Just look over your shoulder

Chapter 9 “Gerard! I need to pee!” “Again?!” “I can’t help it!” “Okay, okay. Be there in a sec..” It’s been like that for the last few days. Whenever I’m hungry or thirsty or need help or I’m just simply bored, I’d call him. I feel sorry for him because, on top of him babysitting me, he has to do all of the chores, his and mine. My ankle is a little better, but still stabilized with two flat pieces of lumber and a long piece of linen to keep from moving, and there is no way I can walk anywhere anytime soon without help. I feel like I know every inch of our room by now since I spent every single minute in here since I came home. God, I’m so incredibly bored. I would have never thought it, but I miss doing my chores. I long for the sweet sound of dirty clothes being slapped against the stone and the super boring act of freeing the house of sand. “Hey Twee,” Gerard’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and I grin up hugely at his slightly annoyed face. I know he’s not really annoyed to help me or whatever, I think he’s just stressed out. When he sees my grin, he doesn’t look so stressed anymore and that makes me happy. I like what an effect I can have on him. After he helped me down the stairs and let me take care of my needs, he takes me back up to our room and sits me down on the chest, that is placed on an elevation of the floor at the far end of our sleeping area, and escapes the room. A minute later, he comes back with my yellow dress and a hairbrush. “What’s that for?” I ask and curl my fingers around the lid of the chest. “What do you think? I’m taking you out, you could use some sun and also, I have something for you,” he says and gestures for me to lift my arms. We’re about the same height even though I’m sitting, so his hips, knees, and face are on the same level as mine. I can’t quite reach the floor with my feet, but that’s probably for the better. It would hurt to put my broken foot down anyway. The only thing I’m wearing is a piece of white cotton as underwear that I wound around my crotch and hips easily. It’s pretty uncomfortable to be lying around in clothes all day. I lift my arms, and when he slips the dress over my head and my hair pop out in all different directions, he grins and cards his fingers through it, either to smooth it down or to mess it up even more. “You have something for me? A surprise?” I ask and lean forward a little so he can close the button on the backside of the dress, not bothering to stretch it properly over my butt but let it pooled around my hips instead. “Well, I guess it kind of is a surprise, but it’s nothing special so I wouldn’t get my hopes up too much.” “Too late!” I say excitedly and clap my hands together like a child on Christmas Eve. He rolls his eyes but smiles takes the brush and runs it through my strands a few times, carefully untangling my birds nest of hair and making sure to catch all the little knots on the back of my head where I lie on it most of the time. “You forgot to braid it!” I say when he’s about to lift me up again to get out. “What?” “My hair, it needs to be braided or else it’ll fall in my face all day.” “I don’t know how; can’t you do it yourself!?” “Nope, I’m sick,” I say and giggle when he sneers and crosses his arms across his chest, sticking his hip out in that way that makes him look super girly. “It’s your foot that is broken, not your hands,” he says in that honky voice that makes me swarm and I bat my eyelashes at him, swinging my legs carefully in the air. “Please? Pretty please?” He stares at me for a few seconds before sighing heavily and leaving the room again only to come back not much later with my hairclips. “I’m telling you now, this’ll look like crap.” I giggle again at that. I actually don’t care if my hair is braided or not, it’ll get messed up by the wind after a few minutes anyway. The real reason is that I want his hands in my hair, but of course, I won’t admit that to him. And this is fun, so why not let him do this for once. Who knows, maybe he’s a born hairstylist and none of us knew? He places one of the hairclips between his teeth, just like I always do, and then takes one of my long bangs that’s dangling down beneath my forehead and ear. To help him, I turn my head to the side a bit, but when he doesn’t do anything for a long moment, I look back only to see a totally confused Gerard in front of me. “I son’t dknow whaf o do,” he murmurs, and when he notices that I didn't get what he just said, he lets one of his hands go of my hair and takes the clip out of his mouth. “I don’t know what to do,” he repeats, clearer this time and I snicker. Yeah, this is kind of fun. But since I’m a good little brother and all that, I decide not to torment him any more than necessary. “You take a strand, part it in three and then you put the ones on the sides alternately to the middle until you have a braid. I could probably also explain how to use a new strand every time you take one from the sides, but that might be a bit too much for the first session.” “The first session? I’m doing this again?!” His mortified expression makes me laugh. He’s such a twerp sometimes. “Sure, why not, if you do a good job?” I say and grin even wider when he starts to look ridiculously frustrated. “Come on, it’s not that hard. I’ll talk you through it if you want?” “Guess you don’t really have a choice because I already forgot what you just said.” He tries to look annoyed, but I know he’s not. Under that façade is a little smile and it’s addressed to me and no one else and I love him. I smile to myself as he sticks the clip back between his teeth and takes the strand from before between his fingers. “Okay, now part it into three equally big units,” I say and decide not to turn my head this time so I can watch him. He looks super concentrated; his eyebrows are knit together so there’s a tiny dimple forming on his forehead and his eyes are focused on what his fingers are doing. “Whaf dnow?” he mutters out between the clip between his teeth. “Take the one on the right side and put it over the one in the middle, then do the same on the left side,” I say, quietly and a little tense now. He unconsciously pulls tighter than I ever would, but I find that I don’t mind at all, quite the opposite actually. I totally forgot about the hairpulling thing until now. I keep watching him intensely and after a while, he seems to get the hang of it. Sometimes he would turn my head this way and that with the strand in his hands, evoking a really nice dragging pain that lets my toes curl inwards against the chest. It’s that, and the way he’s looking and smelling. He’s so close that I can smell his peppermint-breath and his body, he hasn’t showered in a few days just like me, and he looks totally fixated and concentrated, which is a really nice look on him. Sometimes his tongue pokes against the clip between his teeth and that brings back the memories of how he absently sucked the remains of his breakfast from his fingers this morning. He didn’t know I was watching him at the time because he was away in his own little world again. Sometimes he would do that, zone out completely, not observing anything around him. That’s mostly when he gets a new idea for a picture or forms a new concept for a story inside his head. Later he would tell me about it, probably when we’re both in bed and just about to fall asleep. I love that, hearing his voice and listening to his latest ideas. It’s been one of my favorite things about him since the day I was born. I’m pulled out of my thoughts when I feel a scraping against my scalp, which is Gerard trying to stick the clip in my hair. That’s a nice pain as well, actually, and I wouldn’t mind feeling it on some other parts of my skin. This could become a thing if I’m not careful. “It looks stupid,” he says and crosses his arms sulkily across his chest. I lift one of my hands and carefully feel over his creation. It doesn’t feel any different from when I do it, maybe a little loose, but that’s about it. I look him in the eyes and smile. “It’s perfect,” I say and turn my head to the other side, gesturing for him to do this part as well. He sighs and says, “What I wouldn’t do for you,” before grabbing another section of hair. My bangs are on this side and they’re a lot fuller then the hair on the other side of my face and also longer and if I’m lazy, I just comp them across my forehead. This could be a challenge for him because if you’re new to this, you might not be able to tame my curls. When he’s on his second and then third attempt, it’s a challenge for me not to shut my eyes in indulgence. This pulling is somehow really doing it for me as well as his presence so close. During the act of him trying to fix my hair, I parted my legs a little so that there’s more room for him to stand in between my thighs, which in return, brought his crotch closer to mine. Another one of his frustrated pulls and I can’t help the tiny, barely audible sigh that leaves my mouth by accident. It must have been loud enough for him to hear though because he immediately stills his hands and looks at me with wide eyes. He must also get that what he did wasn’t in discomfort for me, but the opposite, because his eyes darken, just like they did when helped me to touch myself. We stare at each other for a long moment and I can feel myself blushing. It could be embarrassing, but I don’t have time to think about that before he experimentally tugs on my hair again and watches mesmerized as my breath hitches and I finally give in and allow my eyes to flutter shut. “You actually like this, do you,” he whispers fascinated, sounding a little breathless himself. I don’t open my eyes but nod in return. Then I lose my grip on the lid I’m sitting on and slowly place my palms on the naked skin on the small of his back to pull him closer, before saying in a dark voice that I never heard myself use before, “Can you try it harder?” He actually gasps at my words, if only very slightly, and the sound goes straight to groin. Now, we haven’t done anything since the big fight and after I returned, which was a good five days ago. We haven’t even really kissed except maybe for a little peck on the cheek and a few shy kisses on the mouth, but that doesn’t really count in this case I think. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it though, because honestly, I had a lot of time to think about every single thought a human brain could think about the last few days. I often caught myself thinking not only about what we did so far in that regard and replayed the scene over and over in my head but also what could come next. I know I’m not experienced and I bet I don’t know half of the things that involve sex, but well, one can fantasize, right? I did wake up with a hard on at least 3 times since we started sleeping in the same bed again and I know the same goes to him, but neither of us was really bothered to take care of it. We were either too tired and exhausted or simply not in the mood. And maybe not really ready after what had happened. On the first evening, after I got back, we both decided that there was no need to rush any of this and would just go with whatever time and circumstances offered. I guess this is one of those circumstances if I’m reading this correctly, or if not, then it could turn into one very fast from here if we’re both on the same page about this. He does tighten his grip on my hair after I ask him, not as hard as I might have wanted him to, but it’s good. Really good, even. He does it again and tilts my head back a little in the act, exposing my throat to him. Suddenly I’m brutally reminded of that scene back against the tree trunk when he did almost the exact same thing, back when I had no idea yet as to what was happening in my body and I didn’t know what I wanted. I’m smarter now though, and I know exactly what I want. I let one of my hands wander yet again while the other stays where it is, and run it up his back and over his shoulder until I reach his hairline at the back of his neck where I curl my fingers in. Then, in a swift motion, I arch my back and pull his head closer until he gets what I’m silently asking for, and puts his lips on my collarbone without hesitation. At first, he just nibbles around a little bit but when I make a frustrated noise that surprises both of us, he swipes his tongue over the juncture of my neck and shoulder before he starts to suck. This evokes another sound from me; a little whiny pant. I never had someone sucking on my neck like this before and I’m fascinated what difference it makes to simply kiss and suck. It’s the combination again, too; the hot air he releases through his nose whenever he breathes out, the slight scraping of his teeth against my skin, the smell of him even closer now and his entire body pressed flat against my own. After a moment, he releases my skin with a loud smacking noise and pulls back, much to my disappointment. When I finally open my eyes again to see why he’s not doing anything, I’m surprised to find him staring at my neck with wide and shocked eyes before looking me straight in the eye. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, totally out of content. I’m still a little breathless when I say, “What?! No, not at all, what makes you-“ “It looks like I hurt you,” he says and the anxious look doesn’t fade, but when he sees that I don’t get what could possibly make him say that right now because I was really enjoying myself here, he sighs and mumbles, “There’s like, a mark or whatever. It looks red and painful. Are you sure I didn’t-“ “You mean like a bruise?” I ask, totally surprised now. He nods and grimaces when he touches his fingertips to it carefully. It doesn’t hurt at all, it tingles, more like, and even though I don’t get how he possibly managed to bruise me without hurting me, I also find that I don’t care because it felt incredibly arousing in a way that could be addictive as well as the hairpulling. “It doesn’t hurt,” I say hastily and pull him back in. This time, he hesitates for a moment but eventually gives in and kisses gently over the spot where he just had his fingertips against my throat. He kisses up my neck and when he reaches a spot behind my ear, my body shudders involuntarily and I tighten my fingers in both his hair and the skin on his back. It’s not helping that he’s wearing nothing but my longish white underpants today, thanks to the heat, and when did it become a thing that we share clothes on a daily base now? Not that I mind, of course. “I wanna try something,” he says in an airy and rushed voice against my neck and I can feel his lips brush slightly against the tip of my ear. “Okay,” I breathe back, not even bothering to ask what he wants. I’m sure I’m okay with whatever he’s got in mind and if not, I know he’ll stop if I tell him to do so. After another moment of mouthing over my skin, he runs his nose through the hair that starts right over my ear and says, “Just tell me to stop if it’s too much,” before turning his head and crushing his lips against mine before I get a chance to respond and it happens so fast that some of his and my own strands stick to our lips. I’m perplexed for a second because this isn’t really anything new, but then I decide that I really don’t care and kiss back out of instinct without much hesitation, not even minding about the few hairs that got caught between our lips. But then, when he tightens his grip on my hair again and I gasp into his mouth, I feel his tongue slide against my own for a lingering moment that leaves me totally dazed. This is definitely new and would swipe the ground away from under my feet if I’d be standing. I am, in fact, so puzzled over that new feeling, that I’m unable to do anything for a moment which in return leads to Gerard pulling away slightly. Not much, just enough so I can still feel his lips ghosting over mine and one of his hands sliding up carefully to remove the hair from both his and my lips before tugging it back to where he held me before. I’m secretly glad that he’s giving me a moment to think and catch my breath over this new thing. Out of all the times we kissed, it was never with tongue and to be honest, I didn’t even know that this could be a thing. Thinking about it now though makes kind of sense and seems like the natural thing to do. Whenever I saw our parents or grandparents kiss, I never saw them doing it like that. Does that mean it’s an uncommon thing to do? Well, to be fair, I was never really enticed to stare at our parents when they decided to smooch in front of me and Gerard, so I wouldn’t really know because I simply never looked long and hard enough. After another few seconds, I come to the conclusion that it has to be a thing that you did when you were in private and not around others. A peck on the cheek or lips is probably more appropriate to do around others than half eating someone’s face. ..A thing to do when you were in private...the thought of that is strangely arousing and brings forth a side in me that I didn’t know existed until just now but I sure as hell want to explore more. The slight shock I felt a moment ago subsides completely when I hear Gerard’s quiet, whispered, “Mikey,” against my still slightly parted lips and without waiting a beat longer, I close my eyes and crash my mouth back against his, much to his approval. After a minute of just sliding our lips against each other’s, I feel brave enough to slide my tongue against his upper lip in hope he gets it. He does, because he immediately opens his mouth and when I let my tongue lick into his mouth, maybe a little halting, I’m rewarded with a beautiful moan from him right into my own mouth that goes straight down to my forming erection. It’s weird at first on both sides because neither of us really knows what to do, but after a while, we get the hang of it and suddenly a whole new door is opened right in front of us that leads to a wonderland of new and unbelievingly strong and awesome sensations. When I thought that whatever Gerard did to me in that regard felt good, then I was certainly wrong because while of course, everything he does feels good, this right here is something entirely else. The way he messily runs his fingers through my hair and occasionally pulls, much to my delight, and the way he slides his wet and hot tongue into my mouth and against my own nearly makes me want to roll my eyes back inside my head. This is mind blowing. Then my eyes do roll back inside my head because one of his hands lets go of my hair and slides down low under my hip, grabs there strongly and pushes me forward against his own hips. With a loud smacking sound of our lips parting, we moan at the same time into each other’s mouths at the feeling of both our erections pressed up against each other tightly. For a moment, the only sound in the room is our heavy breathing and the very faint rush of the waves crashing on the beach. “Hhh-is this okay?” Gerard asks then, totally out of breath and in a voice that I would like to hear a lot more from now on. “Yeah,” I say back and wrap my thighs around his hips, silently cursing when it does no good to my broken ankle. It feels too good to pull away though, so in an ungraceful move, I swing the ankle that is broken over the good one to carry the weight in hopes it’ll stop protesting because I really don’t want to stop right now or concern Gerard. It works good enough, I decide but stop thinking about it completely when Gerard makes a gorgeous, crushed noise at the new position and grinds his crotch against mine, even closer now than before. The feeling is so overwhelming and intense that my mind goes blank except for the white-hot sensation that’s building up now. Gerard pulls me in again for a messy kiss that’s all teeth and tongue and sloppy wet sounds and I’m eager to follow his lead and give him back as much as I can. I have to break this kiss with a loud, “Gnnaaaghh,” only a few seconds later though, because that’s Gerard’s hand sliding from my hip down to my thigh and under the hem of the dress to dig his fingers into the almost unclothed skin of my hips. With my mouth gone from his, he drops his head back to my throat again and starts licking and kissing over my Adam's apple (Yes, Gerard taught me the name for it). His thumb slides under the cotton that serves as underwear and presses right into the hollow spot where my thigh ends end my genitals start. “Oh my God,” I gasp out and I’m so glad that we’re the only people living here because there would be no mistake in what’s happening right now if we would still share a room back at home with our parents only ten feet away in the living room. I wonder if people suspected that this could, or, would happen someday when they said how unhealthy close we were and stayed that way into teen and adulthood. I don’t know the answer to that and probably never will, but I honestly don’t care because this right now feels right on so many levels that it just can’t be wrong. My hands start to get sweaty against Gerard’s skin and create a nice sliding friction that maybe should be gross but really, really isn’t. Gerard doesn’t seem to mind either because he chokes out those beautiful little pants and whines whenever I stroke over a particular spot on his back or sides that he apparently really likes. He slides the hand on my hips down my thigh and dips his fingers and palm into the underside of my thigh, which in return, lifts a little up and pushes us closer together, if that is even possible, and evokes another moan from both of us. It’s still not enough to lead into something though and I think I’ll go crazy if I’m not being touched within the next five seconds. Now that he showed me what it can be like, I can’t wait to feel it again- all of it, in every way possible. I’m figuring he must feel the same, because when he pulls his mouth away from my neck and looks down at me through his long and black eyelashes, his eyes are dark and unfocused and his voice is strangled and breathless when he says, “Can I?” and grinds his erection against mine again, asking for permission to untangle the knot that precariously holds the cotton in place, and then get off like this. His face looks blissed out and beautiful, blush high on his cheeks and nose, lips slick with spit and red and slightly parted and hair sticking to his forehead where he sweats a little. I can’t believe my own eyes. I made my brother look like this. I nod at him in permission and feel a little nervous when he starts to work on the knot and about my next move altogether, but not enough to make me stop from reaching to the waistband of his underpants and slightly tug on it, hoping he gets the message without me actually saying something. He seems to get it, because his eyes widen and he nods as well, his eyes never leaving mine while I start to pull the white and worn cotton down his fairly hairy thighs. I feel my heartbeat hammering in my ears when I let my palms slide over the now naked skin of his butt and nearly stop breathing for a second at the look on his face. His eyes fall shut tightly and his eyebrows crease together, his jaw falls open a little more in a beauteous way that should be illegal. Gods, I’m so gone for him. After a moment, he opens his eyes again at the same moment that his hands start to wander again, both hands on my thighs now and slowly pushing under the hem of my dress, pulling it slightly and just enough up in the act, making my breath hitch when I feel the hot air of the day on my now totally exposed skin between my legs. “Okay?” Gerard asks in a slurry voice once he’s got one of his palms spread over my thigh and the other over my hip. As an answer and to hide my slight nervosity, I lean forward and start kissing him again which he returns happily. The act of me pulling his underpants down and him pushing my dress up separated us in the middle and to fix that problem, I dig the heel of my good foot into that spot right above his butt cheeks and pull him close again in one swift move. Now, I underestimated the power of the feeling of skin on skin a big time because that is, once again, nothing compared to anything that I felt so far. Not even his hand on my erection felt as good as his hard on against my own and that has to really mean something. A shocked gasp that escapes both of us stops us from kissing and for a while, we just breathe against each other’s mouths, eyes closed and eyelashes tangling together. But then he starts moving and my back arches and hollows so I’m pressed against him from chest to chest and our hardons are side to side straight against our sweaty bellies. “God, Gee,” I groan out, not able to form a proper sentence. He doesn’t seem to mind though because I feel him nod shakily, almost in fascination, and sets for a regular rhythm with his hips against mine. It feels so good that I’m unable to hold my broken foot up for any longer and it slides down over his butt and thigh until the heel digs into the wooden pattern of the chest while the other stays wrapped around his waist. Gerard seems to notice that I’m kind of losing control over my body because he removes the hand from my thigh and wraps his arm around my back in a tight grip that feels really damn good. With the now steady grinding and skin on skin pressure between our legs, I’m starting to feel the heated pool really fast low in my belly and it feels so good that I just have to buck my hips against his or else I’m going to explode. “Ohhhhh, Mikey-do that again, please do-ahhhhhh!” Gerard gasps out and stops mid-sentence to moan high-pitched and beautiful. His forehead and nose are pressed up against my cheek and I know he must be close because his breath starts to come irregular against the corner of my mouth and his hips start to stutter, nothing compared to the regular thrusts he made until a few seconds before. Wanting to memorise everything that’s happening right now for later, I make a mental list and add the feeling of the way he sounds in that exact moment, the way his skin is damp against my palms, the slight scrape of teeth against my cheek where he tucked his face, the way his body smells; like sweat, Gerard and something strong I can’t identify, and the feeling of his curly pubic hair where the tip of my erection slides through it roughly with every thrust and, last but not least, the indescribably mind-blowing feeling of the wet spot against my belly where he must be leaking that liquid I remember from the first time he swiped his thumb over my tip back on the beach, against my belly, and leaves a wet smear that I maybe shouldn’t find as arousing as I do. Feeling brave and too far gone to care about possible embarrassment, I groan, very lightly and breathless, “C’mon Gerard,” and thrust my hips against his harder now which costs me a lot of concentration because I can feel myself close to the edge as well, so close actually, that I might even finish before him and then suddenly I’m right there and my head rolls back against my neck and I choke out, “I’ll finish, Gee, I’m gonna-“, in the same moment that he goes, “Ah-ah-ah,” and presses so hard against me only to still his hips completely a second later while my thighs clench around his hips and one of my hands shoots up to his head and curls tightly into his greatly messed up hair. My toes curl inwards and my eyes are pressed together so tightly that I’m seeing stars. When I come to my senses again after a few long and blissed out moments, my body still occasional twitching with aftershocks, the air in the room seems used up and hot and I make out a heavy, earthy, musky smell that nearly makes me moan again right on the spot. Now I’m also aware of the hot and sticky liquid low between our bellies and now softening erections. God, I really need to step over my embarrassment and refer to our...parts with their normal names soon. But I’m not quite ready to do that so I decided to stick to the term Gerard taught me a few days ago for a little while longer. “How are you still standing,” I mumble into the mess of his hair after a moment, out of content and just for the sake of saying something. I’m sure my legs would have given up if I was standing right now. Gerard replies something against my skin that I can’t make out and I carefully pull his head back a little so I can look at him. “What?” I ask and smile a tiny content smile when I see that he gives me the same look, screaming on the inside when he doesn’t look freaked out and makes no move to run away within the next five seconds. “I said I was kinda holding on to you, twerp.” Now I smile hugely and smack him against the shoulder, eternally grateful that things are good between us. “Hey! What was that for?” Gerard shrieks and rubs his hand over the spot where I smacked him, ignoring the sticky mess between us where we are still pressed together. “For calling me a twerp?” He sneers at me and then smirks and blushes, running a sweaty hand through my hair. “Guess you have to re-do your hair after all.” I roll my eyes in an amused way and run my fingers through his own hair before pulling him in for another kiss, gentle and slow this time. I can feel him smiling as he returns the kiss and shiver when he slowly runs his palms over my sides and shoulders until he cups my face and tilts my head to deepen the kiss. It’s perfect and I’m pretty sure that I’m the luckiest person on earth right now and every second in the future. - “Crotches!” I shriek excitedly and nearly jump on him from where I’m standing crooked and pressed against his side where he’s supporting me. After we somewhat cleaned ourselves up and I braided my hair back in place, only because Gerard refused to try it again because ‘it wouldn’t stay in place anyway’, whatever, he picked me up and brought me outside again where he carefully let me down on the sand next to the stairs so I could hold on to the railing. Then he grinned hugely and disappeared around the house only to come back a second later with what turned out to be the surprise he promised earlier: Crotches! “I thought this way you could train your muscles and get a bit of your strength and mobility back, you know? And also because I miss having you out here.” “I love them, they’re perfect! Thank you so much!” I say happily and try to make a careful first step with them. They are two rather thick but not too heavy sticks in the perfect size for my height, and my hands fit perfectly into the mounts where I’m supposed to prop myself up. On the bottom of the sticks, so I won’t sink in the sand too much, he assembled to flat wooden plates. The wood feels good on my palm and the back of my forearms. It almost feels soft and warm and I have to wonder how long he worked on them... “How long did it take to make them?” I ask out loud and immediately know the answer when I see the look on his face. “The night after I found you...It kind of took a while because most of the sticks I found were too thin or fragile and I didn’t want you to get splinters so I had to sharpen them and try them out myself a couple of times because I’m heavier than you. I wouldn’t want them to break and cause for you to fall over again, you know?” He grins kind of apologetic and guiltily and even with both of the crotches in my hands, I throw my arms around him which causes me to half fall over and for him to almost losing an eye because of my clumsiness. “You’re the best big brother, do you know that?” I mumble into his hair and press a kiss behind his ear. “I can’t serve as a big brother anymore if you chop my head off, you stinker.” He giggles and squeezes his arms around me tightly before leaning away and letting me take a few slow steps on the slippery sand. It takes a moment, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually not that hard and after an hour of slowly walking and hopping around awkwardly, I feel like I could walk a marathon with them. Except it’s also really exhausting and I need a break. So instead of exploring and annoying Gerard where he’s in the middle of doing something on the façade of the house, I decided to sit down by the fireplace and start preparing something for lunch with the supplies he set there for me. After we ate and Gerard cleaned the dishes, he sits back down next to me on the sand where we always eat or hang out if we’re too lazy to do anything. “You know what these remind me of?” I say after a while, interrupting the comfortable silence between us. I smile and point to the crotches that lie next to me, ready to be used at any time. To my surprise, Gerard winks knowingly and says, “Where do you think I got the idea from?” At that, I smile even more and allow myself to slip into memory for a moment. All through my life, I had to fight horrible asthma-attacks which often lead to long hospital stays. I met a lot of interesting people with terrible diseases and more often than not, I made friends with some of the kids. We didn’t stay in contact after one of us was released, but we sometimes would play cards or chess in our hospital beds and quietly tell each other stories when we couldn’t sleep at night or comforted each other when we missed our family at home. There was this girl my age, maybe 8 or 9 at the time, who had an illness called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or short, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I don’t know exactly how I managed to remember that complicated name over the years, but I guess it’s because I have a face behind her name, and I usually don’t forget faces easily. Her name was Edwina. Her disease caused her to get weak very fast; she was almost always in pain from her muscles and veins and sometimes, she couldn’t even move her arms or fingers. Sometimes, when we played cards or drew pictures in my bed, the pencil slipped from her fingers because she got another batch of faintness. On bad days when her legs hurt a lot, she walked around with those super cool blue crotches that were designed just for her. With them, she was able to push herself up and relieve her legs, if only for a little while. She could do cool tricks with them as well and I always admired her for her strength. She always used to smile a lot and make jokes, but behind that façade was a sad, exhausted and tired girl. One night, when neither of us could sleep, she told me how crushing the long way to her diagnose was. She had the symptoms for years and they got worse as times passed, yet no doctor believed her and said that she made everything up. She told me that that was because it was a very rare disease, as she found out later. In fact, she was the one who told the doctors what she was suffering from. Even at such a young age, she read every book and paper article her local library offered that had something to do with medicine. She taught herself a lot of things and after months of reading and desperation, she found a paper article from years and years ago where a doctor in that domain talked about the illness that finally gave her a name from what she was suffering from. It took the doctors another few months to finally diagnose her and with that, the opportunity for medical treatment she so desperately needed. Gerard and our parents knew her as well from all the visiting hours and times we sat together in the cafeteria to eat popsicles and cheesecake. I don’t think I will ever forget her and I hope she found someone with the same story, just so she’s not alone in all of this. I also remember two boys, Adam and Gabriel, who I shared the room with once. One suffered from Asperger’s and the other one had an illness called Crohn’s Disease. The Autistic boy always fascinated me to no end because he was incredibly smart and everything he did seemed to be part of a big plan that he had inside his brain. The boy with the Autoimmune Disease made me sad because he had so many scars on his belly from former surgeries and I remember that he told me that there were a lot more to come. He seemed to struggle with his fate and I hope he got the strength and support he inwardly needed but never admitted. There was also Kathrin, the mother of a child I shared a room with, who I know suffered from two different kinds of cancer. I know that because she talked about it with my mother when her kid was not yet back from an examination and I was half asleep after another asthma-attack. Honestly, I have no idea how she did it. Caring for her children, working and dealing with her diagnose, and yet she seemed super strong and full of life and for that, she’ll always a hero in my books. “I’m glad that time is over, you know?” Gerard says, startling me. “What do you mean?” “You know,” he says and shrugs a little. “The time in the hospital. No idea how you did it, honestly.” I snort at that. “It’s not like you really have a choice you know? You get used to it. I made friends there, even, and all the nurses liked me.” “I know, but like, I remember how terrible you felt whenever we had to go in the evening. It was hard to bear sometimes, not just for me but mother and father, as well as Grandma and Grandpa.” I know that. I know that I also made it harder for them on some days than it could have been when I aggravated everything by crying hysterically when visiting hours where over and they had to go. I even remember that Gerard sometimes tried to hide in the small bathroom that was attached to the room because he didn’t want to leave me alone. Every day, as soon as the door opened when my family came to visit, he was the first one to shrug out of his shoes and jacked and climb under the covers with me and curled his chubby arms around me. I always loved that part the most about visiting hours and it was the one thing I truly looked forward to when the door closed again in the evening and I was left alone. “I’m sorry,” I say, futile, and lean my head on his shoulder lightly. It’s not like I chose to be sick and I was always very sensible, much to anyone's annoyance, including my own. He reaches up and runs his fingers through the hair on the back of my head and says, “Nothing to be sorry for, Twee. I’m just glad it’s over.” “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” “What is?” “You know,” I start and curl my arm across his belly, sighing. “All these years, they fed me all kinds of medicine and nothing ever worked the way it was supposed to. Then we come here and all my symptoms vanished in a flick..that’s so weird.” He’s quiet for a moment, before saying, “I still think it’s the air here, don’t you think? I mean, the air back in the city was always thick and polluted while here, it’s all clear and salty which even helps me to breathe properly.” “If we would still live at home in Jersey, you and I should have moved to the sea when we were old enough to afford a house...maybe where we always went on holiday, remember?” “How could I forget, you learned to walk there. I’m never forgetting that” he says and leans his head on mine with a tiny giggle. “You mean where I learned to chase you!” You know, the story mother always told everyone at family gatherings was ‘when little Mikey Way learned walking by chasing his big brother on the beach during his first vacation’. Basically, the story is that Gerard was happily chasing after a butterfly that flew around near the sand dunes, and I, apparently, thought it was a game of catch and tried to follow him. Crawling soon was too slow, so I tried to copy him and scuttled after him on my chubby toddler legs. When Gerard saw what I was doing, he forgot about the butterfly and instead took my small hand in his slightly bigger one and stomped down to the water with me with a huge smile on his face. That’s what I’ve always been told and I like to believe that it’s the truth. Not everyone starts walking because they feel so drawn to their brother catching a butterfly, you know? “Hmmm..you taught me a lot of things,” I sigh contentedly and close my eyes when Gerard strokes his fingertips up and down between that spot behind my ear and down my neck and shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I’m awesome!” he says, the cheeky tone of his voice so audible that it makes me smile. “You really are,” I say and hear him huff a quiet laugh. Then he turns his head to the side a little so that his nose is buried in my hair and after a moment, he says, ”Same goes to you, baby brother.” I snort again at that. “’M not your baby brother anymore, Gee. Come on.” “Uhm, yes? You will always be my baby brother. Nothing will ever change that, no matter how old you get, Silly. Just like I’m always going to be your big brother, even though you’re probably going to over tower me in a few months.” He giggles to himself and I slap him lightly on the belly where I flung my arm over him earlier. “Fine, baby brother it is.” Actually, it’s kind of nice. It’s intimate and personal and kind of deepens the connection we have between us, in a way. “’Should really take a bath at some point,” Gerard mumbles, probably sniffing my hair with his nose still buried in it. He’s probably right. It’s been a while and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Also, we might not have cleaned ourselves up very considerably after that fiasco in our room. Whatever. But on the other hand... Is it weird to admit that I kind of like the smell of us together on my skin? I mean, there was not only sweat and spit involved, but also other body fluids and greasy hair. I decide to tell him that. Might as well be honest, right? Who knows, maybe he feels the same way. He did say that he liked how I smell and that was way beyond our regular baths. “I don’t mind y’know.,” I say, maybe a little shy now that I said it out loud. He leans back slightly and looks at me with a searching and probably also amazed look on his face. That, of course, makes me blush which in return makes him grin and shake his head amused. “Aw man, we are both cut from the same cloth, aren’t we,” he says and leans in to kiss me when I try to roll my eyes but can’t hide a grin. I like the idea of that as well.

Notes