Chapter Text
Hot Space had nearly torn them apart.
Brian had tried to forget everything about it. All the fights, all the slammed doors and the nights sleeping alone. But it seemed that even in their highest moments that cursed album was bound to come back and haunt them. He set his guitar case down on the floor of recording room number five in Musicland Studios and tried to ignore the echo of the last argument they had had there.
The recording room was bleak, sealed off from the rest of the world, resembling a maximum-security prison. Not for the first time that day, Brian wondered why he had agreed on recording their song here. He didn't even know why they had decided to come here to record 'One Vision ' in the first place. Something about new recording equipment, free space, and— well, he couldn't even remember the other reasons behind them recording in Munich anymore. He just knew he hated it.
He felt someone perch their head on Brian's shoulder, then sigh, "I know."
The guitarist turns his head, only to be met with John's reddish hair and lovely eyes, "It's been a while."
"It's only one song," the bassist turns to scan the room, "then we will be back at Abbey Road, or Montreux, or wherever you want us to be."
Brian reached for John's hand behind his back, lacing their fingers together and then pressing a kiss to the bassist's temple, "Only one song."
"Only one."
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"—And I swear to you, Brian May, that if you threaten to ignore my annotations one more time I will—" John's screams could be heard all over the room, making the hairs on the guitarist's neck stand up.
"You will what, John?" Brian snapped, "Add another bassline to the song? Change the beginning? Don't be ridiculous and just stick to your instrument instead of fucking around with my parts."
John turned red with anger, "It's not fucking around when your Solos suck without any annotations."
"John," Freddie warned, but neither of them seemed to listen.
"My solos don't suck," Brian said indignantly, tears brimming his eyes, "I spent hours crafting this part, and I think it sounds great."
"Oh, don't start crying now," Freddie could see the moment when something inside, John snapped. It was like a lion preparing to pounce, or a snake seconds away from attacking. He wanted to get in the way, shield Brian from whatever hurtful comment John was about to make, but he was too late, "I know you like to use your depression as an excuse to get your way, but it's time you grow up, Brian."
Something, probably Roger's drumsticks, fell to the floor and the silence that followed the argument was almost deafening. Freddie wanted to say something, either towards John, or to comfort their guitarist, but the words seemed stuck. He could only observe as Brian unstrapped The Old Lady and handed it roughly to John, who stumbled back.
"Why don't you finish the track?" Brian said, "You know better, after all."
The door slammed after Brian, making some of the records on the wall shake, and the three of them were left in the room; staring at the closed door. After a few seconds, John sat down on the chair closest to him, drained of all his anger and staring at the Red Special as if it was a precious thing he had just broken. The bassist then looked up and met Freddie's eyes, "What did I do?"
"You fucked up," that was the first time the Roger had spoken. Roger, with his too-big shirt that probably belonged to Brian, and his red-rimmed eyes, "You fucked up, big time, that's what you did."
"Where are you going?" John's eyes were wide like he was actually afraid that Roger would also leave them.
"To look for Brian," Roger answered as he opened the door, "You two stay here in case he comes back. Although I doubt he will."
For the second time in less than ten minutes, the door slammed, and Freddie was left looking at the ugly metal thing. Both of them were left inside the recording studio, alone and terrified of what was out there.
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Even after all this time, death still lingers around Brian. Not that he was ever close to death, but that's how Roger liked to think about depression. It killed Brian, leaving his muscles completely useless, his face gaunt, and with no energy to leave their bedroom. It kills Roger to see his lover like that, but he guesses he'd have to trade somethings for others.
Brian is having one of his episodes the moment he hits his ten-years-clean mark. They had had a few slips along the way, but the blade hadn't touched Brian's skin ever since they finished recording 'A Day at the Races', and it had stayed like that for a decade.
A decade.
Seven albums.
Eight World tours.
The day that they convince Brian to go back to Munich marks one week since his last depressive episode and this one had been terrible. It had shaken their household to the point of wondering if it was time they took more serious action with Brian. But then he had come out of it, smile as bright as ever and making sure that their worries were wiped away almost as fast as they came.
Now Roger was walking along the hallways of the old Arabella building, asking every person he knew if they had seen Brian. None of them had, or they had seen him but didn't know where he had gone. That was the one skill the older man had not lost in the years they had known him — the ability to melt into a crowd and disappear.
It helped in the moments when the press was looking for them like hounds would look for a prey, or when the odd disrespectful fan would follow them deep into the night. But in instances like this, Roger wished the other man didn't know how to escape. It would be a lot easier to make sure that the guitarist was okay. That he wasn't doing something, he might later regret.
It was only after half an hour of searching that Roger went back to the recording room. Quiet murmurs were coming from the back of the place where his drum kit was set up and for a second hope fluttered in his chest. Then Freddie and John's heads poked out from the backroom with the same amount of hope in their eyes and Roger realised that the guitarist had not come back.
"Nothing," Roger sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Do you think he went back home?" Freddie asked, hopeful.
Roger shook his head, "No one saw him leave. He still has to be in the building but—"
John let his head thud against the wall, "He doesn't want to be found."
There is a long silence in which the only thing that can be heard is John's sniffling sounds every few seconds, and Freddie's ragged breathing. Roger can feel the worry bubble in his chest, making it hard to breathe, to think, and he prays for someone to tell him that everything is going to be alright.
"I wouldn't want to be found either," John sniffles again, and then the silence takes over.
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Twenty more minutes pass before someone knocks at their door.
John is the one to answer, hoping the person behind it is Brian so that he can jump on his boyfriend's arms and tell him he is sorry. Then have one of the longest talks of their life. He doesn't get the chance to do what he wants, because instead of Brian being the one behind the door, it's one of their roadies. He looks sheepish, apologetic even, as he looks at the three bandmates.
"Sorry for the interruption," he scratches the back of his neck, "I was sent by management to tell you that if any of you wanted to go out to the roof, you need to tell someone first so that they can deactivate all of the alarm systems."
John furrowed his brow, "Okay, we will keep that in mind."
"Also, I would really appreciate it if you told Brian once he comes down from the roof," the roadie said, "the security officers were going crazy thinking that someone was about to commit suicide."
John's mind blanked out.
He was taken back to one of the magazine articles he had read when Hot Space had come out. A solo interview that brian had done with Music Today about the building and it's dark history. He remembered the real reason why Brian had hated recording on this building so much.
Queen guitarist Brian May has recently admitted that he never quite liked the Musicland Studios; where the band produced their tenth studio album, 'Hot Space'.
"It's a depressing place, in an even more depressing building," he explained, "It has no windows, and the only thing that seems to come in from outside are torrents, upon torrents of foehn winds."
Foehn winds, according to common lore, causes people to go crazy, and even commit suicide.
All of them are out of the room before the roadie can finish talking. John can feel the tears running down his cheeks, the burning of his muscles as he runs up the stairs and the pass of every second as they wait for the elevator to get to the ground floor. He finds himself shaking, breathing coming in rapid and painful bursts, as the elevator rises towards the last storey.
They arrive at the rooftop and have to cross several doors, machinery cables, and other thousand or some different machines to get to the actual roof. And once they get there, John feels his heart stop. Brian is sitting at the border, long legs hanging in the air, silent tears streaming down his face, and John's sweater bawled in his hands. The sight causes John to feel a hundred thousand different things, the most prominent of them being heartbreak and relief.
Brian is clutching the garment like a child would hug his most precious toy. Knuckles white with the strain of holding it so tightly, holding it to his chest as if it was about to disappear at any given moment.
Roger was the first to react, "Brian!"
One second he was a 30-year-old man standing beside John, the next he was a recently graduated college student pulling Brian back from the edge of the building. Fear seemed to send them back in time, turning them into the young boys they had been when they had first seen Brian's scars.
"Please don't tell them. Please. I'd kill myself if they knew."
Freddie and Roger were both clinging to Brian as if he had come back from the dead, and Brian was clinging to them as if they were his lifeline. John was reminded of the night several years ago, where they had been in the same position.
"God Brimi, I thought I'd lost you."
John walked over and all but ripped their hands away from Brian. He then knelt beside the guitarist, cupping both of his cheeks with his hands and joining their forehead together, "Please tell me you weren't going to jump."
Brian's hands clawed at John's back desperately, legs wrapping around his waist as he cried, and cried, and cried.
"I'm sorry," the older man whispered, "I'm sorry. I swear it wasn't me. It wasn't me Deaky you have to believe me."
He sobbed once more.
"I swear it wasn't me who was trying to jump. It was the Foehn Winds."
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The foehn is a warm, dry wind that tumbles, sometimes with landslide suddenness, down the northern slopes of the Bavarian Alps. In winter and early spring, as it sweeps across Bavaria, it melts the snow and brings to the landscape a strange, bluish haze. German mountain-folk hold to an ancient belief that the foehn also brings sickness and melancholia in its blast. Driving people to insanity and even suicide.
Rodd, P. When the Foehn Blows. TIME.