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Queen Unledded	By : ladymadrigal Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Queen Views: 1803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Queen. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Queen Unledded
- 1
A quick intro - this story is totally AU (not to mention anachronistic.) Tianna's character came from a challenge several years back issued by a friend - to imagine Freddie Mercury married to a woman. Maddy, Brian May's fiancé, is a product of my own overactive imagination. Jim Beach is really Queen's lawyer, but Ned is fictional, so far as I know. I would have said the ditzy receptionist was fictional, at least until I met someone at work who was actually that scatterbrained. And as for Pamela - well, I was reading I'm With The Band and thinking, "This girl is just like Tianna!" In other words, this is simply me fantasizing about what a day at the office should be like - in my secret life (to quote Leonard Cohen)......

Disclaimer - these are merely the occupants of my daydreams, who just happen to bear a more-than-passing resemblance to certain Gods of Music :-)

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1. Good Times, Bad Times ~or~ A Day At The (Rat) Races

"Jim, just trust us, `kay?" The voice belonged to Tianna Mercury, Freddie Mercury's infamously redheaded wife, speaking to the rather anxious Jim Beach, Queen's occasionally-suffering lawyer.

"I don't know---" Jim replied.

"Jim, `ow much damage d'ya think we're gonner do with a fookin' stapler?!" That was Led Zeppelin's notorious rabble-rousing drummer, John Bonham, his Midlands accent kicking into high gear.

In the outer office, Jim's assistant Maddy Baker, her fiancé Brian May, Led Zeppelin's virtuoso guitarist Jimmy Page and his lady, Pamela Des Barres, exchanged worried glances.

"I am not even going to speculate about how much damage he could do with a stapler--" Jimmy, better known to all and sundry as "Pagey," said through a mouthful of popcorn he'd just mooched from the freshly popped bag on Maddy's desk. He was dark-haired, diminutive and soft-spoken, so fragile-looking in real life that you were almost afraid to touch him - in other words, not at all the loud, swaggering egotist that Maddy had expected.

"Never mind that every time Tianna says "just trust me," I feel my hair stand on end," Brian added.

"You're making them sound dangerous or something," Pamela said.

Pagey looked at her solemnly. "You have no idea, luv."

"I still think we should use thumb tacks," Jim said, coming in.

"Thumb tacks are going to do too much damage to the wall," Tianna said, following him with the disputed stapler in hand. Bonham followed her with a rolled-up poster under one arm.

"What's that?" Maddy said, looking around. She was small and slightly plump, with long dark curly hair and huge dark eyes. Originally from the States, she had accompanied an ex-boyfriend over to London, then decided to stay on after the relationship fell apart. She had ended up with Brian May thanks to her job with Jim Beach, Queen's lawyer, a good deed that had not gone unpunished, a practical joke gone slightly awry, a series of improbable coincidences and a gold-sequined thong - his, not hers. It was, as the saying went, a very long story.

"Something about some dude called Big Brother watching you," Tianna said, "Government requirement that they have to be up in all offices---hey babe, where's the stepladder thingy?" She was small but sturdy, with a mass of russet curls that fell well past her waist and elegantly feline features. Her complexion was as dusky as Freddie's, maybe darker, an odd contrast to all that dark red hair.

"It was in the closet," Maddy said, then looked at Bonham. "In all seriousness, what is that?"

"Recycling guidelines," he said, unrolling it so they could see. London had just instituted a recycling program, which meant sorting trash. In Maddy's opinion, it was long overdue.

The main phone rang and Maddy reached for it, but before she could, Vicki Barrett, their blonde and none-too-bright receptionist, picked it up. "Like, hello, uh, like, Beach and Lockwood---?" She was also American, but Maddy had no idea how or why she'd ended up in London. She was "like seeing and all" Maddy's cousin Carlton, who'd come to "Swinging London" for a visit and decided to overstay his welcome. Lately Vicki had gotten into what she called "Roman Therapy." Her version involved multiple air fresheners and so much aerosol spray that Maddy thought she could hear the ozone layer disintigrating.

Bonham rolled his eyes. "Idiot." Led Zep's powerhouse manager, Peter Grant, wouldn't even call the offices on the main line because he didn't want to talk to Vicki. He always called on either Maddy or Holly, Ned's secretary's, line instead.

"Darlings, darlings!" The inimitable Freddie Mercury had just made one of his usual grand entrances, accompanied by singer/original hippie/male Valkyrie Robert Plant.

"Hey Farroukh, hey Percy----" Tianna came in, carrying the little stepladder thingy. "Farroukh" was Freddie's full name, but Maddy had yet to figure out why everyone called Robert Plant "Percy." He was the least Percyish of anyone she knew. She'd been a little bit nervous when Jim's partner Ned had taken Led Zeppelin on as clients, fully aware of their reputation as "mild barbarians," but they'd turned out to be as sweet as the Queenies. Even if Jimmy Page was snitching all of her popcorn.

"If I were you, I'd slap his hand right out of that bag---" Bonham said, then did a double-take. "Wait a minute. Where's your computer?" All he could see on her desk was the monitor.

"Under there," she said, pointing under her desk. "And I'm probably breaking about fifteen different fire codes with it, too." Under the desk was a tangled mass of wires, cables, cords and outlet strips daisy-chained together.

"Fookin' hell, Maddy, where do you put your feet?!" Without waiting for an answer, he dove under her desk and started unplugging things, among them her computer - before she could shut it down. She sighed, resigning herself to seeing Scandisk when she started back up.

"If I were you, I'd kick him in the butt," Pagey said with a grin, taking yet another handful of popcorn.

"Fuck off, Page----" Bonham growled with amiable menace.

"I'd clobber both of them, luv," Brian chuckled.

"Bugger off," Pagey said amiably, sticking his tongue out at Brian.

"Oh, like Jim, here's like your messages and all!" Vicki said brightly.

"Thanks." He took the sheaf of papers. "Uh, Vicki? Who's Mr. Moosey Dick?"

"A carpenter in Cheltenham, if memory serves, darlings---" Freddie purred, leaning on the bay wall and examining his ebony-varnished left-hand nails.

Pagey nearly snorted popcorn out of his nose. Under Maddy's desk there was a muffled *thud* then an "Ow. Fuck---" as Bonham apparently tried to do a double-take and forgot where he was.

Pamela looked at him, doing her utmost to keep a straight face. "Just a little more information than we really needed."

"Built like an ox and hung like a moose. I tell you, darling, one couldn't go wrong," Freddie replied dreamily. "With absolutely no hair down there at all, dears. I don't know if he shaved or what---"

"Okay, far too much information----" Pagey said.

"He like, uh, called and all---" Vicki said weakly.

"Vicki---" Jim shook his head. "Please, please, please ask if you're not sure of the name. I've asked this of you before. Please don't guess. It's insulting and unprofessional."

"But that's like what he said his name was and all---" Vicki moped. "You like never say stuff when Maddy like gives you one of those weird like foreign names and all---"

"Because Maddy knows what she's doing, unlike you---" Bonhan added, not exactly under his breath.

"Vicki, please, if it sounds strange, do what Maddy does. Ask. Confirm the spelling. Have Maddy pick up the phone and handle it if you're not comfortable asking the person. And how am I supposed to call him back without a number?" He shook his head. The other messages were little more complete, but at least he recognized the names. "All I'm asking is that you try a little bit harder, make an effort to be more professional."

"You like never say stuff to Maddy and all! You like her more than me!" Vicki's lower lip trembled as she pouted.

"It's not just him. Everyone likes Maddy more than they do you----" Bonhan said, louder than he meant to. His voice had a way of carrying sometimes.

"Bonham!" Maddy said sharply, or at least tried to, anyway, putting a hand over her mouth and looking toward Jim and Vicki, blushing.

He looked contrite. "Sorry---"

"Vicki, it isn't that I like Maddy more than I do you---" Jim said, lying only partially. The fact that he did wasn't relevant to the conversation.

"So like how come you never like say mean stuff to Little Miss Perfect when she like messes stuff up and all?! You like her more than me! You don't like me!" Vicki yelled. "You don't like me! Like nobody likes me! You all like Maddy better than me cause she's like Little Miss Perfect and all! You don't like me!" With that, she burst into sobs and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her hard enough to shake the walls.

For a long, awkward moment, no one spoke. Then Freddie piped up. "Some of us would consider "Moose Dick" a compliment, darlings."

"Or in your case, false advertising," Pagey said.

Freddie stuck his tongue out at the guitarist. "Twat."

"Maybe I should go talk to her---" Maddy started, but Brian restrained her.

"Maddy, luv, don't. It's not your problem," he said.

She hesitated, then decided he was right. "By the way, Jim? I think it's probably Mohammed Moussadick. I'd get his number for you but Bonham's kind of redoing my computer setup at the moment---" She pronounced the last name "moo-SAAH-dick."

Jim looked at the memo slip. "I think you're right. And don't worry, I've got his number. I just hope she wasn't calling him that over the phone. He doesn't take too kindly to that sort of thing."

"Hey, Bonzo!" Tianna called. "I need the freaking poster, if you don't mind!"

"This one?" Brian said, bringing it over, since Bonham appeared to be tied up - literally - in Maddy's printer cable.

"Yeah---" Tianna took it, aligned it to her liking on the wall and stapled it in place. "There." She looked at Jim. "And you were worried about what now?"

~*~

Early that afternoon, Maddy was finishing typing up aer ter to a contract while, two feet away, Jimmy Page sat on her desk, showing Brian his famous technique for playing a guitar with a violin bow. On her other side, Robert Plant was borrowing the phone. She wondered how he could hear over the squeals, squeaks and moans Pagey was wringing from his guitar. She herself found the whole thing fascinating rather than annoying. They wouldn't have been able to do it at all if all of Bonham's under-desk rearranging hadn't eliminated most of the thicket of cables and freed up four outlets on one of the strips - the one presently playing host to Pagey's amplifier. Vicki was over at her desk sulking, refusing to talk to Maddy or the others.

Maddy sent something to her little desktop printer and looked around at Robert. "Aren't they driving you nuts?"

"No, I'm on hold," he said, smiling ruefully at her. "I'd rather hear Pagey messing about over there than this horrid lift music."

"Just be glad they haven't turned your "wedding song" into Muzak yet," she said, referring, of course, to "Stairway To Heaven."

"That's because it already is," he sighed glumly. "What the hell was I thinking when I came up with that? I must have been on drugs----"

"Uh - you were. Remember?" Pagey said, looking up.

Brian looked at Maddy. "Now I understand the meaning of the phrase "don't go there."

"There's nothing wrong with that song," Maddy said with a laugh. "Besides, I know some women like that. It's the Martha Stewart mentality. Not only are they buying a stairway to heaven, they're recarpeting it in a "tasteful" faux Persian shag." She held her fingers up for the quote marks.

That made Robert laugh. "I never thought of it quite like that," he admitted, giving up and hanging up the phone.

"Considering we already tore the bannister out for the fireplace," Pagey added with a grin, referring to the band's stay in Headly Grange.

"Huh?" Brian said.

Jim Beach came in on his way to the breakroom refrigerator. "This is what I like - a nice, relaxed atmosphere," he said.

"That's right, we did---" Robert said, more to Pagey and Maddy. "Whose idea was that, anyway?"

"Bonham's, probably," Pagey said.

"Was he seeing how much damage he could do with an axe?" Maddy said.

"Not this time. We ran out of firewood and there wasn't any central heating, sooo---" Pagey shrugged. "But it makes you wonder why they don't tear the stairway to heaven out altogether and put in a lift."

"Too easy. Then you wouldn't have to work for it," Maddy said.

"Getting the lift to come to the bottom floor of this building seems to be work---" Pagey pointed out.

"I would assume that the Goddess would keep hers in better working order," Maddy said.

Brian looked at Jim Beach. "If you have any idea what they're on about, blow your nose twice."

Jim laughed. "You wouldn't have that rider by any chance, would you?" he asked Maddy.

Pagey handed him the printout - he was, after all, between Maddy and her printer. "Here you go. She's good."

He looked at it. "Perfect. Great, thanks Maddy."

"Here you go, like she's so good and all---" Vicki mocked, half under her breath. "Here you go, here you go, I'm Little Miss Perfect-Perfect and I like always do like everything right and all, so like here you go---"

Maddy rolled her eyes, meeting Robert's three-quarters of the way through. "Yikes---"

"Jim, darling?" Freddie had followed him out of the office, a small red brocade box in his hands. "Are these your balls? They're exquisite!"

Pagey let out a peculiar noise somewhere between a spluttering snort and a yelp and slumped over his guitar, laughing. Robert, who'd seen what Freddie was actually holding, chuckled. "Chill out, Pagey. It's not what you're thinking."

"Good one, Freddie," Maddy said with a laugh. "And FYI, Ned gave everyone a set of those last Christmas. They have chimes in them."

"Well, they're beautiful, dear," Freddie said, holding one of the filagreed, silver-and-gold spheres up and rolling it a bit to make it chime. "I've never seen a set of balls quite like these. Are they gold?"

"Brass, I think," Maddy said, then looked around. "Pagey? Are you all right?" His laughter had turned into a wheezing squeak reminiscent of a guinea pig's "weep-weep-weep."

"Breathe, Pagey, breathe----" Robert said with a laugh.

"You're making it sound like he's in labor," Maddy said.

"Actually, he already sounds like he's in labor," Brian said.

"Shut up---" Pagey keeled slowly over across the desk, still giggling. "Ow. My stomach---"

"Now you really sound like you're in labor," Maddy said, pushing his glossy dark locks aside from where they'd spilled over her keyboard. Jimmy Page had some of the prettiest long dark curls she'd ever seen. She wondered if it was considered rude to ask a guy what he used on his hair----

"Et tu, Maddy?" He managed to sit up, still giggling. She handed him a napkin from the fish & chips across the street so he could dab at his eyes. "Freddie, goi going to kill you, so help me."

"Now dear, you haven't the balls for it---" Freddie smirked wickedly.

"Oh?" Pagey grabbed Maddy's stress squeeze ball and threatened to throw it at Freddie, who ducked, giggling. As he did, Tianna came in, accompanied by Pamela and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. The unlikely trio looked suspiciously jovial.

"We just pulled a good one!" Tianna announced gleefully - the sort of glee best described as "unholy."

"I still can't believe you said all that with a straight face," John Paul added, looking at Tianna.

"I can," Pamela said with a laugh.

Robert looked around, trying to hide a smile. "Uh-oh. Now what did you do?"

"Well, Jean-Paul Van Damme and I were talking with some dweeb from Metalhead magazine about the tour," Tianna said, referring to the planned Led Zeppelin/Queen world tour. (A/N - !!!!!!) "And I just kind of, well, let slip---" She inserted quote marks with her fingers "---that your new album is going to be just a teensy-weensy little change in direction."

"How teensy-weensy a change in what direction?" Pagey asked, a little apprehensively. This did not bode well----

"Nu-metal rapcore. Sort of like Lamb Biscuit," Tianna replied.

"Limp Bizkit," Pamela corrected. "Although I still think you should have said Staind."

"Aaaaaaaaand, here's the clincher. You're not Robert, John Paul, Bonham and Jimmy any more," Tianna continued. "From now on, you're going to be known as Sir Dirrty Percy, Jay P. Jay, Mad Dog the Englishman and Jam Master Jim."

"We're what?" Pagey looked bewildered as Robert - aka Sir Dirrty Percy - let out a raucous yell of laughter.

"I love it!" he said, shaking his blond mane back. "Especially Mad Dog."

"Jam Master Jimmy would sound better," Maddy said. "He doesn't look like a Jim."

Pagey, aka Jam Master Whatever, looked at her. "What's a Jim supposed to look like, anyway?"

"Jim Beach looks like a Jim," Maddy told him. "You look like a Jimmy. Or a Pagey. Or a James Patrick. But not a Jim."

"The only time anyone calls me James Patrick is when I'm really in deep ---- trouble," Pagey censored himself. "And I definitely don't look like a Jam Master --- whatever."

"Well, you couldn't be Jay P. Pee for obvious reasons," Tianna smirked.

"Why not? I like it," Sir Dirrty Percy grinned. Pagey threw the squeeze ball at him and he ducked, laughing.

"Okay, and exactly why are we doing -- whatever?" Pagey said, looking back at Tianna.

"Hey, get with the jam, homeboy. It's time to get down and get with it and get real before the train leaves for Grand Central Station, " Tianna said, leaning on the bay wall. "Nu-metal is life, homey, it's truth. It's def. It's phat and fresh and uh---fruity? Yeah. Something like that. So anyway, homey, it's time for you to dump all that violin bow and Valhalla shit and get with da for real flavas coming out of Compton and, uh --- well, Croton-on-Hudson, anyway, or maybe Armonk, and get down and get funky and get -- uh -- down with it and get the posse together and ---- like -- uh ---- well --------- uh ----- rap! Like that. Ya know?"

Pagey just stared at her in saucer-eyed bewilderment for a good twenty seconds before he finally got out, "Say what?"

Tianna looked at him in utter solemnity. "I have no freaking clue."

They looked at one another for a long moment - then both dissolved into giggles. Freddie, Pamela and Robert were already laughing. Maddy just shook her head, wishing someone had gotten that - whatever it was - down on paper. She adopted her best news anchor tone. "Every single person on the planet was left reeling by Led Zeppelin's shocking announcement---" As she spoke, the phone rang.

"You can like get it and all, Miss Perfect-Perfect! I'm like not gonna pick it up like ever again! So there!" Vicki pouted.

Pagey looked over at the Call ID on Maddy's phone. "That's Peter Grant," he said, "Hold it." Before Maddy or Jim could react, he picked up the phone. "Now what the hell do you want, you bastard?"

"Pagey!" Maddy said with a laugh.

"Yeah, well, if you'd get us some freaking royalities I wouldn't have to answer phones for a living---" Pagey said, winking at Maddy.

Jim sighed, than looked at Vicki. "We need to talk."

~*~
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Queen Unledded