When I Come Around Part 8
Author: timrod
Rating: NC17 overall
Pairing: Billie Joe/other
Disclaimer: I don't own Green Day.
Part 1 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2953785.html#cutid1
Part 2 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2954009.html
Part 3 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2954629.html
Part 4 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2955105.html
Part 5 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2956943.html
Part 6 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2957718.html
Part 7 - http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2958836.html
8
Sunday was way too bright for December. Actually, it was way too bright for any time of year from Billie’s point of view right now. Eyes squeezed shut, he reached for a handful of Kleenex from the conveniently-placed box on the nightstand and started work on his very-late-morning wood. Looming full-scale hangover or not, some things just had to be dealt with, and when he slept alone, this was a pretty-much essential part of Billie’s wake-up routine, and had been for more than twenty-five years. This morning, it was a simple, no-frills, quick thrills kind of a day, Billie intent on a fast release so that he could get back to the important business of sleeping without the added discomfort of a raging boner. Last night’s champagne was making its presences felt, and, almost as soon as he came, quietly out of respect for his headache and for Jay just across the hall, he rolled over in bed, dropping the soggy tissue to the floor. He covered his head with the pillow, feeling more than a little delicate, seriously contemplating sneaking into Jay’s room to steal one of his pills. Almost on the verge of healing sleep, the cellphone he had forgotten to turn off last night used most of its remaining battery life to vibrate like some sort of demonic woodpecker, and Billie answered it, purely to stop the racket.
**
Jay was just as they had left him last night - flat on his stomach, arm flopped over the side of the bed. It seemed such a shame to wake him, especially as Billie suspected that he needed more time to sleep off the alcohol as well, but today, time was not his friend. Billie shook him gently, whispering his name.
“Hey, wake up, man. Jay, we need to talk.”
The drummer snored, yawned, grunted and sighed, all in a single breath. “Wassup?” He opened one eye and swore.
Billie waited patiently for him to sit up, water and pills in his hand ready for when Jay could muster the co-ordination to swallow. “How’s the head?”
“Head’s odd. Buzzy. Heavy.”
“Yeah, mine too. Here, these’ll help - take them.” Jay obeyed, and Billie swilled the left-over water to wash two more down his own throat. “Jay, I’ve got to go somewhere.”
“Sure. Where? Do I get to go too?”
“No, sorry, you can’t.” The singer handed Jay his bathrobe because he’d noticed his nipples again, dammit. “I have to go to New York.” Billie might as well have said Mars, because Jay had no clue. “It’s the other side of the country - hours away by plane. There’s a problem with the album, and I have to be there for a meeting tomorrow morning. Jay, you can’t come with me. You’ve got no ID and airline security won’t let you fly. I already asked.”
“Okaaaaay.” Life was definitely a little fuzzy around the edges and getting fuzzier by the minute. “Jake?”
Billie shook his head a very small amount but even that was too much. “Jake’s coming with me. He’s picking me up from here early this afternoon. Look, I can talk to Mom, see if you can stay there - it’s only for one night. I’ll be back by tomorrow evening.”
Jay frowned, thinking hard, and boy, was it hard. “Sunday?”
“Yeah, it’s Sunday.”
“So the wonderful Bernadette is here tomorrow?”
“Yeah, she’s here.”
“So I would be alone for a bit of today ... and a little bit of tomorrow after she goes home ....” Jay combed his hair with his fingers and made it even more untidy. “I can do that.”
“Are you sure, because Mom’ll be cool.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Yeah, course. Of course I trust you. I just don’t like the thought of abandoning you.”
“Billie, I’ll be fine. I can find something to eat easy enough and if you don’t mind, I can get in some practice down in the studio.” Ambitiously, Jay air-drummed and regretted moving as much as Billie had a few seconds earlier. “Ouch. Maybe later, when the drugs start working.”
“Hey, careful!” Billie smiled indulgently at the wreckage of a man discovering the delights of a hangover. ”Okay, here’s the deal. I can leave you with some cash for a take-out tonight, and I’ll give you Mom’s number. If you need her, call and she’ll be right over. And yeah, sure. My drums could do with a good work-out, and there’s always that pile of movies still in the den. Hang on ...” Billie was gone for a couple of minutes, walking back into the room punching numbers into a cellphone. “Here, it’s a spare - a gift from some corporation or other. I forgot to take it to the party last night. You have it. I’ve put in my number, Jake’s and Mom’s, plus a couple of my security guys - the battery’s low, I’ll leave the charger in the kitchen for you. Any problem at all, call one of us - or all of us.” Jay handled the phone like it was some sort of ancient artefact, pressing buttons and getting beeped at in return until Billie showed him how to make a call. “You got that?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
“Great. Now, do you think you could eat something? It helps with a hangover. I could fix those eggs .. or do you want to go back to sleep?”
“When do you have to leave?”
Billie shrugged. “Three hours or so. I gotta put a bag together, shower, dress ... find my fucking ID.”
“I’ll sleep, if you don’t mind. My head feels like shit and I don’t think eggs will help. Wake me up before you go.”
“Okay.” Billie dug out another bottle of water from the small chiller inside the closet and helped Jay struggle out of the robe and snuggle down - his nipples had shrunk and softened under the warmth of the plush, and Billie yet again wondered at the fact that he had noticed. “I was so fucking proud of you last night. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you in a bit.”
**
Billie tried the handle before patting for his keys, wondering why the house appeared to be in almost total darkness. As he opened the door, the warm, homely smell of cooking filled his nose, and there was music coming from somewhere, most likely the den. He dropped his holdall and reached for the light switch, hesitating before he turned it on.
“Hey, I’m home. Anyone about?”
There was the click of a lighter and a flicker as a candle flame wavered into existence, closely followed by a second. “Hi. Welcome home. Hope you’re hungry.”
As the light grew stronger, Billie could see the counter-top, laid for two with his best quality glass and chinaware - the stuff that only got used when his mother came over to eat - the candles, a huge bowl of salad and an open wine bottle. “Starving, but Jay .. what the ...?”
“Sit down. Dinner’s all ready.” He put a heaped dish of pasta, glistening with a rich meat sauce, onto the mat in the middle of the counter and divided most of the contents between two bowls. “Eat. Don’t touch the dish, though. It’s fucking hot.”
“This is .. this looks fantastic ..”
“You’ve been out working so I decided to cook. Your mom said this was your favourite and the wonderful Bernadette showed me how to make it, and Jake rang when you landed, told me you were on your way home so I could get it ready at the right time.“
“Yeah, my cell died on me again.” Billie snorted through a forkful of pasta. “I forgot to charge it last night. Shit, this is good.”
“You’ve made dinner or bought it for me just about every day since I got here. This is payback.”
“Dinner for two, wine, maybe some candles. You remembered.”
“Yeah, I did.” Jay settled onto the stool opposite, cramming his own mouth with salad. drizzled with ketchup “The wonderful Bernadette drove me to the store this morning, showed me where to get the stuff I needed.”
“You do know that’s not her name, right?”
“Huh?”
“She’s just Bernadette - or Bernie when you know her very well.”
Jay shrugged and grinned. “She is wonderful, though. She cleaned up all of our shit, did laundry, made dessert and gave me the cooking lesson, too. Wine?”
Crimson liquid glugged into both glasses before Billie could empty his mouth enough to answer, and so he just nodded, lifting his glass immediately for a toast. Jay remembered the ritual with the champagne at the party, clinking the crystal together with a pleasing ring.
“To my favourite drummer ...”
“To my favourite boss ..”
“One day your memory is gonna come back and i’m going to slip right down that ranking, but for now, thank you.”
Jay drained his glass, refilling both and emptying the bottle in the process. “Never gonna happen.”
“What, the memory or me being demoted?”
“Both. I think I can be contented as I am, Billie. If I get my memory back, I’m gonna have to deal with a lot of shit, I know, but if it doesn’t .... I’m so fucking happy right now.”
Billie let his fork fall to the plate, sniffing noisily into his napkin as he pretended to wipe his face. “That’s good. I’m glad it’s working out for you.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to the guy that tried to shoot you.” Billie raised his glass again. “To the unknown gunman!”
Jay gulped a quarter of his drink, his eyes a brighter shade of blue in the soft light from the candles. “I’m gonna do my best not to let you down, Billie.”
“You won’t. It’s hard work being on tour, but you’ve got, I don’t know, a feel for the music. You’ll be fine. I have faith in you.” He crammed another forkful of food into his mouth and mumbled through a mush of pasta. Shit, this really was as good as his mother’s cooking. He jabbed his fork at Jay’s glass. “So how did it go? Did the one lot of pills kill that hangover?”
“Yeah, pretty much. When you left I went down to the studio - I must’ve played five, six hours. Made my shoulders ache, anyway, so I got in your fizzy pool thing.”
“My jacuzzi ..”
“Yeah, that. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Course not. There’s another one down by the swimming pool - bigger, but you can use the one in my room, anytime, sure.”
“I made a sandwich for dinner last night - your money’s on the counter still. I used my wages to pay for dinner tonight.”
“Jay, you didn’t have to ..”
“Yeah, I did.” Jay distracted Billie from the argument by dolloping another spoonful of pasta into his bowl. “How did your trip go?”
“Good, yeah. We fixed the problem. They were going to take us out to some fancy place for dinner tonight but we both wanted to get home. Wish you could have been there. I missed you.”
“It was kinda quiet here without you, too. Well, apart from me drumming, and the music from the movie soundtrack.”
“Yeah, it’s good not having to worry about pissing off the neighbours.” Billie giggled. “And not just with music ...”
The pasta soon disappeared, the wine too, and when they had finished, Jay rose from the counter to clear away the dishes. Billie watched him move around the kitchen, confident, like he’d lived there for years, and he slid from his stool, grabbing the empty bottle to drop it into the trash. Recycling could wait until it was lighter outside - and warmer
“Here, I’ll help with that.”
“S’okay. I got it covered. There’s cheesecake in the refrigerator - chocolate cherry. You can get that out for us if you want some. Do you want ice cream with it?”
“Sounds great. Hang on ...” Billie took a long knife from the cutlery basket of the dishwasher and turned it around. “You should put these point down, it’s safer. Bernie tells me off all the time for putting them the wrong way. Don’t wanna have to take you back to that hospital ever again.”
“Fuck, no, although it worked out to be a lucky place for me, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did.” Billie dropped a wash capsule into the dishwasher and switched it on, straightening up - to find himself staring into the clearest, brightest pair of blue eyes he had ever seen.
For years afterwards, they joke-argued about who had started it. Jay claimed that he had kissed Billie first, whilst the guitarist insisted that it was all his idea. Whoever was to blame, they both agreed on the outcome; the kiss was perfect, soft and sweet, tentative at first, building slowly and steadily to something approaching pure lust. Beginning with closed mouths, as soon as whichever one claimed not to be the ringleader let their mouth gape, the second man pressed his advantage and slipped in his tongue to properly taste the other. And then, a few dreamy moments later, the roles reversed, the kisser becoming the kissed, dominance passing from man to man and back again, as their lives changed forever. Spurred on by the wonderful noises escaping from their close-pressed lips, Bille curled an arm around Jay’s waist, using his other hand to cradle his head and keep the kiss tight. He had no desire to pull apart, but questions needed to be asked to quell the niggling thoughts at the back of his mind, and reluctantly, he let the space between them grow.
“You okay? I’m sorry, I ....”
“Billie, I’m okay, and I’m not sorry. That was lovely.”
“Yeah, it was.” The singer’s natural honesty broke through his self-doubt, and he allowed himself to relax a little, staring hard at every aspect of the face in front of him. “Shit, I just wanted ..”
“Yeah, I did, too.” Jay grinned and Billie’s heart slipped in an extra beat. “My first kiss.”
“And my first with another man, and I gotta say, you’re a damn fine kisser. Fuck ... Jay. ...”
“It’s a big deal, huh?”
“Yeah. The biggest. I ... WE gotta think about this.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. Before ...” Billie bit his lip, trying to reason with himself when what he really wanted was not reasonable. His brain was three time-zones adrift after two sleepless flights in little over a day, and here he was trying to make the decision of the century. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you.”
“You’re not. I let you kiss me because I wanted you to kiss me.”
“Oh, god.” Jay’s childlike logic was having a far from childlike effect on Billie. “Look, we gotta take this one step at a time.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“I think I’m gonna regret suggesting that, but this is pretty fucking huge - for both of us.”
“Yeah, no point in rushing things and fucking up.”
Despite his anxiety, the singer giggled, and it was the turn of Jay’s heart to misfire. “The way I feel right now, that’s one hell of a risk.” He ran his hands through the soft spikes of Jay’s hair, and the smaller man sighed, compelling Billie to kiss him again before he made the most dramatic confession of his life. His face was flushed pink, his lips a few shades darker as he found the balls to say what he felt. “Okay, first things first - Jay, I think I’m falling in love with you.”
Jay flashed his brightest smile and laid his head on Billie’s shoulder, letting his lips brush against the pulse point on his neck when he spoke. “It’s all okay, then, because I guess I’m falling in love with you, too.” He shuffled his feet to get a little closer, and Billie held him tighter, not really thinking of the consequences. “You make me feel so fucking happy and I want to kiss you a lot more. Does that sound like love?”
“Yeah, those are some of the signs for sure.”
“I guess me getting a boner’s another sign?”
“Oh, my god ... Jay, slowly, right?” Billie spluttered and laughed and nuzzled into Jay’s neck, mind ticking over at a million miles an hour to try and get ahead of the basic animal instincts threatening to overrun him. “Yeah, it’s a sign, and I guess it’s only fair to tell you that I got one as well.”
“Yeah, I can feel it through your pants. So what do we do now?”
“Like I said, we don’t wanna rush this and fuck up, but .. “
“Matching boners?”
“Jesus. I .... Look, how about we sit down and talk this over?”
“Or how about we kiss some more?”
Billie stroked Jay’s hair from his face, eyes full of amusement and wonder, and everybbit of resistance evaporated. “Okay. I got no problem with that.”