There's a Calico kitten prancing across a rooftop, smiling at the gray withered sky
Title: Blues Like Me (55/56)
Author: Logan
Pairing: Billie/Mike
Rating: R
Previous Parts: (found here)
Summary: It was his and in the end that was all that really mattered.
A/N: I'm in a good mood, just received the AI musical shirts I ordered, so I thought I'd update. Second to last part. Officially, this is the last part, the next part is more of an epilogue of sorts so yeah. So close to finishing this, guys! So close. I'll make a nice, weepy author's note at the start of the next one....I'll be crying over my keyboard as I post that one. <3
Billie was sprawled out across the couch, eyes staring blankly at the television screen, with one worn-out four-year old curled up on his chest. His head was pounding and his stomach felt queasy and too-empty but he didn’t want to risk waking up his baby girl after she finally decided to like him again.
He glanced upwards as Mike walked into the room and gave him a weak smile before motioning towards the sleeping child. He gave a sigh of relief as he lifted her tiny body off of his, “Thanks, my entire body was falling asleep.”
“I’m going to go put her in her room,” Mike said, quiet enough to make Billie’s stomach flip from the fear of being alone with his boyfriend, “I--just…I’ll be right back.”
Billie sat up in a frenzy. His hands shot up to smooth down the hair that had decided to stick straight up from his time spent lying down before falling to his mouth, fingernails being reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds. He curled his feet up underneath him and watched as Mike wandered back in and sat down on the floor in front of him.
“Y--you can sit on the couch.”
Mike shook his head and said softly, “Don’t want to. How’re you feeling?”
Billie’s eyes darted from side to side nervously, “Uh…like shit? I forgot how it…it felt good at first and now I just want to…”
“You have to talk to me and you have to tell me why.”
Billie inhaled deeply before giving in and letting his mouth say the words that he’d kept inside for all too long, “I lied. I didn’t just find it in the closet. I bought it…after…not too long ago…but I didn’t take any! And I put it in my mom’s house so that I couldn’t use any of it. But then I panicked yesterday and I remembered that it was there and I remembered that it used to help. But it doesn’t feel the same.”
Mike opened his mouth but shut it. Billie was finally talking, he wasn’t going to interrupt that.
“Mike, why’d it happen? Why did it happen to us? What did we ever do that was so fucking horrible that we get to go through all of this?” Billie’s eyes filled with tears as he slid off of the couch and sat on the floor, his feet pressing up against Mike’s legs, “I mean, I know that I deserve this shit but you…baby, you’ve never done anything wrong.”
Mike had expected to get angry with his boyfriend. He’d expected Billie to cry out of frustration with him not frustration with things that have happened to him. He didn’t know what to do as he watched Billie fall apart in front of his eyes.
“I thought I could do this--wait, I thought I was doing this but then, I don’t know, something changed and suddenly it’s gotten a hell of a lot harder,” Billie’s voice broke as a sob escaped his lips. He covered his eyes with his hands and shook his head, “I don’t know if it was when she started talking or walking or what it was but something made me really realize that it’s only her here. And we can’t ever change that.”
“No, Beej, we can’t. But isn’t she enough?” Mike shuffled closer to his boyfriend and slung an arm around Billie’s tiny shoulders, “Because I think she is.”
Billie looked at the other boy through teary eyes and began chewing on his lower lip, “I don’t--I didn’t mean it like that. I love her, I do, and she’s my baby but I just feel like something is missing.”
“We can’t bring him back. If I could you know that I would. But we can’t and we have to learn how to accept that,” Mike blinked a few times before giving a shaky sigh, “I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s the truth.”
“I think you’re right,” Billie murmured, cuddling up against Mike’s body and allowing his tired eyes to slip shut, “I think I should go talk to someone.”
Mike couldn’t help but smile weakly as he dropped a kiss to the top of Billie’s head, “I think that’s the right thing to do, Beej.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took a few weeks, multiple nights spent talking instead of sleeping, sometimes arguing instead of talking, and five visits to a counsellor before Mike was truly able to forgive Billie Joe. When he told Billie that he was forgiven he got an eye roll and a grin in return paired with a short kiss and a pinkie swear to never do it again.
Callie had demanded to know what her mommy was never going to do again and had thrown a fit that was quite large, even for her standards, when they told her nothing. She was back to disliking her mommy but at least this time she wasn’t liking her daddy either.
As Mike watched the four-year old throw her doll into the stroller and wheel it away while muttering all sorts of angry things, he couldn’t help but feel thankful for the fact that Olivia was, so far, nothing like her big sister.
Billie looked up from where he was seated on the floor and smiled, knowing exactly what Mike was thinking, “Liv, promise me that you’ll never be as much of a diva as your sister is.”
Olivia giggled and toddled over to Billie, her arms reaching out to him moments before she tumbled into his lap, “Mama, mama, mama.”
Billie shot Mike a look as he covered his baby’s face in kisses, “I’ll go talk to her. She’ll just get angry if you go in there.”
“How do you know?” Mike crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out for the baby staring at him, smiling as she giggled and leaned heavily against Billie’s tiny body.
“Mike, how many times do you tell me that she’s just like me. I just know that when I’m angry your logical reasoning is the last thing I want to listen to,” Billie teased as he stood up and deposited the one-year old into her father’s arms.
He made his way out of the living room and down the hall, noticing that Callie had her door shut and--, “Holy fuck, Mike!”
His boyfriend was at his side in a matter of seconds, his eyes finding exactly what Billie’s had found seconds earlier, “Are you kidding me?” He looked into Billie’s eyes and prayed for his own sanity as his boyfriend pushed open the bedroom door with an angry frown.
“Callie,” He stepped into the room, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion at the fact that there was no one in the room, “Callie, I know you’re in here.”
Mike nodded towards the closet, which was open the tiniest bit, and gave Billie a warning look to not go too crazy on the four-year old. Both him and Olivia watched as Billie crept up to the closet and slowly opened the door. He saw his daughter’s wild hair before he heard her cries of protest mix with Billie’s.
“Calico Lavina, do not run away from m--Mike!” Billie threw his hands into the air as the four-year old bolted past him and out of the room, “Why didn’t you stop her!”
Mike raised an eyebrow and motioned to the child in his arms, “It’s not a big apartment, she can’t have gone far.”
Billie grumbled and pushed past his boyfriend. He wandered out into the hallway and tried to think of the hiding places that Calico would choose. He checked the bathroom first, to make sure she hadn’t locked herself inside like she did last week when she found out how the lock worked. When he found that door wide open he walked out into the living room.
“Callie, I promise I won’t yell at you…” Billie called out as he checked behind the couch and moved into the kitchen. He opened and closed a few of the cupboards before groaning in frustration, “Calico Lavina, where the hell are you?”
Mike, who had followed Billie on his search, gave him a look and walked after him as he wandered into their bedroom . He noticed the tiny eyes staring up at him before Billie did and was met with a frantic shake of a head and something mouthed at him that looked vaguely familiar to a oh no but he couldn’t be too sure because lately Calico had also taken up mouthing the word fuck towards everyone and everything that made her angry and making it look as though she was saying something else. A point that he still had to bring up with Billie Joe.
Mike nodded towards her and then alerted Billie of her whereabouts with his eyes. He mouthed a sorry to his daughter as his boyfriend fell to his hands and knees and crawled half-way under the bed to pull her out.
“Callie, I don’t even know why you’re angry right now but no matter how angry you are you are not allowed to draw on your fu--draw on the walls!”
Mike’s eyes drifted back to the hallway, his mind trying to think of ways to get that giant black ‘x’ off of his daughter’s door, “Callie, sweetie, what did you draw on your door with?”
“Marker,” Calico stared up at her father, making her eyes as wide as physically possible, “I’m sorry, daddy.”
Billie’s eyes locked on Mike’s and he swore under his breath, “What kind of marker?”
“The one that smells funny!”
All the colour drained from both their faces as they realized what that meant. Permanent marker on the white door. She was one hundred and ten percent Billie’s child.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Billie Joe always thought the most in those moments before falling asleep each night. He would think about everything and anything and sort through the shit in his mind. Sometimes, he’d write it out because that’s what his counsellor, he refused to call her a therapist, said he should do. Other times, he’d talk about it with Mike because she also said that that was a good thing.
Tonight however was slightly different. Billie wasn’t thinking as hard as he usually did because well, today was actually okay. Sure Calico made him mad as hell and they’d spent the last hour or so attempting to scrub permanent marker off of the walls but for some reason it was comforting. Maybe it was because they weren’t fighting with each other or maybe it was because Billie actually felt an odd sense of calm. Whatever it was, he wasn’t complaining.
“Mikey?”
Mike hummed in response and climbed onto the bed next to his boyfriend. He kissed the side of Billie’s head before burying his face against his shoulder.
“Are we okay? I mean, I know we still have shit to work out and we can’t just ignore the fact that I…y’know…relapsed--”
Mike playfully bit down on Billie’s shoulder before interrupting and saying, “Just the fact that you said relapsed shows that we’re okay. A few weeks ago you wouldn’t dare admit that. I’m proud of you, you know. And yeah, we have a lot to still go over but we will and we will get better and we will stay better.”
Billie shoved Mike’s head away the moment his teeth made contact, once again, with his shoulder, “Stop it!” He grinned and nearly squealed when his boyfriend bit down on his wrist, “Mike!”
One large hand pressed itself against Billie’s mouth with a whispered remark of, “They’re both sleeping, do you really want to wake them up?” At Billie’s head shake, Mike removed his hand and replaced it with his lips, “Shit, Beej, it’s been way too long.”
“It hasn’t actually been that long. You’re just a horny shit,” He teased his boyfriend, the teasing dying out the minute Mike’s lips found the pulse point on his neck, “Mi--baby.”
Mike was about to say something when the door flew open and a small body threw itself across the foot of the bed. He jumped away from his boyfriend in a panic, sending Billie nearly sliding to the floor, and swore loudly, “Jesus Christ, Callie. What’s wrong?”
The four-year old shrugged and crawled up the bed, “Mommy, are you hurt?”
Billie stared at his daughter in confusion, his eyes darting to Mike who had suddenly gone pale and was pointing at his neck. He raised a hand to the spot and glared at his boyfriend, “Uh, no…I’m not…hurt…uh…ask your dad.”
Mike protested loudly and shook his head at her questions, “Another day, baby girl,” He sent a mouthed fuck you to Billie Joe who giggled in return and removed his hand from the mark that had suddenly appeared on his neck.
Billie smiled and watched as his boyfriend playfully fought with their daughter to get her underneath the covers or back into her own room, eventually settling for her climbing onto his shoulders and demanding that he try and beat her. He laughed softly at the sight, tears settling in the corners of his eyes as he thought about just how much they’d been through in the past four years or so.
Getting pregnant and breaking up. Having Callie and finally realizing that unconditional love, and love at first sight, was something real. Freaking out and backing out of the parenting job that had been placed on his shoulders. The drugs and the shit that went along with that. Losing two babies and gaining one more, wonderful, daughter. Feeling confused and overwhelmed one moment and excited and full of joy the next.
Billie smiled and moved to join the wrestling match that was now taking place on his bed. Him and Callie teamed up against Mike. He laughed along with the two of them and temporarily forgot all of the bad things that had happened to them.
He knew that he still had a lot to overcome. He knew that relapsing was something that could happen all too easily, both with drugs and cheating on Mike, but he had the strongest family standing behind him to help him in those moments of weakness when he felt as though he no other choice.
He knew that the biggest thing helping him was the fact that he had his family. They were behind him every step of the way and that in itself was more than Billie could have ever asked for.
So, with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, he rolled out of bed at the sound of Olivia’s cries and quickly returned with the one-year old. Depositing her in the center of the bed, he climbed up and wound his arms into the tangle of limbs sprawled out across the bedspread.
This was what his life was supposed to be. It wasn’t normal, far from it, but it was his and in the end that was all that really mattered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I said I'd make an author's note in the next one but I have to slip this in here.
THANK YOU. Each and every one of you that has read, commented and enjoyed this story.
THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.
<3333333
( Next Part )
Author: Logan
Pairing: Billie/Mike
Rating: R
Previous Parts: (found here)
Summary: It was his and in the end that was all that really mattered.
A/N: I'm in a good mood, just received the AI musical shirts I ordered, so I thought I'd update. Second to last part. Officially, this is the last part, the next part is more of an epilogue of sorts so yeah. So close to finishing this, guys! So close. I'll make a nice, weepy author's note at the start of the next one....I'll be crying over my keyboard as I post that one. <3
Billie was sprawled out across the couch, eyes staring blankly at the television screen, with one worn-out four-year old curled up on his chest. His head was pounding and his stomach felt queasy and too-empty but he didn’t want to risk waking up his baby girl after she finally decided to like him again.
He glanced upwards as Mike walked into the room and gave him a weak smile before motioning towards the sleeping child. He gave a sigh of relief as he lifted her tiny body off of his, “Thanks, my entire body was falling asleep.”
“I’m going to go put her in her room,” Mike said, quiet enough to make Billie’s stomach flip from the fear of being alone with his boyfriend, “I--just…I’ll be right back.”
Billie sat up in a frenzy. His hands shot up to smooth down the hair that had decided to stick straight up from his time spent lying down before falling to his mouth, fingernails being reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds. He curled his feet up underneath him and watched as Mike wandered back in and sat down on the floor in front of him.
“Y--you can sit on the couch.”
Mike shook his head and said softly, “Don’t want to. How’re you feeling?”
Billie’s eyes darted from side to side nervously, “Uh…like shit? I forgot how it…it felt good at first and now I just want to…”
“You have to talk to me and you have to tell me why.”
Billie inhaled deeply before giving in and letting his mouth say the words that he’d kept inside for all too long, “I lied. I didn’t just find it in the closet. I bought it…after…not too long ago…but I didn’t take any! And I put it in my mom’s house so that I couldn’t use any of it. But then I panicked yesterday and I remembered that it was there and I remembered that it used to help. But it doesn’t feel the same.”
Mike opened his mouth but shut it. Billie was finally talking, he wasn’t going to interrupt that.
“Mike, why’d it happen? Why did it happen to us? What did we ever do that was so fucking horrible that we get to go through all of this?” Billie’s eyes filled with tears as he slid off of the couch and sat on the floor, his feet pressing up against Mike’s legs, “I mean, I know that I deserve this shit but you…baby, you’ve never done anything wrong.”
Mike had expected to get angry with his boyfriend. He’d expected Billie to cry out of frustration with him not frustration with things that have happened to him. He didn’t know what to do as he watched Billie fall apart in front of his eyes.
“I thought I could do this--wait, I thought I was doing this but then, I don’t know, something changed and suddenly it’s gotten a hell of a lot harder,” Billie’s voice broke as a sob escaped his lips. He covered his eyes with his hands and shook his head, “I don’t know if it was when she started talking or walking or what it was but something made me really realize that it’s only her here. And we can’t ever change that.”
“No, Beej, we can’t. But isn’t she enough?” Mike shuffled closer to his boyfriend and slung an arm around Billie’s tiny shoulders, “Because I think she is.”
Billie looked at the other boy through teary eyes and began chewing on his lower lip, “I don’t--I didn’t mean it like that. I love her, I do, and she’s my baby but I just feel like something is missing.”
“We can’t bring him back. If I could you know that I would. But we can’t and we have to learn how to accept that,” Mike blinked a few times before giving a shaky sigh, “I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s the truth.”
“I think you’re right,” Billie murmured, cuddling up against Mike’s body and allowing his tired eyes to slip shut, “I think I should go talk to someone.”
Mike couldn’t help but smile weakly as he dropped a kiss to the top of Billie’s head, “I think that’s the right thing to do, Beej.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took a few weeks, multiple nights spent talking instead of sleeping, sometimes arguing instead of talking, and five visits to a counsellor before Mike was truly able to forgive Billie Joe. When he told Billie that he was forgiven he got an eye roll and a grin in return paired with a short kiss and a pinkie swear to never do it again.
Callie had demanded to know what her mommy was never going to do again and had thrown a fit that was quite large, even for her standards, when they told her nothing. She was back to disliking her mommy but at least this time she wasn’t liking her daddy either.
As Mike watched the four-year old throw her doll into the stroller and wheel it away while muttering all sorts of angry things, he couldn’t help but feel thankful for the fact that Olivia was, so far, nothing like her big sister.
Billie looked up from where he was seated on the floor and smiled, knowing exactly what Mike was thinking, “Liv, promise me that you’ll never be as much of a diva as your sister is.”
Olivia giggled and toddled over to Billie, her arms reaching out to him moments before she tumbled into his lap, “Mama, mama, mama.”
Billie shot Mike a look as he covered his baby’s face in kisses, “I’ll go talk to her. She’ll just get angry if you go in there.”
“How do you know?” Mike crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out for the baby staring at him, smiling as she giggled and leaned heavily against Billie’s tiny body.
“Mike, how many times do you tell me that she’s just like me. I just know that when I’m angry your logical reasoning is the last thing I want to listen to,” Billie teased as he stood up and deposited the one-year old into her father’s arms.
He made his way out of the living room and down the hall, noticing that Callie had her door shut and--, “Holy fuck, Mike!”
His boyfriend was at his side in a matter of seconds, his eyes finding exactly what Billie’s had found seconds earlier, “Are you kidding me?” He looked into Billie’s eyes and prayed for his own sanity as his boyfriend pushed open the bedroom door with an angry frown.
“Callie,” He stepped into the room, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion at the fact that there was no one in the room, “Callie, I know you’re in here.”
Mike nodded towards the closet, which was open the tiniest bit, and gave Billie a warning look to not go too crazy on the four-year old. Both him and Olivia watched as Billie crept up to the closet and slowly opened the door. He saw his daughter’s wild hair before he heard her cries of protest mix with Billie’s.
“Calico Lavina, do not run away from m--Mike!” Billie threw his hands into the air as the four-year old bolted past him and out of the room, “Why didn’t you stop her!”
Mike raised an eyebrow and motioned to the child in his arms, “It’s not a big apartment, she can’t have gone far.”
Billie grumbled and pushed past his boyfriend. He wandered out into the hallway and tried to think of the hiding places that Calico would choose. He checked the bathroom first, to make sure she hadn’t locked herself inside like she did last week when she found out how the lock worked. When he found that door wide open he walked out into the living room.
“Callie, I promise I won’t yell at you…” Billie called out as he checked behind the couch and moved into the kitchen. He opened and closed a few of the cupboards before groaning in frustration, “Calico Lavina, where the hell are you?”
Mike, who had followed Billie on his search, gave him a look and walked after him as he wandered into their bedroom . He noticed the tiny eyes staring up at him before Billie did and was met with a frantic shake of a head and something mouthed at him that looked vaguely familiar to a oh no but he couldn’t be too sure because lately Calico had also taken up mouthing the word fuck towards everyone and everything that made her angry and making it look as though she was saying something else. A point that he still had to bring up with Billie Joe.
Mike nodded towards her and then alerted Billie of her whereabouts with his eyes. He mouthed a sorry to his daughter as his boyfriend fell to his hands and knees and crawled half-way under the bed to pull her out.
“Callie, I don’t even know why you’re angry right now but no matter how angry you are you are not allowed to draw on your fu--draw on the walls!”
Mike’s eyes drifted back to the hallway, his mind trying to think of ways to get that giant black ‘x’ off of his daughter’s door, “Callie, sweetie, what did you draw on your door with?”
“Marker,” Calico stared up at her father, making her eyes as wide as physically possible, “I’m sorry, daddy.”
Billie’s eyes locked on Mike’s and he swore under his breath, “What kind of marker?”
“The one that smells funny!”
All the colour drained from both their faces as they realized what that meant. Permanent marker on the white door. She was one hundred and ten percent Billie’s child.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Billie Joe always thought the most in those moments before falling asleep each night. He would think about everything and anything and sort through the shit in his mind. Sometimes, he’d write it out because that’s what his counsellor, he refused to call her a therapist, said he should do. Other times, he’d talk about it with Mike because she also said that that was a good thing.
Tonight however was slightly different. Billie wasn’t thinking as hard as he usually did because well, today was actually okay. Sure Calico made him mad as hell and they’d spent the last hour or so attempting to scrub permanent marker off of the walls but for some reason it was comforting. Maybe it was because they weren’t fighting with each other or maybe it was because Billie actually felt an odd sense of calm. Whatever it was, he wasn’t complaining.
“Mikey?”
Mike hummed in response and climbed onto the bed next to his boyfriend. He kissed the side of Billie’s head before burying his face against his shoulder.
“Are we okay? I mean, I know we still have shit to work out and we can’t just ignore the fact that I…y’know…relapsed--”
Mike playfully bit down on Billie’s shoulder before interrupting and saying, “Just the fact that you said relapsed shows that we’re okay. A few weeks ago you wouldn’t dare admit that. I’m proud of you, you know. And yeah, we have a lot to still go over but we will and we will get better and we will stay better.”
Billie shoved Mike’s head away the moment his teeth made contact, once again, with his shoulder, “Stop it!” He grinned and nearly squealed when his boyfriend bit down on his wrist, “Mike!”
One large hand pressed itself against Billie’s mouth with a whispered remark of, “They’re both sleeping, do you really want to wake them up?” At Billie’s head shake, Mike removed his hand and replaced it with his lips, “Shit, Beej, it’s been way too long.”
“It hasn’t actually been that long. You’re just a horny shit,” He teased his boyfriend, the teasing dying out the minute Mike’s lips found the pulse point on his neck, “Mi--baby.”
Mike was about to say something when the door flew open and a small body threw itself across the foot of the bed. He jumped away from his boyfriend in a panic, sending Billie nearly sliding to the floor, and swore loudly, “Jesus Christ, Callie. What’s wrong?”
The four-year old shrugged and crawled up the bed, “Mommy, are you hurt?”
Billie stared at his daughter in confusion, his eyes darting to Mike who had suddenly gone pale and was pointing at his neck. He raised a hand to the spot and glared at his boyfriend, “Uh, no…I’m not…hurt…uh…ask your dad.”
Mike protested loudly and shook his head at her questions, “Another day, baby girl,” He sent a mouthed fuck you to Billie Joe who giggled in return and removed his hand from the mark that had suddenly appeared on his neck.
Billie smiled and watched as his boyfriend playfully fought with their daughter to get her underneath the covers or back into her own room, eventually settling for her climbing onto his shoulders and demanding that he try and beat her. He laughed softly at the sight, tears settling in the corners of his eyes as he thought about just how much they’d been through in the past four years or so.
Getting pregnant and breaking up. Having Callie and finally realizing that unconditional love, and love at first sight, was something real. Freaking out and backing out of the parenting job that had been placed on his shoulders. The drugs and the shit that went along with that. Losing two babies and gaining one more, wonderful, daughter. Feeling confused and overwhelmed one moment and excited and full of joy the next.
Billie smiled and moved to join the wrestling match that was now taking place on his bed. Him and Callie teamed up against Mike. He laughed along with the two of them and temporarily forgot all of the bad things that had happened to them.
He knew that he still had a lot to overcome. He knew that relapsing was something that could happen all too easily, both with drugs and cheating on Mike, but he had the strongest family standing behind him to help him in those moments of weakness when he felt as though he no other choice.
He knew that the biggest thing helping him was the fact that he had his family. They were behind him every step of the way and that in itself was more than Billie could have ever asked for.
So, with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, he rolled out of bed at the sound of Olivia’s cries and quickly returned with the one-year old. Depositing her in the center of the bed, he climbed up and wound his arms into the tangle of limbs sprawled out across the bedspread.
This was what his life was supposed to be. It wasn’t normal, far from it, but it was his and in the end that was all that really mattered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I said I'd make an author's note in the next one but I have to slip this in here.
THANK YOU. Each and every one of you that has read, commented and enjoyed this story.
THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.
<3333333
( Next Part )