Janni, NC17, Tom/Bill, 22/?

[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. Thank you so much for your patience!



“You guys better get in here; I’m gonna start this thing.” Bill pushed ‘play’ and waited for Tom and Janni to come back from the kitchen with their movie snacks.

“Okay, okay!” Tom appeared around the corner, holding a giant, blue bowl piled high with popcorn that Bill could smell before it was anywhere near him. “C’mon, Janni girl! The movie’s gonna start.” Tom plopped the popcorn bowl in Bill’s lap before trotting back to the kitchen. The light flickered off and Janni walked carefully into the living room carrying three soda bottles, one in each hand and one in her arms, held tightly against her chest. After handing them to Bill, she climbed up next to him on the couch and scooted close enough to him that her leg was pressed against his. Bill grinned as she dug a hand into the popcorn and wiggled it around, trying to get as much as her small fist could hold.

“Hey!” Tom admonished, passing out napkins and opening a large sack of M&Ms. “Did you wash your hands? I don’t need your little girl germs all in our popcorn, you know.”

“I did!” Janni looked at the popcorn in her hand and back at the bowl before stuffing her mouth full and holding up her empty, butter coated hand. “Fee?” She asked, spilling a couple kernels from her mouth.

Bill snorted out a laugh and Tom had to cover his mouth quickly with a napkin so Janni wouldn’t see him grin. He shot a glare at Bill, who turned away to compose himself. “Chew and swallow! No one needs to see that.”

Janni grinned around her popcorn and wiggled her messy hand at her father before digging into the popcorn again. Tom dumped the bag of candies into the bowl and hesitated, cringing before taking a breath and plunging his hand in to mix the treats around equally.

“OCD, Tom. Just a little OCD,” Bill murmured with a smirk as Tom left to go wash his hands.

“Yeah, yeah,” he threw back, over his shoulder.

Tom was back out to the couch before the previews were even over, wedged in on the other side of Janni with his arm behind Janni’s back, snuggling her to him. Janni leaned into her father, her eyes glued to the screen, and Bill watched Tom's face from the corner of his eye.

This was Tom's life. This was Tom with Janni, together in their little house, making a life for themselves. They were perfect together. Tom needed Janni like he needed no one else, not even Bill. And Bill knew that. Janni had been his world for so long that for Janni to be taken away from Tom would be like taking away Tom's air.

Bill had heard Officer Callahan. He knew that Anjelica could file for custody and try to say Tom was an unfit parent. He’d done a little research on the computer when they’d come home and he knew that if she planned to push this, if she planned to take it all the way to court, the odds of them keeping Janni—for Tom keeping Janni—weren’t good. Not so long as he was with Bill. And the knowledge made Bill sick to his stomach.

The movie was almost over when Janni fell asleep, her little body curled around Tom's, her head resting on his belly. The popcorn and M&Ms had been decimated, most of it scarfed down before the plot had really got going and Bill was sure Janni’s belly had to be full up. He watched her there, snuggled into her father, watched him pet her hair softly, absently, as the movie played on.

Tom looked over at him, his eyes questioning before his mouth could ask, “You okay?”

Bill looked away quickly, to give himself a moment, just a moment to grab back his thoughts from where they were going. Tom could read him so well.

“Yeah.” Bill reached for his soda and took several sips, biding time before replacing the soda on the table. “I’m fine. Just…kinda tired.”

Tom looked down, a small, fond smile on his face as he stroked his fingers gently across Janni’s cheek, grinning as her mouth twitched away from the touch.

“Yeah, Janni girl’s out, too. Maybe we should call it a night? Watch this again when we’re not so tired,” Tom suggested. At Bill’s nod, Tom shifted carefully, trying to stand up without waking Janni. “I can get her to bed, but I have to pee. Can she have you?”

Bill’s hesitated only a second, then leaned back and opened his arms. Tom nudged Janni over so she was leaning against Bill, and she cuddled right in, wrapping an arm around his waist and rubbing her face over his chest like he was a big, huggable pillow. Tom held up a hand.

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” he said quickly, and shuffled up to the bathroom.

Janni was warm in her sleep, her breath even and puffing onto Bill’s shirt, warming him even more. Her eyes twitched behind her lids, and Bill hoped she was having beautiful dreams. Maybe she was a princess in her dream, wearing a long ball gown and living in a gorgeous castle where everyone loved everyone. He hoped she had flowers and toys and friends to play with, and someday, maybe a knight would come along on a big white horse to carry her away to live with him and he would love her forever. Or maybe, he thought, as he smoothed his palm over her silky, blonde hair, maybe she would be carried away by another lovely maiden, as beautiful and as kind as Janni, and they would live happily ever after together, in a place where no one cared who loved whom.

His chest ached and he wrapped his arms tighter around her, making her squirm a little to get comfortable again and she snored into his shirt. Bill hoped Janni was dreaming something like that because he wasn’t sure it was possible for that dream to come true when she was awake. He wasn’t sure that it would happen for them.

Tom was as close to a knight on a white horse as Bill had ever seen. He was handsome and kind and funny and every little thing and every big thing Bill had ever wanted and hoped for in his true love. And he had no doubt that Tom was his true love. Tom was The One. But no fairy tale ever went past the ‘They lived happily ever after. The End.’ part. They never went past to where the princess couldn’t stay with her shining knight because her beloved knight would lose everything precious to him if she did.

Bill wasn’t a praying man. He hadn’t believed in God since he was very small. But this, holding Janni like this, feeling her warm and trusting and loving against him—loving her when he didn’t believe he’d ever have children, let alone love the child of someone else—made him want to pray. It made him want to pray for Janni and Tom and even for himself, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to because God didn’t like that, or so they said in Sunday school. His throat closed up and his chest ached and he never wanted to let her go.

~~~

Wednesdays were slow. Even Wednesday evenings were slow. Bill had a few regulars that trickled in at the end of the work day, and mostly he spent that time chatting with them or restocking supplies. Still, business was picking up. He had more regulars than before and more off-the-street customers than before. He wondered idly, while wiping down the counters, whether a neon sign or two in the window would attract customers or just look gaudy.

“Bill, can I get an order of fries and a Guinness?” Chuck called, from the other end of the bar. Bill tossed his rag onto his shoulder and nodded in Chuck’s direction.

“Sure thing.”

As Bill dropped the basket of frozen fries into the oil in the kitchen area, he snuck glances at Chuck and his friend, Aaron. They sat at the bar, having a smoke and a drink and Bill knew they’d have several more before they went home. He wasn’t particularly concerned; he knew both of them lived within walking distance and no one would be driving. But he wondered what made them come in nearly every day.

Were their lives that boring? Did they have wives at home who had to deal with them being drunk when they got there? All they seemed to talk about was work and the economy and that damned President who wasn’t getting shit done for the country. Bill had never heard them talk about their home lives, apart from wanting to buy old cars and fix them up or when they were going to get out hunting.

The fries sizzled in the hot oil, the scent of them curling into Bill’s nose, but after all this time cooking them, his belly never grumbled anymore when he cooked fries. Or fried mushrooms. Or anything he cooked here.

Everything was becoming stagnant.

So what was in Bill’s life? What did he have?

He had Tom and he had Janni. He had this pub, but he didn’t so much care about the pub anymore. It had been his father’s baby and Bill had said he’d take it over, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed running it. He enjoyed meeting the people that came in and he enjoyed talking to them, but he didn’t enjoy the business end of running a pub. He didn’t enjoy ordering supplies or alcohol or making sure the pub was up to specs for the health inspectors. Yeah, he would keep things clean, and if they did an impromptu inspection, the pub would pass, but really, Bill hated worrying about things like that.

Still, he would do it. He would do it, take the good and try to get through the bad, if he could be with Tom and they could keep Janni. He would do anything for that—

“Bill!” Chuck yelled, making Bill startle. He looked down at the fries, now floating on top of the oil. They were a caramel color and Bill knew they were hard on the outside. He’d burned them.

“Fuck!” Bill gritted between clenched teeth as he lifted the basket out of the oil and shook it over the well. “Sorry. Sorry about that. I’ll get you another order.”

Chuck and Aaron reached for their drinks, sipping them with their brows raised while they watched Bill drop another order of fries. He let it simmer in the oil as he drew another pint for Chuck. Placing it on the coaster in front of his customer, Bill palmed the fiver that Chuck slid across the bar.

“Where’s your head, man? You’re a little bit…” Chuck gestured toward his head, spinning his finger near his temple, “out there tonight.”

Bill tensed. He couldn’t tell anyone his problems, not like he’d tell people like Chuck and Aaron, anyway. These were the kind of guys that would vehemently agree that two gay men shouldn’t be raising a child. He could just about hear their rhetoric now and nausea gripped his stomach with a tight fist.

“Nothing. Just…” Bill scrambled for conversation, anything to get them on to something else. “Did you see the news? Yeah, some guy tried to get into the White House.”

Aaron lit a cigarette and tossed his lighter on the bar. It landed with a skitter across the gleaming wood and Bill caught it before it could fly off the other side.

“It’s true! I saw it on the news. This guy--and he was a real fucking idiot, this guy—tried to get into the White House by pretending to be a reporter.” Aaron hit Chuck on the arm and kept on talking while Bill went to get the fries out of the oil. He shook them off, their golden color telling him that they were done to perfection, and got a large plate out of the cupboard to serve them on.

Bill glanced at the clock by the oven. Still another two hours before Max would be in and he could go home. He sighed, salted the fries and took them out to Chuck.

~~~

The light was on over the porch when Bill pulled up to the curb in front of the house he shared with Tom and Janni. It had snowed an inch or two while Bill was at work, and that light left on for him was a warm welcome before he even got in the door.

It didn’t take him long to unbuckle his seat belt and gather his things. All he wanted to do was get inside and see his family. Bask in Tom's smile and grin at Janni’s little girl laugh. He’d seen them this morning but it felt like days since then.

As Bill opened the door, the heat and cooking smells and kid noise hit him and washed over him in a wave. It was enough to make him stop, make him stagger on his feet, and he closed his eyes. He let out a deep breath and closed the door behind him just as Tom came out of the kitchen.

“Hey, baby. We just got done eating. I would have waited, but Janni needs to get to bed.” Tom moved close and gripped Bill’s hip lightly, leaning in to brush his lips across Bill’s. “I saved you a plate in the fridge, though.”

Bill’s fingers stilled with his zipper half way down the front of his coat. “I missed you.”

“Bill!” Janni yelled at the top of her lungs from the living room. “Bill, you’re home!”

Tom answered with a grin as Janni ran to Bill and he scooped her up, holding him to her tightly and pressing loud, obnoxious kisses all over her face. “I’m gonna put your food in the microwave.”

Bill nodded at him absently, preoccupied with reducing Janni to a little pile of girly giggles. Finally, when she’d turned boneless and slid down his legs to the floor and puddled at his feet, Bill stood up. “Okay, let me get my stuff off and eat.”

Janni clung onto his leg and he allowed it for another moment while he hung up his coat, but her sitting on his foot posed a bit of a problem when he wanted to take his shoes off. He looked down at her and considered his options.

“Janni, you know what?” Bill rested his hands on his hips and looked at her, knowingly. Janni tilted her head up, waiting for him to finish. “Your butt is wet.”

Janni frowned and leaned to the side, off of Bill’s foot. “What?” She wiped a hand over her rear and squinted up at Bill as he moved away, taking off his shoes. “Hey! You tricked me! My butt isn’t wet!”

“Hm, I must have been mistaken.” He tried to keep the smirk off his face. “But it could have been, you sitting on my wet shoes like that.”

“Nuh-uh,” was all Janni could come up with, and Bill did laugh then. He reached a hand down to her.

“Come on then, get up. Daddy says it’s time for bed.”

~~~

By the time Tom had gotten Janni settled and tucked into bed, and a story read, Bill was just finishing up the last of his supper. He took a long drink of water as Tom came trotting tiredly down the stairs and slid into the chair across the table from him.

“So,” Tom began, hesitantly, “how was work?”

Bill swallowed and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Boring. Wednesdays are dead. I was thinking about putting a sign in the window. You know, one of those beer signs? Just something to draw the eye, but I’m not sure that’s the look I want for the pub.” He sat back, in no hurry to rush the dishes to the kitchen. A man needed priorities, and right now, his priority was Tom.

“Mhm.” Tom hummed, absently, one finger rubbing at scratches in the wood of the table.

Bill waited, watching him. It was obvious something was wrong, and he wondered whether he should ask or just wait for Tom to offer it up. If he waited, he could be waiting all night. If he asked, maybe they could talk about it, and maybe Bill could help, and Tom wouldn’t be fretting all night.

“What’s on your mind, Tom?” Bill asked, pushing his plate away so he could lean his arms on the table. Tom stiffened, his eyes flicking up to Bill’s before settling back on the table. “You seemed fine when I got home.”

“Janni.” Tom nodded toward the stairs. “I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Janni.”

Bill froze and his stomach churned. “Talk about what?”

Tom sighed deeply and rubbed at his forehead, wincing. “She did it.”

Bill sucked in a breath and wished that the whoosh of his heartbeat, accelerating in his ears, would block out Tom's next words. The words he knew were coming.

“Anjelica filed for custody.”

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