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"Where's your brother?"
"I've been trying him."
"Find him. Now."
When it comes to T.J., it's not like Douglas has a choice what to do. There's nothing, nothing in the world he would ever choose over his brother; not Anne, not his job, not even his life, for all that matters. He used to be scared of it, of the way T.J. comes first before everything else, because he thought, what if the President needs me to do something crucial to National security or even world peace or whatever, and T.J. needs me to go pick him up from some club, what would I do? And there's always only been one answer, always the same, and Douglas is a quiet, collected man, and knowing he would let down his entire country for his brother is a terrifying thought.
Anne doesn't get it, not really. To her, T.J. is still the grinning boy she used to watch on TV back when Bud Hammond was still the best and the worst he'd ever be; he's still the half-blurred silhouette of a teenager in a bright yellow shirt, gently kissing his first boyfriend ever under the not-so-good-after-all cover of a big cherry tree heavy with white and pink flowers. He's still the charming young man sitting his way through endless interviews with a thousand newspapers, most of which had wasted not a second in outing him regardless of decency and mercy.
T.J. is still a photograph, to Anne; he's still a distant celebrity she reads about in the magazines she flips through while she waits in her therapist's lounge. Even if she's been there for most of the shit storms Douglas' family had to endure — even if she's met T.J., even if she knows him, she knows there's a person behind the pretty face snorting coke on the cover of Confidential, — she still doesn't get it.
Douglas doesn't blame her, because sometimes, he's not entirely sure he gets it either.
It's more than just about T.J. being his twin, really. Yes, they've been around each other all their lives, but they've never had that kind of connection homozygous siblings often have. Douglas read everything about it — how they can't really make sense of 'I', instead it's a 'we' all the time; how they often develop pre-linguistic forms of communication, and get sick together, and get better together, and do and feel and think everything together, together, together, — and it used to make him so angry, and jealous, and sad, that he and T.J. were never really like that.
His brother is his best friend, of course; he's the most amazing person Douglas knows, he loves him, more than anyone, and it's great, it's wonderful, except it's not, because Douglas is scared — Douglas wants nothing more than keep T.J. happy and healthy and okay, but he can't even feel when his brother needs him.
Last December, when his mother called and she was crying and sobbing and couldn't talk — Douglas was shattered.
T.J. was the one in the hospital bed, with little tubes everywhere and the I.V. fighting the poisoning and beeping machines monitoring everything, his heart his lungs his thoughts, the way Douglas never could; T.J. was the one barely alive and for the first time, Douglas felt exactly the same.
He could barely stand, but he tried to put his arms around his mother anyway because comforting her gave him some sort of comfort, of warmth, too; her tears were his own and when they finally, finally let them in to see T.J., talk to him, just touch him, Douglas knew there was nothing he wouldn't have given up for his brother, and that thought didn't terrify him anymore.
The worst part of it is that he's not sure T.J. ever understood. That horrible, freezing night in the aseptic critical care at GW, T.J. was too exhausted and drained and thin to even keep his eyes open for more than a moment, and Douglas held his hand for hours, but he's never been any good at expressing his feelings with words, let alone just a touch. He hurt where his brother hurt, everywhere in his chest like a giant bruise choking his breath, but his brother had too much pain of his own to feel Douglas' presence, his love.
T.J.'s always been like that; they filled him up with sorrow when he was too young, and he's been impervious to everything else since then.
Douglas has been trying to change that for the better half of his life, now, and now he's running to his brother's apartment, guided by nothing more than an instinct, a dull feeling deep enough in his gut that tells him that's where T.J. is — that's where T.J. needs him. Maybe he's not even wrong, this time.