know. I know." He loosens his grip on the wheel and turns the key in the ignition.
His body weight is centred on pushing hard on the clutch when the car rumbles to life and vibrates. Roger goes rigid.
His eyes squeeze shut behind the glasses. His chest rises and falls fast. He blindly puts his hand on the stick between them until his knuckles turn white. "Fuck."
"You've gotten this far, Rog. You're fine."
Without thinking that this might startle or upset Roger, John puts his hand over Roger's on the gear shift. Instead of pulling away, Roger reopens his eyes and glances at him from the corner of his eye with more trust than John actually deserves.
After a subtle nod, John clutches Roger's hand tight around the shift and pushes it into first gear. "Slowly, easy."
Sweat beats down Roger's temple. John sees how much tension he is holding in his body right now between the pressure he's put on his jaw and the clutch paddle.
"I hate this," Roger pants, "I hate this so much."
"Just slowly lift your foot Rog."
"I hate this so fucking much." Roger makes a shrieking sound that nearly causes the car to stall abruptly and surely sent them both into a frenzy when the car starts rolling forward, actually moving. But nothing of the sorts happens. Roger is breathing hard and fast, but he's keeping tight control over the vehicle. "Oh my God."
"Relax, relax, we're moving nice and steady," John says, while not so calmly checking the road through all the mirrors.
Roger eyes frantically move across the rear-view mirror. One could cut the tension in the car with a butter knife when Roger rolls out of the parking spot with a lot of ease for someone who hasn't taken a breath since the car began to move.
Traffic isn't too bad at this hour of the day and Roger seamlessly adds himself to the stream of moving cars in the right lane. When they are on the road, driving at the same speed as those cars around them, Roger finally exhales and relaxes his shoulders.
"...I'm driving."
"You're driving," John laughs at how baffled Roger is, at how cutely he scrunches up his nose when his glasses slide down. "I said you could do it."
Suddenly Roger is grinning like a goon, but won't take his eyes off the road. Gripping the wheel so tightly his arms are pulled straight. White knuckled and pink-faced with childlike joy, he chuckles.
"I-I haven't- I didn't think I'd be able to."
Looking at Roger overcoming a struggle that's apparently strangled his freedom and self-belief for several years, strikes a chord inside of him. He doesn't want to be sappy while Roger has to concentrate on the road, but he's always found Roger so fascinatingly admirable in ways other people plainly failed.
"What happened anyway?" John asks, failing to sound casual. If Roger had looked at him he'd be teased relentlessly for the sincerity in the question and his eyes.
"I'll tell you after you tell me why you were stupid enough to go drunk driving."
"We were talking about you, Rog." John forces his voice to remain steady, although the sudden pressure of lies limits the space in the small car profoundly more. He would have nowhere to run.
Roger continues to drive without ever losing sight of the road. "The accident was nothing too bad, I'm still here aren't I?"
"Yeah," John gives in, "I'm glad you are."
"Well, and I'm glad that they took your license so you could still be with us too," Roger goes back to the teasing with a sly smile curling at the corner of his lips. "Just try to keep me calm until we're out on the freeway."
"I'll try," John leans back in the chair and takes a deep relaxing breath that expands his ribs, and then lets them fall. Janis Joplin washes over them while John watches the road through the reflection of Roger's glasses, offering smiles of encouragement each time Roger glances at him from the corner of his eyes.
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When the firefighters finally arrived at the scene, they had drilled one sentence into his raddled brain over and over again.
He should have worn a seatbelt. Had he worn a seatbelt - had he worn a seatbelt... Should have worn a seatbelt.
Roger got flung out the window as soon as their van hit the truck and it was shot in the air by the force of the clash. The pressure of the glass had only been brief, the sharts were much worse than the breaking process itself. It fell around him like a billion sand grains, digging through his clothes and into his skin.
He sobbed when he felt the cold mud rub against the tiny wounds the glass had created.
He couldn't see anything in the darkness, his glasses were no longer on his nose and the mist still gathered around the scene ominously, although he knew that his friends couldn't be far, giving the cries and curses that increased in volume. When he tried to move, pain and soreness constricted his movement.
If only he had worn a seatbelt.
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"That's a stormcloud."
"It's rain," John says without looking up from the map. "We'll be fine."
They've been driving on the empty freeway for well over two hours before Roger is starting to show his first signs of serious agitation again. The edge in his voice is solemn. "I'm not driving in the rain."
"...Roger."
"John," Roger says, using the same tone.
John inhales sharply, and accepts the fact that there is no room for argument here. He looks on the map to find a bed&breakfast place at a nearby exit. "Fine, we'll stop for a few hours and have a rest. But I need this car delivered to mum before Sunday morning, though."
"We're only an hour or so out. If we stop for a bit until the rain goes away, it won't kill us. Jesus."
They continue onwards in silence with tension bleeding back into Roger as a grey blanket of clouds coils over the countryside. No other car is out on the freeway in front or behind them, which gives the road an even darker atmosphere without the traffic lights to pave the way.
When the headlights of the car become more visible as the weather shifts, Roger's foot starts inching towards the brakes.
John side-eyes him nervously, "we're nearly at the exit for the b&b. Just a few more minutes." It's becoming harder to read the road signs that indicate which exit they are at, but John keeps that firmly to himself, for himself to figure out.
Roger is about to reluctantly agree to drive forwards, but the unexpected clatter of a thick hailstone hits the window. It's about as thick as a grape and hard as an icy rock.
"What was that!"
"Just hail," John quickly reassures, he glances rapidly between the map, Roger and the blurry road signs. "It's just hail, keep driving. We're almost at the right exit."
That's when it starts to pour down on them and the tension that's made Roger go rigid all over manifests into brief action.
John is nearly slung out of his chair if it weren't for his seatbelt, when Roger abruptly swerves the car off the road and onto the emergency lane, before bringing the vehicle to an immediate stop. John opens his mouth to shout something at Roger out of our shock and frustration, but immediately clamps his mouth shut to prevent escalating the situation. The map is somewhere on the floor and his neck is sore from the sudden movement.
When Roger has stopped the car on the side of the road he is pale as a sheet. The hail storms around them like a thousand bullet shots attempting to penetrate the car.
He shuts his eyes and breathes heavily against the onslaught that's going on in their dark environment. This is utterly dangerous, standing still in the middle of the highway. John turns on the emergency lights to flicker bright red and orange in case another car emerges out of the darkness around them.
With two hands clutching at his chest and hyperventilating, Roger looks like he is about to pass out.
John reclines Roger's chair for him and unbuckles his seatbelt. Roger only notices what's happening when he's nearly reclined back horizontally and he's looking at the ceiling rather than the road, so John can rub his shoulder in soothing circles and take his mind off the fear.
In the midst of the hailstorm, his voice can barely be made out. "Tell me what happened to you?"
Roger looks at him without moving his rigid body. A hundred thoughts course through his head every given minute, John knows because when Roger focuses too hard on himself his lips move slightly to form the words picked from his brain. When he's stressed, he struggles more to filter high classified information from those thoughts he'll readily share with his friends.
"I can't see shit," Roger starts with the needless statement, "so when I drive I should always wear my glasses, everyone knows that."
"Right, everyone knows that."
"They trusted me to drive when I wore them, said I was the steadiest most reliable driver out of the lot. Even with the bulky van we used to borrow. Even on the thick muddy roads," Roger lifts his glasses slightly to rub his eyes. "Y'know we got so cocky that we didn't bother with seatbelts."
A lump forms in John's throat, speaking over it scrapes the inner walls uncomfortably. "Jesus."
"It was foggy and dark out. I wore my glasses so we assumed I'd see what was ahead of us, but I did not and we did not. Nobody saw the damn truck, half parked on the road. The roads were muddy, everywhere was fog. None of us saw anything."
Roger huffs, this time covering both eyes with his palm to hide how distant they'd grown with the memory.
"I crashed us against it. We didn't even know that we hit something until I, the car, and us included somersaulted... I got flung out the window. My friend carried glass in and under his skin for months after, because of all the sharts they couldn't remove before he started to heal up, which they had to do piece by piece with tweezers. We were two of the lucky ones, if you'll believe that. One of my friends, she barely made it at all, her stomach was ripped to shreds and nearly bled out before anyone had arrived on the scene to help us. Some chests were slashed open, noses were broken. Everyone had something. They all still have some things to remind them of the accident today."
John frowns. "Except you..."
"Except me, who was the one who drove us into the damn thing in the first place."
The rain blankets over their car like the weight of Roger's sorrows. He sighs, eyes still fogged up and distant when he finally drops his hand from his face.
Their gazes meet. The gravity of the story must have shown on John's face, because Roger consciously softens his expression. "I made it. Hell, I'm even driving! Never thought I'd do that again."
John gives him a tentative smirk, "You're not exactly driving."
"Oh fuck off," Roger chuckles. He pushes his shoulder into John's arm more firmly, and leans further into the touch when his body finally releases some of its rigidness. "Maybe I ought to thank you, but we haven't made it quite yet."
"Not yet, but soon."
"I'll thank you when we do."
As if their words were prayers and they matter and were heard, the sky begins to clear up in the distance ahead from him and the hail moves south. Blue skylight battles thunderous grey cotton clouds that's mastered onwards by heavy wind. A new song begins to play on the cassette, Hendrix, and Roger adjusts his seat to sit upright again while he hums along to the music under his breath as he peers out onto the clearing road.
His jaw is set with newfound determination. Then, he actually allows himself to smile when his hands clamp around the steering wheel.
John watches him, listens to him and enjoys him in a way that should feel much more sinful than it does satisfactorily.
"As soon as I can see the roads again I'll start to drive again."
"If the clouds clear up a little I can actually see which exit we gotta take," John fumbles around at his feet to find the map again, as they wait to continue their journey as if the stormclouds never happened.
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Roger remembers cold and pain.
He might have been unconscious for a moment, but no longer than that. He hadn't hit his head as far as he'd known and soon found the strength to claw his way back to his friends through the mud, rain and hazard zone of broken car parts.
He was surprised to see the van lay upside down across both lanes of the road. He hadn't actually felt the car flip, as he'd been catapulted out, but the sight before him was extraordinary in the worst possible way. He stared at it, breath taken away, for an unknown period of time.
He called out to his friends, only a couple of whom replied instantly from outside the van. There were some others still trapped inside, Roger realized almost immediately with a sinking feeling. What he wanted to do was rip a door open, go in and help them out of the death trap, but he knew that there were many risks and dangers involved with helping someone out of a somersaulted car. Spine and head injuries could be worsened if they were not adequately handled out.
The mud and cold clung to his clothes, his body was sore where he crawled up to a stand.
He shook while he screamed for his friends to hold on.
All he remembered to see were his buried under the metal of the car, while he stood on his legs, nearly untouched. The other two who'd been made it out of the car, clung to their bloody and torn clothes , they soon joined him in waiting for the firefighters and medics to arrive.
When they finally did, they had to scrape some of the remains of his friends off the road and save others from inside the vehicle.
Roger was dragged from the site and sat inside the firefighter truck waiting for one of the medics to consider taking a look at him. Each of them were asking him a hundred questions at the time, while Roger's eyes still drew to their trusted van that'd flipped itself on its back because of him. Fresh tears welled up in his eyes each time he saw the completely wrecked vehicle behind the shoulder of the first emergency responders.
There were bloody scrapes across his arms and sides. Glass had dug itself in places Roger could only name specifically because of his biology course, he hadn't answered any of the questions, he couldn't face what happened. His vision swam just before blacking out.
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Roger audibly sighs in relief when he brings the car to a stop in the b&b parking lot. They hadn't been on the road for long, but John knows this day unexpectedly took a lot out of Roger and they could do with a few hours of sleep.
"Mum's covering all the expenses so the rooms are on me," John says as he takes out both their bags from the trunk.
Roger's legs are shaky on the ground, as though he had been out on the sea rather than the car, but he takes his bag from John without complaints. "That's real nice of her."
"Least she can do after purchasing a car in London," John waits for Roger to catch up on him before they move together side by side into the small cottage sized b&b. Roger's fingers brush lightly against his before they reach the reception desk- which is just a desk table that separates the entrance and a backdoor for staff. Roger comes to stand a respectable distance from John when an elderly woman with a bright smile comes out the back to greet them.
"Good afternoon gentlemen, part of the wedding party tonight I assume?" The woman asks kindly while she puts her hands on the table to fumble through her reservations.
John glances sideways at Roger, expecting him to do the usual talking in public, but he notices immediately that Roger's eyes are glassy with sleep and his shoulders slumped under the weight of his bag. Right. He'd dragged him out of his bed at the crack of dawn.
John offers the woman an overly polite smile. "No, no we're not actually. We'll just be staying for a night. Two single rooms if you can."
"Oh I'm very sorry young men, but with the wedding party reservations, I'm afraid we have very limited availability."
"What have you got left for us?" John asks, just as she dives back into her books to see what she can do for them. He glances at Roger again while she tuts and murmurs to herself, and sees nothing but nervous exhaustion creeping into his expression. His foot is tapping nervously on the carpeted floor and gnaws on the back of his thumb, until the woman makes a 'eureka' noise, turns on her heel, and presents them with one single key.
"One double room for you gentlemen, best I can do for now."
John should be feeling much more unease at the prospect of sharing a bed with Roger, but it actually makes his insides heat up uncontrollably.
If he's this eager maybe he ought to decline. He doesn't know if Roger-
"Fine by me," Roger sighs tiredly, he looks sideways at John until he unfolds his wallet and exchanges his coins for the room keys.
"Door number 8, right up the stairs. Breakfast is from seven to nine, will we be expecting you?"
"No, we'll be on the road again by then," John answers.
The woman nods, "we'll have a couple of sandwiches ready then for you two, enjoy your stay."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Thank you."
Roger follows John up the stairs and into the hallway. The place is as claustrophobic on the inside as it looked from the outside. The carpets are dated, the flower wallpapers are grimy with unidentifiable stains, but their room is the worst of all. It looks like John's grandmother's place when she was still alive. The bed is barely a queens size, there is an abundance of embroidered pillows and floral sheets. The room lacks any windows or space, but at least they have a roof over their head, a comfortable mattress and a bathroom attached to the room.
Either they are both too tired to make a comment about the shared bed, or neither of them cares enough to mention it.
John drops his bag on the floor and watches Roger peel each layer of clothing from his body like it is nothing, like he's not revealing the body of a classical Roman statue underneath, complete of pale curves and flawed perfection in his slanted hips and finely veined arms.
Roger strips down to his (tight, so tight) underwear and drops onto the bed like a rock would sink to the bottom of a lake.
John takes much longer to finish after Roger has long made himself comfortable. He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, unpacks his pyjamas, changes in the bathroom, brushes his teeth and armpits and returns only to find Roger in the exact same position, unmoved. Assuming he's fallen asleep, John makes a conscious effort to tip-toe around.
He kills the lights without checking the time on the watch he'd just removed. Their alarm clock is set for 3 a.m. They will be getting more than enough sleep to arrive in Leicester tomorrow before the sun rises.
Once satisfied with the state of the room, John crawls into bed with Roger, who instead of respectfully turning his back to John when he shifts, sprawls himself on top of him. Clearly still awake.
John doesn't tense up underneath the sheets and Roger's body, even though society believes he ought to. He enjoys the feeling of the arm draped over his hip and the foot that rests casually around his ankle. Roger's instinctual closeness is a given, but his vulnerability is a gift. John has been taking a lot from him today, without returning anything.
"You must think I'm an utter arsehole."
"Why would you say that?" Roger's head shifts on the pillow until his lips are close to the exposed back of John's neck. His whispering voice is rather poorly compared to John's, who is surprised Roger is awake at all.
The softness of his body draped over John makes for a perfect contrast against the scratchy overwashed b&b bedding. John looks into the distance of the room in a failed attempt to mask how flustered he feels.
He swallows thickly around the lump in his throat. For the first time in his life, he's glad that he can't see Roger right now. "Because I got drunk and made the decision to drive with the chances of harming someone or myself in the process. While your accident couldn't have been prevented, mine could have."
"...You didn't get in an accident."
"I could have. Easily," all the teasing, the relentless jokes and fun poked at him, suddenly it all clicks inside John's head. He'd put himself in great danger the day he lost his license. Like Roger, he really could have killed someone, including himself. "I drove poorly enough for the cops to grab me within minutes."
"You shouldn't have done it, and you won't do it again," Roger says with such conviction that makes John want to oblige to the claim. He tightens his arm around John to pull himself flush against John's back. "I'm happy you're still here."
"I'm happy too... That you're still here, that is." John swallows hard and nervously. His heart is hammering against his chest, he hopes Roger doesn't feel it. "I can't believe we almost lost you before we could have met you."
"You'd all still be playing in some bands, I'm sure. Trying to make a name for yourself."
"We couldn't - not without you."
"I said trying, not succeeding."
Chuckling, John drowsily flips onto his other side to finally face Roger, propped on his elbow. He puts his chin in his hand to look down upon his friend, who is splayed on the pillows with bleary eyes. John's blood is rushing through himself in such great speed that he struggles to hear his own voice.
"Do you remember the night I got my license revoked?"
"No," Roger's eyes twinkle at the question, "because I was drunk too."
Adrenaline is coursing through John's system, until suddenly his lips are moving and he's speaking without being able to stop.
"We were all at Penney's house, getting drunk and high on whatever we could get our hands on for free. You were dancing with some guy, you probably don't even remember, but you seemed so happy. They kept playing hit after hit after hit, songs that you knew every word to, and you even wanted to throw your hands up for and dance. You of all people, dancing all night. You smiled at everyone who came along, brushing against you, a lot of them did on purpose. I don't know how else to describe it."
There is no adequate way to describe how wonderful Roger had looked that evening.
He was like a disco ball turning and casting a shimmer across the room. Rolling his hips, drunk yes, but dancing and free. He turned heads wherever he bounced off to, whoever took his hand for the next dance. John remembers it so vividly, seeing hundreds in a crowd meant really for less than ten, but Roger somehow stood out from it.
Everyone had gravitated towards him and wanted to stand in Roger's light. He might not remember it now, if the confused scrunch of his nose indicates anything, but he must have felt it then.
He must have, because it made his smile wider and move with more grace than he should have without the boost of being the party's highlight.
"Describe it," Roger blinks slowly up at him. "I want to know what happened."
John realizes just how utterly embarrassing it is when one person takes in such details about another. Especially not someone they ought to be bandmates with, or friends at most. He shouldn't say anything, at all. He should just shut up, count his losses and live with it.
"You were just so happy to be there. And so carefree. I wasn't the only one who could see it on that night, everyone stood a chance with you... Or at least they hoped, amongst the crowd of hopeless romantics, imagine being me."
Roger furrows his brow, "alright."
"Imagine," John takes a shuddering inhale without looking away from Roger, "you have been in love with someone for the last year. You see him every day, you live with him. Yet he's untouchable. He's perfect, he's sociable, he's fun. All the things you are not. So you say, forget about it. This won't ever happen. Be happy with what you have."
John flicks his eyes up, looking at Roger, then away again. "Then imagine, one night, the burden of a year of hopeless pining weighs on your shoulders, and you decide to gather all that direly necessary liquid courage to walk right up to him, and give him a kiss."
"What do you mean?" Roger blinks heavily, his eyes unjudging and intent. The curl of his lips reveals that he is at least flattered by the admission, if not puzzled. "You never kissed me?"
"I drank and I drank, took me a few hours to get properly drunk," John clutches the sheets between his fists as he remembers how dreadfully drunk he had been that night. It's a miracle he remembers at all. "And by the time I had drunk enough to push through the crowd of dancing drunkards and LSD-dropping new wave hippies, I found you were already kissing the man I'd wanted to be that night... I guess I lost my chance. I couldn't stay there. I know it was stupid. I should have found Freddie, or Brian, I should have gone for a walk or sobered up, but seeing you like that was too much. I couldn't stand it."
"What?" Roger asks, "This is the most I have heard you talk all my life and it's the stupidest shit I've ever heard."
"It's not stupid."
Roger sits upright. pulling the sheets around him either to tease John or actually keep him from getting distracted. "You fucking left a party so drunk that you nearly killed yourself on the way home and got your license revoked, because I was kissing some lucky forgettable bastard."
"That's not exactly what happened," John retorts stupidly.
"You put your life on the line because you were too cowardly to walk across the room and push some wanker off of me so you could take his place. You stupid fucking -"
John does it, finally, he does it. He cups Roger's face in his hands and tilts it upwards to kiss him square on the lips, which by some miracle shuts both of them up.
Roger makes a surprised noise at the back of his throat, that is as soft as his lips and as sweet as his tongue.
It's only a brief kiss. As most first kisses are, but John's toes curl in the sheets, Roger's arms squeeze around his hips and their noses bump together in a brief burst of affection.
Roger is breathing heavily when they pull apart. He blinks up at John, with hazed eyes. "Thank you."
John breaks out into a fit of nervous laughter he'd been holding in all night, finally it bursts free off his chest. "Thank you too?"
"Thank you!" Roger grins and squeezes his arms around John to pull him under the sheets for another kiss, "you knobhead."
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Roger woke up in the hospital hoping to be surrounded by his friends, but he was the first to recover and therefore, the first to touch base with all of them. He thanked God (whom he hadn't spoken to since he was a choir boy) for the bad night's rest he'd had. At least his terrible looks helped him win sympathy from his terribly injured friends.
"You know this isn't your fault right?"
"Nobody saw that truck - nobody could have seen it without the damn thing having its blinkers on. God I still can't believe that-"
"If they'll try to take your license from you, Rog, I'll kill them. I'll actually kill them! All of them!"
"Could they salvage any of the instruments? I can't get a new bass before the next gig. Fuck."
"Don't worry about us, dear. Just try and find another vehicle to replace the touring van. We can't go to our gigs without one."
Roger took it all in, sat by their bedsides and listened to their wishes and complaints until visitors hours were over. His friends were hurt, terribly so, but they were alive and beyond relieved to be able to say so.
His mother fussed over him for days and school gave him a week off to recover. Roger needed it, not only to recover but to see his friends every day and make sure that they are recovering how they should be.
"I don't think I'll drive again," he tells them.
"Don't be silly," they say, each of them without an ounce of accusation, "you'll be driving us back and forth in no time."
"I can't sleep at night. I hear you guys screaming, from inside the car, although this time you are all inside and I was the only one who survived."
"The dreams will pass Rog, those things aren't permanent."
"You don't know that," Roger said then, not knowing he would be replaying the events of that night for many years to come and bearing the guilt for his friend's permanent disabilities that followed. "I don't think I'll ever drive again."
He said, not knowing what the future would hold for him, the people he would meet. He believed it at the time, held onto that fear for many years to come.
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John senses the relief that washes over Roger when they finally arrive in John's childhood neighbourhood in Leicester. They've been back on the road since the first cast of sunlight, at the first signs of the streets growing narrow and the speed limit declining further with each sign they pass, the end of their one-day trip comes to an end.
"We're nearly here," John needlessly points out while he folds up the map in his lap so he can go back to resting it on Roger's thigh. "We made it."
"In time too," Roger relaxes further on the quiet town road that swerves between small brick houses that stem from long before their youth. It's probably similar to the area where Roger spent his childhood and first learned how to drive. It's a Sunday morning but it's too early even for the church-goers to be up and about yet, therefore all the lights in the houses are still off and the streets remain quiet sanctuaries for the house cats and odd drunkard to roam.
"We should stop before you take a left on the next street."
"Why?"
John straightens his back against the leather seat and gives his spine a pop, "I told you, I need mum to think I drove us all the way here."
Roger spares him a quick look of pointed disapproval, but he's already slowing the car down to a stop.
It took some convincing, but Roger gets out of the driver's seat when they are only one block away from their destination and allows for them to switch seats.
John is quite happy to finish their drive for them, it's been nice to watch Roger regain confidence in his driving, he had missed the thrill of the road all the same. It's also not a bad change to have a hot blond press up close beside him, completely relaxed.
Roger's hand comes to rest lightly over John's on top of the gear-stick. John quirks up his eyebrow when he restarts the engine. "What is it?"
"Promise me you'll never drunk drive again," Roger's voice matches the soft quietness of the morning mist and orange sunlight that bleeds through the windows. "I will single-handedly murder you myself."
"I promise," the words come out thickly sincere. "I swear."
Roger leans over to briefly brush his lips over John's cheek. He pulls away before they actually round the corner, where only one of the houses on the street has a light on, it happens to be the house John grew up in.
His mother has been waiting for them for an unknown amount of time, looking out onto the street from the kitchen window.
By the time John sloppily rolls the car into the free parking space in front of their house, his mother is standing in the doorway with wide open arms and a broad grin on her face.
The two of them exchange no further words before they loosen their seatbelts and get out of the car, all in favour of keeping what has transpired between them over the course of 24-hours between them for now.
"Good morning boys."
They shut the doors at the same time and walk side by side up to the worn but well-loved Deacon property. Roger, ever the charmer instantly puts up his good boy act and softens his entire character. "Good morning Mrs Deacon, lovely garden you keep here," he says in reference to their apple tree and the strawberry bush that separates the neighbours lawn from their own.
"Hey mum," John is much less charming in that way and opts instead for a sheepish smile when his mother insists on a hug before she accepts the car rattling keys from him.
"Thank you both very much," she says when she's satisfied with the embrace and gives John his personal space back. She turns her attention on Roger while she pockets the keys in her skirt. "Oh Roger, how nice of you to accompany John all the way here. It's such a long drive to make alone."
"It was no trouble, Mrs Deacon," Roger smiles, ignoring the sweat stains on his back and around his armpits that had accumulated while he was driving through his nerves. He hides his struggles with an effortless smile, aimed sideways at John. "It was good to spend some time together."
"Very well, I'm glad." Lilian agrees obliviously. "Why don't you two come in and have a proper breakfast? We'll all catch something standing here in the cold."
Their empty stomachs very much agree with the suggestion. They both happily follow after her into the narrow but homey entrance of John's childhood home. First his mother, then Roger, followed by John.
"We'll be taking the train home," John's hand lingers on Roger's elbow to pull him back against him.
Roger twists his head around to receive the assurance John offers him with a relieved grin. "Thank God for that."
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