(no subject)

[peki]

It's been a while since I've written anything lengthy-ish. I never run out of ideas for this sort of fic though :) Are they still amusing to anyone else or are y'all getting bored? Inquiring minds want to know.

Title: Family
Pairing: none, band gen
Rating: PG
Warnings: Maybe TMI about bodily functions.
Summary: The band recovers from food poisoning. Shenanigans ensue.


Things could’ve been worse. Georg wasn’t quite sure how, but David had said so and maybe he had a point. Twenty-four hours, the doctor had promised them: get it out of their systems and they’d be okay. Things could’ve been worse. At least no one had appendicitis this time, or an accident, or a run-in with crazy fans; although, Georg thought as he clutched at the toilet bowl, he might’ve taken crazy fangirls over this.

Usually, whatever disease the band caught could be blamed on Bill, who always got sick first, but even though the twins had kicked off this particular round of illness by simultaneously projectile-vomiting all over the rehearsal room, it couldn’t be traced back to Bill this time: the grumpy doctor that their manager had dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour last night had determined that the whole band had food poisoning. The twins’ identical digestive systems had simply done their identical thing, resulting in a spectacular show of sick solidarity. Georg and Gustav had followed suit soon after.

Georg was much chagrined. He shuddered to think of the poor soul who’d have to hose down the studio, and shuddering made his stomach roll again. He dry-heaved into the toilet, still waiting to die a slow, agonizing death while Bill and Tom were already on the mend. That, he could definitely blame them for. It was just not fair.

“Aw, Georg.” Bill made sympathetic noises from the adjoining bedroom as Georg spluttered again. “I feel so sorry for you! Isn’t it horrible? I thought I’d die. Right there, in a puddle of our puke. Yuck.”

Yuck indeed. Georg did not want to think of twin puke. He did not want to think of anything, and especially not of the breakfast that the terrible twosome had made security get them from McDonald’s after Tom had determined, by way of reckless experimentation, that not only Coke and pretzels stayed down again, but also gummi worms, strawberry milk and a spoonful of Nutella. The smell of burgers wafted into the bathroom, and Georg heaved again.

It wasn’t fair that his bedroom at the studio apartment didn’t have its own bathroom. It wasn’t fair that Gustav was hogging the toilet in the main bathroom, forcing Georg to seek refuge at Bill and Tom’s. It wasn’t fair that the twins’ scrawny bodies had handled this better than his.

Or maybe that was just because he’d eaten more of the--

Yuck.

“That’s it,” Bill’s voice sounded determinedly through the door. “I’m never eating chicken again. I’m putting it on my list. Behind asparagus and before olives.”

“Can’t have been the chicken, though,” Tom said through a bite of food. “I didn’t have that.”

“Hmm. I could’ve sworn it tasted funky.”

“I thought the milkshake tasted funky.”

“I didn’t have that. What else did you eat?”

“Fries--”

“I didn’t.”

“Sausages?”

Bill made a gagging noise. “Never again.”

Tom laughed. “Calamari?”

“Yes… Oh, no. Georg? Did you have the calamari too?”

As soon as he recovered, he’d wring both their necks, Georg swore to himself. He hated the world, the junk food joint they’d ordered from the previous night, and the twins in particular. “No,” he gasped out, but bent over the toilet anyway.

He felt better when he came up for air again, so maybe the worst was past. He got up to stand on wobbly legs, clinging to the sink, and waited for his knees to stop shaking. Then he splashed his face with cold water and rinsed his mouth. “Could you put away the food?” he called through the door. “I’m coming out.”

When he cautiously opened the bathroom door, he found the twins sitting at opposite ends of one bed, Bill propped up against the headboard, Tom leaning against the foot of the bed, the tray between them mercifully covered with a napkin.

“You look like shit,” Bill observed cheerfully.

“He always looks like shit,” Tom smirked.

“True,” Bill nodded. “Feel better? We have leftovers--”

“God no,” Georg muttered. “I’m going to check on Gustav.”

“I think he’s still going,” Bill told him. “I heard him a minute ago. Gross.” He wrinkled his nose. “Tell Gustav to hurry up and get it out of his system.”

Georg’s stomach preferred the thought of a vomiting Gustav to the hearty smell that came from the tray, and judging by Tom’s smirk and the speculative looks he was shooting his brother, the lid would soon come off for a food fight: Georg did not want to be there when it did. His stomach rolled. “I’m going back to bed,” he said, and made his escape. The last thing he heard was,

“Oh my god, is that puke in your dreads?”

Georg quickly pulled the door shut and sprinted along the hall. Behind the thin walls, he could hear Tom curse colorfully, and then a mad flurry of activity, like a mini tornado sweeping through the twins’ room.

The bedroom he shared with Gustav was mercifully quiet and smell-free. The curtains fluttered in the spring breeze that streamed in through the open window, and on one bed, Gustav lay stretched out on his back, a wet cloth draped over his face.

“You okay?” Georg whispered, in case Gustav was sleeping.

“No,” came the muffled reply from under the cloth. “I still don’t feel better.”

“Tell me about it,” Georg said. He stepped up to the bed and patted Gustav’s shoulder. Even through the material of his friend’s t-shirt, Georg could feel that he was radiating an unusual warmth. “You’re burning up,” he observed. “Want me to call the doctor again?”

“No doctor,” Gustav protested weakly.

Georg rather thought bravery was overrated at this point. He felt clumsily for Gustav’s pulse, but since he didn’t actually know what he was doing just ended up patting his friend’s wrist in an awkward attempt at comforting. “We could go to the hospital. They might have sexy nurses.”

“You have a girlfriend,” Gustav reminded him.

Georg smiled. “Yeah, but you don’t.”

Gustav groaned. “You promised me sexy nurses when I went in for that appendectomy and there weren’t any. I’m not falling for that again.”

“The twins are feeling better,” Georg said ominously.

Gustav reached up to lift one corner of his washcloth and peeked out at Georg. “Already?” he sighed. “How’s that even possible? How are we supposed to deal with them while we’re still sick? How’s it fair?”

As usual, Georg tried to think of a good answer to that and came up short. “Um, they sold their souls to the devil?” It didn’t seem impossible. “They’re evil robots? Aliens from outer space, come to test us humans?”

Gustav dropped the cloth back down to cool his flushed face. “I really don’t feel well. Can you see if there’s flu medicine in the bathroom cabinet?”

“Sure.” Georg went to look, but aside from Gustav’s toiletries, which were neatly sorted by name and purpose on the shelves, and his own messy cosmetics and hair styling products there was nothing in their bathroom. He shuffled back into the bedroom, his stomach rumbling. A tiny bite of toast might be good. “I’ll go get you an ice pack and something for the fever,” he announced. Tom was sure to have flu medicine in his arsenal; he had Bill for a brother, and he was paranoid. There was no eventuality Tom didn’t prepare for.

Georg closed the door behind him as quietly as he could and cautiously crept towards the twins’ room, which lay in suspicious silence. Frowning, he knocked.

A moment later, Bill answered the door wearing old, holey sweatpants, a pair of yellow rubber gloves and a scowl.

Georg blinked. “Umm…?”

Bill rolled his eyes. “Enter at your own risk.”

Georg glanced furtively left and right as he stepped inside. From the bathroom, he could hear colorful swearing. “Did Tom really puke on his own hair?” Now that the nausea had passed, he found the idea rather amusing.

“That too.” Bill put a gloved hand to his mouth and whispered, “But I think it’s also molding!”

“Is not!” Tom shouted from the bathroom.

“Do you have scissors?” Bill stage-whispered.

“Don’t you dare!” Tom screamed. “I don’t care if you’re my brother, I’ll never talk to you again, I swear!”

Bill put his hands on his hips and glowered in the direction of the bathroom door. “And if you keep that mildewy, stinky mop even after this,I will never let you close enough to talk to me again.”

“Shut up and help me,” Tom barked.

Georg peered around the doorframe and saw Tom hunching over the sink, soaking his dreadlocks in murky grey water. Not for the first time, he thanked his good fortune for giving him Gustav to run off to when the twins got crazy like this. “Do you have flu medicine?” he asked Bill. “Gustav is really sick, I think he’s running a fever.”

“Really?” Bill scrunched up his nose. “Ask him what he ate, I’m still wondering--”

“I don’t think he wants to talk about food just now,” Georg said. “Medicine?”

“In the side pocket of Tom’s bag!” Bill waved one yellow hand in the general direction of a pile of bags which was not as large as his on-tour luggage mountain, but still chaotic enough. “Help yourself, we’re busy.” With a grand gesture, he flounced off into the bathroom. Georg heard him release a long-suffering sigh. “There’s bleach under the sink?” Bill offered after a moment’s consideration.

Quickly, Georg rifled through the bags, tossing hats and dirty socks and tangled heaps of Bill’s jewelry left and right until he finally fished out the desired pack of pills, and fled before he could be called upon to help sort out Tom’s locks.

In their room, he found Gustav trying to sit up in bed and quickly hurried over the grab the drummer around the waist to help. “Hey, take it easy.”

“I just have the flu,” Gustav complained indignantly in a nasal voice, “no need to treat me like an invalid!”

“Just trying to help.” Georg smiled at the gruff tone. Gustav didn’t like being the center of attention, not even when he was ill and miserable, but he had taken care of Georg countless times after hard nights of partying and Georg figured it was about time he returned the favor. He handed Gustav a bottle of water he had snagged from the kitchen and two Wick Daymed pills. “Bill wishes you a speedy recovery.”

Gustav looked at him doubtfully as he swallowed the pills. He grimaced. “What are they getting up to over there?”

“Tom’s hair is molding,” Georg shrugged.

“What? I have allergies!” Gustav sniffed as if he could smell the mold through the walls. “Maybe that’s why I feel so ill - Tom’s hair!”

“Tom’s hair wouldn’t give you a fever,” Georg pointed out. “It’s not that powerful.”

“Eh.” Gustav made a face. He took another sip of water and grimaced. “Still feel awful. You?”

“Better,” Georg said. He searched the drummer’s pink, feverish face. “You need distraction. Hey, how about some cartoons? On the big TV in the living room?” He grinned when he saw Gustav perk up at that.

“I don’t know,” Gustav said. “Do you think it’s safe to go out there?” In the crazy jungle that was their world, the twins were the rare, undiscovered animals that lay waiting in the bush, ready to pounce on whoever dared venture into their terrain. Doing so could be quite daunting.

Georg weighed the odds. “I think they’ll be busy for a while yet,” he said. “Tom has a lot of hair.”

They still checked to see if the area was clear before they stepped out into the hall, just to be safe. Arm in arm, supporting each other, they made it into the living room, where Gustav dropped heavily onto the couch, groaning.

Georg flung a blanket over him and tucked the drummer in. “Can I get you anything? Tea?”

Gustav looked up at him, bemused, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “No, thank you, nurse Georg.”

Georg grinned at him as he flipped through the TV channels. “I’d make a sexy nurse, wouldn’t I.”

“You do,” Gustav smiled. He jerked his head at the TV, where some old Looney Tunes cartoon was on. Coyote was charging after Roadrunner, never able to keep up. “Let’s watch that one.”

Georg fell into an armchair and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

“Meep meep!” Roadrunner made, stuck his tongue out at Coyote and took off again.

“Story of our life, isn’t it,” Georg said dryly.

“I like to think we’re smarter than that,” Gustav said. “Tom can be Coyote.”

“Huh. I had Tom pegged as Pepe LePew.”

Gustav snorted. “Please. Pepe has far more style than Tom.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” Their very own Roadrunner came skipping into the living room, carrying a towel, a comb and a pair of scissors. He was still wearing his rubber gloves and smelled strongly of bleach, like some deranged hairdresser from a barber shop horror movie. “Especially not now, he’s really upset about his hair.”

Gustav propped himself up on one elbow to peer over the back of the couch. “What’s wrong with his hair?”

Bill waved a yellow hand. “Don’t get me started.” He flashed Gustav a bright smile. “You guys feel better? Because someone must do my laundry today. I’m out of socks and I’ve been out of underwear for three days.”

Trailing after his twin, Tom studied the checkered fabric peeking out above the waistband of Bill’s sweatpants. “Is that why my shorts have been disappearing?”

“Maybe,” Bill said vaguely.

“Ugh,” Tom made. “Go out and buy more!”

“It’s Sunday,” Gustav pointed out reasonably.

“Damn,” Bill said. He glanced hopefully at the drummer. “Gustav, could you--”

“No,” Gustav said. “You’re nineteen years old. Learn to use the washer, it’s not that hard.”

Bill looked around despairingly at his twin. “D’you think they’d open the shops for me on a Sunday? I’m a rockstar.”

“You’re a brat,” Gustav coughed. “I taped the manual to the washer. Read and learn.”

“I’m sick,” Bill whined.

“We’re all sick,” Georg said, “and Gustav has the flu too. Leave him alone.”

Gustav gave his friend a grateful look. Bill pouted. “I’m taking care of Tom’s icky hair. Why can’t someone take care of my dirty underwear?”

“I didn’t want you to do my hair,” Tom complained sourly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Bill stuck out his tongue. “A little gratitude would be nice.”

“For bleaching my scalp?” Tom tugged at one of his dripping dreadlocks and came away with a handful of hair. “I’ll probably be bald when you’re finished!”

“You won’t be,” Bill protested. “And besides, I know just the place to get a weave--”

“Argh!” Tom actually stomped his foot. “Can we get this over with?”

“What?” Georg was almost afraid to ask.

“Cutting my hair!” Tom snapped. “There’s no saving it now, not after he puked on it and bleached it!”

“There was mildew,” Bill argued. “And you puked on it too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too! And besides, if you analyzed our puke, you couldn’t even tell the difference because my puke is your puke, so shut up and sit down!”

Tom sat, glaring. With a flourish, Bill tied the towel around Tom’s shoulders like a cape.

Stunned, Gustav sat up on the couch. “You’re really cutting off your dreads?”

“Are the end days near?” Georg grinned. “Should we retreat to the fallout shelter?”

“We have a fallout shelter?” Gustav asked.

“I’m sure we do,” Georg said. “David likes to be prepared for anything.”

Bill turned, scissors in hand, to give them both a death glare. “You’re not being helpful, Georg.“

“I’m not here to be helpful, that’s your part,“ Georg pointed out gleefully. “I’m just here to mock.“

“That’s unfair.” Bill paused, hand hovering in mid-air above his brother’s head, and stared wistfully at Tom’s mangled dreadlocks. “I wish I could mock, too.”

“Would you get on with it!” Tom snapped.

Bill glowered at his scalp. “Be nice or I will mock.”

“That’s against the rules,” Tom grumbled.

“What rules?” Gustav asked.

“Our rules.” Tom gave Gustav a look that dared him to laugh. “Twin rules.”

Gustav, of course, was the master of the poker face. “Do you have them written down in a twin rulebook too?”

Georg chortled. Bill shrugged, unfazed. “We used to when we were kids. But the book was lost somewhere along the way--”

“Burned!” Tom put in. “How’d that happen again?”

“I forget,” Bill said breezily. “Anyway, we have them all memorized, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“And which rule applies here?” Gustav asked, his face carefully blank.

“Do not mock if the other is in real pain,” Bill quoted, and with that, he grabbed a fistful of Tom’s dreads and cut. The long strands of hair fell sadly to the floor, and Tom looked down and shuddered.

“This is real pain?” Georg asked dryly.

“Yes it is!” Tom’s voice quavered suspiciously.

“Aw, I’m sorry!” Bill actually looked like he wanted to cry in sympathy. He threw his arms around Tom’s shoulders from behind and rested his chin on Tom’s head. “But it’ll grow back! And then you can dread your hair again. Oh god, you stink like puke, let’s make it quick.”

Before Tom could protest, he’d grabbed more long, soggy dreads and cut, close to Tom’s scalp. “Slow down, you’ll cut my hair too short!” Tom cried in alarm, but once Bill was let loose, there was no stopping him.

“These things have got to go,” he said, grunting with the effort of pulling the scissors through the thick dreadlocks. One after one, they fell to the floor.

Tom looked down at them mournfully. “My hair,” he said weakly, “my hair!”

Sometimes, Georg thought, the twins really were more alike than they cared to admit. He wanted to tease, he did, but Tom looked like he’d burst into tears any second now and so fondness for his friend won out. “Look at it this way - it’s a chance for a style change. A sleeker look to go with your new car!”

Tom didn’t seem convinced. “But my hats! What am I going to do with my hats?”

“Sign them all and make a fortune on Ebay?” Gustav snorted.

“I promise you, when I’m finished with you you’ll look great!” With a final snap of the scissors, the last of Tom’s dreads fell. Bill surveyed his handiwork excitedly.

Tom shuddered. “How do I look?” he asked Georg and Gustav. “Be honest.”

A lot like a plucked chicken, Georg thought. Aloud, he said, “It’s…different.”

“Short,” Gustav supplied. “Very, uh, different.”

“Fuck.” Tom turned his head gingerly to the left, then to the right. “Feels so light.” He tilted his head to look at his twin. “What now?”

Bill rubbed his hands gleefully. At least one of them was enjoying Tom’s torment. “Come along, your hair could use some conditioner. And then we’ll see what we can do.”

When Bill employed the royal ‘we’, grand things usually followed. Grand, mind-blowing, utterly insane things. Georg and Gustav exchanged a look as Bill skipped off, the newly shorn Tom waddling behind him.

“Congratulations,” Gustav snorted as soon as the twins were out of earshot. “This year you’ll definitely get more ass than Tom, with that hair.”

“I have a girlfriend,” Georg reminded him, smirking. “But thanks.”

“He looked…”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder what Bill will do to him next.”

“Do we even want to know?”

“Meep meep!” Roadrunner made.

Georg grinned. “What would life be without their insanity?”

“Boring as all hell,” Gustav sighed. “But don’t tell them that, I’m still trying to teach them some manners.”

If Georg was the big brother of the band, Gustav was the mom; always the voice of reason, unimpressed with the kids’ shenanigans, but unwaveringly devoted and loyal to the brood. “What would we do without you?” Georg smiled fondly. “What would I do without you?”

Gustav laughed, flustered. His cheeks turned even pinker. “Didn’t you say something about an ice pack earlier?”

“Right!” Georg slapped his forehead and made a beeline for the kitchen, tripping over a guitar case in his haste. “Ow, damn!” He hopped off to the kitchen, cradling his bruised foot in one hand, to the sound of Gustav’s hoarse laughter.

He had just wrapped the requested ice pack in a towel and was about to smack it on Gustav’s forehead when a face appeared around the doorframe.

“So?” the black haired boy asked warily.

Georg gasped. The figure before him looked a pale mess with unevenly shorn hair and blotches of black hair dye all over his forehead. He couldn’t believe Bill would do something like this to himself, he was way too vain, but then, the twins’ code of honor was a mystery to Georg even ten years in. “Oh my god, you cut your hair too?”

Gustav stared, aghast. “Is this one of your twin things? Hair solidarity?”

“What?” The boy looked lost for a second before his eyes turned wide in horror and Georg noticed, belatedly, that his raised brow was not pierced. “Oh god, did you think I was Bill?”

Georg blinked. “You’re not?”

“No!” Tom exclaimed, outraged. “Seriously, Georg, you’ve known us forever!”

Gustav blinked. “Not like this.”

“What’s going on?” Bill’s cheerful voice came from the hall.

“They thought I was you!” Tom yelled. “Oh god!”

“What? That’s ridiculous, I look much better than you.”

“Do not!”

“Do too. Georg, Gustav, how dare you!” Bill entered the room, his hands on his hips. He tossed his long mane of black and white dreads. “We do not look that alike!”

“Yes, you do,” Gustav muttered, glancing back and forth between the black-haired twins. “Like this? Freakishly alike.”

Bill looked his twin up and down. “Really? Huh. I thought we’d grown too old for that.” Suddenly, he grinned. “But that’s cool, I like it! He looks great, doesn’t he.”

“Um,” Georg made. He was unsure if they were acting out an elaborate joke or not, sometimes you just couldn’t tell with the twins, but he decided to err on the side of caution. Telling Bill one of his projects hadn’t turned out successful was never a good idea unless you were a sucker for punishment. “I’m sure there’s a whole new range of hats that’ll fit you now, without the dreads,” he told Tom bracingly.

Tom frowned. “See, I told you it’d look like shit!”

“It does not,” Bill argued hotly.

“They thought I was you!” Tom complained. He threw up his arms in a grand gesture of despair, resembling his twin even more in his imminent bitch fit. “I don’t want to look like you!”

Bill scoffed. “You should count yourself lucky for even resembling me just a little bit!”

“You don’t just resemble each other a little bit,” Georg smirked. He flopped down in his armchair again so he could stare at the twins from a prime seat. “You’re…”

“Identical,” Gustav supplied helpfully.

“No shit,” Bill said. He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Tom, there’s no need for a crisis.”

“Shouldn’t you have made your peace with this years ago?” Gustav asked. “Looking alike, I mean?”

Tom shook his head. “We don’t just look alike, I look like him and I don’t want to!”

Bill huffed. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled at his twin. “You do not look like me, and even if you did, what’s the big deal? We’ve always shared a face, that’s just how it is!”

“I don’t mind sharing a face!” Tom snapped. “But I don’t want to share your style, it’s stupid, I want to do my own thing!”

“But you can!” Bill plucked at his brother’s extra-large t-shirt with two fingers, as if it was personally offensive to him. “Shave it all off, wear your stupid hats, get a wig, whatever! I don’t want you looking like me any more than you do, god!”

He retreated to the couch opposite Gustav’s, pulled his skinny legs up against his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees, curling in on himself like a very grumpy hedgehog, prickly and irritable.

Georg and Gustav exchanged a despairing look. “Can’t we all just get along?” Gustav pleaded. “Please? I have a fever and my head is ringing like I spent an hour in a room with the fans and no earplugs and I still feel queasy from that poisonous ham-and-pineapple pizza--”

“Aha!” Bill perked up at that. “The pizza! Yeah, we all had some!”

Georg made a gagging noise. “Don’t speak of it.”

“--and I just want a quiet night if that’s not too much to ask,” Gustav finished. He let out a hacking cough that hammered his point home.

Bill clutched reflexively at his throat. “Sorry, Gustav,” he said sheepishly, “I know, Tom can be such an ass.”

“Hey!” Tom protested.

“Well, you are,” Bill shot back. “What are you mean to me for? I tried to save your dreads, I did, it’s not my fault they had to go, and it’s not my fault we look the same now, either, though I don’t get what’s so bad about that anyway because I actually thought it would be nice if people could tell we belong together again now, but apparently that’s embarrassing to you somehow!”

“No!” Tom interrupted his brother’s rant. “I mean, yes. I mean, no, oh, dammit, it’s not our twin thing that I mind!” He shook his head. “How could you even think that?”

Bill glowered at him. “Sounded like you did.”

“I just don’t want to be your clone, is all,” Tom argued, frustrated. He made a squeaky, angry noise. “I can’t be like you, I can’t. This is your thing.”

Something about his urgent tone, or the look in his eyes maybe, made Bill’s expression soften. “I’m not asking you to,” he said, more quietly now. “It’s just hair dye, Tom. We can ask Natalie to do something about it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Okay.” He shuffled over to the couch and flopped down next to Bill, a hand’s breadth of space between them, which Bill closed instantly as soon as Tom had settled down. He scooted over and pressed himself against Tom’s side.

“I do like this,” he said, reaching up to touch the black fuzz on Tom’s head. “I’d keep dyeing it and grow it out. Just saying. But maybe you’re right, it wouldn’t suit you.”

Tom looked back and forth between his friends self-consciously. “I think I might keep the black,” he finally said, after a minute’s consideration. “It looks badass.”

“Very,” Gustav snorted, eyeing Tom’s blackened scalp with its tuft of hair randomly sticking up at all sides. Georg grinned.

The twins shot them an identical glare. “It will look badass when it’s fixed up a little,” Bill said sternly. He nestled closer to Tom, yawning widely. “I think it will. God, I’m tired. All that puking really takes it out of you. Anyone still feeling sick?”

The others shook their heads. Gustav lay back on his couch with a long sigh. “I could use some more sleep.”

“Hmm.” Bill was already trying to find the best spot to rest his head against on his twin’s bony shoulder. He wiggled until his cheek was comfortably pillowed between Tom’s bicep and the couch cushions and closed his eyes.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” was Tom’s token objection.

“It’s nicer here,” Bill murmured, looping his arm through Tom’s and clinging, “with everyone around.”

Sighing, Tom relaxed back into the cushions and let his twin have his arm, and Bill’s breathing evened out almost immediately. Gustav was already snoring on the couch across.

From the armchair, Georg surveyed the scene around him. The ice pack, which had slipped his mind completely, had melted in a puddle of condensation on the coffee table. Gustav probably wouldn’t appreciate being woken up with it, and although the idea had definite amusement potential, Georg felt his friend’s health came first today. He looked over at Tom, who was staring at nothing in particular, his eyes half-closed and his body slack and soft, a pliant pillow for his twin.

Georg cleared his throat quietly. “Why were you so freaked out when we thought you were Bill?”

Tom shrugged. Bill made a small noise of complaint against his shoulder, burrowing impossibly closer, and Tom nudged his twin carefully so Bill’s head slipped off his shoulder and Tom could maneuver him into a horizontal position on the couch. Bill pressed his face sleepily into Tom’s leg, and Tom put one large hand on the side of Bill’s head, pulling back the coarse fake dreads that fell into Bill’s face.

“It was okay when we were kids,” Tom said softly, “When I would switch our name sweaters after our naps at kindergarten so the older boys would beat me up for a change. I could handle that. It was okay. But it’s so much more than that now. I couldn’t pull it off.” Tom patted his twin’s head gently. “I couldn’t be like him. I’m not strong enough.”

“You’ve kept up with him for nineteen years.” Georg reached out and touched Tom’s arm in silent reassurance, knowing how much the twins relied on physical contact to relay all those messages that couldn’t be put into words. Behind his boyish veneer of fart jokes and outrageous sex appeal, Tom was possibly the most responsible, reliable, loyal person Georg knew; he had to be. “He can be the way he is because you’ve got his back. That takes strength.”

“I don’t know,” Tom said thoughtfully. “I think he’s just always been the way he is.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Georg smiled. “You never do when you should.”

Tom shrugged again.

Georg chuckled. “I thought you were the same? You are everything he is?”

“He wrote the song,” Tom said, but his face lit up at the thought just as it always did when Bill kicked him on stage while they played In die Nacht.

“Yeah, he seems to think so,” Georg said, “and he’d tell you he’s always right.”

Tom laughed. “Yeah, that’s true.” He tilted his head back against the couch to look at Georg. “Thanks,” he said after a moment’s silence.

“For what?” Georg asked.

Tom looked around at their sleeping companions. “Taking care of all of us.”

“Oh, psh,” Georg said. “We all take care of each other. In good times and bad. In health and when we have food poisoning.” He ran his fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp, pensive. “Being in a band - this band - is like a marriage, isn’t it.”

“And you three are my harem?” Tom snorted. “I’d envisioned that a little differently.”

“You’ll just have to deal,” Georg smirked. “We’re family. You don’t get to pick.”

Tom looked over at Gustav’s sleeping face, open and relaxed as it never was in waking, then down at his brother’s profile, smooth and perfect even in sleep. Tenderly, Tom reached out and touched Bill’s cheek. Had they been able to pick, none of them would have chosen differently, days like this one notwithstanding. “Yeah,” Tom murmured, “Family.”