oneshot : a smile worth millions
title: A Smile Worth Millions
author: Sharmel
pairing: Billie/Jason
rating: R
summary: "You picked up my broken pieces when she left me out in the cold. And you were the one to mend them back together with your own personal brand of crazy glue."
dedication: To my Bellia, Logan.
If I really thought about it long and hard, I could probably tell you that never in a million years would I have thought about marriage because I never really considered myself as the marrying type. And if I did, it would have been to a beautiful woman with brilliant, dark chocolate eyes and a million dollar smile. Although, at one point of my fairly long-lived life, I did; I did marry my ideal woman: Adrienne Nesser. But what I had failed to anticipate was the fact that a woman wasn’t exactly what I had wanted the most.
Women, god, they’re so beautiful and soft and gentle, but they also have this side of them; a side so sinister and so plastic and so goddamn frightening when they’ve been wronged. And that was what I witnessed when I married her, when we fought endlessly about everything and nothing at all. God, I almost regret being with her. But the one thing we did do right was have two amazing children: Joey and Jakob.
Anyway, back to the point. When I was a teenager, all I thought about was music, drugs, and perhaps fantasized about sex. Because really, who wanted a skinny badass mother fucker who got stoned half the time and had the biggest opinionated mouth? No one, that’s who. The only person who really tolerated me was Mike Dirnt - and Tre Cool later on. And that all changed after I went to some party a friend of Mike’s dragged me. I met this guy - you. You had the widest and most captivating blue eyes I’ve ever seen - you still do, even now however many years later.
We talked and talked and talked. Until finally, you steered me away from the scene and we just walked. Your curly brown hair tickled you eyes, and I was so very tempted to tuck them away just so I could keep staring at your eyes. The conversation ended when we left the party, but I was alright with that; so were you. Ours hands shoved in our tight jean pockets, we strolled in the dark. The only sound that was prominently audible was our rigid breathing and the gentle breeze that caressed our faces.
Finally, you asked me a question that I couldn’t quite properly answer at the time. You asked innocently, “Billie, do you think we’ll still be together many years from now?”
What I didn’t know was that you meant it literally. What I didn’t know was that twenty-some years later, we would still be together: not only as friends, but as partners, lovers. What I didn’t know at the time was that years later, I would fall heads over heels for you.
So I just said nonchalantly, “I hope so; you seem like a cool person. You seem like you’d be a good friend.”
You just flashed me that lopsided grin that was worth a million and one more, and I didn’t know until many years down the line that I was the only one permitted to see that special smile. And my one regret in life was choosing to ignore the butterflies that fluttered raucously and ferociously in my stomach or that odd warm, tingling sensation that made my heart swell every time I saw your endearing complexion. I was too frightened to confront my true feelings; I was afraid of losing you if I screwed up because I, Billie Joe Armstrong, was the biggest screw up to have ever faced this planet. And I didn’t want to jeopardize what we had: our friendship. Because I valued our friendship more than I ever let on.
With those particular feelings set aside, I ended up marrying someone else, played music in front of thousands of die-hard fans, had beautiful kids, released records, got divorced, released more records, played in front of hundreds of thousands, and turned thirty-eight. Just like that. Time just flew by so fucking fast, and I wish it would slow down just so I could tell myself to savour every moment life offered me.
***
“Hey, what are you writing?”
I glanced over my shoulder and was met with a brilliant blue. I smiled. “Oh, it’s nothing. You’ll find out later.”
His eyebrows shot up but said nothing further. Wordlessly, I tucked the tiny black notebook into my jacket pocket before sliding my hands onto his stubble-filled face. My calloused fingers ran through his soft, curly hair as I placed light kisses on his perfectly sculpted lips.
I wished with all my heart that this moment would last forever.
***
Technically, we’ve only been together for over a few years. But really, if I were to think long and hard, we’ve been together longer than that. Drunken nights led to harmless lust-filled kisses. Drugs clouded our morals and judgements which led to harmless touching and groping. But who were we kidding? We were so fucking in love with each other, yet we were so clueless and tied down at the same time. Both of us got married to the wrong person, and for whatever reason, yours managed to fail first.
But of course, even when your marriage failed, neither of us realized how much we really meant to each other. Not even when I slung my arm over your shoulder and helped your drunken self back to your home in one piece. And not even when you placed sloppy kisses on my unprepared lips and cried and begged for me not to go home - of course, I couldn’t say no and did stay overnight because I had a feeling that if I hadn’t, you would’ve done something incredibly stupid and regretful in your drunken state. I knew you all too well.
No, we were blinded fools. It wasn’t until after my marriage fell apart when we suddenly accepted that maybe it was our time to shine, together - you and I. You picked up my broken pieces when she left me out in the cold. And you were the one to mend them back together with your own personal brand of crazy glue.
The memory was still so vivid in my catastrophic mind. The way your eyes softened, when your baby blues landed on my glassy emeralds. I recalled the way your thick, calloused fingers wiped the silent tears that finally rolled down my face. And the way your strong arms wrapped around my body as you dragged me to your bed. All the while, with your soft lips brushing against my ear, you sang gently into my ears. We both fell asleep just like that.
When we woke up the next morning, I knew - I just fucking knew - that you were what I was missing all along. And so I cupped your beautiful face with my tiny hands, stared passionately and longingly into your breathtaking eyes, and kissed you long and hard, soft and gentle, passionate and full of love, and all the emotions that had been hiding were released. It was a wonderful kiss. You nearly melted under my touch.
That was also the first time I ever told you that I loved you.
You just smiled, caressed my cheek with your longer forefinger, and returned the words with meaning - more emphasis than what my wife had ever told me.
***
“Hey Billie, your doctor called. He said he needed you to stop by his clinic sometime. I didn’t know you went to the clinic. Are you feeling alright?” A voice came behind me, filled with worry.
I nodded my head and turned around, tucking my book into my pocket. He sat down beside me on the bench on our porch, and we watched the birds flutter about into their rightful freedom. Jason turned to me and laced our hands together. Slowly, he lifted our hands up and placed his tender lips on top of my hand; then placed another long kiss on my wedding band.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I just smiled.
“I’m always fine when you’re around.”
And that was, after all, the truth.
***
The day you proposed to me, God, I’d never been so happy in my goddamn life. Just the radiant smile plastered on your beautiful face made me feel like the luckiest bastard in the world. And then we got married, just you and me, under the brightest of all stars. Our hands intertwined and our colourful gem-like eyes sparkling under the luminous moonlight.
I’ll never forget your vows to me. It was short, simple, and sweet, and it absolutely just stole my heart away.
Remember what you said? “Billie Joe. There is no one, absolutely no other person I’d rather spend the rest of my life with, than you. For the rest of my life, my beating heart belongs to you.”
After we shared our first kiss as a married couple, tears drenched my face. The only time I had ever cried that much was when my father died. But those tears I cried when I was enveloped by your warm, muscular arms, those tears were from happiness: pure fucking happiness. Because really, never in my life had I ever love anyone as much as I love you, Jason White.
Don’t you ever, ever, ever forget that.
***
“Hey, did you go to the doctor?”
I glanced up and was met with brilliant baby blues. With a genuine smile, I nodded. “I did. But everything is fine. Actually, everything is just absolute…perfect.”
Jason sat down beside me on the couch and took my tiny, calloused hands into his. Subconsciously, his thumb outlined the heart tattoo on my middle finger. Our eyes never left each other. And at the back of his eyes, I could see worry and fear. He knew me all too well.
“What was the result?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. He knew me so well that there were times it scared the living piss out of me.
“It showed up clean. It was all a false alarm.”
His whole body relaxed and the biggest smile broke out on his face. Tears formulated in his eyes but none fell. His arms wrapped around me, and his face lowered and pressed against my chest. “Don’t ever scare me like that ever again. I don’t know how I’d deal with being such a young widow.”
We both let out relieved chuckles and remained in the same position for several minutes. My hands were tangled in his curly hair while his finger caressed my flat stomach and breathed in my faint scent of cigarettes and aftershave.
“Jason,” I breathed out slowly.
In response, his glassy eyes just gazed up at me.
My free hand slipped into my pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. I placed it in his hand, delicately. “This is for you. I was going to give it to you, you know, if my results weren’t good…but I’ll still give it to you.”
Jason’s eyes filled with childish curiosity. With shaky hands, he unfolded it carefully and began to read it. By the time his eyes finished scanning the heart-filled note, more tears clouded his eyes. This was the closest I’d ever seen Jason White come to crying.
“You were always the one who had a way with words.”
He wiped his tears away, grabbed my face with both hands, and brushed our lips together. I melted at his touch. I always did.
“Don’t ever leave me, Beej.”
I closed my eyes; our lips gently grazed each other.
“I won’t; I won’t.”
Because my beating heart belongs to you.
----
Comments are greatly appreciated.
author: Sharmel
pairing: Billie/Jason
rating: R
summary: "You picked up my broken pieces when she left me out in the cold. And you were the one to mend them back together with your own personal brand of crazy glue."
dedication: To my Bellia, Logan.
If I really thought about it long and hard, I could probably tell you that never in a million years would I have thought about marriage because I never really considered myself as the marrying type. And if I did, it would have been to a beautiful woman with brilliant, dark chocolate eyes and a million dollar smile. Although, at one point of my fairly long-lived life, I did; I did marry my ideal woman: Adrienne Nesser. But what I had failed to anticipate was the fact that a woman wasn’t exactly what I had wanted the most.
Women, god, they’re so beautiful and soft and gentle, but they also have this side of them; a side so sinister and so plastic and so goddamn frightening when they’ve been wronged. And that was what I witnessed when I married her, when we fought endlessly about everything and nothing at all. God, I almost regret being with her. But the one thing we did do right was have two amazing children: Joey and Jakob.
Anyway, back to the point. When I was a teenager, all I thought about was music, drugs, and perhaps fantasized about sex. Because really, who wanted a skinny badass mother fucker who got stoned half the time and had the biggest opinionated mouth? No one, that’s who. The only person who really tolerated me was Mike Dirnt - and Tre Cool later on. And that all changed after I went to some party a friend of Mike’s dragged me. I met this guy - you. You had the widest and most captivating blue eyes I’ve ever seen - you still do, even now however many years later.
We talked and talked and talked. Until finally, you steered me away from the scene and we just walked. Your curly brown hair tickled you eyes, and I was so very tempted to tuck them away just so I could keep staring at your eyes. The conversation ended when we left the party, but I was alright with that; so were you. Ours hands shoved in our tight jean pockets, we strolled in the dark. The only sound that was prominently audible was our rigid breathing and the gentle breeze that caressed our faces.
Finally, you asked me a question that I couldn’t quite properly answer at the time. You asked innocently, “Billie, do you think we’ll still be together many years from now?”
What I didn’t know was that you meant it literally. What I didn’t know was that twenty-some years later, we would still be together: not only as friends, but as partners, lovers. What I didn’t know at the time was that years later, I would fall heads over heels for you.
So I just said nonchalantly, “I hope so; you seem like a cool person. You seem like you’d be a good friend.”
You just flashed me that lopsided grin that was worth a million and one more, and I didn’t know until many years down the line that I was the only one permitted to see that special smile. And my one regret in life was choosing to ignore the butterflies that fluttered raucously and ferociously in my stomach or that odd warm, tingling sensation that made my heart swell every time I saw your endearing complexion. I was too frightened to confront my true feelings; I was afraid of losing you if I screwed up because I, Billie Joe Armstrong, was the biggest screw up to have ever faced this planet. And I didn’t want to jeopardize what we had: our friendship. Because I valued our friendship more than I ever let on.
With those particular feelings set aside, I ended up marrying someone else, played music in front of thousands of die-hard fans, had beautiful kids, released records, got divorced, released more records, played in front of hundreds of thousands, and turned thirty-eight. Just like that. Time just flew by so fucking fast, and I wish it would slow down just so I could tell myself to savour every moment life offered me.
***
“Hey, what are you writing?”
I glanced over my shoulder and was met with a brilliant blue. I smiled. “Oh, it’s nothing. You’ll find out later.”
His eyebrows shot up but said nothing further. Wordlessly, I tucked the tiny black notebook into my jacket pocket before sliding my hands onto his stubble-filled face. My calloused fingers ran through his soft, curly hair as I placed light kisses on his perfectly sculpted lips.
I wished with all my heart that this moment would last forever.
***
Technically, we’ve only been together for over a few years. But really, if I were to think long and hard, we’ve been together longer than that. Drunken nights led to harmless lust-filled kisses. Drugs clouded our morals and judgements which led to harmless touching and groping. But who were we kidding? We were so fucking in love with each other, yet we were so clueless and tied down at the same time. Both of us got married to the wrong person, and for whatever reason, yours managed to fail first.
But of course, even when your marriage failed, neither of us realized how much we really meant to each other. Not even when I slung my arm over your shoulder and helped your drunken self back to your home in one piece. And not even when you placed sloppy kisses on my unprepared lips and cried and begged for me not to go home - of course, I couldn’t say no and did stay overnight because I had a feeling that if I hadn’t, you would’ve done something incredibly stupid and regretful in your drunken state. I knew you all too well.
No, we were blinded fools. It wasn’t until after my marriage fell apart when we suddenly accepted that maybe it was our time to shine, together - you and I. You picked up my broken pieces when she left me out in the cold. And you were the one to mend them back together with your own personal brand of crazy glue.
The memory was still so vivid in my catastrophic mind. The way your eyes softened, when your baby blues landed on my glassy emeralds. I recalled the way your thick, calloused fingers wiped the silent tears that finally rolled down my face. And the way your strong arms wrapped around my body as you dragged me to your bed. All the while, with your soft lips brushing against my ear, you sang gently into my ears. We both fell asleep just like that.
When we woke up the next morning, I knew - I just fucking knew - that you were what I was missing all along. And so I cupped your beautiful face with my tiny hands, stared passionately and longingly into your breathtaking eyes, and kissed you long and hard, soft and gentle, passionate and full of love, and all the emotions that had been hiding were released. It was a wonderful kiss. You nearly melted under my touch.
That was also the first time I ever told you that I loved you.
You just smiled, caressed my cheek with your longer forefinger, and returned the words with meaning - more emphasis than what my wife had ever told me.
***
“Hey Billie, your doctor called. He said he needed you to stop by his clinic sometime. I didn’t know you went to the clinic. Are you feeling alright?” A voice came behind me, filled with worry.
I nodded my head and turned around, tucking my book into my pocket. He sat down beside me on the bench on our porch, and we watched the birds flutter about into their rightful freedom. Jason turned to me and laced our hands together. Slowly, he lifted our hands up and placed his tender lips on top of my hand; then placed another long kiss on my wedding band.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I just smiled.
“I’m always fine when you’re around.”
And that was, after all, the truth.
***
The day you proposed to me, God, I’d never been so happy in my goddamn life. Just the radiant smile plastered on your beautiful face made me feel like the luckiest bastard in the world. And then we got married, just you and me, under the brightest of all stars. Our hands intertwined and our colourful gem-like eyes sparkling under the luminous moonlight.
I’ll never forget your vows to me. It was short, simple, and sweet, and it absolutely just stole my heart away.
Remember what you said? “Billie Joe. There is no one, absolutely no other person I’d rather spend the rest of my life with, than you. For the rest of my life, my beating heart belongs to you.”
After we shared our first kiss as a married couple, tears drenched my face. The only time I had ever cried that much was when my father died. But those tears I cried when I was enveloped by your warm, muscular arms, those tears were from happiness: pure fucking happiness. Because really, never in my life had I ever love anyone as much as I love you, Jason White.
Don’t you ever, ever, ever forget that.
***
“Hey, did you go to the doctor?”
I glanced up and was met with brilliant baby blues. With a genuine smile, I nodded. “I did. But everything is fine. Actually, everything is just absolute…perfect.”
Jason sat down beside me on the couch and took my tiny, calloused hands into his. Subconsciously, his thumb outlined the heart tattoo on my middle finger. Our eyes never left each other. And at the back of his eyes, I could see worry and fear. He knew me all too well.
“What was the result?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. He knew me so well that there were times it scared the living piss out of me.
“It showed up clean. It was all a false alarm.”
His whole body relaxed and the biggest smile broke out on his face. Tears formulated in his eyes but none fell. His arms wrapped around me, and his face lowered and pressed against my chest. “Don’t ever scare me like that ever again. I don’t know how I’d deal with being such a young widow.”
We both let out relieved chuckles and remained in the same position for several minutes. My hands were tangled in his curly hair while his finger caressed my flat stomach and breathed in my faint scent of cigarettes and aftershave.
“Jason,” I breathed out slowly.
In response, his glassy eyes just gazed up at me.
My free hand slipped into my pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. I placed it in his hand, delicately. “This is for you. I was going to give it to you, you know, if my results weren’t good…but I’ll still give it to you.”
Jason’s eyes filled with childish curiosity. With shaky hands, he unfolded it carefully and began to read it. By the time his eyes finished scanning the heart-filled note, more tears clouded his eyes. This was the closest I’d ever seen Jason White come to crying.
“You were always the one who had a way with words.”
He wiped his tears away, grabbed my face with both hands, and brushed our lips together. I melted at his touch. I always did.
“Don’t ever leave me, Beej.”
I closed my eyes; our lips gently grazed each other.
“I won’t; I won’t.”
Because my beating heart belongs to you.
----
Comments are greatly appreciated.