Bill 14

It’s their fourteenth birthday and their mum has put quite an effort into organizing the whole thing. Balloons and a big birthday cake, an entire table cluttered with presents. Tom’s presents are wrapped in dark blue, Bill’s in light powder blue coloured paper. Not that there could ever be a mix-up. Bill would never even dream of opening that suspiciously bulky looking, pear-shaped present that leans against the table. Why would Tom need another guitar anyways; he already has one.

The other kids at the party, they’re mostly Tom’s friends. Andreas is here too, which makes the whole birthday bash a lot less awkward for Bill. He’s never quite comfortable around most of the people his brother hangs with. It’s like trying to balance on a rope - Bill always needs to think twice about what he says or how to react to certain situations - a serious case of conversational paranoia.

With Andreas it’s comfortable, almost like it is with Tom; Andreas can handle Bill like he is and it feels very good not to have to pretend to be different.

It’s still warm enough to be outside for most of the afternoon. Around five the sky clouds over and rumbles of thunder can be heard in the distance, so Tom suggest they move things to their mum’s studio, a glorified garage basically, adjoining the house. Going inside, is no real option since most of the grown ups are inside and while Mum and Gordon are cool, most of the other kid’s parents are just not.

Things start to drag a little once they’re inside and there’s not much to do. One kid from their parallel class says something nasty about one of mum’s half-finished paintings but before Bill can launch into a fit of well justified anger, Tom verbally cuts the idiot down to bonsai size. Tom is always like that, more witty in his responses and faster too and he doesn’t take shit from anyone - something that Bill admires to no end about his brother, even though he silently grieves the fact that he seems to have inherited all the awkwardness while Tom got the cool genes.

A girl from their class suggest they play spin the bottle. Bill knows she has a secret crush on Tom so it should come as no surprise to him she wants to play that stupid game and that she more or less forces Tom to sit down next to her when they gather in a circle. Feeling uneasy already, he sits down between Tom and Andreas, silently praying that a) the game won’t last too long and b) he doesn’t have to kiss Christine since she has a nasty looking cold sore just above the corner of her mouth. It took him ten minutes this afternoon to arrange the flap of hair hanging into his eyes just so that the newest set of pimples blooming on his forehead don’t show too prominently - the last things he needs now is something like that to top things off.

It’s starts off tame enough. The first two rounds are simple kisses, no tongue. As luck would have it, Bill’s second turn earns him Christine. It’s the quickest peck in the history of mankind and Bill discreetly rubs at his lips afterwards, while he pretends to bite down a little yawn.

After round three it’s French kissing. Kissing girls with tongue - the notion alone is enough to make the palms of Bill’s hand slick with sweat. He only ever kissed one person. Well, two really. The first was Hanna, during a field trip and it was a complete disaster. The second one was Tom, after Bill had harassed his brother for three consecutive days, to show him how to do it right. Hanna isn't here now. The thought that, of all the people sitting in this circle, Bill only knows of one person how it is to kiss them, adds a pretty pink flush to the already sweaty hands. They never talked about this afterwards, mostly because Bill didn’t want Tom to feel awkward. Bill never told his brother that he was a pretty good kisser either - better than Hanna by a long shot, at least.

“Rules! We need a rule here!” Tom interrupts just as Andi reaches for the bottle. “I’m not kissing Bill, alright?” He declares firmly.

“Second that,” Bill adds with a smirk, elbowing his brother gently, his smile fading imperceptibly when Tom gives him a strange look.

Tom tries to get a no guy kissing guy through rule next but the girls protest against that, taunting Tom about his reluctance. Taunting Tom won’t ever work, Bill knows, his brother would do the most demented things just to prove a point.

Andi twirls the bottle and Bill watches it spin in a lazy circle. Round and round it goes, trailing past Christine – thank God – Verena with her not so subtle crush on his brother, then Tom before it stops, the nuzzle of the bottle pointing at Bill.

The girls start to snicker like a pack of hyenas and Bill turns to look at Andreas, a questioning, rather dumb look on his face.

“And make sure we see that tongue!” Verena jibes.

Andreas 14

He knows he is turning bright red in this very moment. The evil little chuckles and the endless ribbing are not helping any, neither is Bill who is simply staring at him, confusion written all over his pretty face.

Maybe they think he's blushing because kissing another boy is awkward and gross but it's worse than that. Andreas doesn't think it's gross and he just prays the other's think so because the truth is so much more embarrassing. He wants to kiss Bill, has been wanting to do just that ever since he had grasped the basic concepts of being in love with someone, wanting to kiss them. It makes him kind of gay and gay's not good, or at least it's not normal.

“Well, come on...” Melanie, the girl sitting next to him, jabs him into the ribs, giving him a challenging look, before she adds, “just pretend Bill's a girl – that's easy to do, right?” She winks at her friends obviously looking for some kind of confirmation or appreciation.

“Easier to do than with you...” He replies evenly, his voice ripe with contempt, while he is marvelling at his own bravado. The girls shut up and Melanie huffs in indignation.

It's not like Andreas doesn't know how French kissing works, the basics of it. He has had a girlfriend already. Sort of, at least. And it's probably best to get it over with, like ripping off a band aid, make it quick and painless. He leans in and pulls a somewhat reluctant Bill closer to him. Bill's bottom lip is a perfect fit between his own lips, unimaginably soft and warm.

For a long and torturous moment they remain like that, before Bill pulls away just a bit, closing the distance again and Andi feels Bill's tongue slip past his lips into his mouth, licking awkwardly at his front teeth, nudging the tip of his own tongue. A chorus of the predictable Ooohs and Aaahs murmurs through the circle and Bill pulls back again, a bashful smile on his face, his cheeks glowing with a bright pink.

It's what he has dreamed of doing for the last six months and he cannot even enjoy it properly because of all those people around them. Cruel irony.

For Andi it feels like coming up for air after being underwater for too long. His lungs burn and his heart is hammering against his ribcage so hard it almost hurts. The kiss was hardly long enough to justify calling it such. He can still taste Bill all over his mouth, traces of that intense sugary sweetness of the ice cream they had this early afternoon, vanilla and strawberry.

Tom clears his throat audibly.

“Okay, so next one, right?” He asks and nudges the bottle with a foot towards Melanie, who is still staring at Bill with that kind of unbelieving look, that's half disgust, half admiration. It makes Bill blush and look at the ground. As strange as it is but Andreas cannot help but feel a surge of pride flood over him. Bill kissed him; with tongue too, a really real kiss.

The first of many, as far as Andreas is concerned. He's wildly determined to get Bill to kiss him again, without the aid of bottles and the challenge of a circle of people around them as a motivation. He wants Bill to kiss him just because.

Andreas looks at Bill's profile as he's sitting next to him, idly twirling with a lace of one of his sneakers, the soft and wavy flap of hair hanging into his face, faded blue streaks peeking out, an ominous smile playing round the corners of his mouth. Next to Bill, Tom sits, leaning back, propped up on the heels of his hands and he's staring at Andreas through narrowed eyes. It's a look of barely hidden contempt, lips compressed into one thin line and Andreas has to look away.

Tom 14

Just like Bill, Tom is good at hiding stuff. Hiding the fact that he knows Andi doesn’t come over just for hanging out and watching movies. Not ever since that damn spin the bottle game they played on their 14^th birthday.

What scares him most is the impotent rage swapping over him like a tidal wave when he thinks of his brother and his best friend. When it gets so bad he has to leave the house or else he knows he will simply snap, barge into Bill’s room and beat the shit out of Andreas and probably Bill as well.

Just like today. Bill and Andreas have gone out – officially to get some ice cream and hang in the park – but that's probably not the only thing they're up to. Tom had been sitting in his room ever since Bill skipped down the stairs, all excitement and giggles, to answer the door and let Andi in, trying to obscure from his own restless mind the fact that he cannot seem to think of anything but his brother and his best friend. It's half an hour later that Tom gives up and gets ready to go out as well. He needs to walk, get that nervous energy buzzing through him out of his system.

It’s childish and immature but Tom knows - just knows - that Bill belongs to him and no one else. He rather not dwell on the reasons why he thinks like that and why the anger boils on the pit of his stomach when he sees them together.

He hears whimpering, recognizes Bill’s voice and the alarm in Tom’s head goes off instantly; a dozen possible scenarios flooding his mind, things that could have happened to his twin brother.

With swift steps he wades through the undergrowth towards the little shed. Pushing a thickly leaved branch to the side Tom freezes in spot.

It is Bill but he’s not hurt, nor in pain or anything of that kind. He’s with Andi and they’re kissing in a way that drives the heat into Tom’s cheeks.

Bill claws at their friend’s back, making desperate little noises on the back of his throat, his face flushed and glowing.

Tom stares at them, torn between disgust and morbid fascination and something else he cannot quite name. It's like driving past a really bad car accident. He doesn't want to look at the wreckage but it's too tempting not to.

It’s when Bill playfully sucks on Andreas’ bottom lip, looking up at him through half lidded eyes and mewls softly, that Tom has to look away.

He goes back home and when Bill returns two hours later, he asks him where he’s been - Out with Andi, ice cream, hanging in the park, the usual, you know - that Tom decides not to tell Bill he saw them. Not yet at least.

* * *

Andreas 18

It’s the twin’s eighteenth birthday and, as Andi aimlessly wanders between the scattered crowds of party guests, he cannot help but wonder if the twins know all these people. He spots Gustav sitting at the bar and makes his way over to him. By the way Gustav greets him with maybe a little too much enthusiasm and hugging, Andreas is pretty sure the band only knows maybe every fifth party guest or so too. The rest is probably industry people David invited - a behaviour that usually irks Bill to no end; the way Dave will use every event, even if it’s supposed to be private, to suck up to the suits.

And once again, like at some many other instances, Andreas cannot help but feel totally out of place. He has only one reason to be here (officially it’s two though) and that reason is still nowhere to be see.

Bill and Tom are half an hour late - Tom says it’s because of Bill, Bill, of course, claims, it’s exactly the other way around. The truth, Andi muses, is probably somewhere in the middle. It’s not like punctuality is a strong point of either of the brothers.

It’s another thirty minutes before the two birthday boys eventually get round to Andreas spot at the bar. Not that he minds, really. It’s when Bill does a full turn in front of him, his eyes sparkling with delight as he presents his fancy suit, that Andreas feels welcome at the party for the first time.

Andreas is used to watching, from the outside, first person participant. It’s the little things that no one notices that make all the artifice and awkwardness worth it. Bill slipping his fingers between his, maybe just for a moment or two before he let’s go again. The way his hand accidentally brushes against his knee or when it’s dark and no one watches and Bill is feeling adventurous, a kiss.

Bill is drinking, quite a lot for someone who usually stops after the third glass of prosecco. Vodka, Martinis, Gin and beer, more vodka still with hardly any Red Bull in it anymore. Andreas watches Bill bounce around with a growing sense of discomfort.

He knows his boyfriend inside out by now - maybe not as well as Tom does - but he knows that once Bill is drunk enough, he tends to go off on a tangent and do stupid things. Like that one time they almost got caught by -

“Three minutes to midnight! Get the birthday boys!” Someone yells and suddenly it’s like some magnetic force pulls the whole crowd towards the center of the room. Andreas feels someone push against him from behind, into the first row of people gathering round that table with the most elaborate birthday cake on it. Standing in the first row is not the most comfortable thing for him. People usually look at him strange, their faces clouding over and Andi can almost see the gears in their heads churning as they try to place him and find a reason why he should be here, standing up front. Like he could ever give the real reason…

It’s all glitter and confetti and blinding lights and people applauding. Bill is grinning like a maniac, thrilled out of his mind and even Tom seems to somehow enjoy all the attention for once.

A short birthday speech by the management, toasting, cut the cake and then it’s presents! By now Bill is more hyper than the Energizer Bunny on XTC, a mischievous little smile flickering over his flushed face as the twins get told to choose which gift to unwrap first.

Bill’s hand shoots forward, snapping the microphone out of David’s hand faster than anyone can look. Tom groans and rolls his eyes and people laugh at Bill’s consistent microphone hogging.

Bill twirls the microphone in his hand, chewing on his lower lip as his forehead scrunches up as if he’s thinking terribly hard about the choices at hand. Andreas cannot remember a time when he’s looked more adorable.

Suddenly Bill has hopped off the little stage and he’s standing right in front of him. And that’s the moment Andreas realizes that this is one of Bill’s epic mistakes again.

“I got the best present in the world already,” Bill breaths into the microphone but it hardly registers with Andreas anymore. He’s burning up and probably it would be best to come up with a sarcastic comment now and push Bill away but he’s rooted in spot.

When Bill kisses him, parting his lips with his mouth and pushing his tongue inside, Andreas cannot help but notice how awfully quiet the room has become all of a sudden.

Over the gasping and the scandalized murmuring he can hear the own mad hammering of his heart and Bill breathing so very close to his face.

His eyes are closed but he really doesn’t want to open them again. Not here and certainly not after that kiss. He’s hot and cold all at the same time and he’s shaking in his shoes.

Finally Bill pulls away again and plants a single, chaste kiss on his forehead. Andreas can hear his boyfriend exhale one long, deep breath, Bill’s finger’s still wrapped tightly in his hair. Andreas just wants to die of embarrassment in this very moment. What the hell was Bill thinking?!

Somewhere to his right, someone applauds tentatively. Then other people join in, and cheer and chant something Andreas cannot quite make out. He finally opens his eyes and sees Bill beaming at him, looking happier than he had in a long time. Bill crushes him against himself, murmuring something in his ear that gets drowned out by the agitated crowds around them. Looking over Bill's shoulder, Andreas sees Tom staring at them, his face a total blank.

Epic mistake. All the way.

Bill 18

The keys swim in and out of focus in front of his eyes and Andi’s breathing down his neck, telling him not to write it. Bill just waves it off with an aimless gesture. He’s had enough. He’s eighteen now, an adult and he’s done pretending, he tells himself.

It is so much easier with the alcohol making him dizzy, his inhibitions drowning in vodka and his short term memory already gone out the window. It’s really easy when he remembers kissing Andreas in front of everybody and it felt like finally taking a breath of fresh air after holding it in for as long as he can think.

He types Andi’s name and then his own shortly after it. It looks just right to him but eventually, even through that excited whirring in his brain, Bill thinks better of it and deletes his boyfriend’s name again. He will have people giving him shit from tomorrow onwards but there’s no need to drag Andreas into this as well.

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And he’s free.

“You’ll so regret this, Bill…delete it before anyone reads it.” Andreas says but Bill shakes his head vigorously, flashing Andreas a brilliant smile.

“This is the best idea I’ve had in years. It stays. Fuck what others think.” He wished he had a more profound and philosophical statement at hand but his brain is starting to shut down already. Now all he wants is go to bed and fall asleep next to his boyfriend. Normalcy will start tomorrow and he’s so eager he can taste it already.

Tom 18

Tom is leaning against the bar, trying his best not to look as crushed and overwhelmed as he feels. The alcohol helps, a little at least, and Tom downs the third Jim Beam on the rocks but the warmth running down his throat and pooling in his belly won’t erase that sour taste in his mouth.

“Jeez, who would have thought! Bill and Andi?!” Tom almost chokes on whisky number four and Georg slaps him gently on the back.

“Did you know that?” Georg asks, casually snagging a cigarette out of Tom’s carton, looking a lot less concerned or thrown as maybe he should be.

Tom tips the glass back one last time before he reaches behind the counter, gets the bottle for himself and fills the glass almost to the brim. Georg looks at the glass, then at Tom, worry creases knitting across his forehead.

“You didn’t, huh?” Tom just shakes his head.

“Oh man, that…sucks.” Georg looks totally helpless all of a sudden and Tom feels sorry for his friend.

“Yeah well, I’ll just drink a couple more of these,” Tom jokes, pointing at the glass, “ and then I’m either so gone I will find it hilariously funny or, more probably, I won’t be able to remember it anyways.”

Tom hopes his little joke somehow lightens the mood. He doesn’t want Georg to feel sorry for him, or anyone for that matter. Tom knew all the time. He had known ever since he had accidentally seen Bill and Andi make out behind the old shed. He was angry back then and he’s still angry now. And jealous too, though he rarely admits that to himself.

It had been bearable when no one knew. But now that it is out in the open, Bill has pushed him right into this mess as well. And Tom will have to deal, find a stance on this. He has an opinion about all of this but it's not like he could ever tell anyone.

Georg ruffles his hair and pulls him into a bear hug before he gets a glass for himself and fills it with whisky.

“To closets!” He toast, winking at Tom.

An hour or so later, Tom is completely shit-faced. People talk to him and somehow, magically, his brain still processes what is being said and he hears himself reply. Ask him two minutes later what was being said and he cannot remember anything.

He’s trying to keep his motor control together, as he stumbles through the throngs of party guests, in search for Bill. It’s probably a bad idea, looking for his brother now and wanting to talk to him, but Tom has to. He sees Andi’s bleached mop of hair vanishing behind a corner and knows that Bill will be there too. Sadly, where Andreas is, Bill is as well. Boyfriend, Tom scoffs around his cigarette.

He rounds the corner and faces an unmarked door, opened just a bit with faint light flooding out of the room behind it. The old, well-known apprehension settling in his stomach again, Tom leans against the door jam and peers through the crack into the room inside.

Of course, it’s them and Bill has Andreas on a table, kissing him sloppily, his hands all over him, muttering rapidly in between kisses. Tom is glad he doesn’t understand what is being said. His brother pushes Andreas further back and suddenly something on the cluttered office desk topples over and crashes to the floor.

Bill is snickering madly and Andreas laughs too, a bit uneasy, when suddenly Bill squeaks and drops to his knees, fumbling with something under the desk. A screen springs to life, moment’s later and Bill excitedly whispers into Andreas’ ear as the system boots up.

Again, Tom cannot hear anything but he can see Andi’s face in the ghostly flickering light of the computer and he looks positively horrified, shakes his head vigorously, obviously trying to talk some sense into Bill while his brother starts a browser and types in an address.

Squinting through his blurry vodka vision, Tom recognizes the layout of their official homepage and then Bill logging in with one of the super-user passwords everyone involved in the band has.

While Bill types something, Andi is standing right behind him, pleading with him quietly. Tom feels a surge of smug satisfaction spreading through him when it’s clear that Bill is not listening to a single word Andreas says.

After a few minutes he’s done and turns back to Andreas, smiling at him. Tom hears the indistinct whispering of conversation and then shuffling as they get ready to leave the room. Quickly he ducks into a shady corner and watches Bill and Andreas leave the little office.

He stares after them for long minutes. Bill slipped his hand into Andreas, leaning heavily against him and swaying lightly as they walked. That image, of the two holding hands, refuses to go out of Tom’s head. It’s maddening.

Biting down that acrid taste in his mouth, Tom enters the little office. In his drunken haze, Bill has forgotten to shut down the computer, so Tom has the page Bill accessed in a matter of seconds. The site loads and Tom reads those few lines. His heart plummets right through the floor, all the blood draining out of his face and the familiar disgust wells up in him. It’s half disgust at Bill and Andreas and half it’s that mind numbing loathing of himself and why he cannot seem to get over this and move on with life. He’s had four years, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t be so hard…

But Tom knows that there is never enough love in the world to satisfy him; not when it’s between Bill and him.

He doesn’t want his little brother out of the closet because then he would have to finally share Bill with Andi and just the thought of it makes Tom’s heart cramp in his chest.

It’s the worst thing to do and he knows, if Bill ever finds out, that this might just be the one thing he can never forgive him, but he cannot stand the thought of people knowing.

It’s so easy to call David and tell him Bill made a serious mistake. Bill was drunk and did not really know what he was doing, and would Dave please make sure that embarrassing comment got deleted ASAP. And of course David agrees - an image disaster for the band, totally! One cannot let that happen. Tom hangs up and wishes that David had scolded him for stabbing his brother in the back, wishes that he was a more generous and loving person but he’s not and that’s just the way it is.