(no subject)
Quick one before I fall into bed - just a bit of fluff, enjoy :)
Title: The sum of its parts
Genre: band gen
Rating: PG
Summary: Bill is taking care of everyone for once and it's causing some strain.
A/N: I can't seem to get enough of writing the boys being sick. Not to be sadistic or anything, I just love fluffy hurt/comfort :)
A hectic week of touring shouldn’t have been the time to get reacquainted with the early evening programming on German TV, but even though his butt had left a permanent indentation in the couch by now, Georg still felt too weak and sluggish to do much more than press buttons on the remote control. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad for breaking down in the middle of the tour - he did - but he couldn’t help it and at least he hadn’t been the only one. Compared to how the others were faring, Georg had gotten pretty damn lucky, anyway.
The whole thing still sucked, though, unexpected time off notwithstanding.
“You don’t look so green in the face anymore,” was Gustav’s cheerful diagnosis upon returning to the apartment after practicing half of a drum line downstairs in the studio. “How are you feeling?”
Georg shrugged weakly. “Not too bad. How’s your arm?”
“Much better.” Gustav rubbed his injured wrist through the messy bandage Bill had put on him that morning and topped off with a big gauzy bow which neither he nor Georg had been able to undo. “More ginger ale?”
“Please.” Gratefully, Georg pointed at his cup, which stood on the coffee table amidst a sizeable pile of different pain meds. Between the two of them, they could knock out a small herd of elephants or maybe even Bill on a sugar rush, Georg thought. Bill seemed to have the constitution of an elephant, after all.
It was too ironic; they’d all worried about the tour taking its toll on their too-skinny, too-energetic singer, had pampered Bill and kept a close eye on him for possible signs of stress, but when the shit hit the fan a few weeks into the tour and three quarters of the band were knocked on their asses by some ailment, Bill turned out to be the last man standing.
So now he was running around taking care of everyone else for once while Georg recovered from a stomach flu, Gustav nursed a sprained wrist, and Tom spent his third day confined to a hospital bed with pneumonia. At least they’d been lucky insofar as chaos had hit at home in Germany and not someplace far away from friends, family and the comfort of one’s own, good old bed. They hadn’t been sick together at the studio apartment in ages. Getting to hang out with Gustav all day in the blissful peace and quiet of the twins’ absence was actually kind of nice.
“We’re out of pretzels,” Gustav said apologetically as he handed Georg the cup. “I texted Bill to bring some more.”
As if on cue, a door banged downstairs and a moment later, their singer burst onto the scene, laden with bags from the pharmacy and the supermarket. “Hey, guys. How are you doing?”
“Better,” Gustav said. He sat down at the end of the couch Georg was occupying and stuck his feet under Georg’s blanket. “How’s Tom?”
“Still on IV antibiotics,” Bill sighed. “They’re trying some other medicine now, the first one wasn’t really doing much good.”
“That sucks,” Georg said.
“Yeah. He really wants to go home. It’s getting harder leaving him there every day.” The corners of Bill’s mouth drooped. “I’m running out of blackmail material. Soon I’ll have to tell the doctors his mysophobia is impairing his judgment and that I have power of attorney.”
“When I saw him yesterday he didn’t look fit to go anywhere,” Gustav said. “Please. No doctor would let him go when he’s too weak to even complain about the ridiculous pyjamas you put him in.”
That made Bill smile a little. “He complained plenty to me though. About the food, the TV being too small, the people in the next room snoring, not having enough privacy to jerk off--”
“If he’s contemplating that, means he’s better,” Georg assured him. “Don’t worry so much.”
“Right,” Bill sighed. He shed his jacket and began to sort through his bags. “I have all the stuff you wanted. Pretzels,” he pulled out the items one by one and presented them like a host on Home Order Television. “Cooling gel for Gustav’s wrist. More bandages. Another cool pack to replace the one Gustav sat on--”
“That was an accident,” Gustav said sourly; accident or not, the stains of blue gel would never come out of the sofa cushions, and Gustav would never live down the fattie joke that had written itself.
“Drum magazines. Salon quality conditioner - honestly, Georg, you’re sick, you look like shit anyway - ew, two large steaks.”
“We need our protein,” Gustav argued. “All you bring us is fries and gummi bears.”
“Seriously. I can feel myself losing muscle mass,” Georg said. “And you’re never too ill to take care of your hair.”
Bill had to admit that was true. “But I’m not helping you bathe! It’s bad enough I have to go to the toilet with Tom.”
“Don’t they have nurses for that?” Georg chortled.
Bill rolled his eyes. “Sure. But he doesn’t want the pretty ones to see him in the state he’s in, and he refuses to let the ugly ones touch him.”
Gustav and Georg laughed. “No, not at all worried about him.” Gustav thumped Bill’s shoulder reassuringly with his good fist. “He’ll be fine. Georg, do you think you can handle the steak?”
Georg rubbed his stomach. A bit of lean meat couldn’t hurt. His stomach felt sandy like the desert with all the dry pretzels he’d eaten. “I think so.”
“I’ll put dinner on,” Gustav nodded, climbing off the couch. “Bill, baked potato and salad for you?”
Bill made a face. “I’ll take the potato. With lots of ketchup.”
“Cretin,” Gustav muttered, and took the steaks into the kitchen for a hot date with some garlic butter.
“How’s your wrist?” Bill called after him. “Are you contemplating jacking off yet?”
Gustav’s head appeared around the doorframe. “I’m a drummer. I’m pretty good with both hands, thank you.”
Bill wagged his finger at him. “The doctor did say your wrist needed moderate exercise.”
“Mind your own libido,” Gustav said with dignity and disappeared to one-handedly juggle pans and pots. Georg’s stomach rumbled just thinking of a proper dinner. Lucky that Gustav was a decent cook.
Bill dropped into an armchair across from Georg, his long legs hanging over the side, and nudged Georg’s leg with his toe. “How are you doing? You look better.”
“I feel better.” Georg stretched gingerly. He felt stiff like an old man after several days of bed rest. It was time to move again. “Tomorrow I’m coming along to the hospital. I want to mock Tom’s pyjamas.”
“They’re not so bad.” Bill stared at some inane cooking show that was playing on TV with unseeing eyes. “I want him home,” he said forlornly. “I’ve never been the healthy one, it was always the other way around. The house is too quiet. I can’t stand it.”
“You could sleep here,” Georg suggested. “Your bed’s all made, we’d love to have you around.”
Bill gave him a grateful look. “I feel like I should be able to handle being alone at home,” he said ruefully. “I’m twenty.”
“So? I’m twenty-three and an only child and I still can’t stand being alone at home,” Georg said. “I’m so used to you guys always being around, I don’t even know what to do with myself when no one’s playing pranks or making fun of me or just hanging out.” He grinned. “Actually, I’m thinking of asking Janina to move in with me.”
“Ooh, really?” Bill made. He clapped his hands. “That’s great! Not that you’ll be home with her much, but still. It’s the thought that counts, right?” He cocked his head, smiling. “Aw, Georg. I’m happy for you. If you can keep a woman, there’s hope for the rest of us yet.”
“Yeah.” Georg felt his insides warm pleasantly as he thought about his girlfriend. Janina had offered to come nurse him back to health, but he hadn’t wanted to subject her to his germs and truthfully, he’d enjoyed hanging out at the studio with the boys. Still, it was good to know she was there for him. “Life’s better when you have someone with you, by your side. I’m sure Tom feels that too right now, nevermind his whining.”
Bill looked a little happier at that. “I suppose it’s my turn to take care of him.”
“I think you’re pretty evenly balanced,” Georg smiled. “I know you well enough. Don’t worry.” He nudged Bill’s leg back and watched as the singer’s tight, anxious frown eased.
“Right,” he said thickly. “Thanks, Georg.”
“No problem.”
Bill jumped up, newly energized, to fluff Georg’s pillows and refill his glass of ginger ale. “What can I do for you? Get some pretzels? Wash your hair? Sing you a lullaby?”
“Help me with the potatoes,” came Gustav’s voice from the kitchen. “If you really want to make yourself useful.”
Bill, of course, only ever made himself useful on his own terms. He wrinkled his nose. “Actually--” His phone rang shrilly. “Oh, Gustav, I’m so sorry, I have to get that! Hello?”
On the other end of the line, someone spoke at length, and Bill’s expression of amusement faded gradually to one of concern. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. The caller only got a few words in before he screeched, “What?…Don’t tell me to calm down! What do you mean, he left?”
Gustav’s head popped out of the kitchen door like a jack-in-the-box’s at their singer’s alarmed tone. He and Georg exchanged a quick look, gauging if they had to launch emergency protocol A yet, which was for twin crises and involved bodily force and a straightjacket Gustav had stolen from some TV station’s costume department once.
“No, I’m not staying put! I’m coming over there!” Bill snapped at the person on the other end of the line and hung up.
“What happened?” Georg asked, forcibly calmly.
“It’s Tom.” Now that the call was over, Bill was progressing from anger to panic in under ten seconds. His voice rose shrilly. “He’s gone and they have no idea where he went. He took his IV drip and disappeared. How can they just lose a patient like that?” He paced around the room, gesturing wildly. “He was too shaky to get out of bed alone this morning! What if someone kidnapped him?”
“Relax. He probably jumped in a taxi and will turn up here in a minute,” Gustav suggested.
“He doesn’t even have any money!” Bill’s eyes were brimming with tears now. “I took his wallet. And his cell phone. And his clothes, just so this fucking thing wouldn’t happen! I knew he wanted out of there, I should’ve, oh, tied him to his bed--”
“Stop it. This is not your fault,” Gustav said firmly.
“Yes, it is!” The tears spilled over. Bill drew a shuddering breath. “He’s running around who-knows-where in his pyjamas, with no money and no phone to call me--”
“And we’ll find him.” Gustav pushed off the doorframe with his good hand. He grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of the couch and wriggled into it, awkward with one arm injured and useless. “Georg, we’re at DEFCON 1. You man the phones. Come on, Bill, I’ll go with you.”
“Hey, wait, I’m coming too!” Georg protested. “I can man the phones from the car.”
Bill snuffled wetly. “You’re sick.”
“I’m fine,” Georg said. He stood, legs only slightly wobbly, and clung to Gustav’s shoulder. “I feel all better. Let’s go!”
Georg ended up driving, because Bill was in no condition to steer a car. He sat in the passenger seat, his nose and fingertips pressed to the window trying to find Tom in the darkening streets, shaking like a leaf with the force of his terror, and Georg felt so sorry for him he wanted to cry with Bill.
Gustav was leaning forward in the back seat, keeping his hands on Bill’s shoulders for the drive to the hospital. “Relax,” he told Bill, over and over, rubbing gently at Bill’s back, and each time, Bill replied with an increasingly unsteady, “But what if something happened to him?”
Neither Gustav nor Georg knew what to say to that.
By the time they reached the hospital, Bill was in full freak-out mode, flailing spasmodically and screeching his twin’s name at the pitch of an ambulance siren. If they didn’t find Tom soon, they’d be fit to go straight to the psychiatric ward, Georg thought as they hurried after Bill, who jogged ahead towards the hospital entrance as fast as his long legs would carry him.
At the door, he turned sharply, and Gustav and Georg almost ran into him. Georg stumbled over his feet and narrowly avoided faceplanting on the pavement. “What if he’s somewhere out here, in the gardens?” Bill glanced around wildly.
“Maybe one of the taxi drivers saw him,” Gustav suggested, jerking his head at the cabs that were parked before the hospital entrance. “I’ll go ask.”
“And we should go talk to the head nurse,” Georg suggested, tugging gently at Bill’s arm. “Maybe they found him.”
“She said he was gone!” Bill almost screamed. “As in, not there! We need to find him! He’s ill, he needs me!”
“Exactly, he’s ill,” Georg argued calmly. “He’ll want to be with you. Even if he’s being really stupid, eventually he’ll come back to you.” The twins drawing each other like magnets was one of the forces of nature; Georg had long accepted it, come to expect it, and at times like this, it was a relief.
Bill knew the truth of that, but still, his face crumpled. “But what if something happens to him first?”
Sighing, Georg dug through all the twin expertise he’d accumulated over the years. “Don’t you think you’d know if something had happened to him?”
“Yeah?” Bill said uncertainly. “I think so.”
“So there,” Georg said. “Gustav, got anything?”
“No.” Gustav came jogging over from the taxi stand. “They said they’ve been here for a while and no one’s taken a taxi.”
“So he must be around here somewhere,” Georg said. “Come on, let’s go talk to the nurses. Someone must have seen him.”
Due to Tom’s celebrity status and him having private health insurance, he’d been put up in a large single room in Geriatrics where no one would expect to find him, away from other, curious patients and their nosy visitors. This had allowed Bill to come and go relatively unhindered, which was nice, but right now it was a definite disadvantage. With most of the elderly patients in the ward either too ill or preoccupied with the evening’s menu, no one they talked to had noticed a young man with a hacking cough, weird hair and an IV drip.
“I’m so sorry,” the flustered head nurse told them. “We did all our usual check-ups, and when I went in to take his temperature again, he was gone. We looked all over the ward.”
“What about the cafeteria?” Gustav asked reasonably, preempting a bitchfit from Bill. “Or maybe he went outside to smoke?”
The nurse frowned deeply. “With pneumonia? I should hope not.”
“He doesn’t have cigarettes,” Bill said unhappily. “And I brought him everything he might want, why would he go to the cafeteria?”
“Change of scenery?” Gustav suggested.
“The cafeteria is closed,” the nurse told them. “Maybe you should just go home, Mr Kaulitz, we’ll call you--”
“The hell I will!” Bill said angrily. “I’m staying until you’ve found him!” And with that, he flounced off into Tom’s room, banging the door for effect.
The nurse pursed her lips and left to tend to the patients who were too weak to escape from her care. Gustav and Georg walked into Tom’s room to find Bill sitting on the edge of the bed, his long body slumped and folded in on itself. He was crying noiselessly, tears streaming down his cheeks unchecked; moving in silent accord, the other two sat down on either side of him and leaned in close.
With Bill, the quiet tears of unspeakable pain were always the worst. They shook his thin body, but no sound came out, no cry or scream that might have relieved the pressure inside. Georg could barely stand it.
He nudged Bill gently. “We should go look around some more, the hospital is huge, he could be anywhere. You know the crazy bastard.”
But Bill shook his head. “It’s my fault,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have left him here, that’s not what we do--”
“Amazing twin powers aside, your love can’t cure pneumonia,” Gustav said wryly. “He had to go to the hospital, Bill. Not your fault.”
Bill hiccoughed. “But I shouldn’t have left him, we’re not meant to be apart, and especially not when he’s in pain and upset!”
“He was probably just bored and went for a walk,” Georg suggested helplessly.
“For over an hour?” Bill burst out. He wiped at his cheeks, sniffling. “Tom is so good at this, whenever I’m sick he makes me feel better. All of you do. When I feel awful Tom lies down with me and Gustav makes chicken soup and you crack jokes and then nothing seems so bad anymore, but now it’s my turn and I’ve messed it up. I suck!”
“You suck at many things, but not at this,” Gustav deadpanned. “Seriously. You know I’d tell you the cold harsh truth, dude.”
He glanced at Georg, wiggling his eyebrows meaningfully behind his glasses, and Georg jumped in to add, “Right. You look stupid…”
“You can’t sing…” Gustav supplied.
“You’re loud…”
“And not a little crazy…”
“But you held my hair while I puked and you defended Gustav when David started bitching, and we won’t forget that you got us our every wish this week,” Georg finished, smiling slightly. “You make a good band mommy.”
“So shut up and go fix your make-up, you look like something out of the chamber of horrors,” Gustav told him.
Squeaking, Bill searched his pockets for a tissue and began to dab furiously at his eyes. “Fuck,” he said when the tissue came away smudged with black. He glanced at his friends in turn, looking more like an aging member of Kiss than the young hot thing he liked to play to gullible reporters. “Tom is gone and I’m a mess!” he wailed. “What do we do?”
“Fix your face first, it’s melting off.” Georg looked around and saw the bottle of baby oil which Tom liked to slap on when he posed in front of the mirror and at whose other purposes Georg didn’t even want to guess. “There, all the war paint should come off with that, right?”
Bill stared at him, distress momentarily overshadowed by sheer horror. “My face will break out!”
“It’s either that or looking hot like Jost before his first cup of coffee,” Gustav said.
Grumbling, Bill went into the ensuite bathroom to take off his make-up. “I’ll kill Tom,” he said, and Gustav and Georg exchanged a gratified look. Pissy Bill was preferable to panicking Bill. “This is all his fault. How could he do this to me?”
Georg actually thought he had a point this time, even if Bill seemed more concerned about the damage to his skin now than the upset his brother had caused. In interviews, Bill could whine all day long about the hardships he went through while the others lazed around, but after all of them had actually fallen ill, he hadn’t complained once, but thrown himself into the role of nurse with his usual verve. When Tom was found, and feeling better, Georg would have to tell him what his disappearance had done to Bill.
Georg smiled when the singer came out of the bathroom, looking the spitting image of his elusive twin and not just a little annoyed. “Okay. Let’s go, I’ll track him down. I’ll just follow my instinct, it’s bound to lead me to him sooner or later for an ass-kicking.”
“All right,” Gustav agreed readily, and he and Georg rose. There was no arguing with twin powers. They’d seen them at work too many times. “Where to?”
“Anywhere.” Bill flung open the door and stalked out, startling a little old lady and her gentleman friend, who were playing peek-a-boo behind their doorframes. Bill walked down the hall with purposeful steps until he reached a narrow door that led to a flight of stairs, unfit for sick people and their walkers and wheelchairs. He went through and down the stairs, around a corner and through another door, never faltering, Gustav and Georg trailing behind him.
It wasn’t until they reached the elevators in the entrance hall and Bill pressed the button to go up again that Georg put in, “We just came from there.”
“I know,” Bill said simply, determination in his voice. “And now we’re going back. He’s got to pop up eventually, right?”
He had barely finished speaking when the elevator doors slid open on the second floor to reveal a young man in grandpa pyjamas, hanging on to an IV stand for dear life. He was coughing rather pathetically, which didn’t make him look better. “Huh. Hey guys! Didn’t expect you here.”
Tom really was a bit of a mess. As always, the twins were perfectly matched, Georg thought, and then Bill shrieked, “Oh my god! Where have you been?”
“Down here in Radiology, of course,” Tom coughed. “I told you about that cute nurse who did my chest X-ray--”
“You went down there to flirt with some girl when you couldn’t even wipe your own ass without my help this morning?” Bill screeched.
Tom flushed. “The new meds kicked in. Shut up already!”
Bill opened his mouth to yell some more, then closed it, then opened it again, resembling a very indignant blowfish.
“We were really worried,” Georg supplied when it became apparent that Bill was too outraged to say anything at all. “We thought you’d taken off and disappeared.”
“In my pyjamas? That idiot took all my clothes!” Tom jerked his head at his brother.
“Yeah. Did you really go to see a girl like this?” Gustav looked him up and down once; Tom was wearing baby-blue-and-white striped pyjamas with a fluffy blue terrycloth bathrobe on top and one of Bill’s long, skinny scarves, navy shot through with silver thread. Everything matched, but, like most of Tom’s outfits, that didn’t make his getup any less ridiculous; quite the contrary.
“Hey,” Tom said, “she’s seen much worse, okay? Grandpas coming in with hip fractures and such shit. And besides, my nana gave me these pyjamas, so shut up, okay.”
“Aw,” Gustav made dryly. “What a cute grandfather you are.”
Tom flipped him off. “Can I go back to bed now? I’m pretty beat.” Coughing, he shuffled into the elevator at the pace of an octogenarian, narrowly avoiding the closing doors.
“And whose fault is that?” Bill snapped, but he fell into slow, shuffling step beside Tom as the door opened to Geriatrics again. He hovered anxiously close in case Tom decided to faint in his arms again, as he had a week ago on the tour bus, which had led to Bill putting him in the hospital in the first place.
“Mine,” Tom admitted tiredly. “She’s worth it, though. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
Bill hissed like a cat being threatened with a bath. “I swear, Tom, if you pull a stunt like this again--”
“He won’t, will you, Tom,” Georg cut in quickly. He put a bracing hand on Bill’s shoulder. “I think calming down would do us all good.”
“Yeah. Weren’t you sick?” Tom actually shrunk back from Georg. “I don’t want your icky stomach bug on top of my pneumonia.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. If you get sick, it’s probably the hospital’s fault, places like this are crawling with germs,” Gustav suggested cheerfully, opening the door to Tom’s room for them with a flourish.
Bill gave him a quelling look when Tom paled. “Thanks, Gustav. Come on, Casanova, off to bed. And stay there, or I’ll have to come up with a reason for them to put me in here with you.” His voice was rough. None of them would put it past Bill to find a morbidly creative way to have to go to the hospital.
Apparently, the thought made Tom’s big brother instinct kick in. His eyes flashed dangerously as Bill tucked him into bed, anger dispelling the glassy, feverish sheen in his eyes. “Don’t you dare.”
“Be good,” Bill advised him.
“Bill--”
“Tom!”
Tom sighed. “Fine. I’m not going down there alone again.” He smiled winningly at his twin. “Will you come with me tomorrow?”
Bill huffed. “Fine. But you’re taking a wheelchair.”
“I can walk!” Tom protested. “And I want my clothes back.”
“I’ll bring you some sweats if you let me push you in a wheelchair,” Bill insisted. He put his hands on his hips and glowered. “Don’t you want to get better? We have a tour to finish.”
“Yeah, sure.” Tom ducked his head, sheepish. “But I’m better! I really am!”
“I know you feel better,” Bill said, softening. He sat down on the edge of Tom’s bed and patted his knee through the duvet. “But you’re still really ill and I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t care how pretty that nurse is.”
Tom smirked. “She is very pretty though.” He clutched two imaginary melons in front of his chest. “Nice big…eyes.” He sighed fondly. “I’ve never banged a hot nurse. I want her for my collection. Maybe she’ll wear her uniform for me--”
“You’re such a pig,” Bill groaned. “Why don’t you try sleeping some? Maybe you’ll dream of her.”
“Hmm,” Tom made happily. He snuggled into the pillow Bill had fluffed for him and yawned. “Bring me some nice sweats, okay? And shoes that match.”
Gustav chuckled. He slapped Bill’s shoulder. “He seems to be on the mend.”
“He’s disgusting,” Bill said, but his tone lacked any real heat. He sounded mostly exhausted. “Good night, Tom. Sleep well.”
Tom blinked at him. “You make sure you get some sleep, you look tired. Gustav, put him to bed at home, will you.”
“I’m fine,” Bill said. “I’ve always been fine. Seriously, guys, if you took more time worrying about yourselves instead of me, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened.” The other three exchanged startled looks. Bill glanced around. “What? You think I don’t know that you have a pact to take care of me? That you put supplements in my yoghurt and lend me your jackets when I’ve forgotten mine and take turns cuddling me? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Georg said lamely. “Just… We care about you.”
“And we appreciate how hard you work,” Gustav added, his voice gruff. “So we try to give back.”
Bill looked at them all for a few long moments, then broke into a smile. “But a band is only as good as each of its members,” he said. “Can we agree to take care of each other from now on?”
A band was more than the sum of its parts; they all knew that. And before they’d been Tokio Hotel, they’d been friends; brothers, for all intents and purposes. As usual, more often than not, Bill was right. Not that they’d tell him that, mind.
“Yeah,” Georg agreed.
“Works for me,” Gustav said.
Tom squinted doubtfully. “I’m your big brother. I’ll keep ordering you around if I want to.”
“You can try,” Bill smiled.
Tom scowled. “Fine.”
“Fine,” Bill said. He held out his hand for all of the others to link theirs with, Tom’s IV-adorned hand coming to rest atop Gustav’s injured one, Georg covering them all. “We’re all in this together?”
“Together,” the others agreed.
“Right,” Bill said, satisfied. “And for now, until you three are better, I’m the boss. Understood?”
Tom’s face showed that he was already hatching a plan to undermine his brother’s power trip, but for the moment, he lay tiredly in bed, looking pale and exhausted. He’d take over some other time, when Bill needed him; and then it’d be Georg’s turn, then Gustav’s. They’d all get their moment, their call to duty. Right now, they all yielded to the voice of Bill, whose off-key singing was lulling his twin to sleep as Bill tucked the blankets around Tom once again.
“Good night,” Bill whispered. “I love you all.”
Title: The sum of its parts
Genre: band gen
Rating: PG
Summary: Bill is taking care of everyone for once and it's causing some strain.
A/N: I can't seem to get enough of writing the boys being sick. Not to be sadistic or anything, I just love fluffy hurt/comfort :)
A hectic week of touring shouldn’t have been the time to get reacquainted with the early evening programming on German TV, but even though his butt had left a permanent indentation in the couch by now, Georg still felt too weak and sluggish to do much more than press buttons on the remote control. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad for breaking down in the middle of the tour - he did - but he couldn’t help it and at least he hadn’t been the only one. Compared to how the others were faring, Georg had gotten pretty damn lucky, anyway.
The whole thing still sucked, though, unexpected time off notwithstanding.
“You don’t look so green in the face anymore,” was Gustav’s cheerful diagnosis upon returning to the apartment after practicing half of a drum line downstairs in the studio. “How are you feeling?”
Georg shrugged weakly. “Not too bad. How’s your arm?”
“Much better.” Gustav rubbed his injured wrist through the messy bandage Bill had put on him that morning and topped off with a big gauzy bow which neither he nor Georg had been able to undo. “More ginger ale?”
“Please.” Gratefully, Georg pointed at his cup, which stood on the coffee table amidst a sizeable pile of different pain meds. Between the two of them, they could knock out a small herd of elephants or maybe even Bill on a sugar rush, Georg thought. Bill seemed to have the constitution of an elephant, after all.
It was too ironic; they’d all worried about the tour taking its toll on their too-skinny, too-energetic singer, had pampered Bill and kept a close eye on him for possible signs of stress, but when the shit hit the fan a few weeks into the tour and three quarters of the band were knocked on their asses by some ailment, Bill turned out to be the last man standing.
So now he was running around taking care of everyone else for once while Georg recovered from a stomach flu, Gustav nursed a sprained wrist, and Tom spent his third day confined to a hospital bed with pneumonia. At least they’d been lucky insofar as chaos had hit at home in Germany and not someplace far away from friends, family and the comfort of one’s own, good old bed. They hadn’t been sick together at the studio apartment in ages. Getting to hang out with Gustav all day in the blissful peace and quiet of the twins’ absence was actually kind of nice.
“We’re out of pretzels,” Gustav said apologetically as he handed Georg the cup. “I texted Bill to bring some more.”
As if on cue, a door banged downstairs and a moment later, their singer burst onto the scene, laden with bags from the pharmacy and the supermarket. “Hey, guys. How are you doing?”
“Better,” Gustav said. He sat down at the end of the couch Georg was occupying and stuck his feet under Georg’s blanket. “How’s Tom?”
“Still on IV antibiotics,” Bill sighed. “They’re trying some other medicine now, the first one wasn’t really doing much good.”
“That sucks,” Georg said.
“Yeah. He really wants to go home. It’s getting harder leaving him there every day.” The corners of Bill’s mouth drooped. “I’m running out of blackmail material. Soon I’ll have to tell the doctors his mysophobia is impairing his judgment and that I have power of attorney.”
“When I saw him yesterday he didn’t look fit to go anywhere,” Gustav said. “Please. No doctor would let him go when he’s too weak to even complain about the ridiculous pyjamas you put him in.”
That made Bill smile a little. “He complained plenty to me though. About the food, the TV being too small, the people in the next room snoring, not having enough privacy to jerk off--”
“If he’s contemplating that, means he’s better,” Georg assured him. “Don’t worry so much.”
“Right,” Bill sighed. He shed his jacket and began to sort through his bags. “I have all the stuff you wanted. Pretzels,” he pulled out the items one by one and presented them like a host on Home Order Television. “Cooling gel for Gustav’s wrist. More bandages. Another cool pack to replace the one Gustav sat on--”
“That was an accident,” Gustav said sourly; accident or not, the stains of blue gel would never come out of the sofa cushions, and Gustav would never live down the fattie joke that had written itself.
“Drum magazines. Salon quality conditioner - honestly, Georg, you’re sick, you look like shit anyway - ew, two large steaks.”
“We need our protein,” Gustav argued. “All you bring us is fries and gummi bears.”
“Seriously. I can feel myself losing muscle mass,” Georg said. “And you’re never too ill to take care of your hair.”
Bill had to admit that was true. “But I’m not helping you bathe! It’s bad enough I have to go to the toilet with Tom.”
“Don’t they have nurses for that?” Georg chortled.
Bill rolled his eyes. “Sure. But he doesn’t want the pretty ones to see him in the state he’s in, and he refuses to let the ugly ones touch him.”
Gustav and Georg laughed. “No, not at all worried about him.” Gustav thumped Bill’s shoulder reassuringly with his good fist. “He’ll be fine. Georg, do you think you can handle the steak?”
Georg rubbed his stomach. A bit of lean meat couldn’t hurt. His stomach felt sandy like the desert with all the dry pretzels he’d eaten. “I think so.”
“I’ll put dinner on,” Gustav nodded, climbing off the couch. “Bill, baked potato and salad for you?”
Bill made a face. “I’ll take the potato. With lots of ketchup.”
“Cretin,” Gustav muttered, and took the steaks into the kitchen for a hot date with some garlic butter.
“How’s your wrist?” Bill called after him. “Are you contemplating jacking off yet?”
Gustav’s head appeared around the doorframe. “I’m a drummer. I’m pretty good with both hands, thank you.”
Bill wagged his finger at him. “The doctor did say your wrist needed moderate exercise.”
“Mind your own libido,” Gustav said with dignity and disappeared to one-handedly juggle pans and pots. Georg’s stomach rumbled just thinking of a proper dinner. Lucky that Gustav was a decent cook.
Bill dropped into an armchair across from Georg, his long legs hanging over the side, and nudged Georg’s leg with his toe. “How are you doing? You look better.”
“I feel better.” Georg stretched gingerly. He felt stiff like an old man after several days of bed rest. It was time to move again. “Tomorrow I’m coming along to the hospital. I want to mock Tom’s pyjamas.”
“They’re not so bad.” Bill stared at some inane cooking show that was playing on TV with unseeing eyes. “I want him home,” he said forlornly. “I’ve never been the healthy one, it was always the other way around. The house is too quiet. I can’t stand it.”
“You could sleep here,” Georg suggested. “Your bed’s all made, we’d love to have you around.”
Bill gave him a grateful look. “I feel like I should be able to handle being alone at home,” he said ruefully. “I’m twenty.”
“So? I’m twenty-three and an only child and I still can’t stand being alone at home,” Georg said. “I’m so used to you guys always being around, I don’t even know what to do with myself when no one’s playing pranks or making fun of me or just hanging out.” He grinned. “Actually, I’m thinking of asking Janina to move in with me.”
“Ooh, really?” Bill made. He clapped his hands. “That’s great! Not that you’ll be home with her much, but still. It’s the thought that counts, right?” He cocked his head, smiling. “Aw, Georg. I’m happy for you. If you can keep a woman, there’s hope for the rest of us yet.”
“Yeah.” Georg felt his insides warm pleasantly as he thought about his girlfriend. Janina had offered to come nurse him back to health, but he hadn’t wanted to subject her to his germs and truthfully, he’d enjoyed hanging out at the studio with the boys. Still, it was good to know she was there for him. “Life’s better when you have someone with you, by your side. I’m sure Tom feels that too right now, nevermind his whining.”
Bill looked a little happier at that. “I suppose it’s my turn to take care of him.”
“I think you’re pretty evenly balanced,” Georg smiled. “I know you well enough. Don’t worry.” He nudged Bill’s leg back and watched as the singer’s tight, anxious frown eased.
“Right,” he said thickly. “Thanks, Georg.”
“No problem.”
Bill jumped up, newly energized, to fluff Georg’s pillows and refill his glass of ginger ale. “What can I do for you? Get some pretzels? Wash your hair? Sing you a lullaby?”
“Help me with the potatoes,” came Gustav’s voice from the kitchen. “If you really want to make yourself useful.”
Bill, of course, only ever made himself useful on his own terms. He wrinkled his nose. “Actually--” His phone rang shrilly. “Oh, Gustav, I’m so sorry, I have to get that! Hello?”
On the other end of the line, someone spoke at length, and Bill’s expression of amusement faded gradually to one of concern. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. The caller only got a few words in before he screeched, “What?…Don’t tell me to calm down! What do you mean, he left?”
Gustav’s head popped out of the kitchen door like a jack-in-the-box’s at their singer’s alarmed tone. He and Georg exchanged a quick look, gauging if they had to launch emergency protocol A yet, which was for twin crises and involved bodily force and a straightjacket Gustav had stolen from some TV station’s costume department once.
“No, I’m not staying put! I’m coming over there!” Bill snapped at the person on the other end of the line and hung up.
“What happened?” Georg asked, forcibly calmly.
“It’s Tom.” Now that the call was over, Bill was progressing from anger to panic in under ten seconds. His voice rose shrilly. “He’s gone and they have no idea where he went. He took his IV drip and disappeared. How can they just lose a patient like that?” He paced around the room, gesturing wildly. “He was too shaky to get out of bed alone this morning! What if someone kidnapped him?”
“Relax. He probably jumped in a taxi and will turn up here in a minute,” Gustav suggested.
“He doesn’t even have any money!” Bill’s eyes were brimming with tears now. “I took his wallet. And his cell phone. And his clothes, just so this fucking thing wouldn’t happen! I knew he wanted out of there, I should’ve, oh, tied him to his bed--”
“Stop it. This is not your fault,” Gustav said firmly.
“Yes, it is!” The tears spilled over. Bill drew a shuddering breath. “He’s running around who-knows-where in his pyjamas, with no money and no phone to call me--”
“And we’ll find him.” Gustav pushed off the doorframe with his good hand. He grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of the couch and wriggled into it, awkward with one arm injured and useless. “Georg, we’re at DEFCON 1. You man the phones. Come on, Bill, I’ll go with you.”
“Hey, wait, I’m coming too!” Georg protested. “I can man the phones from the car.”
Bill snuffled wetly. “You’re sick.”
“I’m fine,” Georg said. He stood, legs only slightly wobbly, and clung to Gustav’s shoulder. “I feel all better. Let’s go!”
Georg ended up driving, because Bill was in no condition to steer a car. He sat in the passenger seat, his nose and fingertips pressed to the window trying to find Tom in the darkening streets, shaking like a leaf with the force of his terror, and Georg felt so sorry for him he wanted to cry with Bill.
Gustav was leaning forward in the back seat, keeping his hands on Bill’s shoulders for the drive to the hospital. “Relax,” he told Bill, over and over, rubbing gently at Bill’s back, and each time, Bill replied with an increasingly unsteady, “But what if something happened to him?”
Neither Gustav nor Georg knew what to say to that.
By the time they reached the hospital, Bill was in full freak-out mode, flailing spasmodically and screeching his twin’s name at the pitch of an ambulance siren. If they didn’t find Tom soon, they’d be fit to go straight to the psychiatric ward, Georg thought as they hurried after Bill, who jogged ahead towards the hospital entrance as fast as his long legs would carry him.
At the door, he turned sharply, and Gustav and Georg almost ran into him. Georg stumbled over his feet and narrowly avoided faceplanting on the pavement. “What if he’s somewhere out here, in the gardens?” Bill glanced around wildly.
“Maybe one of the taxi drivers saw him,” Gustav suggested, jerking his head at the cabs that were parked before the hospital entrance. “I’ll go ask.”
“And we should go talk to the head nurse,” Georg suggested, tugging gently at Bill’s arm. “Maybe they found him.”
“She said he was gone!” Bill almost screamed. “As in, not there! We need to find him! He’s ill, he needs me!”
“Exactly, he’s ill,” Georg argued calmly. “He’ll want to be with you. Even if he’s being really stupid, eventually he’ll come back to you.” The twins drawing each other like magnets was one of the forces of nature; Georg had long accepted it, come to expect it, and at times like this, it was a relief.
Bill knew the truth of that, but still, his face crumpled. “But what if something happens to him first?”
Sighing, Georg dug through all the twin expertise he’d accumulated over the years. “Don’t you think you’d know if something had happened to him?”
“Yeah?” Bill said uncertainly. “I think so.”
“So there,” Georg said. “Gustav, got anything?”
“No.” Gustav came jogging over from the taxi stand. “They said they’ve been here for a while and no one’s taken a taxi.”
“So he must be around here somewhere,” Georg said. “Come on, let’s go talk to the nurses. Someone must have seen him.”
Due to Tom’s celebrity status and him having private health insurance, he’d been put up in a large single room in Geriatrics where no one would expect to find him, away from other, curious patients and their nosy visitors. This had allowed Bill to come and go relatively unhindered, which was nice, but right now it was a definite disadvantage. With most of the elderly patients in the ward either too ill or preoccupied with the evening’s menu, no one they talked to had noticed a young man with a hacking cough, weird hair and an IV drip.
“I’m so sorry,” the flustered head nurse told them. “We did all our usual check-ups, and when I went in to take his temperature again, he was gone. We looked all over the ward.”
“What about the cafeteria?” Gustav asked reasonably, preempting a bitchfit from Bill. “Or maybe he went outside to smoke?”
The nurse frowned deeply. “With pneumonia? I should hope not.”
“He doesn’t have cigarettes,” Bill said unhappily. “And I brought him everything he might want, why would he go to the cafeteria?”
“Change of scenery?” Gustav suggested.
“The cafeteria is closed,” the nurse told them. “Maybe you should just go home, Mr Kaulitz, we’ll call you--”
“The hell I will!” Bill said angrily. “I’m staying until you’ve found him!” And with that, he flounced off into Tom’s room, banging the door for effect.
The nurse pursed her lips and left to tend to the patients who were too weak to escape from her care. Gustav and Georg walked into Tom’s room to find Bill sitting on the edge of the bed, his long body slumped and folded in on itself. He was crying noiselessly, tears streaming down his cheeks unchecked; moving in silent accord, the other two sat down on either side of him and leaned in close.
With Bill, the quiet tears of unspeakable pain were always the worst. They shook his thin body, but no sound came out, no cry or scream that might have relieved the pressure inside. Georg could barely stand it.
He nudged Bill gently. “We should go look around some more, the hospital is huge, he could be anywhere. You know the crazy bastard.”
But Bill shook his head. “It’s my fault,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have left him here, that’s not what we do--”
“Amazing twin powers aside, your love can’t cure pneumonia,” Gustav said wryly. “He had to go to the hospital, Bill. Not your fault.”
Bill hiccoughed. “But I shouldn’t have left him, we’re not meant to be apart, and especially not when he’s in pain and upset!”
“He was probably just bored and went for a walk,” Georg suggested helplessly.
“For over an hour?” Bill burst out. He wiped at his cheeks, sniffling. “Tom is so good at this, whenever I’m sick he makes me feel better. All of you do. When I feel awful Tom lies down with me and Gustav makes chicken soup and you crack jokes and then nothing seems so bad anymore, but now it’s my turn and I’ve messed it up. I suck!”
“You suck at many things, but not at this,” Gustav deadpanned. “Seriously. You know I’d tell you the cold harsh truth, dude.”
He glanced at Georg, wiggling his eyebrows meaningfully behind his glasses, and Georg jumped in to add, “Right. You look stupid…”
“You can’t sing…” Gustav supplied.
“You’re loud…”
“And not a little crazy…”
“But you held my hair while I puked and you defended Gustav when David started bitching, and we won’t forget that you got us our every wish this week,” Georg finished, smiling slightly. “You make a good band mommy.”
“So shut up and go fix your make-up, you look like something out of the chamber of horrors,” Gustav told him.
Squeaking, Bill searched his pockets for a tissue and began to dab furiously at his eyes. “Fuck,” he said when the tissue came away smudged with black. He glanced at his friends in turn, looking more like an aging member of Kiss than the young hot thing he liked to play to gullible reporters. “Tom is gone and I’m a mess!” he wailed. “What do we do?”
“Fix your face first, it’s melting off.” Georg looked around and saw the bottle of baby oil which Tom liked to slap on when he posed in front of the mirror and at whose other purposes Georg didn’t even want to guess. “There, all the war paint should come off with that, right?”
Bill stared at him, distress momentarily overshadowed by sheer horror. “My face will break out!”
“It’s either that or looking hot like Jost before his first cup of coffee,” Gustav said.
Grumbling, Bill went into the ensuite bathroom to take off his make-up. “I’ll kill Tom,” he said, and Gustav and Georg exchanged a gratified look. Pissy Bill was preferable to panicking Bill. “This is all his fault. How could he do this to me?”
Georg actually thought he had a point this time, even if Bill seemed more concerned about the damage to his skin now than the upset his brother had caused. In interviews, Bill could whine all day long about the hardships he went through while the others lazed around, but after all of them had actually fallen ill, he hadn’t complained once, but thrown himself into the role of nurse with his usual verve. When Tom was found, and feeling better, Georg would have to tell him what his disappearance had done to Bill.
Georg smiled when the singer came out of the bathroom, looking the spitting image of his elusive twin and not just a little annoyed. “Okay. Let’s go, I’ll track him down. I’ll just follow my instinct, it’s bound to lead me to him sooner or later for an ass-kicking.”
“All right,” Gustav agreed readily, and he and Georg rose. There was no arguing with twin powers. They’d seen them at work too many times. “Where to?”
“Anywhere.” Bill flung open the door and stalked out, startling a little old lady and her gentleman friend, who were playing peek-a-boo behind their doorframes. Bill walked down the hall with purposeful steps until he reached a narrow door that led to a flight of stairs, unfit for sick people and their walkers and wheelchairs. He went through and down the stairs, around a corner and through another door, never faltering, Gustav and Georg trailing behind him.
It wasn’t until they reached the elevators in the entrance hall and Bill pressed the button to go up again that Georg put in, “We just came from there.”
“I know,” Bill said simply, determination in his voice. “And now we’re going back. He’s got to pop up eventually, right?”
He had barely finished speaking when the elevator doors slid open on the second floor to reveal a young man in grandpa pyjamas, hanging on to an IV stand for dear life. He was coughing rather pathetically, which didn’t make him look better. “Huh. Hey guys! Didn’t expect you here.”
Tom really was a bit of a mess. As always, the twins were perfectly matched, Georg thought, and then Bill shrieked, “Oh my god! Where have you been?”
“Down here in Radiology, of course,” Tom coughed. “I told you about that cute nurse who did my chest X-ray--”
“You went down there to flirt with some girl when you couldn’t even wipe your own ass without my help this morning?” Bill screeched.
Tom flushed. “The new meds kicked in. Shut up already!”
Bill opened his mouth to yell some more, then closed it, then opened it again, resembling a very indignant blowfish.
“We were really worried,” Georg supplied when it became apparent that Bill was too outraged to say anything at all. “We thought you’d taken off and disappeared.”
“In my pyjamas? That idiot took all my clothes!” Tom jerked his head at his brother.
“Yeah. Did you really go to see a girl like this?” Gustav looked him up and down once; Tom was wearing baby-blue-and-white striped pyjamas with a fluffy blue terrycloth bathrobe on top and one of Bill’s long, skinny scarves, navy shot through with silver thread. Everything matched, but, like most of Tom’s outfits, that didn’t make his getup any less ridiculous; quite the contrary.
“Hey,” Tom said, “she’s seen much worse, okay? Grandpas coming in with hip fractures and such shit. And besides, my nana gave me these pyjamas, so shut up, okay.”
“Aw,” Gustav made dryly. “What a cute grandfather you are.”
Tom flipped him off. “Can I go back to bed now? I’m pretty beat.” Coughing, he shuffled into the elevator at the pace of an octogenarian, narrowly avoiding the closing doors.
“And whose fault is that?” Bill snapped, but he fell into slow, shuffling step beside Tom as the door opened to Geriatrics again. He hovered anxiously close in case Tom decided to faint in his arms again, as he had a week ago on the tour bus, which had led to Bill putting him in the hospital in the first place.
“Mine,” Tom admitted tiredly. “She’s worth it, though. I’ll introduce you sometime.”
Bill hissed like a cat being threatened with a bath. “I swear, Tom, if you pull a stunt like this again--”
“He won’t, will you, Tom,” Georg cut in quickly. He put a bracing hand on Bill’s shoulder. “I think calming down would do us all good.”
“Yeah. Weren’t you sick?” Tom actually shrunk back from Georg. “I don’t want your icky stomach bug on top of my pneumonia.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. If you get sick, it’s probably the hospital’s fault, places like this are crawling with germs,” Gustav suggested cheerfully, opening the door to Tom’s room for them with a flourish.
Bill gave him a quelling look when Tom paled. “Thanks, Gustav. Come on, Casanova, off to bed. And stay there, or I’ll have to come up with a reason for them to put me in here with you.” His voice was rough. None of them would put it past Bill to find a morbidly creative way to have to go to the hospital.
Apparently, the thought made Tom’s big brother instinct kick in. His eyes flashed dangerously as Bill tucked him into bed, anger dispelling the glassy, feverish sheen in his eyes. “Don’t you dare.”
“Be good,” Bill advised him.
“Bill--”
“Tom!”
Tom sighed. “Fine. I’m not going down there alone again.” He smiled winningly at his twin. “Will you come with me tomorrow?”
Bill huffed. “Fine. But you’re taking a wheelchair.”
“I can walk!” Tom protested. “And I want my clothes back.”
“I’ll bring you some sweats if you let me push you in a wheelchair,” Bill insisted. He put his hands on his hips and glowered. “Don’t you want to get better? We have a tour to finish.”
“Yeah, sure.” Tom ducked his head, sheepish. “But I’m better! I really am!”
“I know you feel better,” Bill said, softening. He sat down on the edge of Tom’s bed and patted his knee through the duvet. “But you’re still really ill and I don’t want to take any chances. I don’t care how pretty that nurse is.”
Tom smirked. “She is very pretty though.” He clutched two imaginary melons in front of his chest. “Nice big…eyes.” He sighed fondly. “I’ve never banged a hot nurse. I want her for my collection. Maybe she’ll wear her uniform for me--”
“You’re such a pig,” Bill groaned. “Why don’t you try sleeping some? Maybe you’ll dream of her.”
“Hmm,” Tom made happily. He snuggled into the pillow Bill had fluffed for him and yawned. “Bring me some nice sweats, okay? And shoes that match.”
Gustav chuckled. He slapped Bill’s shoulder. “He seems to be on the mend.”
“He’s disgusting,” Bill said, but his tone lacked any real heat. He sounded mostly exhausted. “Good night, Tom. Sleep well.”
Tom blinked at him. “You make sure you get some sleep, you look tired. Gustav, put him to bed at home, will you.”
“I’m fine,” Bill said. “I’ve always been fine. Seriously, guys, if you took more time worrying about yourselves instead of me, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened.” The other three exchanged startled looks. Bill glanced around. “What? You think I don’t know that you have a pact to take care of me? That you put supplements in my yoghurt and lend me your jackets when I’ve forgotten mine and take turns cuddling me? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Georg said lamely. “Just… We care about you.”
“And we appreciate how hard you work,” Gustav added, his voice gruff. “So we try to give back.”
Bill looked at them all for a few long moments, then broke into a smile. “But a band is only as good as each of its members,” he said. “Can we agree to take care of each other from now on?”
A band was more than the sum of its parts; they all knew that. And before they’d been Tokio Hotel, they’d been friends; brothers, for all intents and purposes. As usual, more often than not, Bill was right. Not that they’d tell him that, mind.
“Yeah,” Georg agreed.
“Works for me,” Gustav said.
Tom squinted doubtfully. “I’m your big brother. I’ll keep ordering you around if I want to.”
“You can try,” Bill smiled.
Tom scowled. “Fine.”
“Fine,” Bill said. He held out his hand for all of the others to link theirs with, Tom’s IV-adorned hand coming to rest atop Gustav’s injured one, Georg covering them all. “We’re all in this together?”
“Together,” the others agreed.
“Right,” Bill said, satisfied. “And for now, until you three are better, I’m the boss. Understood?”
Tom’s face showed that he was already hatching a plan to undermine his brother’s power trip, but for the moment, he lay tiredly in bed, looking pale and exhausted. He’d take over some other time, when Bill needed him; and then it’d be Georg’s turn, then Gustav’s. They’d all get their moment, their call to duty. Right now, they all yielded to the voice of Bill, whose off-key singing was lulling his twin to sleep as Bill tucked the blankets around Tom once again.
“Good night,” Bill whispered. “I love you all.”