Roger
June, 1985

"Why are we featuring on a bloody ballad?"

John's eyes flashed as his gaze snapped to mine. I lowered my voice to a whisper before I leant my face a little closer to the bassist, who was clearly afraid we may offend our hosts. "Do you know how difficult it is for me to leave the cymbals so overlooked?"

"Yeah," John replied softly, "It's not, well, it's not one of my favourite songs."

"You sound good on it," I huffed, "You aren't being restrained."

John's eyes crinkled with amusement, "Just toss in a cymbal crash in the middle of the chorus. Drown out the words."

"Well you're too young to love me," I sang under my breath, "And I'm too old for you..." I imitated a overzealous cymbal smash by tapping my knees.

John attempted not to laugh, "The lyrics are just—"

"Roger! John! Hello, hello!"

Elton John appeared wearing a double denim ensemble. Almost very inch was covered in sewn on patches of varying colours, symbols, and phrases. My eyes were drawn to the huge red badge that was clasped to his collar with the words "Super Shmuck" printed across it.

"Hello." I cracked an affable smile.

Elton didn't remove his cream boater hat, nor his oversized, square-framed sunglasses as he joined us. I didn't need to see behind the yellow tinted specs to know that the singer was off his head on whatever it was he was taking lately.

"John and Rog have laid down the instrumentals like you wanted," Bernie Taupin, popped his head into the now cramped sound booth. He looked like he was taken from the cover of one of those daft pirate romance novels with his flowy white shirt and leather trousers. "It sounds great."

"Brilliant song." I piped in, "Right John?"

John's frizzy head of curls bounced as he enthusiastically nodded his head up and down, "Yes, we enjoyed working on it. Thanks for thinking of us."

Elton waved his hand dismissively and dropped down between John and I. "So," he tapped our knees, "What do you old birds have planned for Live Aid?"

"Bohemian Rhapsody." John and I replied in unison, unable to give away much else, nor did we want to.

"Well yes, Melina told everyone that already." Elton's fidgeted about, "Anything else?"

"It's a surprise." We haven't been able to agree on anything yet.

"Mhm," Elton patted our knees once again, "Well I'll try not to steal too much of your thunder. Now, shall we do another run through for 'Too Young'?"

"Sounds good to me."

I mustered up a scrap of enthusiasm before I dragged myself from John and towards the drum-set. I stared longingly towards my underused cymbals as Elton's prerecorded vocals filled the space.

'Your mother's eyes, look straight through me, whenever we meet. Your father swears, it'll never be, as long as he breathes.'

This solo venture may have been alright for John Deacon, who secretly loves his sappy tunes, but I was much happier when I got invited to do my own solo in a real rock track just a few days later.

"Roger, how are you mate?"

I glanced about the rather spacious Odyssey studio before letting my eyes fall on Roger Daltrey. The Who's singer stood up from the mixing desk to approach me with an affable smile. He left Cozy Powell, a drummer with an impressive track record, sitting there on a swivel chair. Last I seen of Cozy he had been playing with Whitesnake but who knew where he'd be next.

"I'm good, cheers," I replied as Daltrey clapped me on the shoulder, "Thanks for asking me out here."

Two years ago, The Who split on account of Pete Townshend growing weary of the band (that's the censored version of events anyway). Despite of the split they were apparently going to perform together at Live-Aid. For now though, Roger was pursuing yet another solo-album. He had asked me to appear on a track he dubbed 'Under A Raging Moon' and I couldn't have accepted an invitation any quicker. It was a tribute song for the late, great, Keith Moon.

The Who's drummer had been a huge influence on me when I was younger, he was just fucking phenomenal. I remember sneaking off to see them as a teen in the sixties— I never would have imagined back then that I would be sitting in a studio with Daltrey, playing on a tribute track for Moon. It was crazy how normal such a thing was to me now. After a rough few weeks of an uneasy home life, this was exactly the boost I needed to perk me up again.

"Every time I see you Roger," Cozy crooned, "The Pop Quiz theme plays."

"I was the only one holding our team together," I declared and sat myself down beside the drummer who was now fixing his dark mullet, "You and Suzi Quatro dragged me down."

"You're on that daft show far too much."

"You wouldn't think it was daft if you were any good on it." I grumbled.

With that, we immediately launched into a discussion about racing. Cozy briefly did some motor cross racing a few years ago when he was still drumming for the band Rainbow. I found myself envious at times of Cozy's no strings attached lifestyle, jumping from project to project, working with all sorts of musicians. When I caught myself looking at greener grass, it didn't take long for me to be reminded of the fact that the grass couldn't possibly be any greener than it was playing with Queen.

Daltrey eventually tore me away from the motor heavy conversation and handed me a pair of headphones. I listened intently to the Pretender's, Martin Chambers' solo that immediately crashed into action after Daltrey's bridge.

Taking me back to better times, we never read the danger signs. Why are the young— why are the young so blind?

Chamber's propulsive drumming sound soon bled into Cozy's powerful contribution. It seemed like the man had eight arms sometimes with his ability to play the set so wide yet keep it so clean. I found myself nodding my head in appreciation to what was so obviously Zak Starkey's segment. He was grand and flashy, but had unfortunately made himself into a Keith Moon impersonator rather than his own musician. There's a fine line between imitation and inspiration and he leant toward the former.

"That's all we have so far," Roger explained with the thick accent of a Londoner, "So just have at it, do whatever the fuck you'd like Taylor."

Free reign was bloody brilliant, and I savoured every second of the freedom I was given to play my own way. With Keith Moon in mind, I made use of inch of that drum set, whilst paying particular attention to the cymbals. I played with the grandiosity that was now synonymous with Queen, thanks to my own personal style. I did serval long takes, the session intense enough for sweat to trickle down my brow by the time I was happy with it.

I returned to the mixing room, and poured over the recorded drum solos along with Cozy and Daltrey. It was clearly a tribute piece, influenced by Moon, but my own distinct style shone through which is exactly what I was aiming for.

"Obviously you'll have to put my part before Cozy's." I declared as I rubbed at my shoulder, "Or else they'll turn the track off before it gets good."

Cozy gasped, "I don't see why you even let this tosser on the song in the first place."

Just as I was about to bask in the praise of the Roger Daltrey, the Police, as usual, found a way to piss me off.

The band's lanky drummer, Stewart Copeland, strolled on in. He was a nice lad: I had nothing against him on a personal, or professional level. Musically, we differed greatly. His drumming style was fresh I suppose; it was all about making use of a smaller, tighter set. It worked for him and his band, so in that sense it was great. I prefer the ambient sound of a big drum kit, inspired by the likes of John Bonham and of course Keith Moon. I wasn't as sold on The Police as the rest of the world seemingly was either.

It never failed to surprise me when Stewart opened his mouth and out came a thick American accent. "Roger, hey."

"Hey," We briefly shook hands, before exchanging a few stilted pleasantries.

"What do ya say?" Cozy slipped around either of our shoulders, a difficult task with the unnecessarily tall Copeland, "Will we head for a few drinks after this?"

"Great idea, man." Stewart agreed before he snuck off to record his own drum solo.

Copeland didn't sound too bad when he made proper use of the full drum kit. A comment that had Cozy rolling his eyes when I leant over to whisper it in his ear. To pass the time, we began trading stories about our latest projects and tours. Considering Cozy had been touring with Whitesnake and Black Sabbath recently, his stories were much more exciting. Queen were wild in their day, but not bloody Ozzy Osbourne wild... I'm not sure if I would have liked to have been on that level either.

When we all eventually finished up in the studio and made our way to the Marquee club on Oxford Street, Cozy attempted to show off exactly how well his partying skills had been honed. Personally, I would have preferred a pub, but Cozy was insistent on taking us to the rock club. A fledgling thrash metal band named 'Slayer' were up on stage, making it very difficult to hold a conversation, but after a few drinks the noise didn't matter. I liked the musical element of heavy metal, but the vocals and lyrics weren't always my cup of tea.

I was trying not to be put out by the fact that every girl who approached us three drummers made a beeline straight for Stewart. He was friendly and charming of course, but as a married man he appeared to be behaving himself. Stewart then tried to be helpful by pawning the girls off on me, but I didn't need to be bloody helped in that department. He can sod right off.

I soon made eye contact with a girl who practically had a red dress painted on to her cracking body. Against the soundtrack of a horrifying song titled 'Chemical Warfare' she flashed a small smile my way that I returned almost immediately. Five minutes of stolen glances later, the girl prowled over and leant herself against the bar alongside me. Cozy looked as though he wanted to leap over my body to get at her so I would need to work fast. He was a funny fucker, so I had no doubt he may steal her away from me. Stewart was too busy nervously twisting his wedding band any time any sort of woman looked his way to take much notice.

"You're Roger Taylor." A coy smile touched the girl's full lips. This clashed with her fairly explicit bedroom eyes. A nice mix that.

"Yes, I am." I laid my arm out on the bar behind her. "And what's your name?"

"Heather." She tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ear.

"That's lovely." I was surprised to hear the slight slur in my voice. "Are you enjoying the band?"

A surface level conversation ensued which revealed that Heather appeared to be a huge Queen fan. A fairly intense Queen fan who informed me that she once followed us around Europe in the 70s. That ordinarily would have told me to run a mile, but that was before Heather dropped the fact that she only lived about a two-minute walk away. When her hand slyly slipped up my thigh, I decided that it would be a good idea to check the place out.

Heather's lips were on mine the second we fell through the door of her flat off the corner of Regent Street. After a hazy few kisses and touches, we finally ended up landing on her bed. I attempted to ignore the autographed photo of Brian that stared at us from her bedside table, but after some strategic knocks of the bed I forced it to topple over.

Again, an awful sign, but I was already shagging the girl so it was too late to turn back now.

Don't worry, the shame sank in when I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and no clothes. I snuck a glance at the girl's sleeping form, and contemplated waking her before slipping out. The sight of a few Queen poster's plastered on her wall had me pulling on my jeans much quicker. She was at least in her late twenties... there was no reason for her to still have posters of us.

I was still sliding my shoes on when I escaped as far as the living room. Nothing seemed familiar from last night, which reminded me just how trollied I was. Luckily this space seemed like a normal room and not a bloody shrine to Queen. As I cast my gaze across the eclectic living area that seemed to be stuck in the 70s, I was shocked to see another figure lounging in the open spaced kitchen.

Standing there, in just a pink cami and a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms was perhaps the most alluring woman I had ever set my eyes on. A woman I was fairly certain I would never see again.

"Layla?" I spluttered.

Layla, the artist, and Mayfair's master thief, didn't look at all phased by my presence. She simply sat herself back onto the countertop as if this wasn't a crazy coincidence. "Yes?"

"Hi?"

I found myself inexplicably flustered by her sudden presence. Stupidly, I thought that I wouldn't even manage to recognise the woman if I ever ran into her again but our strange night together came rushing back immediately. I seemed to forget all about my previous escape plans as I made my way towards Layla.

"Hello." Layla offered me a friendly smile before slowly taking a bite of her toast. She looked as though she had just woken up, but that didn't explain her unresponsive behaviour towards me. She hardly doesn't remember me.

"It's me. Roger?" I proceeded to point at my face. "Taylor."

Layla nodded, "Yes, I know." Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she raked her gaze up and down my form. I'm sure I looked a right mess. Far too old to bloody be behaving like this too.

"What are you doing here?" I took a few steps towards her, and she didn't seem at all jarred by advancing figure.

Layla simply looked up at me through her sleep heavy lashes. Her brassy hair was still pillow-tossed, and I had to physically restrain myself from reaching out to help fix it. We kissed once, so I didn't know what sort of boundaries I was expected to keep. My mind was far too mushy with a hangover to really think about it too clearly.

"What am I doing here?" Layla frowned, "I live here."

I didn't know what to do with that information. I also didn't know why I cared about the information enough to even want to do something with it. I shook my head slowly as if it would physically rid me of the confusion that now clouded my mind.

"Right... well I obviously didn't know that." I chanced a further step toward her.

"Hm."

"I ah..." I began rubbing at the back of my neck, "You don't seem too surprised by me being here."

"Well, I had time to process it." Layla took another bite of her toast, "You have a rather distinct voice, and my flatmate seemed quite fond of referring to you by your full title last night." Her dark brows knit together, "And the walls are illegally thin. Had to kip on the couch thanks to you, Roger."

It took me a moment to slot all of that together, but I found myself cringing once I did. No wonder Layla wasn't more shocked or bloody awed by my presence. Not only did she have time to process that I was here, but I had made a proper twat of myself. For fuck sake, I made the poor woman sleep in the living room just to get away from the sound of me going a few rounds with her friend in the next room.

"At least one of us had a nice time, I suppose." Layla hummed before taking a small sip of tea.

For now, the situation was mildly awkward. It was up to me to make any such tension banish, maybe even charm Layla a little, before I went on my merry way. I didn't owe it to Layla to apologise for shagging her flatmate: simply because we were no better than strangers who shared one meaningless little kiss less than a month ago. I would simply apologise for preventing her from getting a decent night's sleep and piss off. Bloody hell I would have much preferred to join Layla last night if I knew it was an option. Not to sleep with that is— just because Layla was nice to chat to last time around and wasn't a Queen fan who may now stalk me. Well if she wanted to shag, that would have been fine too.

As I stared at Layla's lovely face, the connection between my mind and mouth decided to take five. Which meant I let any sort of fucking nonsense slip on out. Accidentally. Idiotically. Unfortunately.

An innocently flirty  "I would have joined you", somehow, stupidly became "You could have joined us."

"Excuse me?"

I blinked at Layla's thoroughly offended tone, "What?"

"I could have joined you two?" Layla's doe-like eyes had no reason to be so intimidating when narrowed.

"What? No— what?" I stammered, unable to comprehend that I had said the piggish statement out-loud to a girl who was just innocently eating her breakfast.

"You just said I could have joined you," Layla repeated my apparent words, "I wasn't aware that girls were automatically two for the price of one if in close proximity to one another. Is that a special discount for musicians?"

"No— no. That's not what I meant!" My tongue tripped over itself in an attempt to undo the damage it had done.

From the way Layla was now looking at me, she was not about to just forget about the sleazy line. Thankfully, I was saved from fucking up any further by the girl from last night when she appeared at my side. However, I forgot I was doing a runner from said girl so things were about to get much worse.

"Morning, Roger Taylor." The girl smiled brightly.

Bloody hell. "Hello..."

Her name? Why can't I remember her bloody name? It was some type of flower wasn't it? Daisy, Holly, Ivy— oh fuck me, it could have been fucking Chrysanthemum for all I knew.

"... love."

The girl from last night didn't notice my pause, but Layla did. Her eyes rolled as if she had summed me up and now deemed me a complete twat. Which, I suppose, based on this entire interaction I could understand.

Despite of that, Layla still decided to throw me a lifeline. "Morning, Heather."

I knew it was a bloody flower— plant? Flower.

"Morning Layla," Heather wrapped herself around me, "I see you've met Roger Taylor."

"I did." A dry smile, "Lucky me."

Smashing. I glanced back toward Layla with a sheepish expression before I attempted to undrape myself from the overly friendly Heather. I watched as Layla sighed deeply: hopefully slightly amused by the fact I was acting like a bumbling twit. It was more likely that she was in disbelief that I accidentally made a pass at her whilst sneaking out of the bed of her flatmate.

"Would you like something to eat?" Heather's hand possessively pressed against my chest. A bit too clingy after one night of casual fun that's all I know. I really needed to make a break for it.

"Some toast?" Layla was definitely amused as she offered me the cheekiest of glances.

"That would be nice." I nodded before I proceeded to make an even bigger fool out of myself. Why I thought Layla's offer of toast would be the slice that lay on her own plate, I don't exactly know. It would seem that Layla's presence was inexplicably making my behave as though I had never interacted with a beautiful woman before.

"Cheers." I murmured as I plucked up the heavily buttered slice of bread right up from Layla's plate.

Layla frowned, "I meant Heather would make you some."

"Oh." I dropped the slice back down, "Sorry."

"Well I don't want it now." Layla sighed before she proceeded to slide off of the counter. She offered the plate out to me, and I had no choice but to accept it now. I watched carefully as Layla made a move to sweep out of the room. I liked the languid sway of her walk, as if everything was always cool and casual in her world.

"I was thinking we could do dinner tonight, Roger." Heather's voice broke me out of my careful examination of Layla's eye-catching profile.

"What!?" I exclaimed before attempting to smooth my tone out, "I mean— what?" Why on earth would she think dinner was now on the cards?

"Dinner?" Heather frowned, a pout slowly appearing. No. She can't be at that shit after one night.

"That would be nice." Layla had stilled in her tracks to gauge my poor reaction. "Wouldn't it Roger?"

So far I had slept with Heather in the room beside Layla's thus forcing the girl to sleep on a couch, accidentally indicated that Layla could've had a threesome with us, forgot Heather's name, and put Layla off of her breakfast. Brushing Heather off right now would really put a cherry on the top of the asshole cake.

It was clearly exactly what Layla expected me to do based on her judgily upturned nose.

The fact that I was completely ruining the half decent impression I may have left on Layla before was now irritating me. I didn't enjoy the fact she was looking at me like I was being lumped in with any other male slapper she had ever come across in her life. Inexplicably, I wanted to prove her new summarisation of my character wrong. I was the mysterious, handsome, partner in crime, not a prick who slept with too many people to bother keeping names in order. Fucking hell, why do I even care what she thinks?

"Er, yeah..." I shrugged dismissively, "I don't think dinner would really work..."

Layla's rolling eyes had me switching my answer right up. Who was she to bloody judge me? I have had plenty of brilliant relationships with women. Women love me! I love and respect women, I don't have anything to prove to this annoyingly pretty stranger.

"Actually," I flashed Heather a charming grin. "Dinner sounds nice."

Clearly, I need to give Heather the best night of her life so that she would relay what a perfect gent I was back to Layla. That would bloody show her not to look at me like that with those high and mighty honey-brown eyes.

Layla rolled said eyes once again when I turned the smile on her. I'm a nice lad, she knows that. I once helped her steal a hood ornament— that's chivalry at its finest! Clearly Layla must have briefly thought that I was half decent or she would never have kissed me. My gaze quickly flicked towards Layla's lips as they seemed to twitch sourly at the thought of me potentially seeing Heather again.

It was certainly not a good idea to take Heather out when I was so strangely fixated on her friend, that much was obvious. I have gone on many dates for many varying reasons, but never have I wanted to take a girl out to dinner just so that I would have a chance at seeing her roommate again.

"Well I hope you two have a lovely evening." Layla chuckled, "A pleasure meeting you, Roger."

Was the woman just completely discounting our first meeting where I was absolutely dazzling!? All because I accidentally insinuated that I wanted a three way with her and the roommate I shagged? Bloody hell, some people would take that as a compliment... in certain cultures I'm sure.

"Yes, we will have a lovely evening." I gave Heather a small squeeze, "Perhaps I'll see you around Layla."

I have hit an all time low on the rotter scale.

"Oh I doubt it." Layla murmured, in a tone that really said 'hopefully not, if I can help it'.

Well I better bloody see her around because if not, my date with a potential Queen fanatic will be for nothing except traumatising myself. Hibiscus is going to have the time of her life, and that's going to show Layla that I am not the asshole she now thinks of me as. This line of logic is clearly fucking faultless.

Who knows? Perhaps Heather may turn out to be "the one" if all goes well.

——

A/N —

Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter! Thank you to anyone giving this story a go!🤍