i trot them out for the relatives
Title: Brutal Love [22]
Author: Molly
Pairing: Billie/Mike
Summary: Billie Joe had known this conversation was coming, about the press and the public and all that speculation the media liked doing, but he'd been hoping to put it off as long as possible.
Previous parts: located here
“You know. . . it really would've been nice to go to the hospital back home.”
“Oakland General doesn't have the same surgical technology as this one does, Mike. Besides, we're barely a half hour from home. We're just lucky we didn't have to fly to Los Angeles or something. . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike sighed. “I'm just bitching.”
The singer smiled wryly, watching with complicated eyes as Mike paced in front of the double windows of his rather large room, no doubt viewing what he could of the Golden Gate Bridge. Billie's husband had fidgeted the entire ride to San Francisco, had grumbled while putting on his lilac-colored gown, and had so far refused to sit his rump down on the bed in the center of the room. He understood his anxiety, because he was feeling it too; his was being subdued by a little orange pill called Xanax, though he'd found it never went away entirely, but he thought maybe that was okay. This didn't feel like a situation to be cool about.
In the past few days, they hadn't talked much about the c-word. Mike had called Dr. Pierce, told him he was ready to commit to whatever treatment plan the oncologist thought was best, and other than the appointment in which they'd had (because they were in this together, damnit) to discuss the timeline of various medical interventions. The surgery came first, and due to doctor scheduling conflicts, it'd had to wait until the twenty-third of September. That had left a rough bit of time in which to go on living about as normally as they possibly could, and Billie felt certain that they were reaching a point where they just wouldn't be able to hide it from Olivia anymore.
It was a weird kind of in between, the time that lapsed from diagnosis to action, and he could only compare it to purgatory. Billie Joe knew that they had to take things one day at a time, to take every moment as it came because, as his husband had so rightly foreshadowed, they had no idea how much time they had to spend together. . . The thought was sobering and pain-inducing all at once, something he could not allow his mind to wander to, because any kind of future without Mike wasn't just foggy; it was like a deep black pit he'd never be able to crawl back out of.
“How long do you think they're going to make me stay here?”
Billie bit his lip, eyes raking over the seemingly shrunken form of the bassist hunched in front of the window. “Hon,” he began gently, “you know Dr. Pierce said you'd probably have to be kept here anywhere from five to ten days. We talked about this.”
The other man turned around, arms wrapped tight around himself as his bare heel scraped at the linoleum floor. “And we still don't know what we're telling Livy?” His voice came out somewhat accusing, but it didn't bother the singer, who knew it was coming from the unbearable idea of being alone in the hospital for over a week.
“Well. . . that's kind of up to you, Mike.” Billie stared at the floor as he said it. He was leant up the wall opposite the bed, hands in his pockets. It had only taken about a minute of sitting down in the single available straight-backed chair in the room before Billie Joe knew he had to get up and move. Even worse at remaining still than Mike was, he couldn't stand the feeling of being idle, despite the fact that there was actually nothing for him to do. “If you want me to tell her you had some kind of interview in New York or something, I can do that. I can tell her we both have an appearance in New York, since Myla already offered to watch her for the week, and then I can stay here in the city with you. Or I can tell her the truth, or what she can understand of it. I'll do whatever you want.”
Mike rubbed his face with his hands, shoulders sagging as he released a long, tired breath. When he looked at Billie again, his expression was unreadable. “I don't know what's best,” Mike whispered, “I don't know how you explain to your six year old that you have cancer.”
It was more out of instinct, than anything else, that caused Billie to push himself away from the wall and go to his best friend, to wrap tattooed hands around his larger ones. He kissed the back of each one a few times, squeezing them as he looked back up into Mike's eyes. “If you're not ready to tell her that you're sick, then that's fine. We can take this as it comes.”
He nodded, almost reluctantly, leaning his forehead against Billie Joe's, mouthing kisses against his wrists when small hands came up to touch his face. As Mike took a brave breath, he curled his arms around his husband's waist. “Are you-are you going to think less of me, if I ask you to stay in the city?”
Billie couldn't help but smile a bit, nuzzling their noses together briefly. “I packed a bag with a couple of day's worth of clothes already, put it in the car this morning. I booked a room at the Marriott last night.” At the brightening gratitude flourishing in Mike's eyes, he went on, “I did it for showering purposes, mostly, because I don't plan on spending a night away from you, not until I'm sure you're okay.”
“Oh, God,” he choked, wrapping Billie up in a bear hug and kissing his hair. “Jesus, I don't know what I'd do without you, B. I love you.”
“Well, it's a good thing you don't have to think too much about what you'd do without me, because I ain't going nowhere,” Billie Joe mumbled into the sterile-smelling hospital gown, searching for the heart that was beating underneath it. In that moment, he was overwhelmed with unbelievable affection for Mike, and felt it on so many levels the best he could do was simply hug him back. “I'll call Myla and tell her we're taking her up on her offer to watch Livy. She was already having her for tonight anyway. I'll talk to Livy tonight, too, to let her know we're just going to be gone for a few days, that we'll be back soon.” Billie tipped his head back to meet blue eyes again. “Sound okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as okay as it's going to get, I guess. . .”
Before the singer could reply, Dr. Pierce was sweeping into the room with his white coat flapping behind him, an electronic notebook tucked under his arm. The physician smiled, reassuringly to both men, as they slowly withdrew from their embrace. “How are we today, gentleman?”
“Just peachy,” Mike chuckled darkly, shuffling around the bed and settling himself down on the edge of it. He folded his hands in his lap, eyebrows raised expectantly. “If I have to wait much longer to get this the hell over with, I'm probably going to smash that window open and threw myself out of it.”
“You'll have to excuse him,” Billie interjected quickly, swooping in to lay an arm across the bassist's shoulder and give him a squeeze that was almost a warning. “He's a bit nervous. . .”
“I'd be more worried if you weren't nervous. That goes for both of you. I apologize for the delay, the previous surgery in the room we had booked for the day took longer than expected. . .” Dr. Pierce trailed off, flicking through something or other on the tablet.
Mike's stomach dropped at the explanation; prolonged surgeries didn't sound like a good thing. He cleared at his throat, rubbed at his cold biceps. “Are you ready for me now, then?”
“Nearly,” the doctor promised, coming back up with another smile. “They're sterilizing the room now, and some nurses will be in shortly to prep you while I get scrubbed in. The prep is going to be a lot like what we did for you before the biopsy, except this time--”
The sudden and enthusiastic tones of Lady Gaga began to blare from a certain frontman's jacket pocket, and he swore as an prelude to a profuse apology to both Mike and Dr. Pierce. Billie Joe first silenced the phone, then paused to glance at the person's name shining across the screen, and he bit his lip; Pat, Green Day's manager, was the one calling, and because Billie had a strong suspicion as to what Pat was calling for, he thought it was probably best to answer it.
“Excuse me, sorry,” he muttered, avoiding the confused look Mike was giving him as he turned to the corner of the room and answered the phone. “Pat?”
“Hey, Billie. I'm cutting right to the crap here: what the fuck is going on?”
Billie Joe winced, plugging his other ear with his pointer finger because the conversation occurring in the background was distracting. “Pat, look-now isn't a good time--”
“Well, it apparently wasn't a good time the other eleven times I called you and Mike because you haven't bothered to get back to me. I'm hearing all kinds of weird shit from people, Billie. You guys got married? Mike's in the hospital? Tre won't tell me anything, so you assholes better start giving me a clue so I know what to tell the press when they come calling.”
“Pat-I'm sorry, but this is--”
“You guys are in fuckin' Entertainment Weekly, did you know that? Something about a secret wedding and life-threatening illness and a bunch of other bullshit I wouldn't think was true if Tre wasn't so goddamn cryptic on the phone. And frankly, Billie, I'm going to be pretty pissed if you guys did get married and didn't even think I might want to know, not just as your manager but as your friend.”
He bowed his head in guilt, though Pat couldn't see him, massaging his forehead with his fingertips. Billie Joe had known this conversation was coming, about the press and the public and all that speculation the media liked doing, but he'd been hoping to put it off as long as possible. “I'm sorry, man, I-look, I'm going to need you to hang, just a second--” Sighing, he walked back around to face Mike and Pierce, with the front of the phone pressed against his chest. “I'm sorry, I-I gotta take this into the hall.” With the deepest regret in his eyes, for having to leaving his husband at such a terrible time, Billie kissed him gently and carded a hand through his hair, just briefly. “I'll be right back, promise.” He lowered his voice, “It's Pat. He's freaking, and I gotta tell him something.”
Understanding flickered in Mike's eyes, and he nodded silently, returning the squeeze given to his hand. “Yeah, okay. Tell him. . . I'm sorry, or something. Jesus.”
“I will,” Billie promised, a weak 'what can you do?' smile on his lips for his husband, before turning to the doctor again with a very sincere expression of guilt on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, again,” he said, and without waiting for answer, fled down the hall, making sure he got far enough away so that Mike couldn't eavesdrop in on the conversation.
“Okay,” Billie said, to Pat this time, eyes roaming around him alertly for anyone that might listen in. “Okay, Pat, man, I don't have a ton of time right now, but I'll tell you what I can.”
“Yeah, you fuckin' better,” Pat bitched, sounding very disgruntled indeed.
“Me and Mike, we did get married. About two weeks ago. It all happened really fast, in the course of a weekend actually, and-and we barely had anyone there. We just did it at the courthouse. I'm sorry we didn't tell you, or invite you, man, it wasn't personal, it just-like I said, all kind of happened at once.”
“But why? Jesus, Billie Joe, I've been telling magazines for fuckin' ever that you guys didn't plan on getting married because you didn't need to, or whatever it was, so what changed? Are you pregnant, Billie? Is that what this is about?”
He closed his eyes, swore, ran his hands through disheveled hair. Why the fuck does everyone keep thinking that? “No, Pat, I'm not pregnant. It's-it's Mike, he-he has cancer.”
This, apparently, seemed to be what it took to make the manager pause. For a long time, there was simply silence from Pat's end of the line, stretching on into what felt like eternity before, “I had a bad feeling about this, Jesus. . . Is it as bad as I think it is?”
“It's bad,” Billie admitted, his voice sounding about as a strong as a kitten's mewl on its first day of life, “they're preparing for surgery right now. They're removing tumors on his kidneys.”
“And then what?”
“Then. . . then they're going to do chemotherapy. He's got tumors on his liver, and they've progressed-progressed far.”
“Billie Joe, what's the prognosis?”
Tre probably got along best with their manager, just because both of them always cut the bullshit and weren't afraid to ask the hard question. Or, it wasn't so much that they weren't afraid, but they had a mutual view that it didn't make sense to beat around the bush.
A lump was rising in his throat, a-goddamn-gain, and he tugged at his hair in frustration. “It's about buying him time, at this point, Pat. They're-they're gonna do all they can to give him more time. . .”
Pat was silent for another moment, as he was likely collecting himself from the painful shock such news can bring, and then he cleared his throat. The frustration was gone from his voice completely, when Pat spoke again, replaced by something far more sympathetic. “I know you don't want to think about this right now, and you shouldn't have to. I'll go ahead and release a statement for you.”
“No,” Billie said automatically, nearly surprising himself. “No, I think-I think Mike will want to. We both should let the fans know about the marriage, and. . . and if I know Mike, and I do, he'll want to tell them himself.”
“Okay,” Pat said carefully. Years of knowing Green Day's frontman made him well aware of the warning signs to any kind of anxiety attack (which was true for Mike as well, for that matter), and it was obvious this situation would be enough to have him twitch off the deep end, without Pat making it worse by saying the wrong fucking thing. “Well, the surgery they're doing for him-today, right?”
“Yeah.” Billie spared a glance down the hall, towards Mike's room, toes itching to move back in its direction. “Yeah, Pat, like I said, I can't cover all of the bases with you right now. I have to get back to him. . .”
“Then we won't worry about telling anybody about his being sick right now. We'll wait on it, and in the mean time, I'll let it go to the press that you guys did get married and you're more in love than ever or some other sappy stuff like that. It'll distract them from the hospital rumors for awhile, maybe.”
“Don't know what we'd do without you, Patty. I'm-I'm sorry we left you out of it, all this time.”
“It's all right, shithead,” Pat sighed, “I can see why you would, this time.”
Billie Joe could sense Pat, almost imagined he could hear him rubbing his bald head the way he always did when he was stressed or upset. It was Mike's theory that it was the reason for Pat going bald in the first place. “I'll text you later, tell you how his surgery went.”
“I'd appreciate that. Tell Mike I'll be thinking about him. I'd like to come by and see him, too, when he's up for it.”
“He'd like that,” Billie smiled weakly to himself, free hand on his hip as he began ambling back down the hall, albeit in a slow and shambling manner. “Me too, for that matter.” He paused outside of Mike's door. “I'll talk to you later, Pat.”
“Good luck, Bill.”
When Billie had hung up and re-entered his husband's room, Dr. Pierce was gone and it was just Mike, lying down on his gurney now, staring at the ceiling with his fingers laced together over his chest. He looked relatively calm, which wasn't necessarily what Billie Joe was expecting, and he stood by the side of the bed, reaching down to take one of Mike's big hands.
“I'm sorry. Did I miss anything?”
Mike shrugged one of his shoulders, tugging on Billie's hand a bit to encourage him to sit on the edge of the bed. “Not really. Not anything we didn't already know. We're supposed to abstain from sexual activities for up to eight weeks after this, did you know that?”
“No, but I can't say I'm surprised,” Billie said with a small smile, the hand not holding Mike's taking the liberty to card through scraggly, flattened hair.
“What did Pat have to say?” Mike murmured, eyes on the thumb he was smoothing over the tattoos on Billie Joe's fingers.
“I-well, I think we hurt his feelings by not telling him. . . but he understands. I told him the truth, not the extent of it but the gist.” He paused, to take a moment to figure out what was important to say right now, when such a heavy medical procedure was looming before Mike's very eyes. “He's going to tell the press we got married. I told him you would want to tell the fans about-you know-this, yourself. Was I right?”
Mike lifted the singer's hand to his mouth, squeezing it at the same he kissed it. “You're always right,” he said softly. “It's part of what drives me so fucking crazy about you.”
Billie didn't say anything for a moment, the lump in his throat preventing it from happening, and he bent closer, the tears glittering in his eyes contradicting the smile on his face. The kiss he placed on thin lips was chaste, and Billie held Mike's hand tight against his heart. “You, Mike Dirnt, drive me just as crazy, and it's why I love you so fucking much as well. And you're gonna be just fine today, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike nodded, a glimmer of good nature in his shiny blue eyes. “I got you. How could I not be?”
Author: Molly
Pairing: Billie/Mike
Summary: Billie Joe had known this conversation was coming, about the press and the public and all that speculation the media liked doing, but he'd been hoping to put it off as long as possible.
Previous parts: located here
“You know. . . it really would've been nice to go to the hospital back home.”
“Oakland General doesn't have the same surgical technology as this one does, Mike. Besides, we're barely a half hour from home. We're just lucky we didn't have to fly to Los Angeles or something. . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike sighed. “I'm just bitching.”
The singer smiled wryly, watching with complicated eyes as Mike paced in front of the double windows of his rather large room, no doubt viewing what he could of the Golden Gate Bridge. Billie's husband had fidgeted the entire ride to San Francisco, had grumbled while putting on his lilac-colored gown, and had so far refused to sit his rump down on the bed in the center of the room. He understood his anxiety, because he was feeling it too; his was being subdued by a little orange pill called Xanax, though he'd found it never went away entirely, but he thought maybe that was okay. This didn't feel like a situation to be cool about.
In the past few days, they hadn't talked much about the c-word. Mike had called Dr. Pierce, told him he was ready to commit to whatever treatment plan the oncologist thought was best, and other than the appointment in which they'd had (because they were in this together, damnit) to discuss the timeline of various medical interventions. The surgery came first, and due to doctor scheduling conflicts, it'd had to wait until the twenty-third of September. That had left a rough bit of time in which to go on living about as normally as they possibly could, and Billie felt certain that they were reaching a point where they just wouldn't be able to hide it from Olivia anymore.
It was a weird kind of in between, the time that lapsed from diagnosis to action, and he could only compare it to purgatory. Billie Joe knew that they had to take things one day at a time, to take every moment as it came because, as his husband had so rightly foreshadowed, they had no idea how much time they had to spend together. . . The thought was sobering and pain-inducing all at once, something he could not allow his mind to wander to, because any kind of future without Mike wasn't just foggy; it was like a deep black pit he'd never be able to crawl back out of.
“How long do you think they're going to make me stay here?”
Billie bit his lip, eyes raking over the seemingly shrunken form of the bassist hunched in front of the window. “Hon,” he began gently, “you know Dr. Pierce said you'd probably have to be kept here anywhere from five to ten days. We talked about this.”
The other man turned around, arms wrapped tight around himself as his bare heel scraped at the linoleum floor. “And we still don't know what we're telling Livy?” His voice came out somewhat accusing, but it didn't bother the singer, who knew it was coming from the unbearable idea of being alone in the hospital for over a week.
“Well. . . that's kind of up to you, Mike.” Billie stared at the floor as he said it. He was leant up the wall opposite the bed, hands in his pockets. It had only taken about a minute of sitting down in the single available straight-backed chair in the room before Billie Joe knew he had to get up and move. Even worse at remaining still than Mike was, he couldn't stand the feeling of being idle, despite the fact that there was actually nothing for him to do. “If you want me to tell her you had some kind of interview in New York or something, I can do that. I can tell her we both have an appearance in New York, since Myla already offered to watch her for the week, and then I can stay here in the city with you. Or I can tell her the truth, or what she can understand of it. I'll do whatever you want.”
Mike rubbed his face with his hands, shoulders sagging as he released a long, tired breath. When he looked at Billie again, his expression was unreadable. “I don't know what's best,” Mike whispered, “I don't know how you explain to your six year old that you have cancer.”
It was more out of instinct, than anything else, that caused Billie to push himself away from the wall and go to his best friend, to wrap tattooed hands around his larger ones. He kissed the back of each one a few times, squeezing them as he looked back up into Mike's eyes. “If you're not ready to tell her that you're sick, then that's fine. We can take this as it comes.”
He nodded, almost reluctantly, leaning his forehead against Billie Joe's, mouthing kisses against his wrists when small hands came up to touch his face. As Mike took a brave breath, he curled his arms around his husband's waist. “Are you-are you going to think less of me, if I ask you to stay in the city?”
Billie couldn't help but smile a bit, nuzzling their noses together briefly. “I packed a bag with a couple of day's worth of clothes already, put it in the car this morning. I booked a room at the Marriott last night.” At the brightening gratitude flourishing in Mike's eyes, he went on, “I did it for showering purposes, mostly, because I don't plan on spending a night away from you, not until I'm sure you're okay.”
“Oh, God,” he choked, wrapping Billie up in a bear hug and kissing his hair. “Jesus, I don't know what I'd do without you, B. I love you.”
“Well, it's a good thing you don't have to think too much about what you'd do without me, because I ain't going nowhere,” Billie Joe mumbled into the sterile-smelling hospital gown, searching for the heart that was beating underneath it. In that moment, he was overwhelmed with unbelievable affection for Mike, and felt it on so many levels the best he could do was simply hug him back. “I'll call Myla and tell her we're taking her up on her offer to watch Livy. She was already having her for tonight anyway. I'll talk to Livy tonight, too, to let her know we're just going to be gone for a few days, that we'll be back soon.” Billie tipped his head back to meet blue eyes again. “Sound okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as okay as it's going to get, I guess. . .”
Before the singer could reply, Dr. Pierce was sweeping into the room with his white coat flapping behind him, an electronic notebook tucked under his arm. The physician smiled, reassuringly to both men, as they slowly withdrew from their embrace. “How are we today, gentleman?”
“Just peachy,” Mike chuckled darkly, shuffling around the bed and settling himself down on the edge of it. He folded his hands in his lap, eyebrows raised expectantly. “If I have to wait much longer to get this the hell over with, I'm probably going to smash that window open and threw myself out of it.”
“You'll have to excuse him,” Billie interjected quickly, swooping in to lay an arm across the bassist's shoulder and give him a squeeze that was almost a warning. “He's a bit nervous. . .”
“I'd be more worried if you weren't nervous. That goes for both of you. I apologize for the delay, the previous surgery in the room we had booked for the day took longer than expected. . .” Dr. Pierce trailed off, flicking through something or other on the tablet.
Mike's stomach dropped at the explanation; prolonged surgeries didn't sound like a good thing. He cleared at his throat, rubbed at his cold biceps. “Are you ready for me now, then?”
“Nearly,” the doctor promised, coming back up with another smile. “They're sterilizing the room now, and some nurses will be in shortly to prep you while I get scrubbed in. The prep is going to be a lot like what we did for you before the biopsy, except this time--”
The sudden and enthusiastic tones of Lady Gaga began to blare from a certain frontman's jacket pocket, and he swore as an prelude to a profuse apology to both Mike and Dr. Pierce. Billie Joe first silenced the phone, then paused to glance at the person's name shining across the screen, and he bit his lip; Pat, Green Day's manager, was the one calling, and because Billie had a strong suspicion as to what Pat was calling for, he thought it was probably best to answer it.
“Excuse me, sorry,” he muttered, avoiding the confused look Mike was giving him as he turned to the corner of the room and answered the phone. “Pat?”
“Hey, Billie. I'm cutting right to the crap here: what the fuck is going on?”
Billie Joe winced, plugging his other ear with his pointer finger because the conversation occurring in the background was distracting. “Pat, look-now isn't a good time--”
“Well, it apparently wasn't a good time the other eleven times I called you and Mike because you haven't bothered to get back to me. I'm hearing all kinds of weird shit from people, Billie. You guys got married? Mike's in the hospital? Tre won't tell me anything, so you assholes better start giving me a clue so I know what to tell the press when they come calling.”
“Pat-I'm sorry, but this is--”
“You guys are in fuckin' Entertainment Weekly, did you know that? Something about a secret wedding and life-threatening illness and a bunch of other bullshit I wouldn't think was true if Tre wasn't so goddamn cryptic on the phone. And frankly, Billie, I'm going to be pretty pissed if you guys did get married and didn't even think I might want to know, not just as your manager but as your friend.”
He bowed his head in guilt, though Pat couldn't see him, massaging his forehead with his fingertips. Billie Joe had known this conversation was coming, about the press and the public and all that speculation the media liked doing, but he'd been hoping to put it off as long as possible. “I'm sorry, man, I-look, I'm going to need you to hang, just a second--” Sighing, he walked back around to face Mike and Pierce, with the front of the phone pressed against his chest. “I'm sorry, I-I gotta take this into the hall.” With the deepest regret in his eyes, for having to leaving his husband at such a terrible time, Billie kissed him gently and carded a hand through his hair, just briefly. “I'll be right back, promise.” He lowered his voice, “It's Pat. He's freaking, and I gotta tell him something.”
Understanding flickered in Mike's eyes, and he nodded silently, returning the squeeze given to his hand. “Yeah, okay. Tell him. . . I'm sorry, or something. Jesus.”
“I will,” Billie promised, a weak 'what can you do?' smile on his lips for his husband, before turning to the doctor again with a very sincere expression of guilt on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, again,” he said, and without waiting for answer, fled down the hall, making sure he got far enough away so that Mike couldn't eavesdrop in on the conversation.
“Okay,” Billie said, to Pat this time, eyes roaming around him alertly for anyone that might listen in. “Okay, Pat, man, I don't have a ton of time right now, but I'll tell you what I can.”
“Yeah, you fuckin' better,” Pat bitched, sounding very disgruntled indeed.
“Me and Mike, we did get married. About two weeks ago. It all happened really fast, in the course of a weekend actually, and-and we barely had anyone there. We just did it at the courthouse. I'm sorry we didn't tell you, or invite you, man, it wasn't personal, it just-like I said, all kind of happened at once.”
“But why? Jesus, Billie Joe, I've been telling magazines for fuckin' ever that you guys didn't plan on getting married because you didn't need to, or whatever it was, so what changed? Are you pregnant, Billie? Is that what this is about?”
He closed his eyes, swore, ran his hands through disheveled hair. Why the fuck does everyone keep thinking that? “No, Pat, I'm not pregnant. It's-it's Mike, he-he has cancer.”
This, apparently, seemed to be what it took to make the manager pause. For a long time, there was simply silence from Pat's end of the line, stretching on into what felt like eternity before, “I had a bad feeling about this, Jesus. . . Is it as bad as I think it is?”
“It's bad,” Billie admitted, his voice sounding about as a strong as a kitten's mewl on its first day of life, “they're preparing for surgery right now. They're removing tumors on his kidneys.”
“And then what?”
“Then. . . then they're going to do chemotherapy. He's got tumors on his liver, and they've progressed-progressed far.”
“Billie Joe, what's the prognosis?”
Tre probably got along best with their manager, just because both of them always cut the bullshit and weren't afraid to ask the hard question. Or, it wasn't so much that they weren't afraid, but they had a mutual view that it didn't make sense to beat around the bush.
A lump was rising in his throat, a-goddamn-gain, and he tugged at his hair in frustration. “It's about buying him time, at this point, Pat. They're-they're gonna do all they can to give him more time. . .”
Pat was silent for another moment, as he was likely collecting himself from the painful shock such news can bring, and then he cleared his throat. The frustration was gone from his voice completely, when Pat spoke again, replaced by something far more sympathetic. “I know you don't want to think about this right now, and you shouldn't have to. I'll go ahead and release a statement for you.”
“No,” Billie said automatically, nearly surprising himself. “No, I think-I think Mike will want to. We both should let the fans know about the marriage, and. . . and if I know Mike, and I do, he'll want to tell them himself.”
“Okay,” Pat said carefully. Years of knowing Green Day's frontman made him well aware of the warning signs to any kind of anxiety attack (which was true for Mike as well, for that matter), and it was obvious this situation would be enough to have him twitch off the deep end, without Pat making it worse by saying the wrong fucking thing. “Well, the surgery they're doing for him-today, right?”
“Yeah.” Billie spared a glance down the hall, towards Mike's room, toes itching to move back in its direction. “Yeah, Pat, like I said, I can't cover all of the bases with you right now. I have to get back to him. . .”
“Then we won't worry about telling anybody about his being sick right now. We'll wait on it, and in the mean time, I'll let it go to the press that you guys did get married and you're more in love than ever or some other sappy stuff like that. It'll distract them from the hospital rumors for awhile, maybe.”
“Don't know what we'd do without you, Patty. I'm-I'm sorry we left you out of it, all this time.”
“It's all right, shithead,” Pat sighed, “I can see why you would, this time.”
Billie Joe could sense Pat, almost imagined he could hear him rubbing his bald head the way he always did when he was stressed or upset. It was Mike's theory that it was the reason for Pat going bald in the first place. “I'll text you later, tell you how his surgery went.”
“I'd appreciate that. Tell Mike I'll be thinking about him. I'd like to come by and see him, too, when he's up for it.”
“He'd like that,” Billie smiled weakly to himself, free hand on his hip as he began ambling back down the hall, albeit in a slow and shambling manner. “Me too, for that matter.” He paused outside of Mike's door. “I'll talk to you later, Pat.”
“Good luck, Bill.”
When Billie had hung up and re-entered his husband's room, Dr. Pierce was gone and it was just Mike, lying down on his gurney now, staring at the ceiling with his fingers laced together over his chest. He looked relatively calm, which wasn't necessarily what Billie Joe was expecting, and he stood by the side of the bed, reaching down to take one of Mike's big hands.
“I'm sorry. Did I miss anything?”
Mike shrugged one of his shoulders, tugging on Billie's hand a bit to encourage him to sit on the edge of the bed. “Not really. Not anything we didn't already know. We're supposed to abstain from sexual activities for up to eight weeks after this, did you know that?”
“No, but I can't say I'm surprised,” Billie said with a small smile, the hand not holding Mike's taking the liberty to card through scraggly, flattened hair.
“What did Pat have to say?” Mike murmured, eyes on the thumb he was smoothing over the tattoos on Billie Joe's fingers.
“I-well, I think we hurt his feelings by not telling him. . . but he understands. I told him the truth, not the extent of it but the gist.” He paused, to take a moment to figure out what was important to say right now, when such a heavy medical procedure was looming before Mike's very eyes. “He's going to tell the press we got married. I told him you would want to tell the fans about-you know-this, yourself. Was I right?”
Mike lifted the singer's hand to his mouth, squeezing it at the same he kissed it. “You're always right,” he said softly. “It's part of what drives me so fucking crazy about you.”
Billie didn't say anything for a moment, the lump in his throat preventing it from happening, and he bent closer, the tears glittering in his eyes contradicting the smile on his face. The kiss he placed on thin lips was chaste, and Billie held Mike's hand tight against his heart. “You, Mike Dirnt, drive me just as crazy, and it's why I love you so fucking much as well. And you're gonna be just fine today, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike nodded, a glimmer of good nature in his shiny blue eyes. “I got you. How could I not be?”