#got this clutch from an antique store as an anniversary present!

[chaoticsoft]

I'm kind of obsessed with those "what's in my bag" posts so here's mine 💛

[sarinataylor]

I love all your Joger headcanons (Roger remembering birthdays and anniversaries and John making doctors’ appointments, you are reading my mind!!! Please fic or minific!!!) Now definitely headcanoning Roger and John dealing with touring frustrations by going off on their own to look at the World Pencil Museum or Birthplace of The Man Who Invented The Top Hat and coming back all happy and giggly and solemnly presenting Freddie & Brian & all the crew with pencils or top hat brooches as souvenirs

“I’m fine,” said Roger from the sofa, despite the multiple blankets he had draped over himself. He looked like a strange elf, all pointy chin and pale skin, peaking out from under a mountain of barely strung together wool. “It’s a cold.”

John squinted at him, the phone clutched in his hand as he stood by the wall where it was wired.

“I’m fine,” Roger repeated, only slightly undermined by the scratchy quality that overtook his usual soft tone midway through his declaration.

“Hello? Hello? This is Northway Medical Centre, Janice speaking,” came the voice from the speaker John had held to his ear.

Roger widened his eyes, a clear attempt to appear more trustworthy.

“Hello,” said John into the telephone, shaking his head at Roger who slumped further into his blanket fortress. “I would like to make an appointment?”

“Oh!” the lady, Janice, said. “Certainly. Are you an existing patient?”

“Yes,” replied John, ignoring Roger as he groaned dramatically and flopped fully into a horizontal position on the sofa. He coughed, attempting pitifully to hide the sound in his numerous blankets - all of which had been donated by Freddie during his short lived crochet phase. “It’s for a Roger Taylor?”

“Hmm,” said Janice, and the faint sound of a filing cabinet being opened and flipped through came across the receiver. “T, T, Taylor! Roger M?”

“That’s him,” said John, watching impassively as Roger drew the blankets over his face. “As soon as possible would be best. He’s had a low grade fever for a few days, and he’s had a cough for about a week or so.”

“We have an availability tomorrow morning at 11,” Janice said, sounding distracted. “Can I just confirm that you’re a family member?”

“Yes,” said John, with a roll of his eyes and an impatient tap of his foot. “I’m his Uncle Frederick.”

An unattractive snort, followed by another bout of horribly deep sounding coughs, emanated from under the blankets on the sofa. Roger’s head poked out from under a particularly large and ungainly hole as he mouthed, “Uncle Frederick?”

“Roger’s all booked in for tomorrow at 11, Frederick,” said Janice, sounding inappropriately happy for someone who most likely spent the vast majority of their time talking to the miserably ill population of the world. “We’ll see young Roger then!”

“Thank you, Janice,” John replied drily, one eyebrow raised as Roger devolved into peals of painful sounding laughter. “Young Roger will see you then.”

“Why,” said Roger breathily, too-long fringe stuck to his brow sweatily. “Uncle Frederick!”

“You’re such a prick,” said John, hanging up the phone to the sound of Janice’s slightly shocked inhalation and making his way over. “If you’d just made the bloody appointment like you said you had last week-”

“The line was busy!” Roger protested, lifting his legs for John to settle down on the sofa. “I couldn’t get through!”

“And you were so busy,” John muttered, settling Roger’s legs back down on his lap. He smoothed the blankets so they covered Roger’s feet again — Roger couldn’t stand having his feet out in the cold air when he was sleeping, and when he was sick he wasn’t all that much better. Not at all better, in fact, just louder.

“I was!” Roger insisted, prodding at his thigh with his sock-clad toes even as he sunk even further into their ridiculously soft sofa. Roger had found it in some junk antique store with Freddie, beaten him to the punch with what John had heard was a particularly vicious round of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and hauled it home with the help of two auspiciously kind gentlemen who had been none too happy to be sent off packing with little more than a cup of tea for their work.

“Really,” sighed John, even as he began rubbing Roger’s feet. He liked to pretend he was above all of Roger’s little attention-seeking tricks but at the end of the day he knew the only thing that sent him apart from all the other sad, soppy eyed buggers was that Roger fell for his tricks too. “And what were you so busy with while I was at my mum’s, then?”

“Well,” said Roger, preening like a cat even as his skin glistened with the sickly sheen of feverish discomfort. “I’m sure you forgot, but it was the adoption date of Oscar and Tiffany last week.”

John froze.

“Oh?” he said, trepidously.

Just six months ago on an inauspicious Sunday afternoon he, Roger, and Brian had had a huge blow up fight over the drumline of a song they’d— as it turned out — ended up scrapping. This was, of course, prior to his and Roger’s moving in together which had allowed the entire affair to blow completely out of proportion. Instead of coming home to a bowl of peanuts — their shells all decorated with doodles of Brian’s ridiculous curls — which would allow his anger to stream out of him as if it had hardly ever been there, or arriving home first to quickly whip up an impromptu sci-fi marathon in the living room which would have Roger smiling softly at him in the early hours of the morning — instead of any of that, they had gone home to their respective flats and they had stewed.

Which.

Look, okay, Roger and John? They worked. God knew how, Freddie and Brian certainly couldn’t understand it — but they did. The perfect mix of passion and patience; stubbornness and compromise; heat and icy cold. The problem was, of course: embers remain and leave you with blistered fingertips; ice will leave you with raised welts.

And, well. they’d gone home and they’d stewed and. It had been Tom’s adoption day on the Thursday.

John? He was good with bills. He was great with waking up and remembering that oh, yes, he was due for a vaccination. However, birthdays and anniversaries? It was as if he had a sieve for a brain. Back when he had dated, however briefly, women it had been something easily blamed on being male. Men didn’t remember these things, they weren’t important. Brian, he knew, agreed.

Roger did not.

Roger couldn’t remember to pick up sugar on his way back from his classes. Hell, Roger couldn’t remember to pick up sugar when that was specifically what he had been sent out to buy (Shrove Tuesday’s pancakes had been dusted with shebert instead of sugar and lemon. It had worked oddly well). What Roger could remember, however? Birthday’s, anniversaries - anniversaries of things that weren’t worth celebrating, even. Their first date? John got a card. The first time they’d fucked in the first bathroom stall of the pub around the corner? A supreme pizza. A month of dating? A chocolate bar. The first time they’d fucked in the second bathroom stall of the pub around the corner? A supreme pizza with extra sausage.

Frankly, John was bloody grateful that Brian’s birthday was just before Roger’s. It left him with just enough time to prepare when he inevitably forgot.

But. This one time. They had gone back to their flats and they had stewed.

Freddie was off doing god knows what, Brian had ridiculously intelligent things to do (which they couldn’t possibly understand), and John sat in his flat and he determinedly did not call. And neither did Roger.

Instead, Roger had sent a card for Tom’s adoption birthday. And, he hadn’t called Brian to remind him. He hadn’t called John to remind him; hadn’t signed the card from John also, as he had gotten in the habit of over the past few months. No, Roger had sent a card. Had sent a card just from him.

And all had been calm. All had been fine. Until Freddie got home from his… whatever the hell it was Freddie did when they weren’t around, and realised that no-one other than Roger had remembered Tom’s adoption birthday.

“Yeah,” said Roger, toes digging ever deeper into John’s thigh. “Both of them. One day apart.”

“Hmm,” said John, running a hand over Roger’s ankle. “I suppose you were quite busy.”