Fic: Quarantine, Tokio Hotel gen, rated PG

[peki]

Some of you were interested in seeing this one :) Enjoy.

Title: Quarantine
Genre: band gen, total fluff
Rating: PG
Summary: Bill is down with the swine flu. The others take care of him.
A/N: Dedicating this one to sashimi_salad, who offered to send cookies in exchange for fic. :) It's the closest I've come to being paid for my writing, so thank you! I will totally write for cookies.


“Let me go now!”

Georg dug his heels into the carpet and held on tight to Tom’s arm. “I know this goes against your every instinct,“ he grunted with the effort of wrestling down their struggling guitarist, “but the doctor said to avoid physical contact. Don’t go in there at all if you can help it.”

“But I can’t help it!” Tom cried, and he looked so wretchedly upset that Georg couldn’t keep fighting him; reluctantly, he let Tom go.

Gustav cleared his throat. “Please listen, Tom. We gave him the medicine, we covered him in cool packs, now he needs to sleep it off, nothing you can do to make the flu go away quicker.”

“But I can’t just leave him all alone, you know how he is, he’ll feel better if someone’s around to pamper him.” Tom chewed on his lip in agitation.

Gustav shook his head. “You’ll just catch what he has.”

“I don’t mind!”

The twins, Georg thought, seemed to see it as an act of solidarity to be ill together, and usually they showed symptoms within hours of each other. This time, though, Bill had fallen ill while Tom had apparently missed the memo that swine flu was the in thing to have, and now Gustav and Georg had to deal with a feverish, highly contagious singer and his neurotic, but otherwise healthy brother, who was insisting on spending every waking minute by his twin’s bedside against the doctor’s strict orders.

“People have died of this,” Tom said gloomily, in a very small voice.

Georg heaved a sigh. It was just their luck that Bill couldn’t have contracted swine flu at home in Hamburg, which would’ve made far more sense anyway than catching it in a tiny country town, but then again, nothing Bill ever did made much sense at first glance. They’d just have to deal. At least they could all look out for each other while they were cooped up in the studio.

He patted Tom’s shoulder reassuringly. “Bill isn’t going to die while you’re not there,” he told Tom. “He’s way too stubborn, he’d hold on until we’re all with him for maximum dramatics.”

Tom glared. Apparently, he didn’t like flippant remarks about his baby brother’s dramatic demise.

Georg smiled sheepishly. “Come on, we need you for rehearsals. We want the concerts to be perfect, don’t we.”

Tom opened his mouth as if to argue some more, then closed it again and frowned. Georg knew that Tom hated having to be the reasonable one, but it was his role more often than not and right now, Georg was counting on Tom’s sense of responsibility and sheer neurosis.

If one sick Kaulitz was annoying, two would be hell. They did not need that so close to their first concert. “Tell you what.” He slapped Tom’s shoulder. “You go downstairs and practice and I’ll pop in and see if Bill needs anything. Okay?”

Tom looked wounded, as if he found the suggestion highly offensive. “Why can you go in and I can’t?”

“Because I’m not going to be tempted to crawl into bed with him to cuddle, no matter what he says,” Georg pointed out. “I’ll stay far away. You’re too soft.”

Tom’s earlobes, which were peeking out from under his bandana, turned bright red. “Am not.”

“You so are,” Gustav snorted. “Go on, practice. I’m going to make some veggie soup.” Georg and Tom turned to stare at the drummer, who shrugged. “My mom’s recipe. It’s an instant cure. Lots of vitamins.”

“Vegetables?” Tom asked doubtfully. “He’s not going to eat it.”

“Let me worry about that,” Gustav suggested. He twirled a potato peeler between his fingers like a drumstick. “Go on. Georg, don’t forget to wash your hands when you get out of there.”

Reluctantly, Tom shuffled off towards the door. “Georg, ask him…see if he…find out if…no, tell him I… Oh, fuck, I hate this.” His sneakers thudded heavily on the stairs as he went down to the studio. Even Tom’s footfalls sounded morose. In spirit, at least, he was suffering as much as his twin.

Gustav sighed. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Nodding, Georg knocked softly on the door behind which their sick singer was hopefully resting. It wasn’t a coincidence that the letters I-L-L made up three quarters of Bill’s name: when Bill got ill, he got ill. “Bill?” Georg whispered, inching the door open to peer into the room. The curtains were drawn, the room was dim, and on the bed, a shapeless lump was whimpering pitifully. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Hnngh,” the lump made, which was, at least, an improvement. When Georg had inquired that morning, Bill had hurled. “I think I’m dying.” The blankets moved, and then a pale, gaunt face peeked out between the covers. Georg almost smiled. The boy could bring women and men alike to their knees with one smoldering look, but right now, he looked like nothing more than a sick puppy.

Georg grabbed a spoon and a bottle from the nightstand and shook it. “You need to take some more of your medicine.”

Bill made a low, keening noise of suffering. “No! I don’t want it, it tastes gross.” He turned wide, glossy eyes on Georg. “Why are you torturing me? Where’s Tom? I want Tom.”

“Tom is rehearsing downstairs,” Georg said. “Please take your medicine, Bill.”

“Why’s he rehearsing?” Bill whined. “He’s supposed to take care of me!”

“The doctor said we weren’t supposed to get too close to you.”

Bill pouted. “Then why are you allowed to be here?”

The pair really did have a psychic connection; Georg believed it. “Because Tom is putty in your hands.”

Bill sniffled wetly like a toddler about to burst into tears, and Georg actually found himself wanting to reach out and pat the singer on the head, or worse. He clutched the medicine bottle and brandished the spoon like it was a cross and he was a vampire hunter facing the undead. “Geooooooorg,” Bill made, “I feel awful.”

“I know. Take some more of your medicine,” Georg tried.

Bill’s dejected look should be illegal. It was a weapon, almost physically painful to endure. “No. I don’t want the icky medicine, it’s gross and it doesn’t even make me feel better and if I take it you’ll just go away and leave me again and I’m so lonely but you’re all too busy to take care of me and I just want to be cuddled.” Two skinny arms reached out from under the blankets that Georg and Gustav had piled on top of Bill that morning, after they’d managed to lock Tom in the bathroom, out of harm’s way. “Georg, cuddle me.”

“I can’t, Bill,” Georg sighed. “We can’t afford to all get ill, it’s too close to the tour.”

“Argh!” Bill pulled the blankets over his head, disappearing like a wounded animal into its cave. “You’re mean,” his muffled voice came through the down covers. “Why does no one love me?”

“That’s not true,” Georg argued, but he was sure it’d do no good: when Bill was determined to sulk, he sulked.

Predictably, no answer came from the sick lump of lead singer under the downs.

“I’ll be in the studio,” Georg sighed. He put the medicine bottle back on the nightstand and left, unsuccessful, to deliver the news to Tom in the rehearsal room.

“So?” the guitarist asked when Georg came stumbling over the threshold.

“He’s whining, so I think he’s better,” Georg reported, “but he wouldn’t take the antibiotics.”

Tom stopped strumming his guitar. “See, this is why I have to do everything myself!”

Georg threw up his hands. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Force him!”

“How?” Georg asked. “He said I was mean for even asking. He said no one loved him.”

Tom set aside his guitar to focus the full force of his annoyance on Georg. “That’s bullshit and he knows it! Ignore him!”

Ignoring Bill was as impossible as ignoring a tornado sweeping through one’s living room - looking away just didn’t help, it still sucked you in, turned you upside down and then spit you out again, breathless and dazed. “How?”

“Put in your autograph session earplugs,” Tom suggested.

“Like you always do?” Georg said sarcastically. “Oh please. You would’ve given in to him the second he squeezed out the first tear.”

Tom scowled. “At least I would’ve forced the medicine on him before I did.”

“How was I supposed to do that? Pin him and pour it down his throat?”

Tom looked at him as if that should be obvious. “If you had to.”

“We can’t do that!” Georg felt faintly scandalized, as if Tom had suggested forcing some horrible medical experiment on a cute little puppy. He shook his head. They all felt so protective towards Bill, when it was really them who needed protecting from his siren’s charm. He had them all whipped and running around like idiots just because he was ill. “Can we do that?”

“Watch me.” Before Georg could stop him, Tom was out of his chair, on the stairs and up at the apartment door, walking straight towards the forbidden room in which Bill was quarantined.

“Tom--”

But Tom had already barged in. “I drove to three different pharmacies to get you the raspberry flavored medicine that you just had to have,” he barked at his twin. “Take it now!”

Georg recoiled from the germs he imagined flying through the air as Tom pulled the blankets off Bill to reveal Bill’s face, pale and sickly, but smiling faintly with satisfaction. “Hey!” Bill cooed happily. “There you are!”

“Yeah. I interrupted my practice session for you,” Tom glared down at him.

Bill was unfazed. If anything, his expression became even more smug. “Well, now that you’re here, you might as well cuddle me!”

Tom threw a quick, sheepish glance at Georg. “No.”

“But I’m ill and I need you to be nice to me. Why won’t anyone be nice to me?” Bill whined.

“Because you’re a pain,” Tom informed him. “Take the antibiotics. Now.”

“You’re mean,” Bill complained. “Georg, he’s mean.”

“I asked nicely, but you wouldn’t take your medicine,” Georg told him. “Sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“But you can help me.” Tom snatched the medicine bottle and spoon and advanced threateningly on his twin. “Sit on his stomach and hold his nose.”

Bill shrieked hoarsely and pulled the blankets up over his face. “You wouldn’t dare make him sit on me! You wouldn’t!”

“Oh yes I will!” Tom snapped. “Georg, come on.”

“Er,” Georg said, undecided whether to laugh or stab himself with the germ-infested spoon. “Are you sure I should sit on him? He’s so skinny, he might break.”

“He won’t,” Tom said ruthlessly, “I’ve tried.”

Georg dithered.

“Georg!” Tom groaned. “Oh, fine. I’ll just do it myself.”

“No!” Bill shrieked as his brother flung himself at the bed. “No, no, no!” He rolled over and off the bed, coughing painfully as he hit the floor and above him, Tom crashed face-first into the abandoned mattress.

“Dammit, Bill!” Tom shouted, wrestling with the sheets and surfacing, red-faced and panting. “Come here!”

“No!” Bill howled, scrambling to his feet in an attempt to make a mad dash for the door, but even if he didn’t remember that he was ill, his wobbly legs did: they gave out under him two steps away from the bed, and Bill went down again with an angry wail, collapsing neatly into Tom’s waiting arms.

Tom sat back hard on the rug before the bed, gasping with the impact, but he didn’t let go of his brother. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”

Bill sobbed once and curled in on himself, pressing his fever-pink cheek against Tom’s shoulder. His hands fisted in his twin’s t-shirt, all resistance forgotten. “I want to die,” he whimpered. “Put me out of my misery.”

Tom curled his hand around the back of Bill’s neck, stroking his thumb over the silly tattoo there. “You can’t die,” he informed him, “because then I’ll die.”

Bill tilted his head back to rest in the crook of Tom’s arm. “I don’t want you to die,” he croaked.

“Good, because I don’t think we can leave Georg and Gustav to fend for themselves, they need us. Imagine if they actually had to speak.”

“Uhhhhoooh,” was Bill’s opinion on that.

“Why don’t you go back to bed?” Tom suggested gently.

Bill moaned into his brother’s t-shirt. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Tom hugged his twin tight, the frown lines on his face finally easing as he held Bill close. He rubbed his cheek against the top of Bill’s wild head of hair in a manner that suggested he didn’t want to leave him alone either. Georg sighed. Tom was contaminated all over and Georg had probably breathed in enough nasty flu particles to get ill, too; the only one who was still safe was Gustav, but even though Gustav was a great drummer, he couldn’t very well play the concerts alone. They might as well just give in to the inevitable.

“Why don’t you come down with us?” he asked. “If you can sleep through fan hysteria outside the tour bus, you can sleep on the couch in the rehearsal room while we play.”

Bill peeked out at him through Tom’s braids, which were falling over both the twins’ faces like a cheap bead curtain. “Oh, can I?”

“Sure,” Georg smiled. He grabbed the pillow and duvet off Bill’s bed, which smelled strongly of VapoRub. Fuck the flu. They were a band; ill or not, they belonged together in the rehearsal room. “I’ll go make a bed for you, okay? Tom can help you downstairs.”

Bill smiled happily and nodded against Tom’s shoulder, then promptly closed his eyes and relaxed back into his brother’s arms. Georg shuffled backwards out the door, the fluffy white king-sized duvet gathered to his chest like an enormous menthol-flavored creampuff. The last thing he heard as he passed over the threshold was, “Don’t think you don’t still have to take the antibiotics!” and Georg quickly fled towards the kitchen to inform Gustav of their change in plans.

“We’re all going to get ill.” Gustav’s face emerged from a cloud of steam that was uncurling from a big pot on the stove, his glasses fogged up. He took them off and polished them with his sleeve. “We’ll have to postpone the concerts. The fans will cry. David will be pissed.”

Georg shrugged. “Remember when we all had scarlet fever together?”

Gustav smirked slowly. The studio apartment still bore the marks of those memorable weeks; the maid never had been able to get those mysterious stains out of the carpet. “Good times.”

“Yeah,” Georg grinned. “So let’s just not worry about it, the paranoia is stupid.”

“Oh well.” Gustav peered into his pot. He stirred once with neat precision. “I made enough soup to last us for a week, so at least we won’t starve.”

“That’s the spirit,” Georg laughed, and proceeded downstairs with his duvet cloud. When he returned to the twins’ room, he found Tom sitting on the edge of Bill’s bed, patiently feeding Bill spoonfuls of ice cream.

“He was supposed to eat Gustav’s soup,” Georg said. “I can’t imagine this is healthy.”

“Shut up, Georg,” Tom said roughly. “It takes unorthodox methods.” He scooped up the last bit of ice cream from the carton, then grabbed the small bottle off the nightstand and poured raspberry flavored medicine over it to create an antibiotic sundae.

“Yummy,” Bill commented after swallowing it down obediently. He was still hoarse from coughing through the night, but he sounded not nearly as weak as he had that morning, and some color had returned to his cheeks.

Tom turned to look at Georg triumphantly.

“You need health food,” Georg persisted, ignoring the madness before him. “Gustav made that soup just for you.”

“Really? Just for me?” Bill seemed to like that thought, if not the soup itself.

“Yeah, just for you,” the drummer’s gruff voice came from the door. Gustav was holding a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and looking tentatively grumpy, which Gustav always did when he tried and failed to seem completely unbothered by his efforts going unnoticed.

Bill looked at the soup, then at the drummer’s wary face, and suddenly broke into a wide smile. It was a far cry from his usual, dazzling, perfect grin; just the goofy expression he wore when there were no cameras around and he wasn’t worrying about his makeup or his mouth being too large or an interviewer asking yet another moronic question. It was the rare smile he reserved for the people he loved: his band mates, who he considered brothers. “Thank you, Gustav,” he squeaked happily. “I already feel better just looking at it.”

Gustav stared at him with the faintest notion of surprise tugging at his impassive features. “Does that mean you’ll actually try it?”

Bill squirmed, bouncing up and down on the mattress. “What did you put in there?”

“Vegetables,” Gustav said.

Bill peered at the bowl. “Cauliflower?”

“No.”

“Broccoli?”

“No. Seriously, Bill, I have known you for a while,” Gustav pointed out.

“Right,” Bill said sheepishly. “Can I eat it downstairs? I want to get there before Georg changes his mind.”

Laughing, Georg helped Tom help him up, and together, they dragged their moaning, whining singer down the stairs, Gustav following after them with the soup. In the rehearsal room, Bill fell back on the couch, looking as sweaty and exhausted as if he’d just played a marathon gig under glaring stage lights before twenty thousand fans, in a venue with no air conditioning.

Tom tucked the duvet over him. “Happy now?”

“Yeah.” Now that he had his wish, Bill was already dozing off within a minute of his ass hitting the couch. He yawned widely, his eyes drifting shut. “Play for me,” he murmured, waving his hand vaguely at the others. “Play World Behind My Wall.”

“Soup!” Gustav insisted. He nudged Bill until the singer scooted over a little, complaining of Gustav taking up too much space. Gustav sat down on the edge of the couch and began to feed Bill veggie soup as Georg and Tom took their customary seats in the small circle of chairs in the middle of the room. They took up their acoustic instruments, and the first quiet notes of the new song filled the silent studio.

“Sleep.” The word was barely more than a whisper falling from Tom’s lips, a caress that travelled with the gentle melody. “Maybe when you wake up, you can sing again.”

“Hmm,” Bill made. His eyes were closed; there was no way of telling whether it was the soup that elicited the blissful sound, the soft music or the coziness of being wrapped up in the love and care of his friends. A bit of each, Georg supposed. “This is nice.”

Bill was probably the only person who found being down with the swine flu nice, but then, Bill tended to like strange things, such as manicures and glitter and Tom’s godawful cooking.

“There’s only one thing missing,” Bill continued with relish. He cracked open his eyes and held out his arms. “Gustav, cuddle me.”

Gustav threw a despairing look at his bandmates, but when no one came to his aid, he seemed to resign himself to his fate. “Oh hell,” he said, reaching out to enfold Bill in his arms. “Okay.”

Bill hummed happily, closed his eyes and fell asleep without any more fuss to the sound of guitars playing and Gustav’s heart thumping a steady beat under his cheek. Gustav curled around him as best he could on the couch, pillowing Bill’s head against his chest, his callused hand coming to rest against the singer’s forehead.

“I think the fever’s going down,” he whispered.

“Good.” Tom nodded at him once, grateful. “I’ll take over in a minute, okay?”

“Nah,” Gustav murmured. “I’ve got him.”