Fic: In With The New (1/4), Tokio Hotel RPF, rated PG13

[peki]

I haven't written multi-chaptered fics since the Draco/Ginny days, I think, so this makes me a little nervous, but I've got it outlined and it should be okay, so here's part one :)

Title: In With The New (1/4)
Fandom: Tokio Hotel RPF
Pairing: Gustav/Georg
Rating: PG13
Summary: On a visit to Japan, the twins deal with a crisis, Gustav and Georg redefine their relationship, and Tokio Hotel finally come full circle.
Warnings: Very slight angst, mostly mushiness, fluff.
A/N: Okay, this'll probably take a while to finish. I'm posting the first part anyway because it's long and it can stand on its own quite well, but I reserve the right to tweak until all the parts are posted. Originally this was meant to be G/G with the twins as snarky spectators on the sidelines, but you know how they are - they always steal the spotlight :)

It was raining again. It had been raining ever since they had arrived, which, Tom supposed, was kind of the whole point of the visit. It should have annoyed him, and usually, it would have, but for some reason, it made for a pleasant, mellow mood: it was the kind of day on which even he wanted nothing more than to sit inside, tucked away cozily with his guitar or some good company, and watch the rain wash the world clean. That they could do just that was a rare treat.

Tom liked it. He didn’t miss the glare of light for once, not one bit.

There were no squealing fans waiting in the rain outside the hotel, no stalkers lurking at the bar, no lewd messages left for them in the receptionist’s inbox. Japan was a new, empty sheet waiting for the next chapter of the Tokio Hotel success story to be written into the annals of rock history. Four albums, multi-platinum record sales, two year-long tours back to back, followed by promotion gigs in Asia - it was a marathon of worldwide stardom that was being completed in Tokyo, the culmination of years of hard work, and even if no one but the dutiful employees of Universal Japan paid any attention to them here, the rest of the world was looking in via live streaming video, and the internet fanbase squealed as Tokio Hotel played their first, short, wet Japanese performance during the full onslaught of one particularly bad storm during monsoon season. It was the return to their roots, their first hit, back to basics with minimal equipment and a squeaky microphone that gave off a hollow, metallic echo and seemed to catapult Bill’s voice back into the worst throes of adolescence like a time machine.

A fitting performance for the band’s unofficial, tenth anniversary. The irony of it was probably lost on most of their baffled audience, but they’d shared a good laugh over it. It had felt good; right, somehow, in its pathetic charm. Management had not been nearly as amused, and the four of them had laughed about that, too. They could afford to.

Maybe, Tom thought, at twenty-one, he was ready for retirement. Or maybe it was just that he was tired of the ever-same, perfect performances; and as often as they’d done them, he still didn’t like playing in the rain. It wasn’t good for his dreadlocks or his amps, and he always had a vague fear of getting electrocuted on stage that made the others mock him.

“Death on stage, imagine,” Bill had chuckled, when Tom had voiced such concerns on the flight over from Germany. “Wouldn’t it be awesome? To be struck down at the end of the performance, expire right there, a moment that’d make rock history--”

“Yeah, awesome,” Tom had groused. “I’d love to watch you do that. Be careful with the wires while we play, you always go crazy on stage, it’s dangerous.”

Bill had laughed, even though Tom hadn’t been joking at all. He didn’t like playing in the rain. He had to admit that it was a great PR stunt though, one little performance in Yoyogi park that had generated maximum news coverage in every country where Tokio Hotel mattered, and a few others to boot. Tokio Hotel do Tokyo, at last! It was a small price to pay, and if the usual marketing strategy didn’t take, for once, after their muddy, flooded performance, they might even get a few days off for lack of work. Tom couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He kind of hoped that it would; Bill had been so excited to see Japan.

And Tokyo was a sight to behold: a whole different world, as far removed from the stuffy smallness of Magdeburg as the sun was from the earth, humming with life and creativity.

After their performance, they’d sat down for dinner in a small restaurant with strange dishes half of which Bill refused to eat, watching colorful strangers flit past at a busy pace, never stopping, never faltering, and Tom’s head had spun just watching, the rush, the lights, the signs he couldn’t read.

He leaned across the table and fixed his gaze on Georg and Gustav, good, old, reliable friends, the other two pieces of home he always had with him wherever he went. He grinned at them, feeling oddly fond for a moment. “That…thing,” he pointed at the indescribable green ball on the plate between them, “smells about as nice as Georg before his morning shower.”

“You should love it then,” Georg said dryly.

Gustav picked up the unknown item with his chopsticks and popped it in his mouth with the enviable grace of someone who handled sticks for a living. “It’s good,” he said, chewing. “You should try it.”

“Not in a million years,” Bill said. He tugged at Tom’s sleeve with barely restrained impatience. “Can we go?” he pleaded, wibbling in place. “I want to look around.”

Harajuku was abuzz, in spite of the drizzle; an enormous dollhouse come to life, shocking in its dimensions, in its chaos, like a child had tipped over her toy box and left the contents scattered around. It made even Bill seem ordinary, a small, insignificant part of the huge, anonymous crowd of artfully clad people.

The way it swallowed him up was a little unsettling; Tom craned his head to find him again among groups of other boys with spiky black hair and carefully smudged eyeliner. For the first time, Tom understood why people at home had been so bemused, all those years ago, at the combination of Bill’s look and their band’s name. They had been a bunch of silly, ignorant kids then. He smiled to himself as he spotted Bill, standing out for his height amongst the others. He moved with easy, fluid grace among a group of giggling girls a few steps ahead of Tom, laughing along with the little strangers’ contagious, cryptic humor.

“Kawaii!” they cooed, and moved on together like a flock of pastel-colored birds, twittering.

“What does that mean?” Georg asked, walking close beside Tom in the packed street.

“No idea, but Gustav seems to be it, too.” Chortling, Tom pointed at their drummer, who was backing off slowly as the group of squealing girls descended on him.

“Kawaii! Kawaii!”

“Oh dear god,” Georg snorted as Gustav tried valiantly to satisfy three girls at once with autographed photos.

“What is it that he has?” Tom wondered, eyeing the indecent hemlines of the skirts all around. Gustav was scowling, unappreciative of his good fortune, but his dark expression only seemed to add to his mysterious air.

“Kawaii!”

“I think it’s that he’s a natural blond,” Georg chuckled as one of the girls grabbed a fistful of Gustav’s hair and Gustav jumped about a mile high. “But who knows? Maybe women here just have better taste than elsewhere.”

“Haha,” Tom snorted.

“This seems like just the place for Bill,” Georg mused, eyeing the spectacle wryly. “He must love it.”

Over the heads of the crowd, Tom had searched for his brother’s gaze, found, and lingered. “So you’d think,” he said, watching Bill’s carefully painted face twist with a mix of amusement and wariness, one living, human doll among many. So you’d think.

But no matter how amazing Tokyo itself was, the weather was still wretched, and when the rain picked up again, they’d fled to their hotel for an early night in. Tom didn’t feel as exhausted anymore once he’d peeled off his damp clothes and stretched out on his bed, even though it was already late in the evening. The time difference was messing with his head again, and he was sure he’d feel tired and cranky in the morning, but at least a wakeful night meant some quality time with his brother. They hadn’t had nearly enough of that lately. Tom missed it.

He didn’t bother switching on the lights: in the darkness, he watched the raindrops pelt the glass façade of the hotel, and through the glittering droplets, he could see the sky growing ever darker, slate grey tinted with a faint yellow, sulfurous hue by the reflection of the city lights. Below, Tokyo stretched out like a sparkling treasure trove, glimmering alluringly even in the heavy rain.

Then, the lights came on inside the room, and the night disappeared, replaced by the reflection of Bill in the high windows.

Bill let his clothes fall haphazardly as he moved around the room, hunting through his bags and suitcases for that ungodly pair of trashbag sweatpants that stubbornly refused to fall apart, no matter how long he’d had them. He peeled off his jeans and climbed into the more comfortable pants with a blissful sigh, then slumped down on the bed across from Tom’s and made himself at home by scattering toiletries all over the duvet.

Tom folded his arms behind his head, dangled his feet over the edge of the bed and watched Bill’s face gradually appear from under layers of makeup. The glitter particles of his eyeshadow left faint red scratchy marks, but they weren’t as noticeable when the ghostly white of his skin gave way to his natural, healthier color and the black lines around his eyes vanished. The dark smudges beneath them remained, testament to how little rest they’d gotten over the last months. Years. No wonder it was taking more and more war paint to hide them so Bill could look fresh and perky these days. They’d been running on reserve for a while now. Tom yawned.

“Can you believe it?” Bill asked, looking out the window at the glittering city below. “We’re here.”

“Yeah,” Tom murmured. He sat up so the world was rightside up again, moving closer to the glass to see what Bill saw. They had been to a lot of great places, done a lot of exciting things, played venues that were too large and venues that were too small, lost and won awards and fucked up as spectacularly as they’d triumphed. They had accomplished more than had been asked of them and almost every goal they’d set for themselves. Their adult lives were still only about to begin, and there was hardly anything left for them to accomplish, but this, this was something. It made Tom feel small and young, staring down into the huge city that they’d only ever dreamed of; like they were children again discovering the world, only at the beginning.

Tom had been miffed when Georg, the idiot, had accidentally gotten them two double rooms instead of four singles, upon check-in. Now that he looked back and forth between his roomie’s awed face and the nightly city, he was glad, in spite of the lack of space. Some things - most things, actually - were better appreciated together, as if life was a 3D movie that could only be seen right through twin glasses. It was one of the universal truths of existence, as far as Tom was concerned; he didn’t know why or when he’d forgotten it. There’d been too little time to stop, and focus, and actually see much at all.

“We should’ve come sooner,” Bill said reverently, interrupting his brother’s musings. “Tokyo. We’re actually in a Tokyo Hotel.”

Tom chuckled. “I know, it’s weird. Pretty amazing though.”

Bill swept his bottles and tubes into a bag and tossed the stained balls of cotton at the trash can. They missed it by several meters. “You know, I was thinking.” Bill lay back on his bed, mirroring Tom’s earlier pose. “No one really knows us here - we should come back for our next holiday. Spend some more time, explore… Not just the touristy places.”

“You don’t want to go to Diva this year? It’s tradition.” Diva was the Maldivian resort that Bill had first booked for them in a moment of self-ironic impulsiveness a few years ago, picked off the posters at the travel agent’s. They’d been back for New Year’s every year since.

“I do,” Bill said. “Maybe we could do both. This city calls for a longer visit, don’t you think?” He pondered this. “It’s such a strange place, like nothing else I’d seen. I like it. And there’s so many shops!”

Tom bit back a smile. Tokyo suited Bill - loud and colorful and busy. He couldn’t remember who had come up with their silly band name, or what the actual reasoning behind it had been, but the string of coincidences and random ideas had led them here, and it seemed almost like prescience now, it was so fitting.

“This has been our dream from the beginning,” Bill had told the gathered crowd of reporters simply when the dreaded question came, earlier that day. He’d made a wide, sweeping gesture out the window of their fashionable hotel, behind which the city lay, glittering and vast and ever restless, all color and motion. “Coming this far, making it this big. That’s why we named ourselves Tokio Hotel.”

The reporters had smiled and nodded at the translator’s explanation, and typed hectically into their cell phones. It didn’t matter that Tokyo, Japan, didn’t know them; the rest of the world did, and that was enough. Tom actually preferred it this way: it was like returning home from a long journey, like awakening from a crazy dream, just a bunch of boys making music and having fun. No one looked at them twice and it was just as well. He didn’t want it to change, not really.

It was odd, to find peace of mind in a city this hectic. But then, the twins had always been happiest at the eye of the storm, rulers of chaos that raged all around them. Tom cracked a grin. “I like it, too. It’s nice to be somewhere no one knows you. No one looks at you.”

Bill turned his head. “You think?”

“It’s a breather,” Tom said. Bill nodded thoughtfully. Then, as if struck by a sudden urge, he rolled over, off the bed, and sat down close beside Tom, rubbing their shoulders together. It was a silent plea for comfort, and Tom returned the pressure without thinking, tilting his head so he could look at his twin’s profile. “What?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bill said, shrugging. The motion sent them bobbing on the bed, and he smiled ruefully. “I do like it here. I love how everything is so colorful and how nice people are and the way they dress…”

“But?” Tom prompted.

“But…” Bill fiddled with his rings, pulled them off one by one and put them on the nightstand. He studied his nails, black and white, as if he’d never seen them before. “It kinda takes away the fun of it, if everyone does it,” he finally admitted, a little sullenly. “If it’s nothing special anymore.”

Tom bit back a laugh. “I was wondering if you’d feel that way.”

“Am I that predictable?” Bill frowned.

“No,” his brother assured him, “but remember who you’re talking to.”

Bill flashed him a brief smile before returning to the inspection of his manicure. “I honestly never realized I was doing it for the attention,” he said, sounding genuinely puzzled. “I mean, I always liked it when people look at me, but mostly, it was always just for myself. Until it must’ve turned into…something else, I guess.”

“What else?”

“A look,” Bill said, dismayed. “I can’t believe I never realized… And now that I have, what good does it do, I’m stuck with it, this is what people expect--”

“And since when do you care?” Tom interrupted.

Bill hesitated for a moment. “It’s not just my career on the line,” he said then, peering sideways at his twin.

“You know, it’s not all about the looks,” Tom replied dryly.

Bill gave him a deeply doubtful look. “Oh yeah?”

Not in the mood to be teased, then. Grimacing, Tom amended, “It should be about the music.”

“Should be. Yeah. That’s more like it,” Bill sighed. “I wish.”

Tom watched him fidget, considering. Bill’s moods were mercurial; he could be exhilarated one moment, down and depressed and utterly inconsolable the next. All of the minor and major upsets of their life, the stress and the fatigue and the homesickness, Tom knew how to handle, as well as the occasional downswing into the darker corners of Bill’s mind, where shapeless terrors lurked, fears of life and of death and of loneliness. But those were demons of Bill’s own making, conjured up by an overactive mind, and Tom knew them all, every dark, poisonous thought and the antidote to each.

He didn’t know what to do when the problem was external, something he couldn’t argue away or alleviate with a hug, and Bill had a point. They could close ranks and bear the storm of outrage together if they did something truly scandalous, but they’d been in this business for too long to disregard the realities of it, the power of the right image and the pretty masks. They were still young, but they weren’t stupid. An identity crisis could well mean career suicide, and while Tom was willing to take the fall for Bill, with Bill, he wasn’t sure about Gustav and Georg. They didn’t deserve to be let down like that.

Tom hadn’t realized it before, hadn’t let the vague, passing feeling take root long enough to examine it, but they’d been balancing on a precipice for a while now, gazing into the abyss after a long, exhausting ascent to the top. He shifted uncomfortably, pushing his shoulder against Bill’s. He didn’t usually like to entertain thoughts of such morbid curiosity, and neither did Bill.

But this wasn’t exactly a desire to fall - more a longing to take a leap of faith, and see where they ended up. A jump into the unknown, the new, the uncharted territories of all those thoughts, plans, ideas that had gone by the wayside over the last decade as they pursued this one dream.

Maybe they just needed a vacation. Or maybe they did need a fresh start.

If they wanted to figure out which one it was, though, Tom first had to pull his twin out of the swamp of misery he occasionally got himself trapped in before Bill sank too deep. Tom nudged him none too carefully, trying to prompt the usual, forceful response, and exerted a lot of effort keeping his tone light. “Stop it, silly Billy,” he said firmly. “We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? And we’ll make it further. We’re actually in Tokyo!”

“Yeah,” Bill muttered, refusing to rise to the bait. “It’s just that, now that we’re here, now that we’ve done just about everything we could possibly do, I’m wondering… How do we go on, Tom? We can’t keep putting on the same old act forever, we’ve got to reinvent ourselves, and I see all these people here, in the streets, experimenting, trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be and I can’t… I don’t know where to go from here.” He threw up his hands in defeat. “I’m out of ideas!” He hung his head.

Tom regarded his twin for a few long moments, bemused. Bill’s mouth was making odd, wobbly shapes, as if he wanted to say more, form words, but didn’t know how or which. “You’re not out of ideas,” Tom said finally, without the shadow of a doubt. He’d had a taste of feeling lost, they all had, waking up in a new, strange place every other day, knowing neither date nor time of day and none of the faces around them. They’d had their moments of homesickness, of despair, blinded by flashing lights, deafened by the screams of the crowd, lost and helpless in the darkness beyond the glamor if not for each other.

But they did have each other, and they always would; perhaps Bill just needed a little reminder what they did this for; who they did it for.

“You’re not out of ideas,” he repeated, reassuringly. He clasped Bill’s shoulder and squeezed. “I know, I’ve read your notebook.”

That did the trick. “Oh my God!” Bill screeched. “How dare you!”

“Come on, it’s not like you wouldn’t have showed me anyway, sooner or later,” Tom grinned. They’d had this fight countless times, over the years; it was comforting to repeat its ever-same patterns, like a well-practised series of chords flowing together to become an old, familiar song. “Don’t leave it out in the open for me to find if you don’t want me to read it.”

“I’ve told you you’re not supposed to read it without asking!” Bill complained. “I would’ve showed you if you’d asked.”

“Then what difference does it make?” Tom smirked.

“What difference?” Bill made a couple of rude gestures that ended with him thumping Tom in the chest, hard. “It’s a matter of…respecting my personal space, you ass!”

“Since when do we do that?” Tom deadpanned, bringing the argument to its definite end. “Look, the point is, I saw what you’ve been working on, and you definitely haven’t run out of things to say.”

Bill huffed. “But it’s all half-baked. I don’t even know what to do with it yet. I just know I want it to be…different. But still us. Just like my stupid look.” He glanced at their reflection in the windowpane, their faces, one bemused, one sullen, two different casts from the same mold. They’d shaped themselves into two individual pieces and each other to a perfect fit; sometimes, Tom thought with a wry smile, with the force of hammer meeting anvil.

“What?” Bill asked snappishly, annoyed at the smirk.

“You should’ve told me earlier,” Tom said, allowing the reprimand to shine through his light tone. “I’ll help, we’ll figure it out together.”

Bill flushed, struck. “There was never enough time,” he said apologetically. “Not for serious songwriting. Not for serious anything.”

“Since when are we ever serious?”

Bill kicked at Tom’s shin. “And I’m definitely not taking fashion advice from you. I’m not that desperate.” He blew at a black strand of hair that fell into his face. “I just wish I knew what to do with this, what to change while staying consistent enough to--”

“Consistent!” Tom snorted. “You’re the most fickle person I know.” He flashed his brother a lopsided grin when Bill stuck out his studded tongue.

“Am not!”

“Are too. And it’s unnatural for you to have been so consistent for so long. It’s not healthy.” He thumped Bill’s back, making up his mind on the spot. “Who cares what people think? They can’t expect you to stay fifteen forever.” To their adoring fans, Bill might not even seem human most of the time, more like a half-god, descended from the heavens to remain forever beautiful and unchanged. But Tom knew better, knew his little brother inside and out like a person could only know another by sharing every living moment together, from the very beginnings, and he knew that Bill needed change, evolution, revolution, like air to breathe. He was never meant to be frozen in time, in pictures, to be stuck on the wall or on a pedestal, unmoving, dead. Bill was so full of life, always in motion, and Tom wouldn’t let other people’s agendas stop him.

If Bill needed a hand to hold, to hold him back, it would be Tom’s. They had been each other’s whole world, once upon a time, and they would be again when all was said and done. “What are you even scared of?” he demanded. “No matter what you do, I’ll always...” He huffed. He hated it when he had to be so explicit. Bill should know all this. “If we go, we’ll go together,” he finally quoted. “Remember? Even if you decide that the way to go is to…dye your hair pink! I’d still stand by you.”

“After you’d told me that I look ridiculous and you hate it.” But Bill was smiling now. “I don’t like pink.”

“Whatever,” Tom shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something soon enough.”

“But what?” Bill wondered. “It’s all been done. There isn’t a thing you could invent that hasn’t already been tried. Here, if not anywhere else.” He kicked his bare feet, frustrated. “Maybe… Do you think all this,” he flung out his arm in a gesture that could’ve meant their clothes, the room, the whole glittering world below them, “could have been a phase? Something we’re growing out of?”

“Not the music,” Tom said instantly. “Not the larger scheme of things. Just…the little details, maybe. Like the look.” He shrugged. “You’ve been wearing a Halloween costume for over ten years. Maybe it’s time to retire it?”

“Maybe.” Bill tapped his lower lip pensively with one long finger, unsure as he hardly ever got. “But if I do…what’s left?”

“You,” Tom said simply.

Bill snorted. “A me that looks a whole lot like you. And then what?”

Tom cocked his head. “Then what? I don’t know. We could confuse the hell out of Georg?”

Bill laughed. “It’s really too bad that we only met Georg after our identical phase. We could’ve had such fun.”

There was a pregnant pause; the pair looked at each other speculatively for a long minute, studying each other’s eyes, noses, lips, so familiar, so very similar. “You think…?” they started at the same time, and broke off, laughing.

“We still could,” Tom chuckled. “Question is, do we want to.”

“There used to be a time when I wanted nothing more than to be different than you,” Bill admitted quietly, gently, as if the words could cut and hurt if they were spoken without care. “It doesn’t seem to matter so much now.”

“I doesn’t,” Tom agreed. There’d been a time when they’d needed a lot of space, craved distance between them even as they pulled at each other like magnets, inseparable. The hair, the clothes, the makeup - it’d felt good to be different, to be at odds on the outside so they could remain as they were on the inside, reassured of their own individuality by their small acts of rebellion. They’d been silly kids, but they’d done it right, instinctively: raised barriers that could be broken down again as easily as a snip of scissors or a long hot shower that washed away the dye and paint. The things that mattered had remained, even as they each figured out who they were and how they wanted to be and if their hopes and dreams were as diametrically opposed as everyone thought they would be.

As it had turned out, fifteen years after Tom had first donned the baggy pants of protest, they weren’t: he and Bill still wanted the same, wanted to be the same, and it wasn’t scary now, it wasn’t inhibiting, it was right.

“I wish,” Bill said with sudden fervor, “I wish the outside would match the inside again.”

Tom tilted his head, amused. “What would that look like, then?”

Sighing, Bill fell backwards on the bed and stretched his arms over his head. “Tired,” he yawned, “but okay. A little stressed out, but happy, mostly. Lazy. Oooh, I really want to be lazy for a while.”

Tom lay back beside his twin and dangled his feet over the edge of the bed. It was too short for him or Bill, he’d keep waking up with cold feet sticking out from under the blanket, he just knew it. He shifted to put his arms behind his head again and bumped into Bill’s side. “Lazy,” he muttered appreciatively. “Okay. What sort of style is ‘lazy’?”

“Yours,” Bill teased.

“You’d look stupid with dreadlocks,” Tom pointed out.

“I know, I’d look like you,” his brother shot back. “Although…”

Tom tilted his head just in time to see the flicker of an idea appear in Bill’s eyes. “What?”

Bill’s laugh was slightly maniacal, which always heralded a particularly terrifying plan. “I was just thinking of getting a new, drastic haircut.” His smile was cheeky and just slightly frightening. “And wondering if you’d come along and get one too?”

“Drastic?” Tom asked warily. “It’s you with the identity crisis, not me!”

“Aw, Tom!” If Bill hadn’t been dead set on his impulsive plan before, Tom’s doubtfulness was sure to have cemented the idea in his mind. Bill clapped his hands excitedly. “It’ll be fun! When was the last time we got our hair done together?”

“When we were six,” Tom reminded him, deeply doubtful. “Mom cut our fringes too short and we looked like idiots.”

“Well, obviously we’re seeing a professional,” Bill snorted, as if the mere suggestion of some amateur hairdresser touching his head was affronting.

“You are.”

“Toooom!” Bill whined. “Think of Georg’s face when he sees us!”

Tom took a moment to contemplate their bassist’s reaction to a truly shocking makeover and had to grin.

Bill must’ve read his thoughts: he propped himself up on one elbow to lean over his twin and stared into Tom’s eyes as if convinced that he had suddenly developed a talent for hypnosis. “Imagine,” he said prayerfully in a hushed voice, “all the pranks we could pull off again if we looked alike.”

The city smog must’ve gotten to him; Tom was starting to see the merits of the idea. Quickly, before he could be lured into big decisions, he shoved at his all-too-persuasive twin, breaking eyecontact. “Let’s not do anything rash,” he protested, reaching up instinctively to fiddle with his coarse locks. “And besides, it’s too late to find a hairdresser today.” Sleeping on the plan seemed like a good idea.

Bill pouted for a moment, then rolled over on his stomach, twisted around till he could reach the notepad and pen on the nightstand that the hotel had provided and clicked the pen much like a movie cowboy would cock his gun. “Okay,” he said, all business in an instant, “but I have to do something. Get your guitar, we’re writing a song.”

“Now?” Tom peered at his twin’s eager face. Just staying here, on the nice, soft bed, with the rain drumming against the window and Bill warm at his side, seemed much more appealing than actual hard work, but he could see from Bill’s determined expression that he wouldn’t be swayed. Bill always got his way; for a twin, he was an oddly spoiled brat, Tom thought fondly, and made a big show of climbing to his feet with a groan to get the guitar.

When he returned to the bed, Bill had outlined his plan on the notepad: Write song was in spot number one, Makeover was in spot number two, and the usual top priority, World domination, had slipped down to spot number three. Bill was bouncing on the mattress, grinning madly and rubbing his hands like an evil mastermind.

Tom strummed his guitar once. “What sort of song are we writing?”

Bill shrugged. “Anything, really,” he said, smiling. “It’s just for us, for now.”

Tom returned the smile. They hadn’t done that in a long time, written without anyone breathing down their necks, without consideration of what anyone else wanted, without anyone butting in. He strummed the guitar again, his gaze wandering from his twin’s gleeful face across the room, catching on the furniture here and there before drifting out the window, into the night.

Silently, he got up once more to switch off the lights; the room was plunged into darkness, save for the faint, hazy glow from the never-resting city. Up here, on top of the world, the night was still and calm. The rain had stopped.

“I was thinking,” Bill whispered into the darkness, breath warm on Tom’s cheek, “something mellow. Quiet. But not sad. Something hopeful. Sort of like Monsoon. If, you know, we had actually written all of it.”

The contours of Bill’s face were soft in the dim light, shadows hiding the sharp angles of his too-thin adult features and, for a moment, Tom felt like they were kids again, hiding away together under the blankets at night. For all he cared, he thought, the world outside could spin on without them for a while. They’d catch up again when they were ready. He grinned. “Remember…?”

“In our old room, under the roof at home? Yeah.” Bill laughed softly, and Tom knew they understood each other, still. Their first songs, a mess of jumbled thoughts, murmurs in the darkness that no one else had ever heard. Maybe it was time to pull them out again and finally piece them together: the core of them, the important things remained, timeless, unchanged by fame and fortune.

Smiling, Tom began to pluck the strings at random, letting the rhythm of his own heartbeat and Bill’s even breaths guide his pace until a pattern emerged, a fragile new melody that blended with the quiet words Bill whispered into the darkness, remnants of old and pieces of new ideas coming together to form a new whole.

Neither of them slept that night. Neither of them minded.