Fritz St. James was nervous.

It was an unusual feeling for him. Fritz did not get nervous, did not get flustered, did not get easily upset. Except for a few exceptions (most notably Tolliver), most of his emotions were tamped down inside of himself, locked away because he didn't need them, didn't want them to interfere with his daily life, both as Fritz and as Celsus. He was able to accomplish so much more when he wasn't burdened by the feelings of loss and regret and fear that often ate away at him when no one was around to see, and Fritz had grown so used to taking that path that he had forgotten what it was like to live otherwise.

But he was nervous now, because he'd thought he'd ruined things. He was nervous, because he had wanted, deep down, so desperately to fix things, but instead everything had turned to one enormous mess, at the center of which was Fritz, stubbornly refusing to change his mind or his heart. He knew better, he told himself, than they did. He knew how the world worked, he knew how to do things that they couldn't, he had seen, done things that they - hopefully - never would, especially Tolliver. The thought of losing him was like a physical ache in Fritz, and for a while he'd already believed he'd had.

He stood in the loft on his own, and for all the bravado he put up when he was around other knights or senshi, Fritz lacked the courage to speak to his brother face to face. Twins or not, he'd screwed up, and he'd screwed up royally, hurting Tolliver in a way that was unforgivable. The blame may not have rested entirely on his own shoulders, but it certainly was enough to make his chest throb painfully each and every day when he woke up and remembered how things were.

The loft felt achingly lonely. Fritz had never lived on his own before, felt the loss acutely in his bones, in his very soul.

Call him.

He'd had the number half-dialed for the better part of an hour now, and Fritz finally just sucked in a sharp breath and punched in the rest of the numbers, hitting send before he could change his mind. He held the phone up to his ear, pacing restlessly back and forth, idly examining a bruise on his hand from a youma battle the day before.

It rang once, twice. Was Tolliver asleep? Eurydike had said he was home - but wait, maybe he should have waited to call until it was morning, it was almost eleven after all, he should have just called in the morning, when they were both awake, he should have -

"...Fritz?"

The voice came, as familiar as ever, so very like his own except with notable differences and there was a pang in Fritz's chest. Tolliver's tone was slightly higher than his, rimmed with softness and gentleness, whereas Fritz's voice was a little lower, used to speaking loudly, and with a great deal of gusto. While he was capable of spinning tales and being outwardly charming, smooth and charismatic, Tolliver was the exact opposite, known for his raw openness and soft honesty. It was something that Fritz could not duplicated, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how alike they were in some ways, Tolliver's warm heart was something entirely his own.

He realized, belatedly, that he had been quiet too long, lost in his own thoughts. Fritz inhaled sharply.

"Hey, Tolliver."

It was the lamest possible greeting, after all that had been said and done. Fritz took a step over to the nearest wall and leaned his head against it, the line quiet between them, and he wondered if he'd already screwed it up again. His forehead pressed against the drywall, one hand idly smoothing up and down it, fingers trailing over the paint. Maybe Tolliver had hung up already. Maybe he'd changed his mind about picking up in the first place, regretted his decision to speak to the brother that had essentially forced him out of their loft, even if it wasn't what he'd wanted, even if none of this was what he wanted.

"It's...you're calling me, Fritz..?"

That soft voice, lacking anger, lacking irritation, and holding everything else instead, from the quiet pleading that didn't have to be spoken to be felt, to the slow and steady warmth that spread into Fritz' chest. He made a half-strangled sound in the back of his throat, fingers curling against his palm on the wall, and closed his eyes briefly, easing out a breath to steady himself. He wanted to hang up, to run away, but that was what he always did - always shut himself away when things got too hard, when he thought he couldn't control them anymore, hoping that maybe if he ignored them, they'd go away, disappear.

But the hard lesson to learn was that things did not simply go away just because you didn't face them.

"I am," said Fritz, hating the tremor that ran through his voice. "I'm - yes, I'm calling you, hello, Tolliver, it's - " He tried to stay calm. "It's been a while, I just wanted to - " Do what? Say hi? Check in? Ask for their mother's recipe on bread pudding? His thoughts couldn't seem to collect properly, a haze of confusion and desperation filling his mind instead, because he couldn't fix this, he couldn't even find the right words to say, and why did he always know what to say when it was dealing with people not himself, why couldn't he just -

"I've really missed you, Fritz."

It was so very like Tolliver. The gentle sweetness that Fritz was missing, the inherent kindness, was something that was unique entirely to Tolliver, and Fritz felt it now, easing into his veins like a drug, calming him. He heard the soft hitch in his brother's voice, heard the sniff that he tried to muffle, and he knew Tolliver was crying. His mind flitted back to his conversation with Eurydike - we both know he'll just cry about it anyway - and a small smile found its way onto Fritz's face, leaning back away from the wall, his hand rubbing at his temple.

"I've - I've missed you too," he said, and he meant it, more than he'd meant anything else before in his life. The loft felt terribly lonely without his brother to share it with, without the twin he was so used to having at his side, more than anyone else, a constant and ever reassuring presence. "Tolliver, listen, about - about everything that's happened, about what I said - "

"It's all right," Tolliver said quietly, but no, it wasn't, Fritz knew that.

"Tolliver, really," said Fritz, pushing past the self-loathing that climbed in his throat. "I need to say it - I'm - " A sharp breath. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you the way I did, I just...I didn't know what I was doing - I mean, I did, but I didn't at the same time, if that makes sense. I wanted to protect you, and yet I pushed you away instead, and I truly...truly regret doing so. For treating you so...so terribly."

The weight of his inadequacies was heavy on his shoulders, stabbing into his back. Fritz's hand shaded his eyes from sight, and there was no one around to see him as he leaned his back against the wall and slid down, until he was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up against his chest. The phone was clutched tightly in his hand, a lifeline to the one person he had wronged more than anyone and yet the one person he couldn't bear to see hurt.

Except it's too late for that, you've already hurt him.

"Fritz..." Tolliver said softly, and the ache in his voice pained Fritz, his eyes falling shut once more. "You were just looking out for me - "

"No," said Fritz quickly, a little more harshly than he intended, and he reigned in the emotions, tucked them away, tamped down on them like he always did. "No, Tolliver, I was looking out for myself. I just - I just wanted to protect you, to keep you safe, but I wanted to be the one to do that, not - not someone else, and I could see that you - " Breathe, Fritz, breathe. " - I could see that you liked that guy, and it just, I realized I couldn't do anything for you, not the way that he could."

Admitting it was like a knife to the gut, wrenching into him, twisting painfully around inside of him. Fritz did not cry, not like Tolliver did, but he could still feel the ache in his chest, could still feel the weight of all of his problems bearing down on him. He hadn't been able to do anything for Tolliver, not in the way Hitch could, not in the way that he'd wanted to. He'd messed up because he'd held on too tightly to the one thing that mattered in his life, and Tolliver was here listening to him blabber on like an idiot.

"I can't do for you what he can," Fritz said, with a slightly rueful laugh, leaning his head back against the wall and staring distantly up at the ceiling. "I wanted to. I wanted to be the one to help you, because I'm your brother, and I wanted to be there for you as much as I could, but he - that guy - Hitch, he - he makes you a better person. He knows what to do for you"

He pulled you out of that darkness when I couldn't.

"And I know..." said Fritz, and he tried to ease out a breath. "I know that you...I know that you like him."

There was silence on the end of the line, long enough for him to almost panic, Fritz's fingers delving into his hair, pushing it away from his face.

"I do like him," came Tolliver's voice finally, and it was very soft and almost aching in its gentleness. "I love him, Fritz."

He closed his eyes again.

"Yeah. I know."

And he did. He didn't doubt it, just as he didn't doubt that Eurydike had been right - that Tolliver's heart was large enough to push past his own pain and not hate Fritz for what he'd done. He didn't doubt it, just as he didn't doubt his own love and respect for his brother; just as he didn't doubt that, on some level, running into that guy had probably been one of the better things to happen in his life, because it had given him the strength to call his twin again.

Fritz opened his eyes, a watery - too watery - laugh escaping him, eyes overly bright, but he didn't care.

"I guess we're both just idiots, aren't we?" he said, and the soft laugh emanating over the phone was one of the best sounds that Fritz had heard in a long, long time.

"I think you're more of an idiot than me," Tolliver said, and maybe it wasn't perfect, and there was definitely still a lot to be said and done, and he was still lonely in the loft - but for the first time, Fritz started to think that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay again.