My fingers used to be the instrument of my choice and the paper was my medium, melodies were words and they would flow out of me like the very blood that courses through my veins. But now the music is dried up and with it went my words, leaving my heart as dry as a riverbed in the heat of a drought. My words have been cruelly snatched from me and they no longer reside in my soul. All that's left of me is a single figure in the shadow, watching and waiting for the riverbed to flood over again with sweet, sweet words and the melodies that were just as saccharine as the sweetest piece of candy. Candy may not sustain a body for very long, but sugary words sustain me.

Words and writing kept me alive, they were the air that I breathed in so carefully, not wanting to use or take up too much of my precious supply at a time. It ran out, I used too much. I lost myself. I lost my life and everything I stood for amongst the brambles. My life now seems like a whole tangled web of jokes and lies, the occasional truth holding this complicated web together. I don't even know what's real and what's not anymore. Who am I really? Surely I'm not the mix of these threads that are binding me down to the ground and cutting into my throat, strangling me while they restrain my whole being.

I can’t break free anymore, I’m too far gone. I rely on these threads to keep me together, to keep me as one whole person, to keep me what people expect me to be. I need them and I detest them. I detest needing them. My web of the threads of lies is what keeps me alive. It feeds into my soul, it feeds into my mind and it feeds into my fingers, providing them with the strength to keep moving once more, to move to hit a key, to move to form a swirling letter which links into the letter after it. My fingers ache for freedom. My fingers yearn for the blood which used to pump through them and the solidarity that I once was. My fingers were me, everything that I did, my fingers were the ones orchestrating the moves, orchestrating where I moved, how I spoke, how I felt.

I don’t even make sense anymore. I don’t know why I can’t form a nice, coherent sentence, but I can’t. I can’t form anything that anybody would ever want to read, and it hurts. When I can’t write, I feel starved, much like a heroin addict without their heroin. I go through withdrawal just the same. Nobody wants what my fingers put out. They’re too inappropriate, too strong, they aren’t soft enough. I can’t say things correctly anymore. I infuriate people and make them mad at me.

When did my words turn from drops of saccharine blood that would disperse on my tongue into such poisonous stones that weight me down and make my existence worthless? I feel useless.

My words have failed me.

Janie sighed as she looked at Bill through the doorway. Poor kid. Bill was left here with his twin, Tom, when his mother and step father died in a bizarre drowning incident, seven years ago. Their biological father dropped them off at her house, and he had never looked back.

This was Janie’s home, a foster home, a place for unwanted or unguided children to go. They would have food to eat, water to drink, education, love, adventures, vacations, and most importantly, a roof over their heads. Janie prided herself on her “children” being almost her own. She loved them all, every single one of them, even the ones who did illegal things.

Including the Kaulitz twins.

Bill shifted on his bed, murmuring to and still clutching his bowl of water. He had been holding that bowl, an extremely large scallop shell that he and Tom had found at the beach a year ago, cradling it, ever since Tom passed. Bill really thought that the bowl was Tom.

Janie sighed. She had the feeling that ever since Bill had lost his other half, he had rapidly been going insane. She hadn’t been able to place another child in Bill’s room. She was afraid to.

Because Bill was convinced that Tom was still alive.

She knew that that was what Bill believed, because Bill had told her so, many, many times. Janie had tried to move Tom’s things out of his old room, so Bill wouldn’t have to see them every day and smell his twin all around him. Bill, however, was positive that Tom was still right there with him, and he would scream bloody murder if anyone so much as touched his brother’s belongings.

Janie was really getting worried. Bill needed help, help that she couldn’t provide.

Bill needed either drugs, a therapist, mental help or the one thing that no one could get for him.

Tom.

Janie knew that things would only worsen if she didn’t take action, and soon. Bill would become more and more withdrawn, more and more antsy, thinner and thinner because of his refusal to eat. He was only skin and bones.

It happened once or twice a week, that someone was able to convince the grieving teen to eat something.

Anything.

************

Bill cradled Tom in his arms. He smiled as he rocked his twin back and forth, completely content with the world that surrounded him. He didn’t understand why everyone was trying to take his brother’s stuff away; Tom was still right here, in Bill’s arms! Couldn’t they see that?

They kept trying to take Tom away from him! Tom was his, and he was Tomi’s.

Bill wouldn’t let them touch Tomi’s things, they were Tomi’s. No one touched Tomi’s things.

He was Tomi’s. Forever.

************

Rory peeked in to Bill’s room, and was greeted by the same sight he had been greeted with for the past two months. Bill was still on his and Tom’s large bed, clutching a bowl of water for dear life.

It was sad for him to see his formerly energetic and happy friend turn into a shell of what he once was.

Rory had been with Bill when the horrible, horrible news was delivered.

Tom had died.

Rory was the one who held Bill back from slamming into the ground when he fainted. Bill had been almost comatose for the next few days, drifting in and out of consciousness. Tom had to be buried, and so Bill nearly missed his funeral. Bill had been there, yes, but he hadn’t been there.

It really had been a beautiful funeral, cherry blossoms swirling around with the leaves, lush, green grass everywhere, and birds had been singing their cheery little melodies. Tom had been lowered into the ground while his twin giggled and talked to “Tom”. When the small vial of ashes from parts of Tom had been given to Bill, Bill had lost it and broke down crying, and that’s the last everyone saw of somewhat sane Bill.

Tom had written in his will that he wanted his dreads to be cut off and incinerated, his ashes poured into a vial and given to Bill.

Rory always knew that the two were too close for normal siblings, and he didn’t have a problem with it. He was very accepting of everything and everyone.

Rory never judged.

************



Tom sighed, curling up in Bill’s arms. He was so happy here, there was no one to judge, no one to scream, no one to hate.

He loved Bill more than life itself, and that’s why Bill was still alive. But Tom didn’t want to think about that. He simply snuggled up in Bill’s arms and kissed him. Bill kissed back. Bill knew that Tom was there, and Tom knew that Bill knew.

Tom had had a bit of trouble this past month; he was finally accepted into the test for Heaven. He was required to take a test and tell all of his sins.

But when they had gotten to Tom and asked him if he had ever been in love, he said yes. They had been expecting no. When prompted, Tom told the angels that he had been in love with a man, and was instantly ushered to the next booth, where they dealt with sodomites.

Sodomy was not generally accepted in Heaven.

Again, Tom had been questioned thoroughly. But, as soon as they found out that Tom had committed acts of sodomy and incest, he had been kicked to the literal curb.

And then Hell wouldn’t accept Tom because Tom had done nothing wrong enough to be eternally punished.

And so there Tom was, back on Earth but with no body to come back to, he used what he could.

Their shell bowl. That majestic, beautifully shining, colorful shell. Bill filled it with water, because that was what Tom floated best in.

Really, it was rather fucked up, but so was their relationship.

Tom seriously doubted that most pairs of twins dreamed about being inside the other, joined in the most intimate way possible. Tom doubted most people were in love with their twin. But Tom loved Bill as much as he could, dead or alive.

There were so many nights when Tom would hold Bill in their forbidden embrace, pleasure written all over their delicate faces as he rocked back and forth into Bill slowly, making Bill feel safe and wanted.

He was wanted.

Those nights had been some of the best memories for both of them. The other children would tease them relentlessly, but what did Tom care? He had the best thing in the world and Bill was everything. To be torn away from him like he was, was the most awful and empty feeling, ever.

Tom knew Bill couldn’t hear him. Tom knew Bill was going insane without, or rather, with him. Tom knew that it wasn’t going to be long before Bill would definitely join him.

Tom knew it wasn’t long before Bill’s heart broke and finally shattered.

Tom just wanted to hold Bill.

************

“Dinner!” called the obnoxious loudspeaker, and Bill’s ears were met with the sounds of twenty children running down three flights of stairs. Bill didn’t want to leave Tom alone, Bill never went anywhere anymore without Tom.

He needed his twin, and he had to be careful, or else he would spill the water out and lose Tom forever.

That couldn’t happen. Bill couldn’t lose Tom, not again!

Bill didn’t understand why people kept telling him that Tom was not Tom, Tom was six feet under. Tom was not dead, couldn’t they see that? Tom was standing right next to Bill, just like he always was.

Bill thought everyone else was crazy. They insisted Tom had died, they insisted that he wasn’t there and it was all post traumatic stress disorder.

But Bill knew that Tom wasn’t dead, he and Tom had made love just that morning! There was no way that Tom was dead, Tom had been pushing into him and filling the empty space in his heart. Tom always did that, Tom was the one who helped Bill feel better about everything.

Bill turned slowly as Rory, he knew, knocked on his door. A few seconds later, when he received no answer, Rory’s red hair peeked in through the doorway and his shining hazel eyes met Bill’s.

“Bill, come on! It’s dinner time, remember? You need to eat. We’re having quesadillas with the white cheese, you like that, remember?” Rory tried to engage the black haired twin, with no luck. “Bill, you need to eat!”

“No, ’m fine. Tomi needs me,” Bill mumbled to the shell, causing Rory’s heart to tighten up. Bill was talking to himself again.

“Bill, you can bring Tom with you,” Rory tried to reason with Bill, but, again, with no luck.

“No! Tomi needs me and I can’t leave him here! He can’t come with me, he told me that!” Bill said, gradually getting louder and Rory winced; he didn’t want to have to do what he knew he had to.

Rory stepped inside Bill’s room. Bill’s eyes widened as he realized that his former best friend was about to do what so many others had tried. The outstretched arms, the angry gaze, the intent to take Tom from his brother.

“No! Don’t take Tomi away from me! Leave me alone!” Bill shrieked out, slapping the ginger on the face before he could take Tom away from him.

“Bill, cut the shit! It’s a fucking shell! Tom is dead! Get the fuck over it. Please!” And with that, Rory slammed Bill’s door shut and walked away.

Bill’s eyes welled up with tears that threatened to fall, and Tom wiped them away gently.

“Baby, it’s okay. Don’t listen to him, I’m right here,” Tom nuzzled his face into Bill’s soft hair, making Bill shiver with delight. Tom sweetly kissed Bill on the lips, and Bill welcomed him with open lips. The pair gently kissed and fondled for a few minutes. Soon, the twins’ hardening members made themselves known, and the kissing turned from innocent to kisses full of intent. Tom pushed Bill back and straddled the slightly taller teen, capturing his full lips once more in a desperate attempt for contact.

“I have to go soon…”

“Ngh, not yet…” Bill sleepily murmured out, and Tom obeyed.

Tom loved Bill more than anything, and he would to the horrifying gates of Hell and back if it meant putting a smile on his haunted face. Tom was worried for his twin. Bill was still hell bent on believing that Tom was alive, and Tom knew he wasn’t.

************

Rory’s eyebrows furrowed as he witnessed Bill moving back and forth, almost as if he were being…fucked. With the way he was moaning and sighing, you would have thought so, too. When Bill came all over himself and then begged whatever it was not to pull out, Rory knew something was up.

And by the looks of it, whatever that something was wasn’t natural.

Bill wasn’t even talking to that shell anymore. Over the past few days, Rory had seen that shell less and less. Now, Bill was simply talking to himself.

No. Bill wasn’t talking to himself; he actually was talking to someone else. Either that or he was schizophrenic, which Rory was seriously starting to consider. But the way Bill murmured all those sweet little words…it was like he always used to when he talked to…Tom.

Maybe Tom was dead, but his soul wasn’t. Did people even have souls? Do people even go anywhere when they passed on from this world? Rory doubted that there was either a Heaven or Hell. To some people, the idea of death was romantic, to others it was scary. To others still, it was spiritual, a punishment, a sentence, a will, a wish, a way, a new place to live.

Rory didn’t fear death, but he also didn’t want to die.

He was caught up in the middle, and when he dropped dead, well, one less mouth to feed. Right?

************

The next morning, Rory went to wake Bill up. When he didn’t receive a response after knocking a few times, he opened the door slowly. He walked in and suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

Bill was spread over his bed, wisps of pitch hair falling all around him. Bill was uncovered by any cloth or garment, and he was exposed. His pale skin was marred by more of those rose cuts that Rory knew Bill inflicted on himself, but this time…this time, there was something different about the scene. Bill looked at peace for once. He didn’t look scared or upset…just relaxed.

It made Rory smile.

Then Rory noticed that his friend wasn’t exactly moving. He closed his eyes and sent up a prayer to whoever was listening that Bill was still alive. When Rory reached his fallen friend, he immediately checked for a pulse and received none. He checked twice more and then switched pulse spots.

Nothing.

Rory screamed when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He was used to people sneaking up on him, but that wasn’t why he screamed. There behind him stood Tom and Bill Kaulitz, obviously solid but no longer alive.

“Bill…Tom…what is going on?” Rory barely squeaked out. He received a small smile from Bill, one of the first smiles he had seen since Tom died. One of the only smiles he had seen since Tom died. Rory instinctively backed away when Bill stepped forward and brushed a hand through his gingerbread colored hair.

“Thank you, Rory. You were a good friend, and I know I couldn’t have made it as far as I did without you,” The newly dead teen told the shaking man. “I love you like a brother, and don’t think that will ever change.”

“Bill, if you love him like a brother…then, how do you love me?” Tom smirked and Bill rolled his eyes after giving Tom a quick kiss on the lips.

“Always the charmer, Tomi. Rory, you know what I meant. We won’t leave you if you don’t say anything, but if you tell us you don’t want us here, we’ll never bother you again.” The teen in question could only whimper in fear and back away from the divine beings.

“No, this isn’t real! You aren’t real! And second now, Bill will wake up and that’s the end of that!” He cried out, pleas falling on deaf ears. Bill gave up and resorted to hugging his friend instead. Rory shrieked and it broke Bill’s heart.

The pair left, holding hands.

************

The next day, Rory suffered a minor mental breakdown after seeing the paramedics arrive to finally take Bill’s body away. When the autopsy reports were returned, it was determined that the cause of death was choking on an object lodged deep in his throat.

A shell.

Rory had lost it then. He screamed like a man possessed and was placed in a mental hospital. He spent the rest of the month there before getting out.

As for Tom and Bill, well, they were finally together again. Together forever, and forever together. Not even death could stop them from seeing each other. It took exactly two months from the date of Tom’s death for Bill to die of a broken heart.

Sometimes, pain could literally kill.

Tom knew that Bill’s autopsy report showed that he choked on a shell, but Tom knew that that wasn’t true. Tom would never go on to tell anyone how Bill truly did die, but it wasn’t simply a broken heart. No one will ever know.

And so the twins wandered around eternity until the very day their spirits finally died.

Neither Heaven nor Hell accepted them for who they were. No one ever did, dead or alive.

But they had each other, and that was all that mattered.

I hate alcohol because of my father. My father was a very unhappy man. When he got even unhappier, my father would drink. I have no idea how much he would drink, but I think that he drank a lot and that he drank often. I’ll never know how much and I’ll never know if he was addicted. I don’t want to ask him.

When my father drank, he would drink at his computer and the television downstairs, just off of the dining room, which was right by the kitchen and the front door. I would come downstairs late at night to see him either crying or watching an old movie. I used to either crawl into his lap or pull a chair up next to him. We would watch the movie together, or if he was crying, I would hug him and try to get him to stop.

My father would cry about my mother, my brother and I, his parents, his siblings and my aunts and uncle and grandparents. He would cry about how he couldn’t do anything to fix the problems that they had all created. He would cry about how much he loved my mother still, even after all of the terrible things that she did to him. He would cry about how he would miss my brother and me once he moved away.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the smell of sweat, cologne, tears and brandy. Or wine. I’m not quite sure what he drank, I don’t think I’ll ever know. It’s certainly not something I’m going to ask him. Those are the nights that I don’t want to think about but they’re also the nights I never want to let go. I learned so much about my backstabbing family. I learned things I was never supposed to know about. I saw court papers I should never have seen. I’m not sorry that I saw them. I’m not sorry that I know the truth.

The real reason that I hate alcohol is that it made my father sad. It would make him sad and he would forget that I was just a ten year old. He would unload his sorrows and troubles on me, forgetting that I was just a child. I don’t remember what he told me. I would always listen and rub his back, ignoring if he got tears or sweat on me.

I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders, even back then.

My fingers used to be the instrument of my choice and paper was my medium, melodies were words and they would flow out of me like the very blood that courses through my veins. But now the music is dried up and with it went my words, leaving my heart as dry as a riverbed in the heat of a drought. My words have been cruelly snatched from me and they no longer reside in my soul. All that's left of me is a single figure in the shadow, watching and waiting for the riverbed to flood over again with sweet, sweet words and the melodies that were just as saccharine as the sweetest piece of candy. Candy may not sustain a body for very long, but sugary words sustain me.

Words and writing kept me alive, they were the air that I breathed in so carefully, not wanting to use or take up too much of my precious supply at a time. It ran out, I used too much. I lost myself. I lost my life and everything I stood for amongst the brambles. My life now seems like a whole tangled web of jokes and lies, the occasional truth holding this complicated web together. I don't even know what's real and what's not anymore. Who am I really? Surely I'm not the mix of these threads that are binding me down to the ground and cutting into my throat, strangling me while they restrain my whole being.

I can’t break free anymore, I’m too far gone. I rely on these threads to keep me together, to keep me as one whole person, to keep me what people expect me to be. I need them and I detest them. I detest needing them. My web of the threads of lies is what keeps me alive. It feeds into my soul, it feeds into my mind and it feeds into my fingers, providing them with the strength to keep moving once more, to move to hit a key, to move to form a swirling letter which links into the letter after it. My fingers ache for freedom. My fingers yearn for the blood which used to pump through them and the solidarity that I once was. My fingers were me, everything that I did, my fingers were the ones orchestrating the moves, orchestrating where I moved, how I spoke, how I felt.

I don’t even make sense anymore. I don’t know why I can’t form a nice, coherent sentence, but I can’t. I can’t form anything that anybody would ever want to read, and it hurts. When I can’t write, I feel starved, much like a heroin addict without their heroin. I go through withdrawal just the same. Nobody wants what my fingers put out. They’re too inappropriate, too strong, they aren’t soft enough. I can’t say things correctly anymore. I infuriate people and make them mad at me.

When did my words turn from drops of saccharine blood that would disperse on my tongue into such poisonous stones that weight me down and make my existence worthless? I feel useless.

My words have failed me.

( HERE YOU GO )</div>