Queen & Beatles | OneShots

Brian May - Check Mate

I've been on hiatus.

and i got into uni. yay

—

When on tour, the boys played scrabble. Brian had always preferred chess but Freddie hadn't got the patience, John found it very boring and Roger didn't know how to play properly. Well he did, but he'd rather pretend the Knights had lasers and all his pieces were immortal.

You were working as a stage hand on Queen's first official tour. You were lucky as the money was good for temp work. The boys were very nice to everyone that worked with them. Always said hello, never forgot a please and thank you. Very polite and down to earth. Unless they'd been playing scrabble. In which case there would loud arguments, broken furniture and tension. Lots of tension. That's why Brian preferred chess. It was far more civil and relaxing.

So you were picking up the pieces of a broken table from one of the games earlier. Probably Roger's fault but you weren't going to pry. The room was empty and quiet and honestly, you didn't mind the break from running around after managers, venue owners, the band members and even the technicians.

"Hello," A voice made you jump out of your skin. "Oh sorry! I thought you heard me come in."

"No... I didn't. Hi."

Turning around you saw one of the band members stood in the room.

"I'm Brian."

"Yeah, I know."

"Right, of course," He smiled and watched as you awkwardly began picking up the fragments of table and putting them into a bin bag. He was still sort of watching you, shuffling awkwardly in the doorway. "Sorry about that, Roger's temper even extends to board games. Can I help you?"

"I thought it might have been Roger. That's okay, it won't take too long." You smile, subtly.

Brian returned the smile, grateful the tension was breaking a little bit and you were speaking.

"You'd be surprised how passionate him and Fred can get about a word game, of all things. It's quite interesting, to say the least. So erm.. what's your name?"

"(Y/N)." You reply.

He nodded, not knowing where to take the conversation. He felt useless when talking to pretty girls even though he was 'famous', and that had always been the case. Maybe one day he'd pick it up. But today was not that day.

"I'm Brian."

"Yeah, you said that." You smiled a bit and stopped yourself from laughing at him.

Brian stood there feeling like a bumbling idiot. At least she wasn't making fun of him, he supposed. It would be very easy to make fun of him, all things considered. Maybe Brian should've offered to help her tidy up, but she was basically don't now and it seemed redundant.

"Yeah, I did, so erm- is- are... Uh-"

"Are you okay?"

He was a bumbling idiot. All Brian could do was scold himself. He found he was at his most confident when he knew something. Unfortunately he didn't know the girl at all, he just knew her name and that she worked here. So he'd just have to steer the conversation towards something he understood well. Astrophysics may be a little heavy for the first conversation and it was certainly niche. Music perhaps?

"Aren't you with the sound department?"

"No, I'm just a temp assistant. I hang around with some of the soundies though. Nice blokes, quite loud but that's fitting, isn't it?"