(no subject)
Title: The Bubble 3/3
Pairings: Bill/OMC Bill/Tom
Rating: NC17
Summary: Bill can't see what's in front of him.
Warnings: Unbetad. OMC. Violence. Non-con(?) Angst.
Ch1 Ch2
This chapter is dedicated to the lovely kokamo for This utterly beautiful piece of companion artwork for The Bubble.
Tom’s fingers had distorted Bill’s T-shirt permanently. It was lucky for Tom that it had long been earmarked for night-time and lounge wearing, or he might have been in trouble. He wasn’t crying any longer but he couldn’t force himself to let go.
Bill’s hands were still moving, still running through Tom’s hair and over his shoulders, down his back. Bill hummed a faint nonsense as he stroked, waiting for Tom to calm down. Tom still shook in Bill’s arms, although as much out of embarrassment as sadness. The hum died and Tom’s shaking seemed to still with a steadying breath.
“I can’t believe myself,” Tom whispered after a few moments. “I’m sitting here crying, like this is something that happened to me. I’m so selfish.”
“It happened to you,” Bill said softly. “We’re twins. What happens to me… you love me, right?”
“I love you more than anything,” Tom said before he could curb himself. Bill smiled fondly and flicked his hair out of the way, shuffling down to lay his head on Tom’s shoulder.
“That’s why you came,” Bill whispered. “You saved me.”
“Just,” Tom whispered.
“Just nothing,” Bill argued. “You keep me safe.”
“I let him get so far, though,” Tom said, unable to let the topic go, unable to let Bill think of him as a rescuer, as a hero. “I didn’t stop him touching you. I should have, but I’ve been so busy pushing you away…”
Bill pulled back sharply. “Tom. Stop it,” Bill said irritably. “I’m right here!”
Tom held him closer, wrapping his arms around his brother and breathing him in.
“I was so scared,” he murmured, “and jealous.”
“Jealous?” Bill asked, stiffening in Tom’s arms.
“You’re mine, Bill,” Tom said, so tired now that the words came without conscious intervention. “You’re my brother. I want you to myself,” he said, shaking with wry laughter that might have tried to imply he was joking. It failed. Bill wasn’t moving in Tom’s arms. Tom could feel shaky breaths against his neck. He tightened his brow and pressed a firm kiss to Bill’s temple.
“I’m as bad as him, aren’t I?” Tom gritted out, dropping Bill and wrestling himself free, making for the door.
“Wait, Tom!”
Tom couldn’t resist the plaintive tone, the urge to turn around. Bill was kneeling on the bed, braced on one hand while the other reached out toward his retreating brother.
“Please don’t leave me,” Bill begged.
Tom didn’t know how he would comfort Bill. How could he walk back to the bed and take the hand that reached out to him? He froze, unable to leave, to refuse his brother’s plea, unable to touch his brother again, to betray him with suspicious touches.
Bill let his hand drop slowly, sitting back on his heels and averting his gaze.
“I’m disgusting, aren’t I?” Bill whimpered.
“Bill, you’re not…”
“I wanted him to touch me.”
Tom closed his eyes and cringed.
“You see,” Bill whispered, the crack in his heart reflecting in his voice. “I’m not who you think I am.”
Tom didn’t want to stay. He felt sick, his head pounded.
But Bill had asked him to stay.
…
When the twins were eight years old, they fell out. They argued all the time; that was what brothers did. But it was usually Bill who pitched the fit. This time it was Tom. He knew, absolutely knew, that he never wanted to see Bill again.
Tom had stomped off into the garden and started to build a fort. He put it together out of whatever he could find: bits of the fence their step dad had taken down the previous month, the big piece of card he would lie on when he was fixing the car and the blanket their mother would throw over the neighbourhood cats when they fought in the garden. He gathered the bits and pieces and started to prop them against each other, building angrily and determinedly.
After an hour or so, Bill came out to watch. He kicked the grass, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, as Tom huffed around, getting things how he wanted them.
“What ‘choo makin’?” Bill asked in the deliberately cutesy voice that got him whatever he wanted for Christmas. Tom didn’t answer and Bill, unperturbed, asked him twice more, in just the same tone, before Tom gave in.
“I’m making a fort,” Tom said irritably. “I’m making Fort NoBill and no Bills are allowed in it.”
Bill pouted a little harder and nodded in understanding. He kicked the last blades of grass from the small patch of earth before his toes and shrugged to himself before turning around and going back inside.
Another hour passed, and Bill returned, bringing Tom out a Daim bar and a squat bottle of banana milkshake. He left them on the edge of their mother’s rock garden and, without a word, went back to the house. Tom knew he hadn’t been sent; chocolate wasn’t permitted, this close to dinnertime.
Forty-five minutes later, Tom was finished. He wiped the sweat off his face with the edge of his shirt and admired his handiwork. He heard the crunching of autumn leaves as Bill made his nervous way up to him.
“I made you a sign,” Bill whispered. He reached out, his hand emerging from behind Tom’s back, holding a piece of off-white card with ‘Fort No Bill’ scrawled across it in felt tip.
Tom smiled fondly and put the sign up in front of his little fort. Then he turned away from it and started to walk back toward his brother, who wore a curious expression.
Tom shrugged.
“If Bills can’t go in, I’m not going in,” he explained.
Bill grinned, screwing his nose up with pleasure.
Tom grinned and extended his hand. Bill slid his hand into Tom’s and Tom guided them back toward the house, where their dinner would shortly be ready.
Behind them, the fort slid sideways and slowly collapsed in on itself.
…
They didn’t speak again for almost an hour. Bill lay on the bed, curled into himself, facing the wall. Tom sat in the chair at the other side of the room, running his hands over his head again and again.
Finally, it was Tom who broke the silence.
“I wanted to kill him,” he said. “And I’m not just saying that. The minute you started to give him things I couldn’t have. The minute he put his hands on my baby brother, I wanted to hurt him. Maybe I’m not the person you think I am.”
“Why?” Bill didn’t turn away from the wall.
“I told you,” Tom said clearly. “You’re mine,” he added in a whisper.
“I wanted him to touch me.”
“I know, Bill,” Tom replied testily.
“I wanted to like it,” Bill added without defence. “I wanted it to feel right. That’s normal, right? It’s normal to want to touch, to be touched.” Tom looked up. Bill’s shoulders were shaking. “It’s normal. You’re supposed to feel something,” Bill went on. “Other than guilt.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tom said. Bill stiffened, as if he had forgotten that Tom was still in the room.
“No,” Bill said. “I keep making excuses, but I teased him. I did. I used him; trying to convince myself I wanted it. The only time I could take his kisses, enjoy his touches, was if I closed my eyes and let myself think of someone else. Someone I can’t have. And for a while, I thought that might be an excuse, too. But… I do want to be touched.”
Tom closed his eyes tightly.
“You’re in love?”
“I’m in love.”
Tom jumped to his feet, kicking his chair over with a clatter. He saw Bill jerk, curling harder in upon himself. Tom wanted to throw up..
“Is it Andreas?”
Bill was silent and Tom’s stomach dropped through the floor. He pulled his eyes up from the floor and saw Bill’s head shaking slowly.
“Is it someone in the band?”
“Please don’t ask,” Bill pleaded.
“Is it Georg?” Tom asked, ignoring his request.
“Just don’t ask,” Bill repeated.
“He’s straight, Bill,” Tom said. Bill stayed silent. “I know you’ve always been… close to him. But… you can’t…” he stopped as he heard Bill laughing humourlessly.
“Georg would do anything I asked,” Bill pointed out. “And he’s not that straight.” Tom opened his mouth to reply but Bill cut him off. “And it’s not Georg. I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
Tom sighed so long and so hard his head went light.
“You always said you could tell me anything.”
“Tom.”
“I’m sorry I pushed you away,” Tom argued. “I’m sorry I shoved you so hard you can’t even talk to me anymore. I’m so sorry, I can’t even tell you.”
Bill huffed and turned over, starting as he saw how close Tom had come, standing above him and looking down on his precious baby brother.
“I pushed you just as hard,” Bill protested. “I love you more than anything, but I can’t let you get near me. You don’t want to know the things that happen in my mind.”
“I do, though,” Tom argued. “I want to know. I want to know everything. It doesn’t matter what it is.” He reached down and drew his fingers slowly across Bill’s cheek. Bill closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, sighing against Tom’s palm. Tom didn’t move his hand, but lowered himself to sit beside his brother.
“Everything?” Bill asked. “Because anything would be too much.”
“It’s not Georg,” Tom said, reassuring himself. “And it’s not Wolfgang, is it?”
Bill shook his head, laughing faintly.
“It’s not a guessing game,” he admonished.
“It’s not a game,” Tom replied.
“Would you ever say no to me?” Bill asked suddenly.
“What’s the question?” Tom replied.
“Forgive me,” Bill added swiftly. “For being gay? For being wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Tom said, trying to remember how it felt to touch Bill with the bubble intact; trying to remember if it felt any different before. “And I don’t care if you’re gay. You can love who you want…”
Bill swallowed hard.
“I want my soulmate.”
Tom pulled his hand back and laid them together in his lap. Bill rolled away from him again.
“You had every right to say no,” Tom said firmly. “You always do.”
“Yeah,” Bill replied distantly.
Bill looked out into nothing, as he felt Tom’s weight leave the bed. He would let Tom leave this time, if that was what Tom wanted. He didn’t want to be alone, but he wouldn’t ask Tom to do anything for him. He knew Tom couldn’t say no to him and it wasn’t fair to press his own will on his brother. He wouldn’t be as bad as Theo.
Was Theo that bad, though? Had he really done all that much to Bill? It wasn’t like he’d come looming out of the bushes and dragged Bill into an alley to rape him. He had just misread the signals. And wasn’t Bill just as guilty of that?
He breathed heavily. He knew Tom hadn’t gone anywhere, that Tom was still standing beside the bed, waiting for the right thing to say. He didn’t know how to help. He rolled back toward Tom as he felt his brother shift, and pushed himself to sitting as Tom descended to sit on the floor.
For Tom, there were no right words. Nothing could have hurt him as badly as what Bill had just said. There was nothing worse than what Bill had just taken away from him. He might have broken the bubble, but Bill had ripped out his heart.
Bill was sitting, blinking out his headrush, his long legs kicking toward Tom. Tom shifted forward and caught a swinging ankle, holding Bill’s foot in the palm of his hand.
“You are my soulmate,” Tom said softly, running a thumb up the back of Bill’s ankle. Bill smiled sympathetically and tilted his head.
“Shame it can’t just be us, then,” Bill thought aloud.
Tom looked up, tilted his head the same way as Bill’s. Bill blinked at him, his toes curling above Tom’s wrist as Tom’s hand crept upward, his fingers squeezing Bill’s calf, settling around the back of his knee and tugging forward. Bill resisted for a moment before acceding, sliding off the bed to kneel before his brother, his knees outside of Tom’s. Tom’s hands sat on his waist and Bill leaned into the hug, resting his head on Tom’s shoulder. Tom leaned in, too, trapping Bill’s head between his cheek and his shoulder.
How long had they been in the room? Half a day? Tom was hungry and his whole body felt stiff. Bill’s phone pipped a message received tone from the other side of the room. Bill stiffened.
“I love you,” Tom whispered. Bill pulled back and caught Tom’s gaze.
“Would you ever say no to me?” Tom asked, his voice only audible to someone a breath away.
Bill blinked slowly.
“If you ever did anything I didn’t want you to do,” he said earnestly. “I’d stop you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Tom said. “I’d stop.”
Bill closed his eyes and sighed again. He rested his forehead against Tom’s and began to relax. That’s all he did, just relaxed, let his muscles relax until their noses bumped, their chins meeting a second before Bill’s breath hit Tom’s lips.
“Would you tell me to stop?” Bill whispered, his lips brushing Tom’s mouth.
Bill’s phone chirped again and Tom twitched, arching up half an inch and securing Bill’s lips, just holding still in the most chaste kiss he had ever given anyone.
He pulled away because it was important Bill knew.
“I love you,” was spoken so quietly that Bill had to lip-read. His reply, in kind, was even softer.
Tom arched again and this time his lips parted, pulling Bill’s with them, tasting the inside of Bill’s lips. Their breath was hot against them, strange against skin that was painted with dry tears. Their kisses were slow as Tom’s hands moved up Bill’s back, as Bill’s hands slid around his shoulders, up onto his neck, brushing his hairline. Tom felt Bill’s tongue make a careful slide across his lip.
“This is wrong,” he said without conviction, his hands tight around Bill’s shoulder blades, pulling Bill down into his lap. Bill nodded, his eyes barely open, spreading his legs wider so he could slide in close, straddling Tom, sitting in his lap like they’d been carved to fit together. “Stop?”
Bill opened his eyes and pulled back, arching an eyebrow as he tried to determine if Tom was pleading or just enquiring. He looked desperate.
“No,” Bill whispered. “Don’t.” He dipped, their lips brushing again, then paused. “Do you want to?” Bill asked. “To stop?”
Tom licked his lips, his lipring pressing forward so it kissed Bill before he did.
“No,” Tom said at last.
Bill devoured him, his hands screwing into the depths of Tom’s hair as he opened his mouth and thrust his tongue against Tom’s. Tom held him down, his hands around Bill’s shoulders, pressing them closer and closer, trying to push themselves back into one person. Tom shivered and sucked on bill’s tongue. His brother wanted him. Finally, after years of Tom pining away in his side of the bubble…
Tom gasped and Bill got what he wanted, pressing Tom down onto his back, gripping Tom’s hips with his thighs. Tom pulled away, his head hitting the mercifully thick carpet.
“How long?” he asked breathlessly. He didn’t need to tell Bill what he meant.
“How old are we?” Bill asked with a playful, vulnerable smile.
“Fuck,” Tom said, his fingers pressing into Bill’s neck. “How did I miss it?”
“You weren’t looking for this,” Bill explained. “You didn’t want to see it. You’re scared of it.”
Tom smile, meeting Bill’s lips softly again.
“Are we still talking about me?” he teased.
“Us?” Bill countered. “We’re similar, sometimes.” He smiled and set another hesitant kiss to Tom’s lips. It was almost too much for Tom. His beautiful brother, captured and willing, lying on top of him and humming acquiescence. Tom’s hand began to stroke down Bill’s back but stopped at his waist. He wanted to go further but he tensed, unable to be sure…
Bill made a frustrated sound and grabbed Tom’s hand, placing it firmly on the curve of his ass.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked patiently, lifting one hand from the carpet to rest on Tom’s collarbone. “I could never let anyone touch me because I’m meant for you. I’m yours.” Tom’s heart squeezed. “I’ll take what you give me, every piece of it, because there’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t want.”
Tom licked his lips, his gut boiling.
“That’s a lot of power,” he observed, sounding duly awestruck. “You’re offering me…”
“I’m not offering you anything,” Bill said. “I’m not even giving it to you. I’m telling you it’s yours. On your terms. Even if I have to share…”
“No!” Tom exclaimed, immediately knowing where Bill was headed. “Never. I don’t want that. I never did, really. I needed…something.”
Bill’s smile restored the light to Tom’s world. “What I want…” Tom went on, licking his lips again, “I want to take him off you. I want you to tell me where he touched you and make it like he never did.”
Bill kissed him gently and sat up; his hands shaking as he nervously pulled his shirt from his slight frame, peeling away layers that were no longer necessary.
Tom laid a still hand on the flat of Bill’s stomach and looked past him, over his shoulder, past the eager surrender of innocence, to the faint suggestion of a shimmering wall. The fingertips of the moon caught a multicoloured oil slick at Bill’s back. Tom pushed himself up on one hand, pulling Bill close with the other to plant soft kisses on his collarbone. Bill sighed, winding Tom’s hair into his hands, letting his head fall back as he succumbed to reality
“This is it,” he said to nobody.
“Right,” Tom agreed in a muffled affirmative. Bill’s fingers found Tom’s shirt and pulled, gathering it up in front of his hands and yanking upward. Tom laughed almost soundlessly and leaned back to help Bill strip him. They shared more breaths until Tom’s head went light. He huffed, annoyed at his own need for oxygen.
Bill was no better at staying still in the midst of passion than he was in an ordinary moment. He wriggled in Tom’s lap, his hands everywhere, all light, anxious touches and tickles, pressing into flesh and muscle under skin that was even paler than his own.
Bill was exploring him; taking his time to learn each inch, but his constant manoeuvring was rapidly making Tom quite hard. He sucked on Bill’s neck and felt the pulse racing beneath. He set his hands on Bill’s hips and felt a hardness pressing into his thigh, matching his own.
“Um,” he said anxiously, forcing himself to meet Bill’s curious gaze. “I’ve never been… with another guy… before.”
Bill dipped his head shyly.
“Thanks to you, neither have I,” he replied. Tom closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face.
“I’m never letting anyone else near you,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Okay,” Bill conceded, one eyebrow raised. “If you think you can cope with me all by yourself.”
“Oh, I can handle you,” Tom said cockily, playing into the tease. “Definitely.”
“If you were replacing his hands,” Bill said coyly. “He got further than this.”
“Then can I take you somewhere softer?” Tom replied. Bill nodded, finally resisting the curious gaze or the tilt of the head. He had just worked it out. Tom didn’t get it, not properly. Not yet. He needed to know he had permission, that Bill wanted to be lifted with a hand beneath his backside and pulled up so they were lying back on the bed. Tom needed to see confidence in Bill’s eyes as Tom laid a hand on his waistband and asked, “Is this okay?”
And Bill loved that he needed it, loved knowing he could call a halt at any moment, as soon as he felt uncomfortable. Not that he needed it. Tom kisses completed him, they melted him, sweeping away a taint Bill had been reluctant to allow and replacing it with a touch he was nothing if not ecstatic to receive.
Tom’s kisses grew in confidence but he kept to his promise of patience. Nothing happened without Bill’s express permission, from these first, hesitant touches to the moment they were naked and pressing together. They moved together above hastily pulled down jeans and they felt like kids again, twelve years old and playing wrestling games. Their aims were different now.
Bill shivered and grabbed at Tom, pre-empting his next request for permission with a desperate plea not to stop.
Tom didn’t.
Instead, he embraced his brother and kissed him high on his cheek, whispering reassurances to him as he rolled them onto their sides, telling Bill he loved him and that this was wonderful, this was it.
Bill wrapped himself up in Tom, long arms and legs surrounding him, clinging to him, capturing him as they moved together. It wasn’t even weird, though it should have been. It wasn’t strange for Tom to touch another man, a cock that wasn’t his own, to feel hard lines where he was used to softness, resistance where he had only known surrender. It wasn’t weird because it was Bill. Bill was an extension of himself. Bill wasn’t another man; he was another part of Tom. Touching Bill was the most divine form of masturbation.
Bill whimpered into Tom’s mouth, their knuckles brushing and colliding as each fought to bring the greatest pleasure to the other. Tom closed his eyes and buried his face in Bill’s neck as his climax approached. His ears were filled with Bill’s soft, surprised sighs, his mouth and nose with the taste, the scent of his brother. Tom could feel Bill’s racing heart pounding through his temple, into his bones and it felt like everything in the world was in his arms. He came apart praising unnamed gods for the completion of the circle.
The bubble wasn’t around them, now. As Bill cried out his name, crushing his cheek against Tom’s and stiffening into Tom’s embrace, Tom felt the bubble over their skin, winding them together, holding them close like a blanket tucked tightly around their limbs.
Tom held his brother, looser in the moments after, pressing his lips to Bill’s shoulder and listening to the shuddering breaths and tearful relief that ran through him rhythmically. The sun was rising over Bill’s shoulder and Tom watched it, unafraid of it, smiling into the soft, familiar skin that felt more natural to touch than his own.
“I want you to have me,” Bill said suddenly, his eyes closed against the weight of his blurted admission.
“I have you,” Tom replied quietly, running his fingers down Bill’s arm in a reassuring gesture.
“No,” Bill said, heavy eyes opening to meet Tom’s own. “I want you to…”
“I know,” Tom said, moving until his lips barely brushing his brother’s. “And I will. But not yet. We’re going to share everything, but it’s got to be forever. It’s going to be forever. I want to take this as it comes.”
“You’re sure?” Bill said. “Because if you ever change your mind…”
Tom didn’t even know what the rest of the sentence was.
“We are… inseparable,” he determined.
Bill sighed, a heavy breath between pursed lips, holding Tom’s gaze and quite obviously fighting any over-sensitive objection he could have produced. He smiled.
His face suddenly darkened.
“But you will,” he said, with mock fear. “You do want to?”
Tom rolled his eyes.
“I want to,” he said with an exaggerated leer. “And I definitely will.”
Bill settled, at last, into Tom’s arms, rolling partly onto his back. Tom reached for tissues, suddenly aware of their sticky reality. When he turned back, Bill had a hand stretched above them and was twisting his fingers. The sunlight was brightening and Tom could barely see the bubble, but he could make out the colours swirling around Bill’s fingertips.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. Bill smiled at him and let his hand fall back to Tom’s shoulder.
“Nothing,” Bill replied. “Just checking.”
The End.
Pairings: Bill/OMC Bill/Tom
Rating: NC17
Summary: Bill can't see what's in front of him.
Warnings: Unbetad. OMC. Violence. Non-con(?) Angst.
Ch1 Ch2
This chapter is dedicated to the lovely kokamo for This utterly beautiful piece of companion artwork for The Bubble.
Tom’s fingers had distorted Bill’s T-shirt permanently. It was lucky for Tom that it had long been earmarked for night-time and lounge wearing, or he might have been in trouble. He wasn’t crying any longer but he couldn’t force himself to let go.
Bill’s hands were still moving, still running through Tom’s hair and over his shoulders, down his back. Bill hummed a faint nonsense as he stroked, waiting for Tom to calm down. Tom still shook in Bill’s arms, although as much out of embarrassment as sadness. The hum died and Tom’s shaking seemed to still with a steadying breath.
“I can’t believe myself,” Tom whispered after a few moments. “I’m sitting here crying, like this is something that happened to me. I’m so selfish.”
“It happened to you,” Bill said softly. “We’re twins. What happens to me… you love me, right?”
“I love you more than anything,” Tom said before he could curb himself. Bill smiled fondly and flicked his hair out of the way, shuffling down to lay his head on Tom’s shoulder.
“That’s why you came,” Bill whispered. “You saved me.”
“Just,” Tom whispered.
“Just nothing,” Bill argued. “You keep me safe.”
“I let him get so far, though,” Tom said, unable to let the topic go, unable to let Bill think of him as a rescuer, as a hero. “I didn’t stop him touching you. I should have, but I’ve been so busy pushing you away…”
Bill pulled back sharply. “Tom. Stop it,” Bill said irritably. “I’m right here!”
Tom held him closer, wrapping his arms around his brother and breathing him in.
“I was so scared,” he murmured, “and jealous.”
“Jealous?” Bill asked, stiffening in Tom’s arms.
“You’re mine, Bill,” Tom said, so tired now that the words came without conscious intervention. “You’re my brother. I want you to myself,” he said, shaking with wry laughter that might have tried to imply he was joking. It failed. Bill wasn’t moving in Tom’s arms. Tom could feel shaky breaths against his neck. He tightened his brow and pressed a firm kiss to Bill’s temple.
“I’m as bad as him, aren’t I?” Tom gritted out, dropping Bill and wrestling himself free, making for the door.
“Wait, Tom!”
Tom couldn’t resist the plaintive tone, the urge to turn around. Bill was kneeling on the bed, braced on one hand while the other reached out toward his retreating brother.
“Please don’t leave me,” Bill begged.
Tom didn’t know how he would comfort Bill. How could he walk back to the bed and take the hand that reached out to him? He froze, unable to leave, to refuse his brother’s plea, unable to touch his brother again, to betray him with suspicious touches.
Bill let his hand drop slowly, sitting back on his heels and averting his gaze.
“I’m disgusting, aren’t I?” Bill whimpered.
“Bill, you’re not…”
“I wanted him to touch me.”
Tom closed his eyes and cringed.
“You see,” Bill whispered, the crack in his heart reflecting in his voice. “I’m not who you think I am.”
Tom didn’t want to stay. He felt sick, his head pounded.
But Bill had asked him to stay.
…
When the twins were eight years old, they fell out. They argued all the time; that was what brothers did. But it was usually Bill who pitched the fit. This time it was Tom. He knew, absolutely knew, that he never wanted to see Bill again.
Tom had stomped off into the garden and started to build a fort. He put it together out of whatever he could find: bits of the fence their step dad had taken down the previous month, the big piece of card he would lie on when he was fixing the car and the blanket their mother would throw over the neighbourhood cats when they fought in the garden. He gathered the bits and pieces and started to prop them against each other, building angrily and determinedly.
After an hour or so, Bill came out to watch. He kicked the grass, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, as Tom huffed around, getting things how he wanted them.
“What ‘choo makin’?” Bill asked in the deliberately cutesy voice that got him whatever he wanted for Christmas. Tom didn’t answer and Bill, unperturbed, asked him twice more, in just the same tone, before Tom gave in.
“I’m making a fort,” Tom said irritably. “I’m making Fort NoBill and no Bills are allowed in it.”
Bill pouted a little harder and nodded in understanding. He kicked the last blades of grass from the small patch of earth before his toes and shrugged to himself before turning around and going back inside.
Another hour passed, and Bill returned, bringing Tom out a Daim bar and a squat bottle of banana milkshake. He left them on the edge of their mother’s rock garden and, without a word, went back to the house. Tom knew he hadn’t been sent; chocolate wasn’t permitted, this close to dinnertime.
Forty-five minutes later, Tom was finished. He wiped the sweat off his face with the edge of his shirt and admired his handiwork. He heard the crunching of autumn leaves as Bill made his nervous way up to him.
“I made you a sign,” Bill whispered. He reached out, his hand emerging from behind Tom’s back, holding a piece of off-white card with ‘Fort No Bill’ scrawled across it in felt tip.
Tom smiled fondly and put the sign up in front of his little fort. Then he turned away from it and started to walk back toward his brother, who wore a curious expression.
Tom shrugged.
“If Bills can’t go in, I’m not going in,” he explained.
Bill grinned, screwing his nose up with pleasure.
Tom grinned and extended his hand. Bill slid his hand into Tom’s and Tom guided them back toward the house, where their dinner would shortly be ready.
Behind them, the fort slid sideways and slowly collapsed in on itself.
…
They didn’t speak again for almost an hour. Bill lay on the bed, curled into himself, facing the wall. Tom sat in the chair at the other side of the room, running his hands over his head again and again.
Finally, it was Tom who broke the silence.
“I wanted to kill him,” he said. “And I’m not just saying that. The minute you started to give him things I couldn’t have. The minute he put his hands on my baby brother, I wanted to hurt him. Maybe I’m not the person you think I am.”
“Why?” Bill didn’t turn away from the wall.
“I told you,” Tom said clearly. “You’re mine,” he added in a whisper.
“I wanted him to touch me.”
“I know, Bill,” Tom replied testily.
“I wanted to like it,” Bill added without defence. “I wanted it to feel right. That’s normal, right? It’s normal to want to touch, to be touched.” Tom looked up. Bill’s shoulders were shaking. “It’s normal. You’re supposed to feel something,” Bill went on. “Other than guilt.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tom said. Bill stiffened, as if he had forgotten that Tom was still in the room.
“No,” Bill said. “I keep making excuses, but I teased him. I did. I used him; trying to convince myself I wanted it. The only time I could take his kisses, enjoy his touches, was if I closed my eyes and let myself think of someone else. Someone I can’t have. And for a while, I thought that might be an excuse, too. But… I do want to be touched.”
Tom closed his eyes tightly.
“You’re in love?”
“I’m in love.”
Tom jumped to his feet, kicking his chair over with a clatter. He saw Bill jerk, curling harder in upon himself. Tom wanted to throw up..
“Is it Andreas?”
Bill was silent and Tom’s stomach dropped through the floor. He pulled his eyes up from the floor and saw Bill’s head shaking slowly.
“Is it someone in the band?”
“Please don’t ask,” Bill pleaded.
“Is it Georg?” Tom asked, ignoring his request.
“Just don’t ask,” Bill repeated.
“He’s straight, Bill,” Tom said. Bill stayed silent. “I know you’ve always been… close to him. But… you can’t…” he stopped as he heard Bill laughing humourlessly.
“Georg would do anything I asked,” Bill pointed out. “And he’s not that straight.” Tom opened his mouth to reply but Bill cut him off. “And it’s not Georg. I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
Tom sighed so long and so hard his head went light.
“You always said you could tell me anything.”
“Tom.”
“I’m sorry I pushed you away,” Tom argued. “I’m sorry I shoved you so hard you can’t even talk to me anymore. I’m so sorry, I can’t even tell you.”
Bill huffed and turned over, starting as he saw how close Tom had come, standing above him and looking down on his precious baby brother.
“I pushed you just as hard,” Bill protested. “I love you more than anything, but I can’t let you get near me. You don’t want to know the things that happen in my mind.”
“I do, though,” Tom argued. “I want to know. I want to know everything. It doesn’t matter what it is.” He reached down and drew his fingers slowly across Bill’s cheek. Bill closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, sighing against Tom’s palm. Tom didn’t move his hand, but lowered himself to sit beside his brother.
“Everything?” Bill asked. “Because anything would be too much.”
“It’s not Georg,” Tom said, reassuring himself. “And it’s not Wolfgang, is it?”
Bill shook his head, laughing faintly.
“It’s not a guessing game,” he admonished.
“It’s not a game,” Tom replied.
“Would you ever say no to me?” Bill asked suddenly.
“What’s the question?” Tom replied.
“Forgive me,” Bill added swiftly. “For being gay? For being wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” Tom said, trying to remember how it felt to touch Bill with the bubble intact; trying to remember if it felt any different before. “And I don’t care if you’re gay. You can love who you want…”
Bill swallowed hard.
“I want my soulmate.”
Tom pulled his hand back and laid them together in his lap. Bill rolled away from him again.
“You had every right to say no,” Tom said firmly. “You always do.”
“Yeah,” Bill replied distantly.
Bill looked out into nothing, as he felt Tom’s weight leave the bed. He would let Tom leave this time, if that was what Tom wanted. He didn’t want to be alone, but he wouldn’t ask Tom to do anything for him. He knew Tom couldn’t say no to him and it wasn’t fair to press his own will on his brother. He wouldn’t be as bad as Theo.
Was Theo that bad, though? Had he really done all that much to Bill? It wasn’t like he’d come looming out of the bushes and dragged Bill into an alley to rape him. He had just misread the signals. And wasn’t Bill just as guilty of that?
He breathed heavily. He knew Tom hadn’t gone anywhere, that Tom was still standing beside the bed, waiting for the right thing to say. He didn’t know how to help. He rolled back toward Tom as he felt his brother shift, and pushed himself to sitting as Tom descended to sit on the floor.
For Tom, there were no right words. Nothing could have hurt him as badly as what Bill had just said. There was nothing worse than what Bill had just taken away from him. He might have broken the bubble, but Bill had ripped out his heart.
Bill was sitting, blinking out his headrush, his long legs kicking toward Tom. Tom shifted forward and caught a swinging ankle, holding Bill’s foot in the palm of his hand.
“You are my soulmate,” Tom said softly, running a thumb up the back of Bill’s ankle. Bill smiled sympathetically and tilted his head.
“Shame it can’t just be us, then,” Bill thought aloud.
Tom looked up, tilted his head the same way as Bill’s. Bill blinked at him, his toes curling above Tom’s wrist as Tom’s hand crept upward, his fingers squeezing Bill’s calf, settling around the back of his knee and tugging forward. Bill resisted for a moment before acceding, sliding off the bed to kneel before his brother, his knees outside of Tom’s. Tom’s hands sat on his waist and Bill leaned into the hug, resting his head on Tom’s shoulder. Tom leaned in, too, trapping Bill’s head between his cheek and his shoulder.
How long had they been in the room? Half a day? Tom was hungry and his whole body felt stiff. Bill’s phone pipped a message received tone from the other side of the room. Bill stiffened.
“I love you,” Tom whispered. Bill pulled back and caught Tom’s gaze.
“Would you ever say no to me?” Tom asked, his voice only audible to someone a breath away.
Bill blinked slowly.
“If you ever did anything I didn’t want you to do,” he said earnestly. “I’d stop you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Tom said. “I’d stop.”
Bill closed his eyes and sighed again. He rested his forehead against Tom’s and began to relax. That’s all he did, just relaxed, let his muscles relax until their noses bumped, their chins meeting a second before Bill’s breath hit Tom’s lips.
“Would you tell me to stop?” Bill whispered, his lips brushing Tom’s mouth.
Bill’s phone chirped again and Tom twitched, arching up half an inch and securing Bill’s lips, just holding still in the most chaste kiss he had ever given anyone.
He pulled away because it was important Bill knew.
“I love you,” was spoken so quietly that Bill had to lip-read. His reply, in kind, was even softer.
Tom arched again and this time his lips parted, pulling Bill’s with them, tasting the inside of Bill’s lips. Their breath was hot against them, strange against skin that was painted with dry tears. Their kisses were slow as Tom’s hands moved up Bill’s back, as Bill’s hands slid around his shoulders, up onto his neck, brushing his hairline. Tom felt Bill’s tongue make a careful slide across his lip.
“This is wrong,” he said without conviction, his hands tight around Bill’s shoulder blades, pulling Bill down into his lap. Bill nodded, his eyes barely open, spreading his legs wider so he could slide in close, straddling Tom, sitting in his lap like they’d been carved to fit together. “Stop?”
Bill opened his eyes and pulled back, arching an eyebrow as he tried to determine if Tom was pleading or just enquiring. He looked desperate.
“No,” Bill whispered. “Don’t.” He dipped, their lips brushing again, then paused. “Do you want to?” Bill asked. “To stop?”
Tom licked his lips, his lipring pressing forward so it kissed Bill before he did.
“No,” Tom said at last.
Bill devoured him, his hands screwing into the depths of Tom’s hair as he opened his mouth and thrust his tongue against Tom’s. Tom held him down, his hands around Bill’s shoulders, pressing them closer and closer, trying to push themselves back into one person. Tom shivered and sucked on bill’s tongue. His brother wanted him. Finally, after years of Tom pining away in his side of the bubble…
Tom gasped and Bill got what he wanted, pressing Tom down onto his back, gripping Tom’s hips with his thighs. Tom pulled away, his head hitting the mercifully thick carpet.
“How long?” he asked breathlessly. He didn’t need to tell Bill what he meant.
“How old are we?” Bill asked with a playful, vulnerable smile.
“Fuck,” Tom said, his fingers pressing into Bill’s neck. “How did I miss it?”
“You weren’t looking for this,” Bill explained. “You didn’t want to see it. You’re scared of it.”
Tom smile, meeting Bill’s lips softly again.
“Are we still talking about me?” he teased.
“Us?” Bill countered. “We’re similar, sometimes.” He smiled and set another hesitant kiss to Tom’s lips. It was almost too much for Tom. His beautiful brother, captured and willing, lying on top of him and humming acquiescence. Tom’s hand began to stroke down Bill’s back but stopped at his waist. He wanted to go further but he tensed, unable to be sure…
Bill made a frustrated sound and grabbed Tom’s hand, placing it firmly on the curve of his ass.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked patiently, lifting one hand from the carpet to rest on Tom’s collarbone. “I could never let anyone touch me because I’m meant for you. I’m yours.” Tom’s heart squeezed. “I’ll take what you give me, every piece of it, because there’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t want.”
Tom licked his lips, his gut boiling.
“That’s a lot of power,” he observed, sounding duly awestruck. “You’re offering me…”
“I’m not offering you anything,” Bill said. “I’m not even giving it to you. I’m telling you it’s yours. On your terms. Even if I have to share…”
“No!” Tom exclaimed, immediately knowing where Bill was headed. “Never. I don’t want that. I never did, really. I needed…something.”
Bill’s smile restored the light to Tom’s world. “What I want…” Tom went on, licking his lips again, “I want to take him off you. I want you to tell me where he touched you and make it like he never did.”
Bill kissed him gently and sat up; his hands shaking as he nervously pulled his shirt from his slight frame, peeling away layers that were no longer necessary.
Tom laid a still hand on the flat of Bill’s stomach and looked past him, over his shoulder, past the eager surrender of innocence, to the faint suggestion of a shimmering wall. The fingertips of the moon caught a multicoloured oil slick at Bill’s back. Tom pushed himself up on one hand, pulling Bill close with the other to plant soft kisses on his collarbone. Bill sighed, winding Tom’s hair into his hands, letting his head fall back as he succumbed to reality
“This is it,” he said to nobody.
“Right,” Tom agreed in a muffled affirmative. Bill’s fingers found Tom’s shirt and pulled, gathering it up in front of his hands and yanking upward. Tom laughed almost soundlessly and leaned back to help Bill strip him. They shared more breaths until Tom’s head went light. He huffed, annoyed at his own need for oxygen.
Bill was no better at staying still in the midst of passion than he was in an ordinary moment. He wriggled in Tom’s lap, his hands everywhere, all light, anxious touches and tickles, pressing into flesh and muscle under skin that was even paler than his own.
Bill was exploring him; taking his time to learn each inch, but his constant manoeuvring was rapidly making Tom quite hard. He sucked on Bill’s neck and felt the pulse racing beneath. He set his hands on Bill’s hips and felt a hardness pressing into his thigh, matching his own.
“Um,” he said anxiously, forcing himself to meet Bill’s curious gaze. “I’ve never been… with another guy… before.”
Bill dipped his head shyly.
“Thanks to you, neither have I,” he replied. Tom closed his eyes, a pained expression on his face.
“I’m never letting anyone else near you,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Okay,” Bill conceded, one eyebrow raised. “If you think you can cope with me all by yourself.”
“Oh, I can handle you,” Tom said cockily, playing into the tease. “Definitely.”
“If you were replacing his hands,” Bill said coyly. “He got further than this.”
“Then can I take you somewhere softer?” Tom replied. Bill nodded, finally resisting the curious gaze or the tilt of the head. He had just worked it out. Tom didn’t get it, not properly. Not yet. He needed to know he had permission, that Bill wanted to be lifted with a hand beneath his backside and pulled up so they were lying back on the bed. Tom needed to see confidence in Bill’s eyes as Tom laid a hand on his waistband and asked, “Is this okay?”
And Bill loved that he needed it, loved knowing he could call a halt at any moment, as soon as he felt uncomfortable. Not that he needed it. Tom kisses completed him, they melted him, sweeping away a taint Bill had been reluctant to allow and replacing it with a touch he was nothing if not ecstatic to receive.
Tom’s kisses grew in confidence but he kept to his promise of patience. Nothing happened without Bill’s express permission, from these first, hesitant touches to the moment they were naked and pressing together. They moved together above hastily pulled down jeans and they felt like kids again, twelve years old and playing wrestling games. Their aims were different now.
Bill shivered and grabbed at Tom, pre-empting his next request for permission with a desperate plea not to stop.
Tom didn’t.
Instead, he embraced his brother and kissed him high on his cheek, whispering reassurances to him as he rolled them onto their sides, telling Bill he loved him and that this was wonderful, this was it.
Bill wrapped himself up in Tom, long arms and legs surrounding him, clinging to him, capturing him as they moved together. It wasn’t even weird, though it should have been. It wasn’t strange for Tom to touch another man, a cock that wasn’t his own, to feel hard lines where he was used to softness, resistance where he had only known surrender. It wasn’t weird because it was Bill. Bill was an extension of himself. Bill wasn’t another man; he was another part of Tom. Touching Bill was the most divine form of masturbation.
Bill whimpered into Tom’s mouth, their knuckles brushing and colliding as each fought to bring the greatest pleasure to the other. Tom closed his eyes and buried his face in Bill’s neck as his climax approached. His ears were filled with Bill’s soft, surprised sighs, his mouth and nose with the taste, the scent of his brother. Tom could feel Bill’s racing heart pounding through his temple, into his bones and it felt like everything in the world was in his arms. He came apart praising unnamed gods for the completion of the circle.
The bubble wasn’t around them, now. As Bill cried out his name, crushing his cheek against Tom’s and stiffening into Tom’s embrace, Tom felt the bubble over their skin, winding them together, holding them close like a blanket tucked tightly around their limbs.
Tom held his brother, looser in the moments after, pressing his lips to Bill’s shoulder and listening to the shuddering breaths and tearful relief that ran through him rhythmically. The sun was rising over Bill’s shoulder and Tom watched it, unafraid of it, smiling into the soft, familiar skin that felt more natural to touch than his own.
“I want you to have me,” Bill said suddenly, his eyes closed against the weight of his blurted admission.
“I have you,” Tom replied quietly, running his fingers down Bill’s arm in a reassuring gesture.
“No,” Bill said, heavy eyes opening to meet Tom’s own. “I want you to…”
“I know,” Tom said, moving until his lips barely brushing his brother’s. “And I will. But not yet. We’re going to share everything, but it’s got to be forever. It’s going to be forever. I want to take this as it comes.”
“You’re sure?” Bill said. “Because if you ever change your mind…”
Tom didn’t even know what the rest of the sentence was.
“We are… inseparable,” he determined.
Bill sighed, a heavy breath between pursed lips, holding Tom’s gaze and quite obviously fighting any over-sensitive objection he could have produced. He smiled.
His face suddenly darkened.
“But you will,” he said, with mock fear. “You do want to?”
Tom rolled his eyes.
“I want to,” he said with an exaggerated leer. “And I definitely will.”
Bill settled, at last, into Tom’s arms, rolling partly onto his back. Tom reached for tissues, suddenly aware of their sticky reality. When he turned back, Bill had a hand stretched above them and was twisting his fingers. The sunlight was brightening and Tom could barely see the bubble, but he could make out the colours swirling around Bill’s fingertips.
“What are you doing?” he whispered. Bill smiled at him and let his hand fall back to Tom’s shoulder.
“Nothing,” Bill replied. “Just checking.”
The End.