(no subject)
Title: Through the looking glass (7/?)
Genre: Twins gen
Rating: PG13
Summary: Tom falls asleep one night and wakes up in a place he never thought he'd see again. Five years ago, Tom falls asleep one night and wakes up in a place he couldn't wait to see. Will they get back where they belong?
Tom knew even before he opened his eyes.
His wishing hadn’t worked. He’d lain in bed last night, concentrating on the ever-same mantra. I want to be back home. He’d fallen asleep on the thought, had dreamed of it even, but now he was still in Loitsche, his bed was still too short, and it was still way too hot in his room under the roof.
Another day of school, then.
Sighing, Tom swung his legs over the edge of the bed when the door banged open. Bill barged in, excited and breathless. “Tom? Are you… Oh.” His face fell. “It didn’t work.”
“No,” Tom sighed. “It’s still me.”
“Well that’s nice,” Bill hurried to say. “It’s just…” He heaved a sigh. “I thought it’d work.”
“Yeah.” Tom was kind of worried too - he’d made the wish just the same way he’d made it the night before he ended up here, so either the transmission lines were fucked up or younger Tom hadn’t wished himself back. After all, there were a lot of shiny distractions to explore at their home in 2009. “Nothing we can do about it now though. I’ll try again tonight.” He stretched, cracking his shoulders. “Oh god, school again. Kill me now.”
“It’s Saturday,” Bill said. He grinned. “You know what that means. No school, just--”
“…band practice,” Tom finished. His spirits lifted. “I can’t wait to see Georg and Gustav’s stupid faces.”
An hour later, after taking turns in their ridiculously tiny bathroom, they were finally both ready to go. Younger Tom’s wardrobe left something to be desired, Tom thought as he pulled a shapeless black sweater over his head, but at least everything was large enough for him to still fit into. He fished the one beanie he owned at this point in time out of the sock drawer and hid the cornrows under it, just to be safe. No one would look at them twice, he was pretty sure, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. He didn’t want to have to give any explanations to nosy neighbors or whatever school nemesis they might run into on the bus.
The bus. Tom cursed.
“I’m a perfectly good driver,” he told Simone as she poured them each half a cup of coffee and filled them up with milk. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and smiled winningly. “Can I please just drive us there? The bus takes ages on the weekend.”
He hadn’t thought he’d ever have this argument again.
“I need the car to get groceries,” Simone told him. She put a slice of apple in his hand and glared until he stuffed it in his mouth. “And besides, if you get pulled over with a license that is dated 2007, they’ll take you in for forgery. Please, Tom. Don’t let me ever see you get arrested.”
Tom winced. He chewed the apple grudgingly. “Fine.”
Simone handed him another slice of fruit, smirking. “Make your brother eat that, will you.”
“I get to do all the fun stuff, don’t I,” Tom grumbled. He shuffled out into the hall and hollered up the stairs, “Bill! Quit messing with your hair, we’re going to be late.”
“All right, I’m coming!” The floorboards creaked under Bill’s footfalls running back to his room, then into the bathroom again, then back and finally down the stairs. He skidded to a halt in front of Tom, smelling strongly of hairspray.
Tom inhaled deeply, feeling a little more at home. He smiled. “I have a surprise. Close your eyes.”
If Tom had been his younger self, Bill’s true twin, Bill surely wouldn’t have been so guileless, but as it was, Bill obeyed without question. Tom almost felt a little bad when he seized him around the waist, used Bill’s surprised gasp to shove the slice of apple between his lips and clamped a hand over his mouth. Almost.
“Hnngh!” Bill’s eyes went comically wide. He kicked and struggled wildly, but Tom was taller and stronger and used to occasionally force-feeding his twin; Bill never stood a chance.
“Just eat it,” he advised, sidestepping Bill’s kicking feet neatly. “Then you can have coffee to wash it down.”
Bill bit down on his fingers.
“Ow, you little fuck!” Tom yelped.
Bill gagged when Tom finally let him go. “I’m allergic to apples!”
Tom gave him a look. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
“I hate you,” Bill coughed, taking off towards the kitchen to seize the coffee cup their mom handed to him. He gulped the hot liquid down in one. “That was mean, mom!” he complained.
Simone shrugged. “You need your vitamins, you still want to grow, don’t you?” She jerked her head at Tom.
Bill scoffed. He held out the cup. “More?”
“‘Please’ is what you say,” Simone admonished.
Smirking, Tom slumped down in his seat at the kitchen table and took a bite of bread. Homemade. He chewed slowly, savoring it.
“So, band practice.” Simone smiled at him as she placed another slice of warm, buttered bread before him. “Goodness, if all of this really has taken off as you said, you should be able to teach the boys a thing or two today.”
“We don’t need teaching,” Bill piped up obnoxiously from Tom’s right. “We’re already that good.”
“Actually, I remember we were…are pretty awful,” Tom grinned. “But that’s okay, we still rocked. Rock.”
“That’s right,” Bill said, pleased. He looked at Tom speculatively. “D’you still know how to play all our songs?”
“Sure.” Tom rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t too long ago, silly.”
As it turned out, it had been too long.
Gustav and Georg, bless them, took his appearance in stride, listened to his explanation, were barely shaken by the news that they were going to become superstars. What they didn’t take in stride, however, was when Tom struck the first chord to Durch den Monsun and messed it up for everyone else. Once. Twice. A third time.
“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Gustav asked, exasperated, after the fourth attempt to get into the melody of the single they would have to perform countless times over the next few months. “Where you come from, don’t we ever practice anymore?”
“Yes!” Tom shot back, irritated. He glared down at his old, battered guitar as if it was the source of all evil in the world. He’d forgotten how hard the damn thing made him work; there was so much tension on the cheap strings, pressing them down made his hand cramp up. “It’s just, we play this differently in the future. Bill’s voice has changed.”
“Really.” Georg looked inappropriately amused. “Have his balls finally dropped… Ow!” Bill had whipped him with the long, annoying cable that connected his microphone to the amp and had Tom stumbling across the makeshift stage like an idiot.
He wasn’t used to conditions like this anymore. The rockstar life, he mused wryly, really was more cushy than he’d realized. He’d never appreciated his guitar techs more than he did right now.
He furrowed his brow. “Okay, let me think.” He tried again; after fumbling for a few moments, he found the pitch and when he did, the chords suddenly came easily. He’d played this song a million times, could play it in his sleep if he had to, and as the others fell into the rhythm of the melody along with him, he finally felt like he belonged.
Stunned silence followed the conclusion of the song. Tom looked up from the guitar and found the other three staring at him. “What?”
Georg cleared his throat. “You played that like… like…”
“Like you knew what you’re doing,” Gustav finished gruffly. “Good job, dude.”
The rare praise made Tom smile, even if it came from a ridiculously tiny sixteen-year-old Gustav who was wearing thick geek glasses and a handmade sweater with a teddy bear. It was all the same. They were still them. Tokio Hotel.
He wondered how the four of them were getting along in the future, with young Tom replacing him. Their annual Christmas get-together had been planned for the day after the night he’d disappeared. They would’ve gotten smashed and listened to Georg drunkenly declare his love for his girlfriend; Tom felt wistful, thinking about it. Who knew what was going on - every single mundane little detail seemed important now that he was missing it. Who knew how Bill was doing; young Tom, he had to admit ruefully, had been a bit of a brat.
“I don’t know how many times we’ve played Monsun,” he shrugged. “It’s our big hit. It will be.”
Gustav and Georg exchanged a doubtful glance, as if they didn’t quite believe their definition of ‘big hit’ could coincide with anything a prone-to-exaggeration Kaulitz told them. Tom smirked. They’d see.
“What’s next?” he asked.
“Um.” Bill shuffled a few papers with lyrics. “I don’t know, maybe--”
“Play us something,” Georg burst out. “One of the songs we play where you’re from.”
Tom debated whether he should or not - what if it made a difference for the future? - but figured that he’d been shitting all over the timeline anyway. Bill already knew what he was going to look like, they all knew they were going to be famous, but as long as Tom kept the specifics to himself, there were still enough surprises for them in store. They couldn’t imagine it anyway, what it’d be like, their journey to the top, Tom thought as he looked into his friends’ young, innocent faces; it was impossible to dream up what they’d lived.
Without thinking too much, he struck the chords for the new single, Lass uns laufen. Gustav sat and listened attentively for half a minute, then he carefully began to tap out a beat which Georg picked up. It was a variation of the song as it might have sounded had they written it five years earlier; less energetic, less skilful, but infused with a sort of raw sweetness. Tom quite liked it.
“I like it,” Bill piped up as Tom let the last chord fade away. He sat with his knees pulled up against his chest on the ripped-up sofa that they’d salvaged from some neighbors’ trash. “What are the lyrics?”
Tom smiled at him. “You tell me. You’re going to write them.”
“I am?” Bill asked softly. “When?”
On a rainy spring night, huddling by Tom’s bedside while Tom sobbed out his fear and frustration, holding Tom’s bruised fist which had dealt out a punch in furious anger. ”We can go away,” Bill would say then, ”We can run, disappear forever if you want to. We can end it all tonight.”
It would be an option that night, even if they wouldn’t choose it. It would always be an option; the thought of it kept Tom going when things got rough. One day, they’d choose to run. Together. Always together.
“In a few years,” Tom told his twin. “Soon enough. Don’t be impatient.”
Something in his voice must’ve given Bill pause. They shared a long look. “Okay,” Bill said. “Soon enough.”
Tom nodded. He bowed his head over the guitar again, biting at his lip ring. He twisted one of the tuning pegs, trying to get the guitar to cooperate with what he wanted to do. Damn thing was always out of tune. He absently struck a chord, then another, then another. When he caught himself, he looked up at Bill and smiled, repeating the series of chords to In die Nacht. “You already know this one.”
Bill looked puzzled. “I do?”
“Yeah. You just don’t know it yet.”
Georg shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, Listing, you’re a little slow,” Tom grinned, and Georg gave him the finger. It was weird, Tom thought: between them was the same age difference now that was usually between him and future Georg, only reversed. Seventeen-year-old Georg seemed like such a kid to Tom now; they must’ve looked like that to Georg when they first met. He’d never given their bassist enough thanks for what he put up with. “But that’s a good quality in a bass guy, so. You’re golden,” he said and watched young Georg’s face light up in surprise.
“Well thanks, Kaulitz.”
“We should practice now,” Gustav suggested, always the drill master. “If everything you told us is really happening, and in the next eight weeks at that, we have a hell of a lot of work to do.”
Tom shrugged, unfazed. Gustav had always said that and they’d all agreed and always promptly forgotten about it again together. They’d be fine, but playing the old songs again might actually be fun.
“Which ones are most important for us to know?” Gustav asked.
Tom grinned. “Let’s start with Schrei.”