FIC: Kisses for Cuddles, PG-13, Tom/Bill, 1/1
Title: Kisses for Cuddles
Author: ???
Pairing(s): Tom/Bill
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Tom organizes Bill’s wardrobe, extraordinary love finds the twins through the most ordinary methods; for there are magnificent miracles even in old clothes and instant soups...and the heart of a beloved pet.
FQF Prompt: Bill is the shopaholic that we know he is, and he has the wardrobe to prove this. One day while Bill is on holiday with Andi/doing photo shoots etc, Tom decides to organize it, resolving not to leave until it's done. During the course of his tidying, he finds Bill's favorites drawer. In it isn't the sexy underwear, or the nice boots. it's the old t-shirts, the ratty doubled up jean, a few bits of costume jewelry. Bill's memories. And... where to go is up to you!
Tom awoke with a start when he heard the muffled crash from Bill’s bedroom.
It was only a few months after his little brother’s throat surgery, and Tom was out of bed and through the adjoining door in a flash, calling out in concern.
He blinked at the empty room a few times, and then remembered that Bill was out with their mother for the day; a special time together just for them as Gordon was away for the weekend with his band mates.
Tom’s black-and-white dog trotted up to him. It hadn’t been Bill falling, and it certainly wasn’t an intruder, if not the dog would be agitated. So what had caused the noise?
Tom stared at the doors to Bill’s walk-in wardrobe, at the far end of the bedroom.
Tom could hear Bill in his mind, “You would make someone a lovely hausfrau, Tom, you’re so anally retentive about cleaning, and organizing clothes according to category and color, but this is my wardrobe, and my clothes, and my right to decide what to do with them…”
“Bill, if you just got a bit more organized, you wouldn’t need a cavern for a wardrobe and wouldn’t have to travel with ten huge bags…” It was an ages old argument.
“You all have loads and loads of luggage too, and you don’t have any costume changes, or jewelry or makeup…” Bill’s voice would rise in volume to drown out Tom.
“Those bags are for our instruments, Bill…” Tom would avert his eyes from the sight of Bill in a messy explosion of outfits, much of it glittering, extravagant and costly, all mixed up on the floor, on the shelves or wherever there was even a little space in the giant wardrobe the size of a room; which always made his blood pressure rise.
“If you can have ten guitars in ten different colors…” Both the volume and speed of Bill’s speech would have escalated by now.
“Each instrument sounds unique, I don’t bring along the guitars because of the different colors…” Tom could barely be heard by this point, “There’s a difference between equipment and clothes...But I would never leave either my guitars, or my clothes, in such a mess…
“Whatever, Tom, don’t try to organize my life, it’s my life, it’s my wardrobe, mine, mine, mine…” Bill would start looking for something to throw at his brother and Tom would storm off.
Five minutes later, half an hour at the most, Bill would pop his head into Tom’s room and ask the older twin’s opinion on outfits, as if the argument never happened.
Tom sighed and smiled, in exasperation and affection. Life with Bill was a roller coaster; so it was a good thing he enjoyed excitement.
Well, Bill was out, and some shelf or hanging rail had collapsed in the wardrobe, so he had an excuse to pop in there and…
…Even Tom, on top of every situation and extremely organized, and, let’s face it, a neat freak, had to stop and gape when he opened the wardrobe doors. Even German engineered clothes hanging rails had collapsed under the sheer volume of all the fantastic outfits!
The older twin sighed. Cleaning up after Bill and taking care of his little brother was second nature to him, so he felt no resentment. Other people often wondered at how Tom could be so happy having to constantly look out for someone else; and moreover someone who overshadowed him. What they didn’t understand was that Tom needed his little brother to need him; it gave him a sense of purpose, and a constant source of joy. Loving Bill completed him.
This awareness wasn’t wholly conscious, not yet, but Tom’s life, and how he felt about his little brother, was going to change irrecoverably in just a few hours.
***
Four hours later, Tom tucked a pair of knee high patent leather boots neatly under a feather and metal encrusted trench coat, and stood back to admire his handiwork. Everything was neat and tidy and in place. It had meant breaking a movie date with Georg and Gustav, but Tom was incredibly focused and driven and couldn’t leave a task mid-way; especially since he didn’t know when he’d have another opportunity to organize Bill’s disaster of a closet.
His dog, which had alternated between running around the apartment and napping at his feet, was now worrying at a drawer. Oh, he’d missed that one, as it lay almost secret and lonely at the bottom of some shelves.
Tom sat on his bottom and slid the drawer open. His dog immediately grabbed an article of clothing and capered around the room-sized wardrobe, which had much more space to run around in now that the clothes were so neatly stored.
“Hey! Give that back! Bill will kill us if you damage some of his priceless clothes…” Tom fell silent as his dog obediently came back to him.
Tom took an old hoodie from his pet, which settled down with a black-and-white face in his lap.
It wasn’t some super expensive designer hoodie; it was a cheap, mass market lay-about the house hoodie, and it wasn’t even Bill’s. That’s why the dog had been so keen to grab it, even after washing such a well-used hoodie must still have his scent.
Tom looked through the drawer, and found some old T-shirts; a couple of battered jeans that had seen brighter days and now weren’t even fit for a Salvation Army store. Mixed up among Bill’s clothes were some of his own, which he was sure he had either thrown out if they were torn or popped into the bag to be donated to charity.
Tom wondered why such ratty old clothes were folded so neatly in this hard to access drawer and stashed under a protective sheet. Usually treasures would be kept in such a fashion. And then he found, in a velvet box, a finger ring and a tongue stud. Both were cheap, and certainly Bill could afford better now, but he remembered these items. He’d always assumed Bill had just upgraded and thrown these away. But now he realized they were kept safe here, so they wouldn’t be lost or damaged as the band toured.
Tom had bought these for Bill when they were very young, and he’d got them using his own meager savings; even then he’d been too proud to ask for money from his mother or Gordon.
And the hoodie that he held in his hands; he’d thrown it out and was glad to see the last of it. It had been what he’d worn at the hospital when he was nursing Bill. Why ever had his brother rescued it from the bin?
An hour’s car ride away, Bill was washing his hands in the guest bathroom of Simone and Gordon’s home. He touched up his make up in the mirror, (even on a short day trip to his mother’s house he packed enough make up in his giant purse to always look perfect), and then paused on his way out.
He felt an unpleasant tightening in his stomach as he looked around the bathroom. For a terrible second, the months melted away, and he was back in that hospital bathroom, his angel’s voice temporarily silenced, crying and hurting, his heart breaking…
“If he can’t pass urine within the next hour, we will have to reinsert the catheter,” the nurse’s voice outside.
Bill cringed. It was bad enough having to hear his most intimate bodily functions discussed in such a dehumanizing way, but the thought of having to reinsert that into his…
He started to cry harder, he was so weak after surgery, and his throat was throbbing despite the painkillers.
Bill had had to have emergency surgery when severely dehydrated and exhausted from the tour. As a result, shortly after the procedure, he’d awoken with a stinging, persistent pain in his most private of parts, which led to the doctor removing the catheter. An hour after that, his veins started collapsing so they had to take him off the IV drips. Then they had tried force feeding him water, and he’d done his best to drink, to not be a bother, but he kept vomiting, which was agony. He had grown increasingly tense and agitated, and now the very thought of reinsertion was making his already painful urethra seize up even more.
The door opened, and Bill would have cried out in terror if he could speak, for surely it was a nurse coming to take him away and cause more pain, but it was only Tom.
“Stay out!” Tom called behind his shoulder, and then slammed the door shut on the nurse; his fine featured face drawn tight with fatigue and anger. Tom had assumed the doctors and nurses knew best, so he had stood aside and let them try to hydrate Bill, but now the protective older brother was furious that after hours of torture, the medical team was thinking of reinserting the catheter which had been the beginning of Bill’s pain and problems. The older twin was also dehydrated and near exhaustion himself, but he had insisted on sleeping in the same room to nurse Bill so that their mother, the vocalist’s usual nurse, could rest at home.
Bill’s initial relief melted into such acute shame at his own weakness that he hid his face behind long fingered hands. What trouble he was, and now to be sick on Tokio Hotel’s first big world tour, he’d let everybody down, Tom must be so mad and disappointed in him. And ashamed too, to see him such a crying wreck who couldn’t even empty his own bladder…
But then, Bill was enveloped in fluffy warmth as Tom held him. And there needed to be no words spoken as Bill felt nothing but concern, and care, and tenderness from his twin.
“Hush, Bill, everything will be fine. I won’t let them stick you with anymore needles. Let’s just get you back to bed, and I’ll make you some soup, and you can take as long as you want to drink it; there’s nowhere else we have to be tonight,” Tom said quietly.
Love and love and love.
Bill stopped crying, calm and hope returning.
They stayed like that, Tom holding him, until he had enough strength to stand. The nurses were gone as Tom helped his brother back to bed, before going to get the kettle. The soup in question came out of a packet, you only needed to add water, but it was Bill’s favorite.
When he’d been small and caught a cold defying his mother’s order not to play in the snow one winter, she had been less than sympathetic, banishing him to bed early. Bill had sniffled and whimpered all alone in bed, feeling awfully abandoned by his partner-in-crime who had led him down the path of temptation in the first place. After what seemed like a forever of sorrow (an hour) a small boy who looked just like him came into the room, bearing a bowl of hot soup.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” six-year-old Tom had said solemnly, “So I made you soup, all by myself. I put the kettle on, and cut the packet and poured the water and everything.”
And it had been the best soup in the world; and it still was. Not because of the ingredients, but because of the hands and the heart that made it.
Tom climbed into the narrow hospital bed and propped Bill up; a cup of soup, made with a great deal of water so it would be more easily digested, and a spoon in hand. The older twin raised a spoonful to his own lips, and blew on it, and then tasted a little for temperature before offering the spoon to Bill.
Swallowing was painful, but the liquid felt good on his parched throat. And each mouthful that stayed down offered hope for Bill’s bladder to kick itself back into functioning shape.
Between the mouthfuls of soup, Bill leaned against Tom’s shoulder, more grateful than he could express to have someone in his life so strong, so constant and so loving. The fuzzy hoodie material was soft against his cheek, and the scent of Tom was comfort made real in his pain-filled world.
Bill didn’t know how long they lay like that, with Tom waking him gently every time he dozed off, so that he could take another mouthful of soup.
And then he had awakened to Tom’s soft breathing. The cup was empty and still on the bedside table. Tom was asleep. There was only the soft hum of the air-conditioning.
And when love came for him, Bill was astounded that it would arrive in such a place, at such a time, without any warning, without any fanfare, without any frills. Like the battered hoodie Tom was wearing, the surroundings were plain and unremarkable when love stepped simply, but absolutely, into his life and heart and soul.
At the moment when Bill realized he had fallen in love with Tom, there was no rousing soundtrack, no changes in the weather, no band of angels singing, not even a drop dead gorgeous extraordinary outfit in sight.
Bill needed to pee.
He pressed a kiss to Tom’s cheek, his desire to taste the soft, slumbering lips as great and fierce as the fear that swept through him like a hurricane. He had always loved Tom dearly; his drawer of treasures contained old stuff from their best shared childhood moments, even now after wealth and fame had arrived. But this love; this love was different, and forbidden, and was almost certain never to be returned. What happens now?
Back in Simone and Gordon’s home, Bill exited the bathroom. He was beautifully and expensively dressed; his perfume and make up costing more than many ordinary people earned in a month. And yet, he was thinking of a battered old hoodie, and a cheap tongue stud and ring, with profound affection.
Such is the humble nature of true love.
******
“Tom? Didn’t you go to the movies?” Bill called out as he came into the apartment. Tom’s dog greeted the other three who had spent the day with Bill enthusiastically. All the dogs had already been fed and brought out to relieve themselves an hour earlier.
The daylight was fading, casting the apartment in a strange half-light. The only electrical light came from his bedroom, seen through the door that was slightly ajar.
“Tom?” Bill went into the room to find Tom sitting unmoving and thoughtful on his bed, a familiar old hoodie on the guitarist’s lap.
*Oh God, he knows!* Bill hugged himself defensively. That was why his mind had flashed back so vividly to his time in the hospital this afternoon. Tom must have found the drawer, and the hoodie, and been wondering about their significance; triggering a shared thought.
Bill blinked. It was hard to breathe. He tried to read Tom’s thoughts and feelings, but drew a blank.
Oh, if Tom didn’t feel the same way, and there was nothing to suggest that the womanizing guitarist would, then Bill was sure the rejection would destroy him. Of course Tom would remain a loving and supportive brother, but that seed of discomfort born from Bill’s unrequited love - and more terrible still, the pity - would surely kill Bill where he stood.
For once the eloquent and expressive vocalist could not find the words. He only managed a desperate shake of his head, to try and deny that this moment was happening in the dying daylight.
Tom stood, his expression still unfathomable, even to his twin.
Bill recoiled, fearful beyond comprehension suddenly.
Tom was going to say no.
Tom was going to reject him.
Tom was going to pity him.
Oh God! How was he to survive this moment?
Tom paused, a few inches from him.
Bill prepared for the heavy blow that he doubted he would have the strength to bear.
It was eternity, or maybe just a few heart beats, before Tom spoke.
“Oh Bill, if we’re going to be lovers, you’re going to have to learn to read me better,” Tom broke the tension with a hesitant smile.
How extraordinary that the older twin would find the words when the younger was speechless!
Their lips met, and there was no more need for talking…
Later during the night, Tom’s black-and-white dog trotted into Bill’s bedroom. He found the treasured hoodie on the edge of the bed.
The intense scents of both the twins in the room was unusual, as was the movement and sounds of passion coming from the center of the bed, but the animal could tell that this change was a very good thing.
He nicked the hoodie and trotted out of the bedroom to go sleep in Tom’s bed, which was also his bed. He wasn’t going to damage it, but figured he’d earned the right to use the hoodie as a comfortable blanket for the night.
After all, he had been the one who had brought it to Tom’s attention.
*End
Author: ???
Pairing(s): Tom/Bill
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Tom organizes Bill’s wardrobe, extraordinary love finds the twins through the most ordinary methods; for there are magnificent miracles even in old clothes and instant soups...and the heart of a beloved pet.
FQF Prompt: Bill is the shopaholic that we know he is, and he has the wardrobe to prove this. One day while Bill is on holiday with Andi/doing photo shoots etc, Tom decides to organize it, resolving not to leave until it's done. During the course of his tidying, he finds Bill's favorites drawer. In it isn't the sexy underwear, or the nice boots. it's the old t-shirts, the ratty doubled up jean, a few bits of costume jewelry. Bill's memories. And... where to go is up to you!
Tom awoke with a start when he heard the muffled crash from Bill’s bedroom.
It was only a few months after his little brother’s throat surgery, and Tom was out of bed and through the adjoining door in a flash, calling out in concern.
He blinked at the empty room a few times, and then remembered that Bill was out with their mother for the day; a special time together just for them as Gordon was away for the weekend with his band mates.
Tom’s black-and-white dog trotted up to him. It hadn’t been Bill falling, and it certainly wasn’t an intruder, if not the dog would be agitated. So what had caused the noise?
Tom stared at the doors to Bill’s walk-in wardrobe, at the far end of the bedroom.
Tom could hear Bill in his mind, “You would make someone a lovely hausfrau, Tom, you’re so anally retentive about cleaning, and organizing clothes according to category and color, but this is my wardrobe, and my clothes, and my right to decide what to do with them…”
“Bill, if you just got a bit more organized, you wouldn’t need a cavern for a wardrobe and wouldn’t have to travel with ten huge bags…” It was an ages old argument.
“You all have loads and loads of luggage too, and you don’t have any costume changes, or jewelry or makeup…” Bill’s voice would rise in volume to drown out Tom.
“Those bags are for our instruments, Bill…” Tom would avert his eyes from the sight of Bill in a messy explosion of outfits, much of it glittering, extravagant and costly, all mixed up on the floor, on the shelves or wherever there was even a little space in the giant wardrobe the size of a room; which always made his blood pressure rise.
“If you can have ten guitars in ten different colors…” Both the volume and speed of Bill’s speech would have escalated by now.
“Each instrument sounds unique, I don’t bring along the guitars because of the different colors…” Tom could barely be heard by this point, “There’s a difference between equipment and clothes...But I would never leave either my guitars, or my clothes, in such a mess…
“Whatever, Tom, don’t try to organize my life, it’s my life, it’s my wardrobe, mine, mine, mine…” Bill would start looking for something to throw at his brother and Tom would storm off.
Five minutes later, half an hour at the most, Bill would pop his head into Tom’s room and ask the older twin’s opinion on outfits, as if the argument never happened.
Tom sighed and smiled, in exasperation and affection. Life with Bill was a roller coaster; so it was a good thing he enjoyed excitement.
Well, Bill was out, and some shelf or hanging rail had collapsed in the wardrobe, so he had an excuse to pop in there and…
…Even Tom, on top of every situation and extremely organized, and, let’s face it, a neat freak, had to stop and gape when he opened the wardrobe doors. Even German engineered clothes hanging rails had collapsed under the sheer volume of all the fantastic outfits!
The older twin sighed. Cleaning up after Bill and taking care of his little brother was second nature to him, so he felt no resentment. Other people often wondered at how Tom could be so happy having to constantly look out for someone else; and moreover someone who overshadowed him. What they didn’t understand was that Tom needed his little brother to need him; it gave him a sense of purpose, and a constant source of joy. Loving Bill completed him.
This awareness wasn’t wholly conscious, not yet, but Tom’s life, and how he felt about his little brother, was going to change irrecoverably in just a few hours.
***
Four hours later, Tom tucked a pair of knee high patent leather boots neatly under a feather and metal encrusted trench coat, and stood back to admire his handiwork. Everything was neat and tidy and in place. It had meant breaking a movie date with Georg and Gustav, but Tom was incredibly focused and driven and couldn’t leave a task mid-way; especially since he didn’t know when he’d have another opportunity to organize Bill’s disaster of a closet.
His dog, which had alternated between running around the apartment and napping at his feet, was now worrying at a drawer. Oh, he’d missed that one, as it lay almost secret and lonely at the bottom of some shelves.
Tom sat on his bottom and slid the drawer open. His dog immediately grabbed an article of clothing and capered around the room-sized wardrobe, which had much more space to run around in now that the clothes were so neatly stored.
“Hey! Give that back! Bill will kill us if you damage some of his priceless clothes…” Tom fell silent as his dog obediently came back to him.
Tom took an old hoodie from his pet, which settled down with a black-and-white face in his lap.
It wasn’t some super expensive designer hoodie; it was a cheap, mass market lay-about the house hoodie, and it wasn’t even Bill’s. That’s why the dog had been so keen to grab it, even after washing such a well-used hoodie must still have his scent.
Tom looked through the drawer, and found some old T-shirts; a couple of battered jeans that had seen brighter days and now weren’t even fit for a Salvation Army store. Mixed up among Bill’s clothes were some of his own, which he was sure he had either thrown out if they were torn or popped into the bag to be donated to charity.
Tom wondered why such ratty old clothes were folded so neatly in this hard to access drawer and stashed under a protective sheet. Usually treasures would be kept in such a fashion. And then he found, in a velvet box, a finger ring and a tongue stud. Both were cheap, and certainly Bill could afford better now, but he remembered these items. He’d always assumed Bill had just upgraded and thrown these away. But now he realized they were kept safe here, so they wouldn’t be lost or damaged as the band toured.
Tom had bought these for Bill when they were very young, and he’d got them using his own meager savings; even then he’d been too proud to ask for money from his mother or Gordon.
And the hoodie that he held in his hands; he’d thrown it out and was glad to see the last of it. It had been what he’d worn at the hospital when he was nursing Bill. Why ever had his brother rescued it from the bin?
An hour’s car ride away, Bill was washing his hands in the guest bathroom of Simone and Gordon’s home. He touched up his make up in the mirror, (even on a short day trip to his mother’s house he packed enough make up in his giant purse to always look perfect), and then paused on his way out.
He felt an unpleasant tightening in his stomach as he looked around the bathroom. For a terrible second, the months melted away, and he was back in that hospital bathroom, his angel’s voice temporarily silenced, crying and hurting, his heart breaking…
“If he can’t pass urine within the next hour, we will have to reinsert the catheter,” the nurse’s voice outside.
Bill cringed. It was bad enough having to hear his most intimate bodily functions discussed in such a dehumanizing way, but the thought of having to reinsert that into his…
He started to cry harder, he was so weak after surgery, and his throat was throbbing despite the painkillers.
Bill had had to have emergency surgery when severely dehydrated and exhausted from the tour. As a result, shortly after the procedure, he’d awoken with a stinging, persistent pain in his most private of parts, which led to the doctor removing the catheter. An hour after that, his veins started collapsing so they had to take him off the IV drips. Then they had tried force feeding him water, and he’d done his best to drink, to not be a bother, but he kept vomiting, which was agony. He had grown increasingly tense and agitated, and now the very thought of reinsertion was making his already painful urethra seize up even more.
The door opened, and Bill would have cried out in terror if he could speak, for surely it was a nurse coming to take him away and cause more pain, but it was only Tom.
“Stay out!” Tom called behind his shoulder, and then slammed the door shut on the nurse; his fine featured face drawn tight with fatigue and anger. Tom had assumed the doctors and nurses knew best, so he had stood aside and let them try to hydrate Bill, but now the protective older brother was furious that after hours of torture, the medical team was thinking of reinserting the catheter which had been the beginning of Bill’s pain and problems. The older twin was also dehydrated and near exhaustion himself, but he had insisted on sleeping in the same room to nurse Bill so that their mother, the vocalist’s usual nurse, could rest at home.
Bill’s initial relief melted into such acute shame at his own weakness that he hid his face behind long fingered hands. What trouble he was, and now to be sick on Tokio Hotel’s first big world tour, he’d let everybody down, Tom must be so mad and disappointed in him. And ashamed too, to see him such a crying wreck who couldn’t even empty his own bladder…
But then, Bill was enveloped in fluffy warmth as Tom held him. And there needed to be no words spoken as Bill felt nothing but concern, and care, and tenderness from his twin.
“Hush, Bill, everything will be fine. I won’t let them stick you with anymore needles. Let’s just get you back to bed, and I’ll make you some soup, and you can take as long as you want to drink it; there’s nowhere else we have to be tonight,” Tom said quietly.
Love and love and love.
Bill stopped crying, calm and hope returning.
They stayed like that, Tom holding him, until he had enough strength to stand. The nurses were gone as Tom helped his brother back to bed, before going to get the kettle. The soup in question came out of a packet, you only needed to add water, but it was Bill’s favorite.
When he’d been small and caught a cold defying his mother’s order not to play in the snow one winter, she had been less than sympathetic, banishing him to bed early. Bill had sniffled and whimpered all alone in bed, feeling awfully abandoned by his partner-in-crime who had led him down the path of temptation in the first place. After what seemed like a forever of sorrow (an hour) a small boy who looked just like him came into the room, bearing a bowl of hot soup.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” six-year-old Tom had said solemnly, “So I made you soup, all by myself. I put the kettle on, and cut the packet and poured the water and everything.”
And it had been the best soup in the world; and it still was. Not because of the ingredients, but because of the hands and the heart that made it.
Tom climbed into the narrow hospital bed and propped Bill up; a cup of soup, made with a great deal of water so it would be more easily digested, and a spoon in hand. The older twin raised a spoonful to his own lips, and blew on it, and then tasted a little for temperature before offering the spoon to Bill.
Swallowing was painful, but the liquid felt good on his parched throat. And each mouthful that stayed down offered hope for Bill’s bladder to kick itself back into functioning shape.
Between the mouthfuls of soup, Bill leaned against Tom’s shoulder, more grateful than he could express to have someone in his life so strong, so constant and so loving. The fuzzy hoodie material was soft against his cheek, and the scent of Tom was comfort made real in his pain-filled world.
Bill didn’t know how long they lay like that, with Tom waking him gently every time he dozed off, so that he could take another mouthful of soup.
And then he had awakened to Tom’s soft breathing. The cup was empty and still on the bedside table. Tom was asleep. There was only the soft hum of the air-conditioning.
And when love came for him, Bill was astounded that it would arrive in such a place, at such a time, without any warning, without any fanfare, without any frills. Like the battered hoodie Tom was wearing, the surroundings were plain and unremarkable when love stepped simply, but absolutely, into his life and heart and soul.
At the moment when Bill realized he had fallen in love with Tom, there was no rousing soundtrack, no changes in the weather, no band of angels singing, not even a drop dead gorgeous extraordinary outfit in sight.
Bill needed to pee.
He pressed a kiss to Tom’s cheek, his desire to taste the soft, slumbering lips as great and fierce as the fear that swept through him like a hurricane. He had always loved Tom dearly; his drawer of treasures contained old stuff from their best shared childhood moments, even now after wealth and fame had arrived. But this love; this love was different, and forbidden, and was almost certain never to be returned. What happens now?
Back in Simone and Gordon’s home, Bill exited the bathroom. He was beautifully and expensively dressed; his perfume and make up costing more than many ordinary people earned in a month. And yet, he was thinking of a battered old hoodie, and a cheap tongue stud and ring, with profound affection.
Such is the humble nature of true love.
******
“Tom? Didn’t you go to the movies?” Bill called out as he came into the apartment. Tom’s dog greeted the other three who had spent the day with Bill enthusiastically. All the dogs had already been fed and brought out to relieve themselves an hour earlier.
The daylight was fading, casting the apartment in a strange half-light. The only electrical light came from his bedroom, seen through the door that was slightly ajar.
“Tom?” Bill went into the room to find Tom sitting unmoving and thoughtful on his bed, a familiar old hoodie on the guitarist’s lap.
*Oh God, he knows!* Bill hugged himself defensively. That was why his mind had flashed back so vividly to his time in the hospital this afternoon. Tom must have found the drawer, and the hoodie, and been wondering about their significance; triggering a shared thought.
Bill blinked. It was hard to breathe. He tried to read Tom’s thoughts and feelings, but drew a blank.
Oh, if Tom didn’t feel the same way, and there was nothing to suggest that the womanizing guitarist would, then Bill was sure the rejection would destroy him. Of course Tom would remain a loving and supportive brother, but that seed of discomfort born from Bill’s unrequited love - and more terrible still, the pity - would surely kill Bill where he stood.
For once the eloquent and expressive vocalist could not find the words. He only managed a desperate shake of his head, to try and deny that this moment was happening in the dying daylight.
Tom stood, his expression still unfathomable, even to his twin.
Bill recoiled, fearful beyond comprehension suddenly.
Tom was going to say no.
Tom was going to reject him.
Tom was going to pity him.
Oh God! How was he to survive this moment?
Tom paused, a few inches from him.
Bill prepared for the heavy blow that he doubted he would have the strength to bear.
It was eternity, or maybe just a few heart beats, before Tom spoke.
“Oh Bill, if we’re going to be lovers, you’re going to have to learn to read me better,” Tom broke the tension with a hesitant smile.
How extraordinary that the older twin would find the words when the younger was speechless!
Their lips met, and there was no more need for talking…
Later during the night, Tom’s black-and-white dog trotted into Bill’s bedroom. He found the treasured hoodie on the edge of the bed.
The intense scents of both the twins in the room was unusual, as was the movement and sounds of passion coming from the center of the bed, but the animal could tell that this change was a very good thing.
He nicked the hoodie and trotted out of the bedroom to go sleep in Tom’s bed, which was also his bed. He wasn’t going to damage it, but figured he’d earned the right to use the hoodie as a comfortable blanket for the night.
After all, he had been the one who had brought it to Tom’s attention.
*End