He woke up to the hissing sound of the pneumatic doors up front. The bus had stopped but he could still feel that light swaying that went through the entire vehicle. Outside the wind howled, whipping against the side of the bus. Inside, behind the thin veil of his curtains, he could hear the usual morning sounds. The bubbling and hissing of the coffee maker, the vaguely sweet smell of coffee and toast, the dull fall of footsteps down the carpeted stairs and the muffled voices of people talking. He could just as well get up now.

Grabbing the thin handrail, Tom wobbled down the winding staircase almost tripping over his own feet at the last step. He was mildly surprised to find Bill up already, curled impossibly around a big pillow, squashed against the window, watching a group of people standing outside, smoking, talking and drinking cheap gas station coffee. The wind chased empty plastic bags and bits of paper across the parking lot, grey clouds across the sky and Tom felt his skin crawl in that half-pleasant, vaguely shivery way it usually did when he watched the cold outsides while he was cooped up in warmth inside.

He lit a cigarette and poured himself a cup of coffee while he watched Bill staring out of the window. He had that blank morning expression, his skin sallow, bags under his eyes, the faintest traces of scars dotting his chin where Bill just couldn't stop picking and scratching at his zits. The kind of face Bill prefered not to see in the mirror for too long.

A wistful little sigh worked its way out, squashed between the clattering of plates and the humming of the radio of front but Tom heard it nonetheless. It was that little sigh, coupled with a vague sideways glance of Bill that signalled that his baby brother wanted to be asked how he felt. Most of the time Bill would volunteer enough information to last anyone a lifetime but sometimes he just wanted to be asked.

“A penny for your thoughts...” Tom nudged Bill's knee under the table, shoving his carton of cigarettes across the table.

A delighted little smile splashed across Bill's face, as he took the cigarettes and fiddled with the lighter before he leaned across the table, motioning Tom to lean in as well as if what he had to share just now were terribly important and secret.

“I dreamed of the lake tonight.” Bill eyes flitted across Tom's face, as if waiting for some sort of recognition, before he added, “and it was summer again.”

He gave Tom a conspiratorial smile, before he leaned back again, the mug clutched between his hands. Bill's eyes slipped closed for a moment, a strangely unreadable smile flickering over his face and Tom knew Bill was still at the lake. Their lake.

* * *

A long time ago it used to be a gravel pit. Just outside of town, on the left side of the motorway leading out of the city. They would ride the bus out of town and get off in the middle of nowhere. They had to cross the motorway and hop over the crash barrier, then thread their way down that steep gravel path that wound its way through thorny shrubs down to the pit. Their mum always used to worry about them crossing the motorway, worry about them crawling down that hill, worried that something might happen to one of them, most probably Bill, while they were swimming in the lake. Imagine something happened while they were this far away from town – how long it would take to get help...

Not that this ever stopped them.

Once you were down that hill, there was a trampled path, dirt and gravel, circling the entire lake. You came down that hill you had to choose. Left or right. Right led to the beach, or what passed for a beach. An old and mouldy pier, the plain that was more pebbles than sand really, and it gradually eased down into the waters, the little stones that always got stuck between your toes; families, all the kids from their school, a bunch of hale and irrepressibly cheery seniors, their tanned skins with a look of cured and wrinkly leather, stacked in rows of striped folding chairs and old deckchairs with faded 70s flower prints. It was loud and crowded.

They usually took the left, the path winding into a thicket of knobby trees that hung so low, you practically had to crawl through the shrubs at times. They would scrape their knees and elbows, tear holes into their shirts but it was worth it. Once you were past the more hostile part of nature, a little clearing opened up.

The waters at this end were deep, three and a half meters at least, the trampled path of mud plunging down into the dark blue waters straight away. Two weeping willows framed the tiny vista opening up unto the lake. You could hear the sounds of the beach, the people splashing in the water but they were out of sight. No one ever ventured this far back. The waters were too deep and there really was no way to get out of water anywhere unless you were prepared to crawl through the mud on your belly .

A frayed looking hemp rope dangled from one of the thicker branches of the willow. At some point, Tom had crawled up into the willow and fastened that rope to the one branch that was strong enough to support their weight, letting the end dangle maybe a meter away from their little hiding spot. They would run up to the edge and then jump, grab the rope and swing into the lake; Bill also sometimes tried to use the rope to get back out of the water – a pretty futile endeavour – but sometimes Tom would simply refuse to give him a hand and help lift him out of the water.

They would spend entire summers in their little hiding spot, from early in the morning, when the dew from last night was still clinging fast to the grass, to midday when the air around them was wet with the heat and water to late in the evenings when the noises from the beach had already died down and you could hear the crickets starting to grate and chirp in the undergrowth.

They used to be the same and then they grew so different. Bill started to grow from a spindly legged, mousy pre-teen who would blush over practically everything into something else. Tom didn't think he'd changed all that much, but that might have just been because he was too wrapped up watching his brother morph before his very eyes. He would spend his summers watching Bill, rooting out the scarce growing similarities underneath that constantly changing exterior.

It was around that time that the dreams started as well. And that something else that Tom preferred not to name...

...Bill is laying on his back, stretched long, neck bent back, his head propped up on his upper arm. He lies like that and stares up at the canopy of leaves above them through half lidded eyes. The strong afternoon light breaks through the leaves in spears of bright orange and warm browns, painting his brother's skin in a weird play of light and dark that makes it look like he's moving even though he's lying completely still.

It's so quiet, no wind, no voices from the beach, just the two of them breathing.
At some point the silence becomes too heavy and he starts to talk to Bill. About nothing in particular; sometimes it's just enough to fill the silence that stretches between them with the sound of his own voice.

Bill continues to look up into the trees, a soft and lazy smile starting to melt into his face as he listens to Tom speak, nodding occasionally.

Eventually Bill's head lolls to the side, facing Tom and this is when they're so close to each other they're sharing breaths and stare right into one another's eyes and Tom has no idea how the hell they got this close. He stops talking.

Bill smiles again, the teeth just about visible when his lips stretch and in his eyes there's that warm and sluggish sparkle that's only ever there in summer. Bill's eyes drop down from Tom's eyes, to his lips and when he looks up at him again, there's something else in his gaze. A different shine and he briefly sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.

It's only a few centimetres but it feels like an eternity to bridge and then Bill kisses him. A innocent little kiss at first, then his tongue nudges against Tom's mouth and he lets it slip inside, wind around his own. And they kiss. The kiss slackens on his own, gets lazier, is finished with a little peck and then Bill turns his head away again, resumes staring up into the branches above them...

At that moment Tom always woke up. They never got further than that kiss. It was like watching Eve pluck the apple over and over again. The garden of Eden in an endless loop.

In his dreams they always stopped there. Or rather, Bill stopped, to be more correct. Tom never wanted to stop and it was frustrating beyond belief to think that whatever entity watched him overnight, it had obviously more control over his thought processes than he had during the day.

That not so subtle hint, his subconsciousness wagging its metaphorical finger and scolding him for wanting to kiss his own brother. God, if kisses where his only problem he wouldn't have any problems at all.

Wanting to kiss Bill was only the start of all his troubles. The way he looked at his brother had changed but their relationship hadn't. That cruel irony that the person he wanted more than anything else in this world, was the only one he couldn't have, the only one that didn't want him in return.

He may have been cruelly jealous of every girl his brother let a little too close, his stomach turning on the rare occasions Bill actually mustered up enough courage to openly flirt with someone but the ultimate worst thing of it all, was having Bill so close all this time and not ever getting to touch him.

He would wipe a stray strand of hair out of his brother's face and Bill would flinch, his eyes flitting about the room nervously. Then he would tuck his arms closer to his chest, his whole body language screaming Don't touch me!

There were those rare moments when Bill didn't mind. When he was so happy and bouncy he didn't know what to do with himself, or when he was exceptionally nervous. Those were excuses to touch, to keep his arms wrapped around his baby brother for just that millisecond longer.

They had been at the lake when it almost happened. They had been 18. They had been on a short vacation, late summer and their parents had gone off to visit with some relatives that afternoon and wouldn't come back till late in the night.

Tom couldn't really remember whose idea it had been, but sometime late that afternoon they had found themselves back at the lake, in their old hiding spot, together with a bottle of wine and a whole backpack of beer cans and alcopops they had salvaged from the pantry.
Lazing around on a bunch of sleeping pads, comfortably propped up against one of the weeping willows with the two pillows Bill had had the mind to pack.

The empty bottles and cans started to pile in a heap at their feet and it grew a little colder as the sun started to set. They had talked all afternoon. Tom couldn't remember a time when they had had this much time to themselves, just the two of them.

Bill was leaning against him, his entire body just this heavy warmth that seeped through Tom's own skin, warmed him to the core. The pleasant low whirling of the alcohol was only furthering it and soon they both sat slumped against the trunk of the tree, temple pressed against temple, as they stared up at the dark blue and grey leaves above them, wallowing in nostalgia. Like a bunch of eighty year olds. Very drunk eighty year olds.

“Is it bad that sometimes I wish the band didn't really exist? In like, this big way?” Bill asked in a low tone, his speech slightly slurred.

Tom coughed out a short laugh, blinking up into the darkness ahead and tried for a moment to imagine a different kind of life. He couldn't, not really.

“What would it be like instead?”

“Ummm...you'd go to music school, teach guitar at Gordon's place, loads of little girls that secretly crush on you and I...umm, would probably do some sort of vocational training, arts stuff...” Bill trailed off mid sentence, hiccuping quietly, before he added with some sort of triumphant whoop “Clothes! You know...kind of like a designer school.”

Tom tried to picture a life like that. He could clearly see Bill and his hypothetical artsy-fartsy gang of friends, girls with green and black hair and piercing studs all over, lounging around in their carefully ripped jeans and self-made tee-shirts, all of them oh-so-rebellious. Tom decided then he didn't like this kind of life.

“That'd be boring, huh?” Bill nudged him gently.
“I guess with you things would never get boring. You're like...the boredom antidote - I should know, I sometimes wish my life was a little more boring but with you? No chance.” Tom laughed quietly, hearing the outraged huff that worked its way out of his brother and he slumped further down, laying his head on his twin's shoulder. It was okay to do that now. They were both drunk.

Bill's fingers suddenly brushed over his forehead, trailing up into the fine patch of hairs at his hairline. Tom let his eyes slip close and tried to will away the goose bumps racing up his back, tried not to shiver too noticeably.

“You want more boredom?” Bill sounded incredulous and just slightly amused. The tip of one finger trailed up his scalp, scratching the skin between two dreads just lightly. This time Tom really did shiver but masked it just in time with a cough.

“I want a lot of things I can't have...” The words were out faster than he could think. Maybe he should have been mad at himself, tossing out a statement like that – it just begged for the inevitable follow up question – but somehow Tom was almost beyond caring at this point.

“Like what?” There it was.
“Like...” Bill's resumed stroking his hair gently and Tom had to force his mind into cooperating. It would have been so easy to just fall into that feeling.
“...like girls not blasting my eardrums all the time, a mute button for life kind of, being normal and not getting recognized all the time, not having people grab at me, like they all want a piece of me...” Bill hummed in acquiescence, fingers still busy.

“And the right person.” Bill's fingers stilled. Oh, why did he have to use person, he should have said girl!

“The right person?” Bill echoed, his voice laced with a tone Tom had never heard and couldn't place. It made him nervous.

Craning his neck he looked up at his brother, in an attempt to judge his reaction. Bill's eyes were almost black, the pupils so extremely dilated and he looked down on him with that innocent kind of eagerness that always caused that vaguely uneasy, fluttering excitement to stir in Tom's chest.

“You know like...uh,” Tom lost track of his thought; Bill had never looked this inviting, so close, his lips just lightly parted as he stared down on him, waiting for an answer. The way his breath wafted down against Tom's cheeks, smelling faintly sweet of orange and lime.

That was the moment. Tom closed his eyes and waited. Bill's breath got warmer and more immediate and he thought he felt a shuddering sigh, before he could feel his brother's dry lips press against his temple.
“You'll find your person, Tomi.” Bill giggled at the word 'person' and Tom was glad he had waited. Waited to react instead of acting on his impulse. Bill wouldn't have handled that well. Bill didn't want the same things he did, didn't feel the same way. It was stupid and impossible.

That was the moment it had almost happened. And then it was over.

* * *

“Tom?”

“Huh?” Tom snapped back to reality, the jerking movement of his hand causing the column of ash on his cigarette to fall off and crumble all over the table top.

Bill laughed softly and wiped a graceful hand over the table, sweeping the ashes off and letting them snow down on the floor in tiny flakes.

“I asked you whether you wanted that last cup of coffee or not?” Bill wriggled the almost empty can, offering it to him.

“Nuh, it's all yours.” Tom watched Bill pour the coffee into his giant mug, then water the whole thing down with insane amounts of milk. White coffee, quite literally.

“Where have you been just now? You totally spaced out!” Bill laughed.
“I was thinking about the lake, silly!” Tom flicked a left over crumb of toast in his twin's direction, smiling to himself as Bill dodged the flying crumb and flailed his hands.

“We should definitely go there again some time,” Tom added after a moment's thought. For memories sake. Wanting more from Bill was not only an exercise in futility, it was sick and stupid.

“Yeah, probably...” Bill lit another cigarette and stirred listlessly through the murky liquid in his cup.
“I'm gonna go wash, get dressed...” Tom announced after a moment. Leaving Bill alone with his sorry excuse for a coffee, he peeled himself out of the tiny breakfast nook and headed for the bathroom. One foot already in the other room, he turned to look back at his little brother again.

Bill was absent mindedly twirling the spoon, clinking it against the ceramic of the cup while he stared out of the bus' window, and unreadable and even expression on his face.

Trees bent in the wind, their skeletal branches swaying as if in time to some silent melody. It was too early really to do anything, other than sit around and wait for his brain to warm up to working speed.
And then that silly dream still haunted him. Damn lake.
Bill sighed quietly and sipped from his coffee.

He could still whip himself every time he thought about it, how he had chickened out at the last moment. That one time at the lake, when he had almost kissed Tom.