Janni, NC17, Tom/Bill, 20/?

[steins_stories]

Title: Janni
Author: steinsgrrl
Fandom: Tokio Hotel
Pairing: Tom/Bill
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I in no way intend to insinuate that any of the below actually happened. It is simply a piece of written entertainment based on the public personas of real people.
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Twincest-not related, Adult Concepts, Light Kink
Summary: When two men meet and fall in love, they expect there will be bumps in the road. When one of those men has a daughter, some bumps can seem more like mountains.
Author's Note: Thank you so much to ma_chelle for the beta. You are invaluable. Lovely banner by lynnchan.


“Tom? Why do you keep the glasses in this cupboard when it’d make more sense to have them in this cupboard?” Bill pointed at the second cupboard with the glass in his hand. “I mean, you can take them right out of the dishwasher and put them away, instead of walking across the kitchen.”

Tom looked up from where he was washing a pan in the sink. The breaded cod they’d fried up for lunch had left a scorch mark on the worn metal—Bill’s fault, really; he shouldn’t be so beautiful that Tom has to molest him in the middle of the kitchen while they’re cooking lunch—and he was having a horrible time getting it to come off.

He considered for a moment before shrugging. “That’s where Nikki put them. I never thought about it.”

“Can we, um.” Bill actually looked a little bashful and Tom worked to hold back his grin. “Can we move them?” He paused, biting his lip. “You know, I don’t want to come in here and try to change everything. It’s just, this would make more sense.”

Tom did laugh then, just quietly, and left the pan in the sink. He dried his hands and took the glass from Bill. “Honey, it’s just glasses. I don’t care where you put them.”

Bill looked relieved and Tom kissed him quick on the cheek before starting to empty the glasses from the cupboard. Once they had it emptied, they switched everything from the other cupboard over and put the glasses away in what Bill deemed was their proper place. Bill wiped his hands happily and closed the cupboards with a flourish and a smile.

“Now that’s done, I really need to work on my closet.” Bill kissed him on the cheek and Tom grinned as Bill went to go start his rearranging. Bill’s time in the fashion industry had netted him a lot of clothes and Tom didn’t know how on earth Bill was going to find a place for all of it.

He finished cleaning up the pan he’d left in the sink and wiped down the counters. Tom didn’t particularly enjoy housework, but it kept his hands occupied while he contemplated how to pick up more work. What he really should do, he thought, while scrubbing down the stainless steel inside the sink, is call back those companies that had offered him work before and he’d turned it down in favor of Mr. Shasky’s offer. Maybe they hadn’t picked anyone up yet; it hadn’t been that long. Tom squeezed the sponge out over the sink and laid it on the side to dry, determined that he would make those calls the next day, after he took Janni to school.

Right now, though, he needed to concentrate on getting Bill’s things put away or stored. Like the boxes that were stacked up next to his computer. Since they weren’t labeled for content, Tom opened the top of the first one, just to see where he should put it. He told himself it wasn’t because he was nosy at all, but he knew damn well he was. He wanted to see more of Bill’s things; things that Bill treasured and loved.

He remembered packing this box into the house, stacking it with the others the same size and shape. They were heavy, those boxes, and he’d wondered what was in them but he hadn’t had time to ask. Now he knew.

The boxes were full of magazines. Cosmos that were a couple years old, a few GQs, a couple Vogues and some foreign magazines he’d never heard of before. Tom pulled a handful out and left the rest, taking his bunch over to the couch to have a look.

Why on earth would Bill keep a bunch of outdated fashion magazines? He wondered if Bill used them for inspiration or, he thought with a chuckle, maybe he’d used them as a catalogue, picking out which outfit he wanted that season.

Tom flipped through them, the pages not quite as glossy and pretty as they once were, making them easier to turn. He didn’t see anything of note; just a bunch of makeup articles, an article comparing handbags, one that showed the most outrageously high heeled shoes he’d ever seen. Oh, then there were the pictorials. Fashion shoots showing off a designer’s clothing, as worn by stick thin people who made Tom wonder if they ever ate.

He turned another page and stopped dead. It was Bill. Bill was in this magazine and Tom sucked a breath in. Bill had said he would show these to Tom and he never did. And Tom had just sort of…forgotten about it, with everything else going on.

He wished he’d seen it before, though. Bill was stunning. His hair was down with a multitude of dreadlocks mixed in with the black strands. Some of the dreads were black, some were white and Tom was enraptured by the look. His makeup was smoky and sexy and when he looked at the glossed and shiny lips Bill had that day, knowing what they could do and how they felt, Tom felt a tingle start in his groin. God, his boyfriend was gorgeous. Yeah, he knew that before but he’d never seen Bill like this and seeing this shoot, seeing him made up like that, just brought it home to him again.

He palmed his dick through his pants. Now was really not the time to be doing this. Tom had things to do. Still, he couldn’t stop looking at the spread in front of him.

Eventually, it occurred to him that perhaps the rest of these magazines have pictures of Bill, too. He glanced over at the boxes. How could that be, though? Bill had said he was only in a couple shoots. This was way more than a couple.

Tom grabbed the next magazine in the stack next to him and began thumbing through it, stopping at all the fashion shoots. It didn’t take long to find Bill in this one. Or in the next magazine, or the next. Before long, he had every magazine from that box open, the pages spread out before him on the coffee table, a multitude of Bill’s looking up at him.

“Oh god,” a breathless voice came from behind him.

Tom spun around quickly, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Um.” He glanced back that the magazines and then at Bill. Bill was staring at them, his eyes not really moving, and Tom wasn’t sure if Bill was actually seeing them at all. “I, um. I was going to move these to the basement, but,” he scratched the back of his neck, nervously, “I thought I should see what was in them. Because maybe you would need it up here and not in the basement?”

Bill dragged his eyes away from the magazines and focused on Tom. “No. No, I mean, yeah. It’s okay.” He took a step toward the coffee table. “I just haven’t looked at these in a while.”

“Yeah, they look like they haven’t been out of the box for a while.” Tom gestured at the magazines, feeling dumb. Obviously, Bill was okay with him looking at them, but he seemed unsettled by the pictures themselves. He didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to ask Bill about them. If Bill wanted to tell him what was going on, Tom had to trust that he would.

Bill slowly came around to perch on the edge of the couch and he reached out to pick up one of the magazines, almost reverently.

“I remember this one,” he started, quietly. “It was really cold in the studio. She kept complaining.” Bill pointed at the model in the pictures and Tom leaned in to see. She was one of those models that Tom never could understand how they became a model in the first place. She was so thin, her hip bones jutted out beneath the slip-like dress she wore and her face was almost skeletal. “But they wouldn’t turn the air conditioning off because they wanted her to have goose bumps for the pictures. And wanted her nipples to poke out. But it didn’t work. In the end, they had to use ice on them anyway.” He laughed quietly.

“Ice?” Tom looked at the picture again, more closely this time. She had pokey nipples, alright. But ice? “That cannot be comfortable.”

Tom said it so deadpan that Bill had to laugh. So many things went on in the modeling business that most people didn’t know about. Some of them, they would probably be shocked to learn about. Guilting girls into starving themselves, firing girls who simply could not be as thin as the agency wanted them to be. Bulimia, Anorexia, drugs, enemas. Ice on the nipples was the least of it.

But Bill stayed pretty much with a healthy crowd. He had that amazing metabolism that let him eat whatever he wanted and stay super thin, and the management was always happy with his work. He honestly hadn’t seen most of the horrors his friends had told him about, and he was exceedingly glad for that. Instead, he’d made some amazing friends there. People that would be in his heart forever. Like David.

“I miss it,” Bill said, lowly. “I miss the excitement of it. Getting ready, getting made up. The amazing clothes.” He grinned at Tom, who rolled his eyes in return. “Hey, I’ve got a lot of couture in my closet, and most of it came free. You can’t beat that.”

Tom shrugged a shoulder but tilted his head to nod in agreement. Couture wasn’t his thing but if it was important to Bill, it was important to Tom.

Bill closed that magazine and picked up another one, nudging Tom against the back of the couch so he could snuggle his shoulder under Tom's arm. Tom's arm around him was warm and comforting and Bill needed it so very much. He needed Tom.

“But you had to quit because of your dad,” Tom whispered.

“Yeah. Well, someone had to take care of him.” Bill sighed and dropped the magazine onto the cushion next to him. “It was so hard leaving New York. I was just torn. I didn’t want to leave. But it was my dad, you know?”

Tom nodded, even though he didn’t really know. He hadn’t seen his father in years, and even when he had, his father was never a dad.

“But I did. I left, I came here, where I did what I had to do. I made him comfortable and took over the bar and his house and his life.”

They were silent for a while, Tom resting his cheek on the top of Bill’s head, the hair tickling his nose. “Do you ever regret it? Giving up the life you had?”

Bill turned in his arm, facing him. “Do I regret coming to take care of my father?” He asked, obviously confused. “I know you asked if I regret giving up my life but really that question should be do I regret taking care of my father while he was dying.”

Bill’s tone stung but Tom figured he probably deserved it. “I meant, maybe there would have been someone else—“

“No, Tom. No one would have done it because my father was an ass. But he was still my father. Of course, I would do it. I gave up parties and traveling and my chance at fame to come home to a rinky-dink town and give my father some tenderness in his final days, even if that man had never given me a moment of tenderness in my life.”

“Shit.” Tom ducked his head, feeling properly admonished. “I’m sorry, it was a stupid question.”

“No, it wasn’t stupid. Look.” Bill tipped Tom's face toward him and Tom lifted his eyes to meet with Bill’s. They weren’t angry, they were kind and loving and everything beautiful about Bill. Tom wanted to kiss him, wanted to just kiss him and feel Bill against him and leave this awkwardness behind them as quickly as possible. “Could you love someone that wouldn’t do what I did? That didn’t care enough about people that they could do that?” He didn’t wait for Tom to answer before he continued, “I met you because I was supposed to be here. To come back to this town, take care of my father, be set up in that bar and meet you. Only because of that could I move in here when you needed me to. And when you met me, it turned out that I’m the kind of man you wanted to be with, and part of it is because I was willing to do something like that.”

Tom nodded, agreeing completely, but this new information about Bill’s modeling career piqued his curiosity. “So when your father died, why didn’t you sell the bar and get back into the business?”

Bill snuggled further into Tom’s arms and he tightened them around him. He sighed and his warm breath moved across Tom's chest, warming the skin under his shirt.

“They, um, didn’t really get too excited when I came back. I was gone a long time. I’d had to get out of my contract to come here and then I was gone for three years—“

“But your father—“ Tom interrupted, confused by how long Bill said he stayed with his father. Most times he’d heard of people dying of something, it didn’t usually take… “Three years?”

“I know, it was a long time. He had bone cancer and had a hard time moving around. It was very painful for him to even walk, so I had to help him with everything, and work the bar. He was adamant about that, not selling it,” Bill explained patiently.

“Oh. Damn.” Tom felt completely stupid. What do you say to something like this? “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” Tom twitched at Bill’s words, seeming so foreign coming out of his mouth, until Bill continued. “I’m not, because now I have you. I didn’t like to see him suffer. It broke my heart. But in the end, my dad did one good thing for me; he brought me to you.” Bill wiggled an arm between Tom's back and the couch and squeezed him in a tight hug, his lips moving against Tom's neck as he spoke. “And now I’ve found the first place I’ve ever really felt like home. With you and Janni. I fell in love with you so quickly, but really, I had no choice. You just were everything for me. Everywhere I’d look, I’d see you; every time I dreamed, I’d see you.”

Tom chuckled and Bill smacked a flat palm against his belly. “You dreamed about me? That’s more like obsession than love, don’t you think?”

“Shut up!” He could feel Bill smile against his skin and he couldn’t help but smile, himself. “And then I met Janni. I’d never liked kids, you know?”

Tom did startle then. “Really?”

Bill sat up and rested his elbow against the back of the couch, propping his head up. The flush in his face was beautiful and Tom had to force himself to listen to Bill and not just ravage him on the spot.

“It’s true. Well, I guess it’s more true to say that I didn’t like the kids I had seen in public; always running and screaming and making their parents crazy. Like running around in restaurants? What is that? I just could never see myself with a kid,” Bill admitted, his fingers running idly along the neckline of Tom's tee shirt, dipping under it just enough to smooth over tanned skin.

Tom hummed and nodded his agreement. “Some kids are challenging.”

Bill snorted. “Challenging.”

“Okay.” Tom chuckled. “Some kids are brats. But it’s the parents’ fault, you know, not the kids’.”

“I do. I know that now, of course. Janni changed what I thought about kids. Hell,” Bill wove his fingers with Tom's, where they lay across Tom's belly. “Janni changed me. I really adore that girl.” He squeezed Tom's fingers and Tom met his eyes.

“She loves you, too, you know.” Tom squeezed back, reassuringly. He knew Janni adored Bill, just by the way she tackled him when he came in the room, or crawled right up in his lap with a book, or the way she had asked for Bill to put her to bed sometimes. Janni had squealed and done a little dance all over the house when Tom had told her that Bill would live with them, and she’d thought that having another daddy was the coolest thing ever.

“Is it too soon to say that I feel like we can really be a family?” Bill asked, looking at Tom with such hope in his eyes, such longing, that Tom's chest clenched and he pulled Bill in close.

“Bill, we are a family. You’re our family, okay? Don’t doubt that,” he whispered into Bill’s hair, kissing him there as Bill held him tightly.

A knock on the door interrupted their moment and Bill moved away with a sigh, wiping underneath his eyes a little. Tom smirked and kissed him hard on the lips before getting up to get the door. By the time he got halfway there, though, it opened and Simone let herself in, stopping when she saw Bill on the couch.

“You know,” she said, thoughtfully, “I probably shouldn’t just come in anymore. Sorry about that. “ She backed up and edged back toward the door. “You guys want me to come back later?”

“Nah, it’s too late now; I already made him put his clothes back on,” Tom threw over his shoulder as he brushed by her to get a bottle of water from the kitchen.

She snorted at him, not quite covering Bill’s scandalized, “Tom!”

“So, what are you—“ The phone rang, cutting Tom off and he held up a finger to Simone before answering.

Simone sat on the edge of the couch and her eyes fell to the magazines spread out on the table. Her eyes grew wide and she glanced over at Bill before looking at the pictures again. “Holy shit, Bill. This is you.”

Bill’s laugh was low and free. “Yeah. It was a long time ago—“ He broke off as he heard Tom's voice rising in the kitchen. Looking behind him, as Simone did, he watched Tom pace from the kitchen to the dining room, a murderous scowl on his face.

“What the fuck do you mean, you’re not bringing Janni home?”

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