Roger's P.O.V.

"How long we got? Ten minutes? About ten minutes?" Freddie quizzed everybody as he paced the dressing room impatiently.

It was the first show of our tour tonight, we'd arrived in North America a few days ago and now, the tour was officially starting.

I for one was excited, I loved touring and seeing all the different countries, the concerts were just a bonus, although hard work, were still very fun, stressful at times though.

We had all put on our stage costumes for the first time, Brian in a white cape kind of thing with lots of tassels hanging from it, with tight, white satin trousers, John looking sexy in something similar, tight white trousers but a black jacket, myself in black jeans and a vest with chains around my neck...and Freddie was donned in a suffocatingly tight, open chested, all in one body suit covered in a black and white harlequin pattern...he looked sexy, I had to give it to him...although I wasn't too sure about the ballet shoes.

He was pacing the room singing a round of vocal warm ups, Brian was tuning his guitar and John doing the same with his bass...I was just twirling my drum sticks. I just wanted to get out there and do our thing, I hated waiting around.

It was our first show in a while but with the amount of rehearsing and practicing we'd done at home before flying out here and the full run through we'd done earlier today, it already felt like we had done a tour already.

"Guys, can I have you back stage please? You're on in five." One of the tour operators called to us and we followed him through corridors to the back of the stage, Freddie jumping and stretching.

"We need to fucking nail this, okay?" He pointed at the three of us with a look of seriousness in his eye, Freddie didn't fuck about when it came to live shows, it was the best or nothing, there was no in between.

We all nodded at him, we were all a little more realistic than Freddie was, he was a perfectionist and strived for nothing but the best, flawless and no faults, a smooth run through...but the rest of us knew all too well that something, maybe something tiny, but something would go wrong tonight, and quite understandably, it was the first show. Things would only get better with the more shows we did...and mistakes were only human.

But mistakes tipped Freddie over the edge.

"You're on." The man who lead us backstage ushered us on, the stage was pitch black as we liked to have some kind of dramatic entrance, the other three ran onto the stage and I climbed up a platform and situated myself behind my drums.

The audience knew the show was about to start and were screaming very loudly, making me chuckle and grin, I loved hearing them cheer, it made us feel more welcome, a quiet audience was never a good audience.

And soon the lights lifted...and so did the volume.

"Hello, good evening, everybody!" Freddie yelled, out of breath after having already sung our first song, with us not touring for a while I forgot just how good Freddie sounded live.

I cast my vision over to Deaky, bobbing away behind his bass, a concentrating expression on his face...he wasn't very talkative on stage at all...in fact he never really said anything, sung a few backing vocals but that was it...his real presence was his bass playing which never went amiss...he was fantastic.

I caught his eye and he smiled at me, I winked back at him and he looked away with a bashful grin on his face whilst Freddie still conversed with the audience.

The show was going brilliantly in my eyes but every now and again I saw Freddie cast an evil glare at the guys who were working the backstage stuff, like the lights and sound engineers...honestly, I had not picked up on any mistakes but Freddie was so meticulous when it came to perfection, something would go unnoticed and he would act as if the world was ending.

It was the last song, the encore, all four of us were were standing, singing, playing near the front of the stage, a tambourine in my hand. As much as I loved being the drummer, I was sort of jealous that I had to sit at the back most of the time.

I was stood beside Deaky whilst Freddie still pranced about the stage doing his thing, I craftily stood closer to John, wanting to embrace him on stage.

We were in an awkward situation, not just me and John but the other two as well, none of us wanted the world to know about us yet, we were simply not ready to announce that all four members of Queen were gay and actually made up of two couples...to announce that into a world where homosexuality is not yet fully accepted was a fucking terrifying thought. We had the image in our heads that as soon as we let it slip, awful newspaper and magazine articles would be written about us, we'd lose fans and popularity, our music sales would go down...it might not be like that though...we were thinking the worst. People might just not give a shit and let us get on with it...but then again, all four of us were very popular with the ladies...I'm sure some of them wouldn't be impressed.

But negative thoughts aside, how could I be unhappy at the moment? I had the love of my life standing on this stage with me along with my two best friends, our first show of the tour had gone brilliantly and we were all beaming, high off the deafening applause and screams of the appreciative crowd...or so I thought.

"What the fuck was that?!" Freddie barged into the dressing room in a temper once we had all piled off stage in a hot, sweaty mess, we had been talking about just how good the show had gone until he stormed in, in a seething mess.

"What do you mean?" Deaks asked him cautiously.

We all knew to be precarious of a Mercury Mood, things were likely to start flying.

"It was such a fucking mess! Everything went wrong! Don't tell me you didn't notice?!" He yelled, his arms flailing about as his voice shook, with anger and also exhaustion after singing for so long.

"Well I actually thought it went really well, Fred...nothing obvious went wrong." Brian slowly walked up to him, his voice purposefully calming.

"It doesn't matter if it wasn't obvious, Brian. If I notice then it's obvious enough. Who the fuck did the lighting?! What an absolute cock up that was!" He was ripping his shoes from off his feet and throwing them across the dressing room.

"And the audience was shit!" He screeched.

"The audience was great!" I defended.

"Great?! Roger, is was like playing to pensioners who could hardly hear a bastard thing!" His rant was followed by a smash, making everyone jump as he had thrown a beer bottle that he had been drinking out of.

I looked up at him from my seat to see him stood with his head in his hands, he was trembling from anger.

"Freddie, calm down..." Deaky attempted to soothe him but he snapped again, tearing his head away from his hands and marching over to the dresser, his breathing deep and raspy.

"Calm down?! That was a fucking shambles!" He shouted, kicking over John's bass stand.

"Hey!" Deaks reacted, rushing over and picking up his stand, "You're overreacting." John hissed bravely at the frontman.

"I'm not! My mic failed. The lights were all wrong. So much shit went wrong!"
On his last word he had picked up a hand held mirror and threw it to the ground, smashing it into many pieces.

Freddie was quite scary when he was like this.

I rushed over to Brian who was watching his boyfriend as if he was a stranger, "Calm him down, will you?!" I whisper shouted at him.

"And how do you want me to do that?" Bri asked.

We both watched the singer like he was a bull in a china shop, smashing everything he could get his hands on.

"I don't know, fuck him or something. Jesus Christ they'll be nothing left of this room!" I whispered desperately.

Brian was looking at me with wide eyes, telling me without him even needing to speak that they still had not fucked.

How lame.

Maybe now was the prime time to do it, anything to chill him out before not only he wrecks this whole room, but he hurts himself in the process.

"And Roger! You messed up on a song." He pointed at me, his shoulders raising and dropping with every deep breath he took.

I rolled my eyes, I should've seen this coming, I wasn't going to deny it, I missed one little cue by a fraction of a second but that was my only mistake of the night, surely I was allowed to have one little measly mistake seeing as though it was the very first concert and I had a small case of first show jitters, "For fuck sake, I knew this was coming." I groaned under my breath making Brian chuckle next to me.

"Don't fucking laugh! Do you even care?! People paid to come see us and they might as well have paid to watch sheep galloping about the fucking stage! We were pathetic!" He screeched.

"Freddie. Calm it, it's over with now, we'll be better next time." John spoke up, sounding tired of Freddie's tantrum already.

"Well we should have been as good as we can be this time!" He yelled, not settling for anything we were saying.

I gave a Brian a sneaky push, shoving him towards the seething frontman and I went over to grab Deaky to make a quick escape, "Freddie, why doesn't Brian try and chill you out a little bit? Me and Deaky will be...somewhere out of your way." I directed a dirty smirk towards Brian who was glaring at me, I winked at him before leaving the room with John's arm linked in with mine.

We both let out a sigh of relief after having finally gotten away from his mood, I had to do something, I knew Brian was desperate to get intimate with Freddie...they just needed a little nudge in the right direction...besides, it was only what Freddie did with me and John.

I was returning the favour.