Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Billie Joe doesn’t feel good. He stands hunched over the sink in the bathroom, clutching either side of the porcelain basin, his eyes squeezed shut as his stomach rolls over continuously. A few times, Billie gags and comes pretty close to vomiting, but he just has to ride this out. That’s what he’s learned in the last couple of weeks: it’ll pass if he can just get through it.

This time is no different. Billie begins to feel better after a few minutes—shaky, but no longer in immediate danger of throwing up. Regardless, he cups some cool water from the faucet to splash his face and neck, which helps his overall feeling of discomfort. To dry himself, Billie Joe uses the forgotten washcloth hanging over the spout, left from the last time this happened, and he dabs his skin with it on his way out of the bathroom.

Mike is leaning against the counter in the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest when he emerges, right where he left him his brow pulled tightly together. “This has been happening a lot?” He asks quietly.

Offering a noncommittal shrug, Billie stops a few feet from his friend and props one hand on his hip. “It comes and goes,” he answers, and then he drags the rough terry cloth across his mouth.

They haven’t seen much of each other recently. They’ve both had a lot to process, and they don’t necessarily process things in the same way. To avoid conflict, it’s been easier to keep their distance, but circumstances being what they are, they can’t go on avoiding each other indefinitely. That’s why, Billie assumes, Mike asked to come over this afternoon. Not for nothing, Mike is the one to extend the first olive branch, more often than not.

“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” Mike tells him. “Is there, uh—is there anything I could do to help?”

Billie Joe shakes his head, staring at the floor as he rubs the back of his neck. “No. Thanks, though.”

“How’re you feeling otherwise? Besides the nausea, I mean.”

“Okay,” Billie says with another shrug, blowing out a breath. “The hardest thing is wrapping my head around all of this.”

Mike nods his head slowly. “And… and where are you at? In terms of wrapping your head around this.”

“Oh, I’m no closer than I was a few weeks ago.” Billie chucks his crumped washcloth into the sink and then decides to head into the living room where he can sit comfortably, trusting Mike to follow him, which he does. Heavily, he plops himself down in the deep chair adjacent to the couch, spreading his legs and resting his elbows on the armrests. “How about you?”

Perhaps unexpectedly, Mike chuckles through his nose. “I’m about where you are.” He’s come to a stand behind the sofa, and he bends to rest his forearms on the back edge of it, his hands folding together. It’s silent for a second, and then Mike hesitantly asks, “You’ve decided to keep it. Right?”

Looking down at himself, Billie folds his hands over his stomach, almost thoughtful but definitely resolved. “Yeah,” he answers gruffly. “It almost tore me apart last time. I can’t go through that again.”

“I understand,” Mike responds immediately, just like Billie knew he would.

Billie Joe sighs and closes his eyes, lifting one hand to massage his forehead. In his 36 years of life, he’s had a total of three scares. The first time, Billie was nineteen, and it turned out to be nothing. But the last time, he was 22, and he terminated without a whole lot of forethought and with plenty of post-traumatic stress. Since then, Billie has tried to be more responsible, but accidents happen. Sometimes big ones, to which there are consequences, and he’s not interested in the quick fix this time because he’s harboring enough regret as it is.

It’s a comfort that this, at least, Billie Joe doesn’t have to explain to Mike. They may not be on the same page about everything right now, but if there’s one thing that’s true, they understand each other. That’s a byproduct of 25 plus years of friendship… and nearly twenty years of sleeping with each other.

“So what do you wanna do?” Mike asks after a long stretch of silence. “What’re you thinking, Billie?”

Billie swallows, glancing anxiously from one spot on the wall from one object in the room to another. He has no idea how Mike is going to react to what he’s about to say, but he fears the worst. “I want to get a paternity test,” Billie says quietly, and he forces himself to move his eyes to meet Mike’s.

After blinking a few times, Mike flatly says, “No.”

Raising his eyebrows, Billie Joe questions, “What do you mean, no?”

“No,” Mike repeats. “I don’t want to do that.”

“It’s not really up to you,” Billie reminds him, making a face.

“It should be at least fifty percent up to me,” Mike retorts, now gesturing with his hand.

“I’m not sure that’s how the math works in this situation, Mike.”

“Why, just because you had a fling with a 24 year old?” Mike taunts, but his voice is flat again, yet still betrayed by the implication of his words.

Billie exhales shortly through his nose, then pinching the bridge of it. He knew this is where the conversation would inevitably go, but still, he wishes it didn’t have to. “It’s not a fling,” Billie Joe says pointedly, and he’s tempted to say more on that but listens to his better angels. When he reopens his eyes, he finds Mike is glaring at him stonily, and he huffs. “So this is what you wanna talk about, huh? You want to debate and define my relationship with Kevin?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not a relationship,” Mike says forcefully. “It’s not like what you and I have.”

Of course it’s not, Billie thinks, but that’s because they’re two incomparable things, not because what he has with Kevin is completely meaningless. He suspects Mike knows this. Whether or not he wants to believe it is a different story, but right now doesn’t feel like the time to force him to confront it. After having not seen Mike in a few weeks, Billie Joe doesn’t want this to turn into an argument, in part because he’s lacking the energy. 

His fingertips dug into his forehead again, Billie mutters, “I don’t really know what you want me to do or say here, Mike. If you don’t want a paternity test, fuckin’ fine, I guess.”

There’s a silent minute that passes, and then Billie hears Mike’s footsteps creaking on the wooden floor boards. His hands appears on Billie Joe’s shoulders, smoothing down over his chest from behind him, gently rubbing over it. “I’ve missed you,” Mike murmurs closer to Billie’s ear, and he brushes his lips through his hair.

It feels good to be touched. Billie has gone without it lately, and while that’s suited him just fine most of the time due to all of the hormonal changes he’s experiencing, that may also be the reason he has a physical reaction to Mike’s hands on his body. And it’s definitely the reason he feels his inside quiver with emotion as he takes Mike’s fingers and kisses them, holding them to his cheek afterward. “Missed you too,” Billie Joe admits in a small voice.

Mike crouches at the side of the armchair to afford them eye contact, and he uses the position of his hand to stroke the backs of his fingers down Billie’s cheek. “I’ve been worried about you,” he says. “Thinking about you. All the time.”

“I’ve been alright,” Billie says with another half-shrug. His teeth catch his bottom lip, and he considers for a second, if he wants to tell Mike what he’s thinking. After all, regardless of anything, Mike is one of his best friends, so it’s natural for Billie Joe to want to share important things with him. He makes up his mind and lifts up in order to reach into the back pocket of his jeans, coming away with a folded up piece of film paper that he passes wordlessly to Mike.

Taking it, Mike unfolds the wrinkled item, and Billie sees his expression change as he realizes exactly what it is. He stares at it for a long time without saying anything, his blue eyes fixated on the black and white film, and Billie watches him process in real time, specifically the noticeable way his eyes glaze over. It’s not so dissimilar from how it happened for him while sitting on an examination table in a doctor’s office he’d never been to before, and for the briefest moment, Billie Joe doesn’t want a paternity test either.

“Perfectly healthy,” Billie says softly, and he has his hand on his stomach again, tapping lightly. “The doctor said everything looked good on the scan. Strong heartbeat.”

“Heartbeat?” Mike repeats, his stare finally transferring to Billie. “You heard the heartbeat?”

Billie Joe nods. “Yeah.” He swallows. “It was pretty cool actually.”

A slow exhale leaving his nose, Mike moves his eyes back to the ultrasound capture. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking, but Billie could take a stab at a few guesses. When Mike returns the film to Billie, he clears his throat, and his voice is a little gruff as he says, “I’m glad, uh—I’m glad everything’s good and healthy.”

“Me too,” Billie Joe agrees, and instead of putting the film back in his wallet, he reaches to lay it on the coffee table in front of him. He smooths his palms over it in an attempt to get the folded crease out of it, and he leaves it there, looking on at it as he sits forward in his chair with his hands clasped between his knees. Over the last few days, since Billie had the scan, he’s been taking long looks at the snapshot, and every time, it hits a little bit closer to home, what it means for his future. It’s going to turn everything upside down, but in some ways, it already has. 

“All this time apart we had,” Mike starts to say quietly, his hand sliding weightily over Billie’s closest knee, “and you’re all I could think about, you know. How you were doing and feeling, and what was gonna come next. I’m not sure there was any significant amount of time I spent not thinking about you and all of this. And I just—I wanna do it together, Beej.”

It’s the nickname only Mike calls him, and spoken so soft and intimate, it hits Billie Joe’s ears like a salve on a sore wound. At the same time, though, there’s something deep inside of him that’s actively being torn in two different directions, and even if he could articulate it, he wouldn’t in this moment because he knows how much it would hurt Mike. That’s the thing here: Billie doesn’t want to hurt anybody, and he’s not really sure how to avoid it. He could dedicate all of his time and limited energy to finding a solution, but it wouldn’t do him any good if it’s unavoidable anyway. And that’s certainly how it feels.

Even if he’s unwilling to say it aloud, Mike might be able to tell anyway, but if there’s one thing he’s always been good at, it’s living in a certain state of denial. He rises up from his bent knees to stand over Billie, taking his face between his large hands and only hesitates minutely before kissing him. It’s clear Mike has no chaste intention by how passionately he kisses him, dropping his jaw and sliding his fingers through his hair to hold him more firmly. The touching of their tongues causes muscles inside of Billie Joe to clench that have been rather relaxed as of late, and he whimpers without meaning to, fisting a hand in his friend’s shirt.

Mike pulls him up from his seat by the elbows and wraps one strong arm around his waist so their bodies are flush together. “I wanna take care of you,” he whispers gruffly in between kisses, and then one of his hands is trailing downwards to cup one of Billie’s ass cheeks at the same time his mouth moves to his neck. “Can you let me do that?”

“God, Mike,” Billie breathes out, and he bites his tongue at the gorgeous sensation of a wet tongue licking over his pulse point in combination with the insistent fondling of his ass. His cock is twitching to life after being ambivalent for so long, and what’s more, he’s slicking. That’s not anything new, at least these days, but this is about more than hormones; it’s about arousal and the buttons Mike knows how to push after all the years they’ve been exploring each other’s bodies. 

“You want me, right?” Mike asks, punctuating his question with a nip of his teeth to the cord in Billie Joe’s throat, effectively short-circuiting his brain. 

“Yeah, Mike, I—yeah—”

“Good,” Mike growls, and he turns his attention to unbuttoning Billie’s dark jeans. He slides the denim down his legs along with his dampened boxer briefs, encouraging Billie Joe to step out of them. Mike passes his hand over Billie’s erection when he straightens, cupping the nape of his neck while biting more kisses into his lips. He then slides that hand down the length of Billie’s back until he’s squeezing his ass again, to which he grunts in approval. “Fuck yeah. Hard and wet for me, fuckin’ ready for me. Turn around, baby, bend over the chair for me.”

Coaxed along by Mike’s hand, Billie Joe obeys, more on autopilot than anything else. This is all happening so fast, but instincts being what they are, he can’t deny that he wants to follow Mike’s lead. Billie grasps either arm of the chair for support, and when Mike pushes on the back of his left knee, he brings it up to bend it on the velvet cushion. He feels Mike’s hands on his ass, spreading him open, and he lowers his head, touching his tongue to his teeth in anticipation.

What he might not have expected is for Mike to put his mouth to his hole, but that’s exactly what he does. He licks over Billie’s rim and smacks his lips afterward. “Shit, you taste good,” Mike mutters, rubbing his fingertips around his pucker and briefly dipping one inside. “Holy shit, you’re fucking amazing.”

He buries his face between his cheeks and begins licking him out with purpose, and Billie Joe gasps at the sensation, his breath coming faster. “Oh, fuck, Mike,” he groans through his teeth, reaching behind him to take a handful of Mike’s hair. It’s very easy for Mike to work his tongue inside of Billie, and the penetration of hot muscle has him crying out, especially when he thrusts in and out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Mike,” he whines, his fingernails digging into the side of the chair. Billie feels himself gushing slick for Mike to lap up at the same time his dick is flexing between his parted legs, dripping pre-come down its short length. With everything going on, he hasn’t had sex or even touched himself in weeks, so this is all lighting him up with alarming speed, causing his balls to prematurely ache with the stirrings of release. 

It’s as though Mike can tell, and it very well may be that he can considering the countless times they’ve slept together. After several sloppy rolls of his tongue, he pulls out his face, scraping his teeth over one of Billie Joe’s cheeks on the way. Mike wastes no time in replacing his tongue with his fingers, however, spearing two of them through Billie’s pliant rim. He crooks them until he’s able to prod at Billie’s prostate and earns himself additional strangled moans. “I wanna fuck you,” Mike tells him urgently. “Need to be inside of you, baby, please.”

“Fuck me then,” Billie Joe pants, hardly able to string words together when every brush of his sweet spot triggers stabs of pleasure in various nerve endings throughout his body. 

Mike brings his leg down and encourages Billie to spread his feet further apart, likely to achieve a better angle. He takes Billie by the hips before pushing his cock past his relaxed hole, doing so with ease when his pucker is so wet with slick. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Mike curses breathlessly, his thumbs pressing hard into the back of Billie Joe’s pelvis. “Goddamnit, you feel so fuckin’ good, Billie, oh my God. I fuckin’ missed this, missed you so much.”

The feeling is reciprocated, but Billie doesn’t have the wherewithal to share it with the class, so to speak. He’s too preoccupied with the stretch of the dick filling him up, and he doesn’t imagine there could ever be a time that he didn’t want this with Mike. They fit together like a matching lock and key and always have. It’s not just their bodies that are complimentary to one another, but their needs and desires and passions, too. If Mike wants to fuck him, Billie Joe fucking wants that just as much. There are instincts and then there are connections that exceed the physical. What they have together is a synergy, and he could no more deny it than he could refuse his own name because it’s become a part of him in the same way.

To that end, it was never going to a particularly long fuck. With every thrust into his body, Mike tips Billie closer to orgasm. He holds onto the back of the chair for balance because the force with which Mike pistons into him could knock him off of his toes once he picks up speed. The only friction Billie gets for his weeping erection is the air that sweeps around it and the occasional slap of it against his thigh or stomach, but it’s irrelevant since he’s getting so much sensation from everything else. Mike’s movements are steady and sure, relentlessly assaulting his sweet spot, and it builds and builds until he can barely stand it.

“I’m gonna—oh God, Mike, I’m gonna—”

“You’re gonna come for me?” Mike asks him in a rush.

“Yes, yes, yes—”

Reaching around him, Mike doesn’t touch his prick but cradles his balls, gently squeezing as he growls, “Come,” and the reaction is instantaneous. 

“Oh my God!” Billie Joe cries out, losing his grip on the chair so that he stumbles, but Mike is there to catch him with an arm lashed around his chest. 

“I got you, baby, I got you—holy fuckin’ shit, fuck!” With a hoarse shout, Mike follows after his climax, his cock throbbing into Billie nearly in unison with his spasming hole. 

Once they’ve both sufficiently caught their breath, Mike tightens his limbs around his waist, holds Billie to him, and spins him slowly around so that he can sit in his lap as he sits in the chair. He presses kisses behind Billie Joe’s ear and along the side of his throat, then burying his nose in his cropped hair. “I needed that so fuckin’ bad,” Mike murmurs, “you have no idea.”

Wordlessly, Billie lifts his hand behind him to cradle the side of Mike’s head. His breath isn’t all the way back to him just yet, and he’s exhausted. It doesn’t take a whole lot to wear Billie out lately—his status quo is exhaustion—so a fuck like that is gonna require a few minutes for him to recover from. And he’s definitely going to need a nap in the near future. Billie Joe leans heavily into his lover’s frame, his eyes closed, and relishes in the kisses Mike continues to pepper wherever he can reach. It’s safe to say he’s sorely missed these acts of affection.

At some point, though, Billie realizes he’s leaking more than just excess slick, which is a foreign sensation to him, and he makes a face. “Fuck. I didn’t even think about a condom.”

“That’s why that felt so fuckin’ good,” Mike says with vague amusement, now kissing Billie’s jaw. He nuzzles into Billie Joe’s neck afterward, rocking him ever so slightly, and following a pause, he adds, “I thought about it… but you know, I can’t get you more pregnant.”

He’s got a point there. Even as Billie sits perched in Mike’s lap, he realizes his friend has one hand splayed over his stomach. It’s just there, would probably be there regardless, but it still feels poignant, between that and the thoughtful way Mike just spoke. The emotions it stirs up are complicated, somewhat constricting his lungs in a different way, but just like the morning sickness, it’s something he just has to ride out. Billie doesn’t want to be the kind of person that goes to pieces over nothing. This isn’t really nothing, though. Not even he’s callous enough to believe that.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m sitting right in your spunk puddle.”

Billie Joe actually laughs, and he cranes his neck enough to share his grin with Mike, who’s smiling right back. “I bet it ruined the velvet. Might have to toss the chair.”

“Worth it,” Mike shrugs, and Billie nods.

“Yeah,” Billie agrees softly, “it was.”

Mike cups his jaw and leans their foreheads together before kissing him again, but unlike earlier, this kiss is only chaste. That makes it no less passionate, however, and Billie Joe’s insides quiver because he’s no closer to figuring out what the hell they’re going to do. He might know what Mike wants, but that doesn’t mean he shares that particular dream, which has always kind of been the problem.

Still, Billie lets Mike hold him in that chair for a while and takes comfort in his closeness, puddles of spunk be damned.

Chapter Text

About a week later, Billie is in his living room doing yoga for the first time ever. He pushed the furniture out of the way to give himself some room and laid down a mat he had shipped to him by Amazon just a day or two ago. Billie Joe is only doing this at the advisement of the internet, who told him all of the stretching and breathing and other bullshit could help with his various aches and pains, which he has plenty of these days. One article also promised him it could make the whole journey ahead of him easier, so he gave in despite his doubts. Following along with the YouTube instructor playing on his TV, Billie still has his doubts. If anything, this feels like it’s hurting his hips more, but maybe he’s doing it wrong.

Halfway through the video, Billie has broken a sweat, which he finds very annoying since the pregnant instructor he’s watching clearly hasn’t broken one at all. If he’s honest with himself, he can’t see himself keeping up with this. Billie Joe already has a tendency to be lazy when it comes to exercise, and he can’t imagine he’ll have a change of heart once his body begins changing. He will admit, though, that some of the stretches feel nice, particularly in his back.

The doorbell rings when he’s in the middle of doing something called goddess pose—seriously—and Billie carefully rises out of the position he’s squatted in to pause the video. He’s not expecting company, but since he had someone try to break in last summer, he’s taken to checking the doorbell in case he needs to call the police or something. Digging his fist into the knot in his back and grimacing, Billie pads to the front door and peers through the peephole. 

It’s Kevin, sort of taking Billie Joe aback. He hasn’t actually spoken to Kevin in over two weeks, and it’s not like Kevin to show up unannounced. Billie has half a mind to pretend he’s not home, but that’s the coward’s way out. Sighing, he wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist and opens the door.

Kevin has gotten a haircut since Billie saw him last. It’s cropped the shortest it’s probably been in the entire time Billie Joe has known him, and underneath his jet black hair, he’s smiling earnestly, though the nerves are evident in his brown eyes. Both hands in the pockets of his black bomber jacket, Kevin bounces on the balls of his feet and says, “Hey, Billie. Sorry to drop in like this. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“Uh, no. No, it’s fine, um—hi.” Billie makes an attempt to return Kevin’s smile, and he shuffles aside to open the door more fully, nodding his head towards the foyer. “Come in.”

“Thanks.” Kevin enters into the house, and after Billie Joe has closed the door, he follows him into the living room. Standing behind the couch, he watches Billie sip from the glass of water he left on the coffee table, something he’s doing because he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and he points towards the television. “That seems like a good idea.”

“Huh?” Billie glances behind him and experiences some resultant embarrassment. In the video’s paused state, the bar at the bottom loudly reads, ‘Full-Body Pregnancy Yoga Flow,’ and you know, the intention was to keep any and all prenatal yoga doing all to himself. Averting his eyes, Billie Joe scratches at his forehead and shrugs. “Yeah, uh—my back hurts, and—yeah.” He drinks the rest of his water for something to do.

“I hope it helps,” Kevin says, his mouth then twisting sympathetically to the side.

“We’ll see.” Billie chews on his bottom lip while a beat passes, his fingernails tapping against the side of his cup, which he then uses to gesture towards the kitchen, already heading in that direction. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thanks, I’m okay.”

Billie heads right to the fridge to refill his glass from the door dispenser, and once it’s full, he starts drinking again as he turns to face Kevin, who has of course followed him. He hates how fucking nervous he is to be around people he used to be comfortable with. There’s always an elephant in the room now, currently housed in Billie Joe’s uterus. That’s not how he wants it to be, though, and he attempts to shake it off on his way to the island, where he sets down his glass. “So, uh, what brings you by?”

“Well,” Kevin begins, sounding nervous, “I wanted to see how you’re doing.” He approaches the adjacent side of the island. “And I didn’t want to just send a text, I—I wanted to see you, you know.”

He’s always been very sweet, and that’s what’s drawn Billie to him since they met. Underneath the leather and glam hairdos is a kid that loves his nana and respects pretty much everybody that crosses his path. When he told Kevin about the baby, he’d gone wide-eyed and pale-faced, but he hadn’t gotten angry or defensive or anything like that, as freaked out as he was. There was actually something very innocent about it that just ended up making Billie feel guilty. Being more than ten years older than him, he should’ve made sure the fucking condom was on before they had sex in the backseat of Kevin’s Chevy Caprice, but he was wearing beer goggles ten weeks ago. Unfortunately, Billie Joe has worn beer goggles a lot.

“So… how are you? How’re you feeling?”

The tentative questions pull Billie out of his thoughts, and he shakes away the rest of the foggy memories to answer. “I’m good. Feeling okay.”

Kevin gives him a small smile. “You don’t have to a lie.”

Chuckling once through his nose, Billie nods and shrugs. “I’ve got some, y’know, symptoms, but it really hasn’t been that bad. The nausea is probably the worst part.”

“Is it just in the morning?” Kevin asks, stepping a little closer, and he rests a hand on the back of one of Billie Joe’s barstools. “Or, like, all the time?”

“Honestly, it’s the worst in the late afternoon. It gets harder to keep food down the longer the day goes on.” Looking off into the middle distance, Billie rubs his thumb across his forehead in a nervous tic, and then clears his throat. “But, y’know, I’m almost out of the first trimester at this point, so hopefully it’ll get better.”

Kevin nods slowly. “So… you decided to keep it? When I talked to you before, you—you said you weren’t sure.”

After Billie takes a deep breath, he nods back at Kevin. “Yes, I decided to keep it,” he confirms quietly. “And I was gonna let you know that eventually. I think, um—I might still be processing it myself, I guess.”

“I think it’s great,” Kevin says quickly, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm because he actually cringes at himself ever so slightly. “I’m just—that’s kinda why I stopped by, you know, I wanted to talk to you about all this, and I—I didn’t want to do it over the phone or anything.” He pauses, rubbing the side of his neck as he adds, “Plus I was worried I maybe might punk out if I didn’t say it your face.”

Billie Joe bobs his head, experiencing some new tremors in his stomach. He can’t imagine Kevin is going to tell him anything hurtful since it’s just not who Kevin is, but given the uniqueness of the situation they’re in, he can’t really guess what he’s going to say, which makes him nervous. Then again, Billie certainly isn’t the only one of them that’s nervous, so he swallows and gestures towards Kevin. “Yeah, um, I mean, of course we can talk. What, uh—what’s on your mind?”

“Well, there’s just—there’s things I want to say.”

When a beat passes and Kevin is silent, just staring at him, Billie again gestures for him to go ahead. “You can say whatever you need to, Kev.”

“Okay—okay, cool.” Kevin stops there, and then he huffs through his nose, clearly frustrated with himself. “Damnit, you know, I practiced all of this in my head for, like, the last four days. Why is it your mind goes blank when you get to the actual moment?”

In spite of himself, Billie Joe chuckles weakly. He’s familiar with that feeling. It happens often when Billie is trying to write song lyrics. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“It’s super frustrating.” Shaking his head, Kevin sighs, and after recomposing his expression into something quite serious, he shuffles around to the other side of the stool he’s been leaning on to be closer to Billie. He rests his right forearm on the counter and tilts his head to meet Billie Joe’s eyes dead on, and this time as he begins speaking, he doesn’t waver. “I know, from what we talked about before, that this is a pretty complicated situation. You said it could be Mike’s or mine, and I don’t really know what you’re thinking, in terms of, like, finding out one way or another, but I wanted you to know that I support you one hundred percent. I’ve thought about this a whole fucking lot, and I’m—I’m in.”

“You’re in?” Billie repeats, his eyebrows lifted in surprise, and Kevin nods ardently.

“Yeah, I’m in. If it’s—you know, if it’s mine, I wanna be a part of the baby’s life. I know I’m 24, and you always say how young you think it is, even if you’re teasing me, but I’m not a kid. I’m capable of stepping up here, and that’s what I wanna do. I can do this with you, Billie.”

Billie Joe is a little blindsided. He didn’t anticipate getting an impassioned speech from Kevin today. Other than his guitars and his favorite music (and the occasional blowjob), Kevin doesn’t get intense since he’s a low key kind of guy, and Billie doesn’t know how to respond or react. It was different with Mike. Everything Mike has said or done in the last few weeks hasn’t surprised him at all. After telling Kevin he was pregnant, Billie gave him an easy out, and he sort of expected him to take it. That’s what he would’ve done at 24. But the thing is, Kevin isn’t really like Billie Joe at all.

His stunned silence may make Kevin nervous again. When he continues speaking, it comes out a bit faster, more uncertain. “And, like—even if it’s not mine, I still wanna be here for you, Billie. Even if we’re just friends, you know, because I care about you a lot.” Kevin pauses, his lower lip sucked into his mouth, and he averts his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re thinking or how Mike feels about all of this, and you know—you know I’m gonna respect wherever you guys are at, too. But… this is how I feel, and I wanted you to know.”

This is where fresh guilt begins to creep in. More or less, Kevin is telling Billie the same thing Mike told him last week, and he feels torn in two different directions, same as he ever was. It would’ve been easier of Kevin wanted nothing to do with the baby, but by the earnest gleam in his warm brown eyes, that is clearly not the case. And the thing is, Billie Joe shouldn’t be so surprised. There’s a reason he has feelings for Kevin, and boy, he’s getting a tidal wave of them now. 

Doing his best to keep the emotion at bay, Billie reaches to take the hand Kevin has on the island and gives him a half-smile. “You’re very sweet, Kev,” he murmurs. “And just for the record, I care about you, too.”

“That’s good to hear.” Naturally, next Kevin does the sweetest thing he could possibly do and lifts Billie’s hand to kiss the back of it, and he holds it to his chest afterward. “I’ve, uh—I’ve really been missing you lately. And you look great, by the way.”

Billie Joe scoffs through his nose, smiling wryly as he glances down at himself. He’s wearing an old grey and black striped t-shirt and a pair of loose track pants, and the last time he washed and straightened his hair was three days ago, so it’s looking a little greasy and flat. By no definition does Billie look great, but he’s never been one to turn down a compliment, bullshit or otherwise. “Thanks,” he says, running his fingers through his unkempt hair. “Again, I say, you’re very sweet.”

Moving a little bit closer to him, Kevin pushes a lock of hair from his forehead that Billie had dislodged. “Have you, uh—have you missed me at all?” He prompts tentatively.

“Of course I have,” Billie Joe says softly after meeting Kevin’s gaze. “I just—I’ve mostly been giving everyone their space.”

“Does that mean you haven’t seen Mike?”

“Not really,” Billie answers vaguely. Kevin’s mouth twists to the side like he doesn’t believe him, and he sighs silently. “I’ve only seen him once. Just last week.”

Looking down at the counter space between them, Kevin asks, “What’s his take on all of this?”

There isn’t a good way to respond to that question. Billie understands very clearly what Mike wants to happen next, what he thinks Kevin’s place is in all of this, and if he was candid with Kevin about it, it would undoubtedly hurt his feelings and potentially piss him off. Mike might be more up front about his dislike of Kevin, and Kevin may strive to be more neutral about Mike, but it doesn’t mean he’s Mike’s number one fan. At the end of the day, regardless of whether or not they’ll admit to Billie Joe or even themselves, they view each other as competition. It sounds ridiculous because it is—he’s a person and not a race to win—but it’s not as though he doesn’t get human nature.

For that reason, Billie chooses to sugarcoat it for Kevin. “I think he feels the same way you do,” he says lightly, shrugging one shoulder. “He’s supportive.”

“Right, of course….” Kevin scratches awkwardly at the side of his face. “Are you—are you planning on getting a paternity test, then?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Billie says carefully. It’s not really a lie, though it feels like one. Before he talked to Mike last week, he had pretty much made up his mind, and the only reason he’s wavering now is because of Mike’s reaction. 

“I’m not gonna, like, demand one or anything,” Kevin assures him quickly, holding one hand up by his head. “It’s totally your decision. I know what you said before, about how it was probably Mike’s anyway.”

Yeah, Billie Joe did say that. It was just something that came out of his mouth as a means of reassuring Kevin when he was worried he might have a total freak out. The truth is, it’s a complete fucking tossup. 

“Is it weird that I kind of want it to be mine, though?” Kevin adds in a small voice, peeking at Billie from underneath his lashes.

Fuck, it spears Billie through the heart, and a fresh load of guilt washes over him to boot. “Kev,” he begins regretfully, but Kevin interrupts him before he can get any further.

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have said that,” Kevin says, his hand raised like he’s admitting guilt. “Sorry, I’m not trying to, like, make this harder on you. I’m not an idiot, you know, I’m fully aware of how important your relationship is with Mike. Jesus, you guys have known each other as long as I’ve been alive basically, so of course that’s important. I’ve never wanted to get in the way of that either, not really.” He pauses and tips his head to the side, and he extends a hesitant hand to cradle Billie Joe’s cheek. “But I’ve always thought you and I could be pretty great together,” Kevin continues.

There’s a huskiness to it that makes Billie somewhat weak in the knees. The hormones can’t be helping anything, but God, who wouldn’t melt underneath the tender gaze of an attractive twenty-something who’s actively telling you they want to be with you and have a baby with you? This conversation is scrambling his brain to levels heretofore unknown, and he barely knows what to do with himself. A week ago, Billie was thinking he just wanted to assume the baby is Mike’s, just like Mike wants him to do, but Kevin is throwing him for a loop right now.

“Am I upsetting you?” Kevin asks when he’s silent for too long.

“No, of course not.” His voice sounds rough, so Billie Joe forces himself to swallow the lump in his throat, and he cups his hand over the one Kevin has pressed to his face. He doesn’t want to say the next thing for what it implies, but he needs to be honest about this with Kevin, no matter how much it fucking sucks. “I just, I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Then don’t,” Kevin suggests in a would-be flippant tone, half-smiling, and successfully getting Billie to do the same. More seriously, he says, “If I get hurt, it’s on me, not you. You were always up front with me about what this is… I just couldn’t help falling for you, I guess.”

“Oh, Kev,” Billie starts to say, but Kevin interrupts him again, this time with a kiss. Kissing back is the most natural thing to do, too, so that’s exactly what he does. Billie Joe has been metaphorically swept off of his feet, and in the emotional state he’s in, he physically can’t resist it. As Kevin’s arms wind around his waist, he wraps his own around Kevin’s neck, and their bodies press flush together when they pull each other closer at the same time. 

“I really—really—really missed you,” Kevin mutters in between kisses. “And I don’t care if it makes me sound like—like a needy asshole, I really did.”

Laughing breathlessly into his mouth, Billie shakes his head slightly. “You’re not a needy asshole.” He grunts softly when Kevin licks over his bottom lip. “Kev, you’re amazing, I—”

“Stop there,” Kevin tells him. He lifts Billie off the ground just to deposit him onto the backless wooden barstool and begins shrugging off his bomber jacket, all without disconnecting from the kiss. With his jacket on the floor, Kevin takes him by the back of his neck and puts their foreheads together, intermittently stealing more kisses. “Just stop at amazing.” It sounds like pleading. 

His warm hands sneak underneath the bottom of Billie Joe’s t-shirt to slide over his waist, and his toes curl involuntary at the sensation of callous against his skin. Kevin keeps moving his palms upward, dragging them along his rib cage and over his shoulder blades, at which point he pulls his top from over his head. It occurs to Billie that this may be a bad idea, though that doesn’t stop him from kissing Kevin back once his torso is bare. “Uh—Kev—I don’t know if we should—”

“You don’t want to?” For the first time, Kevin leans away properly to meet his eyes. Above his flushed cheeks, his brow is furrowed, and his feelings are probably hurt whether or not he’d ever admit it.

“It’s not that,” Billie answers, and that’s true enough: wanting to is not the problem. He has his hands on Kevin’s shoulders, and he massages his thumbs into them as a physical way of reassuring him. “I just—I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to—y’know, everything’s so complicated.”

“Are you and Mike having sex?”

Billie Joe has to give him credit for cutting right through the bullshit; he’s rarely that blunt. Back when he first found out, he’d made a deal with himself, that he wouldn’t sleep with anybody until he determined exactly the path forward from this predicament, but Mike might as well have wiped his memory for how quickly he abandoned that resolve after he made a move on him. It doesn’t feel fair to hold Kevin to ideals he’s already deserted, but at the same time, sex got Billie into this mess. More of it can’t possibly help.

Above all, this isn’t something Billie wants to lie to Kevin about. “We are,” he admits, “or we did.”

“Did you guys make it exclusive or something?” Kevin asks, and Billie Joe can see he’s trying very hard to sound neutral about it, though he’s given away by his eyes.

“No,” Billie says firmly. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Then what’s changed?”

Fucking nothing, Billie thinks. That’s the goddamn problem. He’s completely torn in half between two wonderful men who would give him the world on a platter, if he would only take it, but finding himself pregnant hasn’t changed him or what he wants. Billie Joe wants both of them, just like he always has. And he does want Kevin right now.

“Kiss me,” Billie mutters, and he grunts when Kevin forcefully acquiesces, claiming his mouth like he’s marking his territory. He puts his arms around Kevin’s neck again, but this time, wraps his legs around his waist, too. This brings their groins together, and through the stretchy fabric of his track pants, Billie feels the hard bulge of Kevin’s cock despite the denim concealing it. Moaning shakily, he grips the hair at the base of Kevin’s skull and circles his hips in a bid for more friction. 

“You’re so fuckin’ sexy,” Kevin mumbles, trailing kisses down the front of Billie Joe’s throat, chest, and stomach. He hooks his fingers around the waistband of both his sweats and his boxer briefs and starts shimmying Billie out of them. “I’m gonna make you feel good, Billie. Make you nice and wet for me.”

As Kevin bends to take his dick into his mouth, Billie Joe groans. He’s leaning his back against the island for support, one hand tightly gripping the island ledge behind him, and he follows along when Kevin encourages him to bring his ankles over his shoulders. The counter’s edge cuts into Billie, but some things are worth a little pain. An unexpected blowjob is one of them. Puffing tiny gasps, he winds his free hand in Kevin’s hair, tucking his chin into his collarbone for a better view of him bobbing in his lap. Billie has the wild, fleeting thought that this kind of view is going to disappear in a few months time, but he’s immediately distracted the moment Kevin fondles his balls. 

Because it’s been a hot minute since anyone went down on him, Billie Joe is pretty sensitive. It doesn’t take long for his legs to begin shaking, the telltale warmth of an orgasm building deliciously in his gut. Billie goes to warn Kevin but nothing comes out except for more strangled moans that take on a higher pitch depending on what the younger man does with his tongue. “Don’t stop,” he manages to whimper out eventually, his heels digging into Kevin’s shoulder blades. “God, don’t stop, Kev—oh God—oh, fuck—fuck…!”

Some men would pull away and jerk Billie off to completion but not Kevin. Kevin doubles down, taking his cock to the hilt when he’s on the precipice of climax, suctioning ever so slightly with his lips in a tight seal, and that’s the last thing he can stand. With a soft but weighty scream, Billie Joe comes into Kevin’s mouth, and Kevin doesn’t let up until he’s finished, steadily swallowing without gagging or choking.

It probably only lasted five minutes, but that doesn’t mean it was any less intense. Sweat is dripping down Billie’s temples and his chest is heaving from the exertion, but Kevin is kissing him again before he can properly recover. Grunting against Kevin’s lips, he scrabbles to grab a fistful of his shirt, and his core is working overtime to keep him balanced on the chair in this position. Billie doesn’t have to worry about that for too long, however, because Kevin’s arms encircle him and help to stabilize him. Kevin tastes like everything he’s been missing lately, salty and musky, and he sighs softly, getting his arms back around him to hold him close. At this moment, Billie Joe can’t figure out for the life of him why he’s been avoiding Kevin these last few weeks.

“Is it okay if we—can we—” Kevin fumbles to articulate his question when his mouth is otherwise occupied. “Can I fuck you?”

The stool underneath Billie is slippery, he’s so fucking wet. “Yeah, you can fuck me, baby,” he murmurs, holding Kevin’s face between his hands now. 

“You want me to, right?”

“Yeah, I want you to.”

“Good.” Kevin picks him up from the chair in a fireman’s lift and slowly carries him out of the kitchen. Billie has lost a little weight in the last couple of months thanks to his lack of appetite, but he’s still about 140 pounds, which means he’s no lightweight to move around. That might be why he takes a few steps towards the front of the house and then changes course, bringing Billie Joe to the center of the living room instead.

As he’s laid naked on his brand new yoga mat, Billie spreads his naked legs and smirks up at Kevin kneeling between them, cocking one eyebrow at him. “Right here, huh?”

“Well, it’s made for stretching,” Kevin says in a sultry mutter, and he lifts up one of Billie’s legs to straighten it out for his mouth to have easier access. He spreads wet kisses along the inside of Billie Joe’s thigh, eventually sucking a bit of skin into mouth that he worries between his teeth.

“Fuck, Kev,” Billie grunts, angling his bare foot to press the ball of it into Kevin’s shoulder. “Don’t you wanna cut to the chase?”

“No, I wanna fuckin’ ravish you.” Kevin drops his leg to cover Billie’s body with his own, seeking to lay more feverish kisses in other places, his hands roaming to touch whatever he can reach. When he fixates his attention on his nipples, licking over one and pinching the other simultaneously, Billie Joe gasps and jerks away, and he immediately pops up in concern. “What? What’d I do?”

“They’re, uh—they’re just sensitive,” Billie explains reluctantly, somewhat embarrassed, and he feels bad because Kevin was just doing something he’d done a thousand times before. He’s normally a big fan. “I think that was just a lot at once for me, that’s all.”

His hands cupping just underneath his pecs, Kevin asks, “Do you want me to avoid them altogether?”

Billie shrugs one shoulders. “Not necessarily.”

Kevin lightly brushes both of his thumbs over either nipple. Billie Joe bites down on his bottom lip in reaction, so he does it a second time. “How’s that?”

At a certain point, sensation derails coherent thought, but Billie finds the wherewithal to nod.

“Is it making you wet, Billie? You gettin’ nice and slick for my cock?” Whimpering the affirmative, Billie Joe wiggles his hips, and it might be him drawing attention to it that leads Kevin to check for himself. Two of his fingers slide through Billie’s lubed crack to find his hole, and the younger man hums throatily in approval. “Aw yeah, fuck yeah, you’re so fuckin’ wet.”

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Billie complains, his toes dragging over the back of Kevin’s denim-covered leg. “You can’t fuck me—” He pauses because his breath hitches, his lashes fluttering. “—in your jeans.”

As he begins undoing the buttons of his shirt with one hand, Kevin says, “I don’t intend to,” in a hot, low voice that gives Billie tingles all over, including in his spent dick that’s steadily twitching back to life where it rests on his stomach. “I’m gonna fuck you so fuckin’ good,” he promises, finally ripping off his shirt while bending back over him. Licking another kiss into Billie Joe’s mouth, Kevin works his way through his pucker to finger fuck him in earnest, earning himself a breathy moan. “Gonna fuck you so you come for me a second time.” He bites at Billie’s bottom lip, not hard but with intention. “Love it when you come for me.”

“Give me that cock then,” Billie grits out, throwing his head back when Kevin makes contact with his prostate. 

Grabbing a handful of his hair, Kevin growls, “Gonna give it to you so fuckin’ good.”

He twists his fingers in a way that makes Billie Joe’s spine arch away from the mat underneath him. “Fuck, Kev, fuck!”

“Say it again,” Kevin mutters into his bared throat, his teeth nipping some more. “Want to hear you screaming my fucking name, Billie, scream it for me.”

His hand sliding through Kevin’s hair, Billie abides by his request, breathlessly moaning, “Yes, Kevin, fuck me. Fuck me, baby, c’mon.”

Once his pants have separated from his body at long last, Kevin lifts up his hips and essentially folds Billie Joe in half to give him adequate access to his hole. That’s how he fucks him, with one of Billie’s legs wrapped around his waist and the other over his shoulder. Part of what makes Kevin such a great lover is how deliberate he is during a fuck; it’s hardly ever frantic, despite how needy either of one of them can be at any given point. He varies his speed and movements to draw it all out, maximizing their pleasure, and every time, it results in a cosmic kind of orgasm that lights up every cell in Billie’s body. 

This time is no different. When it’s over, Billie Joe is panting with his arms up by his head, his legs shaking on the yoga mat underneath him. He’s sort of dazed, too. It all happened so fast, like a hormone-induced blur.

Kevin lies beside him and cups his cheek, sloppily kissing his jaw. “That was so good, Billie, so fucking good. I hope, uh—I hope it’s okay I didn’t use a condom.” He laughs nervously as he nuzzles Billie’s neck. “It’s not like I could get you more pregnant, y’know?”

Still trying to catch his breath, Billie Joe closes his eyes. He might actually be going to hell.

Chapter Text

A few days later, Billie is napping on the couch when he’s woken up by his front door opening, keys jangling, and footfalls on the hardwood floor. Frowning, he rolls out of his curled up position and onto his back, and through bleary eyes, he sees Mike in the doorway of the living room.

Mike stops just where he is, a stuffed paper sack in the crook of his arm. “Hey. Sorry. I texted you to say I was coming over, but I didn’t hear back from you.”

“It’s okay,” Billie mumbles as he sits up, rubbing the heel of his hand into one of his eyes. “I just meant to close my eyes for a sec, but I must’ve passed out.” He reaches for his phone on the coffee table and sees he does, in fact, have an unread message from Mike. Billie Joe also sees that it’s almost six, which means he was asleep for nearly three hours. “Jesus, I did pass out….”

“You must’ve needed it.” Mike sets his paper bag onto the coffee table. “I brought you some things.”

Curious, Billie pulls the bag closer to him and starts to pick through it. There’s boxes of crackers and ginger tea, bottles of vitamins and supplements, and a few other odds and ends, like an organic body wash and a new pair of soft cotton pajamas. It’s quite an assortment of items, and he raises quizzical eyebrows at his friend.

His hands in his pockets, Mike shrugs. “I just, uh—I did some poking around on Google, looking for things that might help. Like with self-care and stuff, you know?” Billie is holding up a strip of stretchy black fabric, and his confusion must be obvious because his friend explains, “That’s like a waistband extender. It goes over the button and zipper on your pants so you can still wear them. Some blogger recommended it.”

“I guess that’ll be useful,” Billie Joe muses. He’s touched because Mike clearly spent a fair amount of time curating him this care package of sorts, which is a very Mike thing to do. Billie feels an uncomfortable twist of guilt in his stomach, thinking that Mike was putting this together for him while he was fucking Kevin. “Thank you,” he tells Mike softly. “This is all very thoughtful.”

“No big deal,” Mike says dismissively. “I just wanted to find things for you that make this easier, even if it’s in really small ways.” 

As Billie returns everything into the bag, both of them are quiet. Mike texted him this morning to check on him since they haven’t seen each other in a week, and he invited him over so they could talk. Billie Joe knows he needs to tell his friend about what happened with Kevin the other day, as much as he doesn’t want to. Billie doesn’t really know is how to have this conversation in the first place considering Mike’s reaction last time, but he has to start somewhere.

Licking his lips, Billie plays with his hands and stares down at them while he starts to speak. “So, um—I talked to Kevin.”

A beat passes, and then Mike perches on the edge of the coffee table, sitting diagonal from him. “Okay,” he says, his voice steady but just a step above flat. “And?”

Billie Joe runs his fingers through his hair before he forces himself to look Mike in the eye. “I have to get a paternity test, Mike. It’s the right thing to do.”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Mike asks, nearly whispering.

Bewildered, Billie shakes his head. “What do you mean? I’m not trying to do anything to you. All I’m trying to do is the right thing by you and Kevin both, and this is the way to do that.”

“That’s bullshit,” Mike accuses.

“It’s not bullshit, Mike, it’s the fucking truth.”

“If it’s his, what does that change, Billie? He’s a 24 year old kid, and he’s not ready for this.”

“Y’know, you really need to get over his age. I know it really fucking bothers you, that I’d hook up with somebody his age, but he’s a goddamn adult.” Because he’s too irritated to sit still, Billie Joe gets up and heads to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker. “You might not want to hear this, but if it’s his, he wants to be involved, so he deserves to have the truth.”

Following him into the kitchen, Mike responds through gritted teeth, “He can’t take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” Billie retorts, and he glares at Mike from across the island. “Newsflash for you, I’m a 36 year old multimillionaire, and I don’t need either one of you to take care of me. That’s not with this is about.”

“So you want to have a baby with some wannabe star fucker? Is that what you want to do, Billie?”

It’s not the first time Mike has referred to Kevin as a ‘star fucker,’ but it gets to Billie Joe every time, probably because there’s a grain of truth to it, no matter how small. “You’re an asshole,” he mutters to Mike, slamming the cabinet door he’d opened to grab himself a mug. “A fucking asshole.”

“I’m just putting it into perspective.”

“Let me put it into perspective for you,” Billie counters as he whips around and now slams his empty cup on the island. “Kevin really fucking cares about me, Mike. And you know what, I really fucking care about him. So you’re not the only person invested in this baby, okay? You’re not the knight in shining armor you think you are.”

“Now you’re just trying to hurt me,” Mike whispers.

Billie Joe exhales sharply through his nose, which he then pinches the bridge of. He closes his eyes, worried he’s about to start crying. This is all so emotionally draining, and Billie is too hormonal for this. Abruptly dropping his fist into the counter, he stares dead on at Mike, doing everything to keep his expression together. “Don’t you fucking dare,” Billie says shakily. “I’ve been up front with you about everything, nakedly fucking honest with you because I don’t want to hurt you. Over ten years ago—it was over ten years ago that I gave you the choice. I said we could do it for real, that I’d do the exclusive, monogamy thing, and you told me no. You’re the one who didn’t fucking want to.”

“Did it ever occur to you, Billie Joe, that I said no because I knew you couldn’t do it?” The question just hangs in the air for a moment as they glare at one another, glassy-eyed, lips quivering. Mike is the first one to relent, blinking rapidly as he throws up his hands and shakes his head, like he’s at a loss. “I know you. I know you inside out, better than you know yourself, and I knew you could never really do it.”

Though Billie swallows first, his voice is still ragged when he says, “I would’ve tried.”

“And you would’ve cheated,” Mike says softly. “You and I both knew it, but I had to be the one to keep things the way they were. The way they’ve been.” Suddenly visibly angry, he kicks at one of the barstools in frustration. “I’ve shared you for twenty fucking years. When it wasn’t Kevin, it was Tim, or it was Chris, or it was fucking Tre. Now this—I don’t wanna fucking share this. I can’t—I can’t watch you have someone else’s fucking baby.”

Seeing and hearing this emotion in Mike is a lot for Billie to reckon with. Mike has been plenty angry with him over the years, but this is different; this is heartbreak, and he’s the reason for it. No matter how much Billie Joe swallows, he can’t get rid of the lump in his throat, and he’s coming dangerously close to losing the battle with the tears he’s working overtime to suppress. He rubs his trembling palm over his face while he blinks at the ceiling, unable to figure out what he can say. The problem is, there isn’t anything Billie can say when the damage is already done. There’s no unringing the bell.

When the coffeemaker goes off, it startles Billie. He glances back at it, but it’s like he’s lost the will to pour himself any.

“Are you supposed to be drinking coffee?” Mike asks quietly, and he’s refusing to look at him, instead staring hard at the refrigerator.

“It’s decaf,” Billie Joe mumbles. He rattles in a shaky deep breath and exhales his friend’s name. “Mike—listen—”

“You know what, Billie, I don’t know if I can listen anymore,” Mike interrupts. “All you wanna do is tell me how great Kevin is, and I just—I can’t fucking—”

“This isn’t about how great Kevin is,” Billie says, imploring now, wanting so badly for Mike to understand him and his position. “It’s about—I have no idea who the father is. It could go either way, and it’s not like I have some gut feeling. There’s a fifty percent chance this baby is his, and if he wants to step up and be a father, then I—I can’t deny him that just because you and I have more history.”

His Adam’s apple visibly bobbing in his throat, Mike spears his fingers through his hair and then leaves his hand there atop his head. He makes a face at the wall. “You say history like it’s fucking—what we have is more than history,” he mutters, his voice gravelly. “I’m fucking in love with you and have been for as long as I can remember.”

God, it tears at Billie Joe’s heart into pieces. “I love you too,” he whispers.

“But you love him,” Mike states. Finally, his gaze swings back over to Billie, and he looks like a man on fire. When Billie balks, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, Mike needles him, “Tell me. Say it.”

“Him and I have never said that to each other.”

Scoffing, Mike shakes his head and returns his glare to the wall. His palm makes a pass over his mouth, but he says nothing.

“What do you want me to say?” Billie Joe asks him, and by now, he’s reached the point of helplessness. “I told you I care about him. Of course I have feelings for him. Maybe I’m not a monogamous person, but I don’t just—you know I’m not the kind of person that has meaningless sex, Mike. I’ve never been like that. I’m—I care about connection, y’know, like I have with you, and it’s the same—”

“Don’t tell me it’s the same,” Mike says vehemently, and the finger he stabs in Billie’s direction is shaking. “Unless you wanna fucking rip my heart out of my goddamn chest, don’t tell me it’s the same.” As Billie purses his lips, he drops his hand into a fist and props it on his waist, matching the other. “Did you have sex with him when you saw him?” Billie Joe is silent, but his facial expression must say it all because Mike scoffs and shakes his head. “You know what, Billie? Fuck this.”

“Mike! C’mon, please—” Billie calls after him, but after Mike has turned his back on him, he does nothing but throw his hand up over his head on his way out of the kitchen, dismissing him. The front door slams shut with force, causing him to physically cringe, and he hunches over the counter with his face in his hands, his skin dampening with tears. “Fuck,” Billie Joe mutters wetly, and for the first time since this has all happened, he lets himself cry. It’s not something he can help when he might have just lost his best friend.

Chapter Text

“There’s my baby brother!”

Billie sighs as he gets into the passenger seat of his sister’s SUV, closing the door quickly behind him. “Alright, Anna,” he grumbles, “let’s not announce it to the whole world. The neighbors are gonna hear you.”

“Oh, relax.” Her hands resting on the bottom of her steering wheel, Anna smiles fondly at him. She’s picking him up for his doctor’s appointment because he didn’t want to go alone. “How do you feel, BJ? You look good.”

“I feel okay,” Billie shrugs, but he’s fanning himself with the collar of his jacket as he reaches for the dials on the car console that control the air conditioning. “It’s hot as fuck, though.”

“It’s eighty degrees, and you’re wearing leather, honey, I’m not surprised you’re hot as fuck. You know, I could’ve told you, leather is just about the worst choice when you’re pregnant.”

“I want the layers,” Billie Joe explains, tipping his head back and closing his eyes while he lets the cool air blow over his slightly perspiring face. 

“Does that mean you’ve started showing? You have to let me see.”

“You’ll see it at the appointment.”

“No, c’mon, I don’t want to wait,” Anna whines, bouncing in her seat. “My baby brother has a baby bump, and I haven’t seen it yet, c’mon!”

Billie rolls his eyes. This feels ridiculous to him, but he knows better than to argue with Anna. She’s exceedingly good at getting what she wants. After glancing out the windows to make sure nobody is watching—which is a little ridiculous because who the fuck really cares—Billie unzips his jacket and pulls the two sides of it apart.

Gasping, Anna immediately extends her hand to rub over Billie Joe’s modest bump. “Goddamnit, look at how fucking cute you are,” she coos. “Have you started to feel any movement yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, that’s normal for your first. You’ll probably start feeling it in a couple of weeks or so.”

Her hand retreats, and absentmindedly, Billie replaces it with his own as he gazes down at his tiny belly. He’s just shy of twenty weeks, and the bump has only recently become more pronounced. It just sort of started popping up out of nowhere. Billie finds it pretty surreal, to be honest, and he’s still getting used to having any belly at all since he’s been relatively thin most of his life. The most bothersome thing about it so far is how most of his pants don’t fit and his skin is often itchy. Even now, Billie Joe scratches his stomach through the taut fabric of his Misfits t-shirt, and then he notices Anna grinning knowingly at him.

“What?” Billie mumbles evasively, and he hurries to zip his jacket back up to conceal his bump like he intended.

“Nothing,” Anna answers in a singsong voice, and she starts backing out of his winding driveway. “You’re just gonna make a cute dad, that’s all.”

Though Billie blows out a breath, he says nothing. At this point he’s technically over four months pregnant, but his adjustment to the idea is ongoing. Billie Joe has accepted it, of course, but there are still moments he can’t wrap his head around it. The bump helps reinforce that he is, in fact, expecting a baby, but mentally, he’s not even sure what that fucking means—especially when he may end up doing it all on his own.

Except Billie isn’t completely on his own, since he has Anna. She’s the sibling he’s closest to, and she’s actually the only person in his family that knows he’s pregnant. For the first few weeks, Billie figured he would wait until he was through the first trimester before telling everybody, but that came and went, and he still hasn’t spread the news. If he’s real with himself, he knows shame is a big factor. How is Billie Joe supposed to tell his mother she’s going to be a grandmother (again) without knowing who the father of that grandchild is?

All in all, Billie is actually pretty depressed. He’s happy to have Anna along with him for his twenty week anatomy scan, but there’s something empty in that, too. Billie hasn’t spoken to Mike since he stormed out of the studio, and he only texts Kevin sporadically, unwilling to share more than he has to with him because of how complicated everything is. The guilt and the uncertainty follow him around, and it’s like his whole future is up in the air. When it comes down to it, the only thing Billie Joe knows for sure is that he’s bringing a baby into this world, one way or another, so he isn’t slacking on doctor’s appointments, regardless of how much he may want to avoid them.

Anna must be able to notice his melancholia because she reaches out and tugs on one of his curls. “Hey. Aren’t you excited to see the baby, BJ? I think it has toenails or something by now.”

“I’m not gonna be able to see its toenails on the ultrasound, Anna.”

“Maybe not. But you’ll get to hear the heartbeat and everything. You said before that’s your favorite part.”

“It is,” Billie says softly, watching the world fly by around them through the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

After a pause, Anna asks carefully, “You still haven’t talked to Mike, have you?”

Sighing, Billie crosses his arms over his chest. “No, I haven’t,” he admits. “He doesn’t call or text me back.”

“That isn’t like him,” Anna says. She would know; she’s known him as long as Billie Joe has, after all.

“He’s mad at me,” Billie shrugs, trying to be dismissive to avoid getting emotional instead. He’s always toeing that line lately.

“You know, I could try talking to him,” Anna suggests lightly. “Him and I’ve always gotten along.”

“I don’t think he’d want to talk to you about this,” Billie says, and he rubs his fingertips into his forehead. He doesn’t want to talk about this.

The rest of the drive is quiet, probably because Anna understands Billie Joe well enough to be able to tell that he doesn’t want to talk. At the doctor’s office, he’s able to use a private entrance to avoid being noticed walking into a maternity clinic. The thing about being a semi-well known, award-winning songwriter and producer is that it affords Billie a little bit of notoriety that he can throw around to get certain privileges, like going in the back door. They don’t make him wait with everyone else either and instead bring him directly to an exam room after quick pauses to record his weight, blood pressure, and temperature. Billie doesn’t play this card very often, but this is one of those situations where it’s worth it. 

“How’re you feeling, Mr. Armstrong?” The ultrasound technician asks him as he settles onto the table after having removed his jacket and the sweatshirt underneath it. “You’re nineteen weeks plus five days, so you’re just about halfway there.”

“Yeah, um—I feel okay,” Billie shrugs. “Mostly I just feel fat.”

Chuckling, the technician glances away from the laptop to raise his eyebrows at Billie. “How about symptoms?”

Blowing out a breath, Billie Joe rolls his eyes towards the ceiling while he briefly thinks about it. “I mean, I’m starving all the time, and everything gives me heartburn. I get winded just going up and down the stairs. My skin is itchy, my nipples are sore, and so is my back. I’m getting a lot of headaches, too.”

“Does Tylenol help the headaches?”

“Tylenol and napping, yeah. I’m still sleeping a lot. I haven’t gotten the energy boost everybody keeps telling me I’m gonna get.”

“It could still happen,” the technician assures him, and he gets up from his stool. “Go ahead and lift your shirt for me. You might experience a boost in your libido soon also. That’s usually fun for people.”

Billie grimaces at the ceiling. The last thing he wants to think about right now is his libido. When the technician squirts a glob of jelly on his rounded stomach, Billie jumps just a little at the temperature, and then he looks at Anna who is standing beside him, giving him her most sympathetic smile. It makes him emotional, because of course it does, so he holds his hand out to her. She takes it and squeezes it, and Billie Joe is glad he asked her to come with him today. It really would’ve sucked doing this alone.

Once the technician has the Doppler pressed just underneath his bellybutton, the squashy heartbeat Billie Joe heard the last time echoes around the dark exam room, and on the plasma screen hung up on the wall across from the table, the coinciding picture appears. At the last one, he hadn’t been entirely sure what he was looking at and had to be shown, but this time, it’s clear as day. It actually looks like a tiny person—or like it could be a tiny person someday, at least. Billie can see the baby’s little body and its squished face.

“Oh Billie,” Anna is cooing, muffled by her free hand clapped over her mouth, “look at that itty bitty baby you’re growing.”

“Did you want to know the sex of the baby?” The ultrasound technician asks.

“Um—” Billie Joe clears his throat, blinking profusely. He feels like he’s having an out of body experience right now, and he’d sort of forgotten this would be a part of the appointment. “—fuck. Yeah, I wanna know.”

“Alright, let’s take a look here….” The technician trails off, he squints closer at the image of Billie’s uterus that’s duplicated on the laptop in front of him. A smile breaks out across his lips. “Congratulations, Mr. Armstrong, you’re having a baby girl.”

Cooing some more, Anna’s hand comes back down to grip Billie’s shoulder. “Oh my God. You’re gonna have a little girl! I’m gonna have a niece!”

“You have nieces already,” Billie Joe reminds her, trying to be cheeky in a bid to stave off tears.

“Yeah, but you’re my favorite sibling, so this will be my favorite niece.” Anna bends to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug. “You’re gonna be such a good girl dad, Billie,” she says in a softer voice, kissing his cheek for good measure.

Billie chokes on a laugh, completely overwhelmed in a way he didn’t necessarily expect. He’s known for months that he’s going to have a baby, but now he knows that he’s going to have a daughter. In an instant, it reframes everything for Billie Joe. It makes it more real. Now he can do things he hadn’t thought about before—like plan the nursery and buy outfits for her and think about names. Whether Billie wants them to or not, tears are streaming silently down his cheeks, and luckily, the ultrasound technician supplies a few tissues without saying a word, allowing him to maintain some of his dignity.

After his ultrasound, the doctor comes in and assures Billie that his baby girl is perfectly healthy. She’s a little over six inches long and her heartbeat is strong. All of her organs are growing where they should be, and she’s showing no signs of defects or anomalies. For all intents and purposes, she is the ideal twenty week old fetus, and for that matter, Dr. Graham reports that he’s in great health, too. A textbook pregnancy, Dr. Graham says.

“That’s, uh—that’s great news,” Billie Joe says while rubbing his vaguely sweaty palms over the knees of his jeans. He’s admittedly still a little touch and go, his emotions not yet all the way under control. Anna is standing next to Billie now that he’s sitting up on the exam table, her hand smoothing back and forth across his shoulder blades, and he shares a quick smile with her that she readily returns. 

“So long as you don’t have any issues, we’ll have you come back in another four to six weeks for another checkup, but other than that, things are looking really good.” Dr. Graham looks up from the laptop he’s been getting all of his information from and raises expectant eyebrows at him. “Is there anything you had for me today? Any questions or concerns?”

“Um….” Billie hasn’t seen the actual doctor since his initial ultrasound about ten weeks ago, so he hasn’t had a chance to bring up the possibility of a paternity test. He was too nervous to ask the nurses or the technicians about it. The thing is, from Googling, Billie Joe knows basically what needs to happen in order to figure out the paternity of this baby—this little girl—but it’s not something he can facilitate on his own. Unfortunately.

Probably because he’s taking forever to say any actual words and looking nervous, Dr. Graham peers at him carefully and says, “This is a safe space, Mr. Armstrong. I promise you, any symptom or issue I might be having, I’ve seen it before.”

Oh, yeah? Billie feels like asking him. How many promiscuous thirty-somethings have you seen come through here not having any idea who the hell their baby’s father is? Even if it’s happened once before, it would have to be fucking weird for it to happen twice.

While he’s waffling, Anna claps his shoulder and speaks for him. “He needs a paternity test,” she tells Dr. Graham. “Is that something you can do here?”

As Billie closes his eyes, drowning in humiliation, Dr. Graham lets out a surprised, “Oh,” and then there’s a short pause before he continues, “Yes. Yes, we can do a paternity test, of course. We’d just take a blood sample from you, Mr. Armstrong, and we’d need to do a cheek swab from the potential non-birthing parent. That’s really very easy to do. No problem. You can set that up with the front desk before you leave today, or you can call when you’re ready to have the test done.”

“Thank you,” Billie Joe says weakly, but he shoots a glare at Anna over his shoulder.

Once they’re safely in the car, Billie lets her have it. “I can’t believe you fucking did that,” he gripes at her, viciously yanking at his seatbelt. “Just—just spouted that out at the doctor like I—like I needed to have a mole checked or something.”

“Well, you want the paternity test, don’t you?” Anna challenges him, unapologetic. “That’s the whole reason you got into this big fight with Mike, isn’t it? And you were too embarrassed to bring it up to the doctor, so I did it for you. I think what you’re looking for here is ‘thanks, big sis!’” Billie says nothing, only scowls at the window, and she sighs. “Honey, what is it? Did you change your mind about getting the paternity test?”

“No,” Billie Joe answers, but even he can hear that he sounds unsure. Sighing himself, he leans his elbow on the car door and pushes his fingertips underneath his sunglasses to dig at his eyes. After a long pause, Billie murmurs, “I guess, I just—y’know—once I know, I know. Y’know?”

“Yeah, BJ,” Anna says softly, “that’s kind of the point.” Her hand begins to lightly stroke through his hair. “If you ask me—and I know you didn’t—but I agree with what you told me before. That it’s the right thing to do by everyone involved.”

Billie lets his hand drop into his lap and his head fall back against the headrest, turning it enough to meet Anna’s eyes through his dark lenses. He has a lot of thoughts clipping through his mind but can’t vocalize them because he’s so overwhelmed. 

Fortunately, Anna doesn’t make him say anything. “Your little girl deserves to know who her father is,” she tells Billie gently, and when a stray tear rolls down the side of his face, she wipes it away with the backs of her fingers. “It’s gonna be okay, you know.”

“Yeah?” Billie Joe questions gruffly, arching a caustic eyebrow. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Because I’m your big sister, and I know things,” Anna replies with a shrug, like this answer was obvious. When Billie rolls his eyes, she smiles and shakes his shoulder. “You know you’re lucky to have me.”

The thing is, Billie is lucky. He snags her hand and kisses the side of it. “Thanks for coming with me today,” Billie Joe says.

“Like I would’ve missed this.” Anna kisses his hand back and then pulls her seatbelt on. “C’mon, we’re going to the baby store. I’m buying my niece her first outfit to celebrate.”

Though Billie thinks about protesting, he doesn’t. It sounds like the kind of thing he needs to cheer him up and distract him from this outrageous predicament he’s in.

Chapter Text

A little less than two weeks later, Billie finds himself in downtown San Francisco on a brilliantly sunny day. The temperature is cool, but it’s not like he would know it when he’s got so many layers on. Billie Joe doesn’t know what it is, but he just doesn’t want to advertise his condition if he can avoid it. Ultimately, he knows he won’t be successful forever, but in the meantime, he can only hope that he doesn’t look as pregnant as he feels.

Fortunately Billie finds a good parking spot not far from Kevin’s apartment, which is where he’s heading. He finally bit the bullet and asked if they could meet up to talk. Kevin offered to come to him, but Billie Joe was nervous about what might happen if they were left alone. At this point, he’s experiencing the lovely spike in libido he was promised, and Kevin has a roommate. Billie will be far less likely to succumb to his hormones if he’s worried about being seen or overheard, and he really doesn’t want to succumb. Nothing about this has been made any easier by more sex, so he’s resolved to abstain, no matter how difficult it might be when all he’s been thinking about is having his ass pounded into the goddamn ground.

Exiting the elevator that brought him to Kevin’s floor, Billie shakes his head because he’s thinking about it now. Really, he feels like he would have sex with anything right now. Yesterday Billie Joe jacked off to the yoga instructor on YouTube, and a few days ago, he had a wet dream about sitting on Matt Damon’s face because he watched The Departed before bed. Leo may have even had a small cameo, but he doesn’t fully remember. In reality, seeing Kevin right now is probably a bad idea if Billie wants to keep things platonic for the time being, but he’s put it off for so long, he doesn’t think he can any longer. His sister was right: for the sake of his baby girl, he has to get his life figured the fuck out.

After he knocks on the door to unit 1131, it only takes Kevin about ten seconds to answer. He pulls open the door with a big smile, but it quickly freezes in surprise. “Billie, whoa—you’re huge.”

Of all the things Billie Joe would want to hear at this moment, that is probably the very last one the list. He glances down at himself, frowning. Yes, his leather jacket is quite snug around his midsection, but Billie thought maybe it wasn’t quite so obvious to the world. Apparently, he was wrong.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Kevin says, gently tugging on Billie’s arm to pull him into the apartment. “I shouldn’t have said that. It just—it popped out because I haven’t seen you in a while, you know, and I—”

“Kev, it’s fine,” Billie Joe sighs. The younger man is clearly very worried he’s just offended him, and as sensitive as he is about his weight right now, he can’t fault Kevin for being taken aback by his appearance when they even’t seen each other in weeks. A lot has changed in that time. “Thanks for having me over so we can talk.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Hey, Billie.”

Looking beyond Kevin, Billie sees that his roommate has padded into the living area from the kitchen. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts, and he has a large bowl of cereal balanced in his palm. “Hi, David,” Billie Joe nods, fidgeting with his sunglasses.

“How’re you feeling?” David asks him, lifting a big bite of what appears to be Cocoa Puffs up to his mouth.

“I told him,” Kevin explains to Billie, looking apologetic again. “He’d never say anything, though, to anybody.”

Billie smiles weakly while biting back another sigh. It’s true, he wouldn’t choose for Kevin’s roommate to know anything about his pregnancy, but David is also Kevin’s best friend. They’ve known each other since they were in high school, so it wouldn’t be reasonable of Billie Joe to ask Kevin to keep it from him, which is why he never asked that in the first place. “Yeah, no worries,” he says to Kevin, and then to David, he adds, “I’m feeling good, thanks for asking.”

After he gets done audibly crunching on his cereal, David mumbles, “Cool.”

“Uh, Kev, do you think we could talk in your room or something?” Billie asks, trying not to sound rude, but he can’t talk to Kevin about getting a fucking paternity test done in front of his roommate. He scratches awkwardly at one of his eyebrows. “It’s just—it’s kind of, um—”

“No, of course we can,” Kevin interrupts him, and he waves for Billie to follow him. 

This isn’t his first time in Kevin’s apartment, but Billie Joe has only been over a handful of times since they started regularly hooking up a little over a year ago. He would usually prefer Kevin to come to his house, or better yet, meet at a hotel. Billie isn’t too good for Kevin’s place, per se, but it distinctly feels like an apartment for twenty-somethings, of course because it is. It’s not dirty, but it is cluttered with stacks of vinyl records and instruments, which spills over into Kevin’s tiny room. To be fair, his house would probably look like this if he didn’t have the luxury of affording a cleaning service to come over once a week.

Inside his bedroom, Kevin gestures for Billie to have a seat on the bed. “Go ahead and sit down. I actually made my bed this morning.”

There’s something so endearing about Kevin. He did in fact make his bed, the covers pulled taut over his little twin mattress that sits on the floor, sans bed frame and tucked into the corner under the window. It really is such a small room that even just the mattress seems to take up up about forty percent of the space. Kevin’s nightstand is actually serving as a record stand, a quality turntable perched atop it with more albums stuffed underneath it, and he has a desk in the opposite corner of the bed, holding more albums and an iMac computer. Band posters are all over the walls, and there’s a pristine Gibson guitar sitting in front of the closet. Again, Billie Joe doesn’t feel like there’s anything unclean about it… but he has no idea how a baby would fit in here, if it needed to.

After removing his leather jacket, Billie slowly lowers himself onto the edge of Kevin’s bed. It’s awfully low to the ground, and with his center of gravity so far off these days, he needs to be careful he doesn’t fall and hurt himself somehow.

“I’m, uh—I’m really glad you wanted to get together and talk,” Kevin is saying as he pulls up the roller chair from the desk to sit closer to Billie. It’s not difficult to do in these cramped quarters. “I’ve been thinking about you and wanting to see you, but, uh, I’ve been trying to give you your space.”

“I appreciate that,” Billie Joe says softly, rubbing his palms over his thighs. 

“You look great, by the way,” Kevin says earnestly. He’s sitting forward with his forearms on is knees with his hands clasped together, and he points both of his index fingers at Billie. “When I said huge before, I meant, like—you look pregnant. Which you’re supposed to, you know, so you look—you really look great.”

Billie gives him a small smile. “Thank you. I feel like I swallowed a beach ball, and I’m barely halfway there.”

“It’s cute,” Kevin shrugs, but his kind brown eyes tell Billie Joe that he means it.

“Thanks,” Billie says, and then he scratches the hair at the front of his head, blowing out a breath. “So listen, um—first, I do want to apologize to you. I know I’ve been MIA, and you really have been so great about giving me the time I’ve needed to work through all of this. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, y’know, and hopefully you already know this, but it’s really nothing to do with you at all.”

“It’s not me, it’s you?” Kevin suggests in a mild attempt at humor, peering at Billie out of the corner of his eye, who chuckles once and nods.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“So, um… are you here to tell me it’s Mike’s?”

He asks it so timidly, avoiding his gaze as he plays with his fingers, and it hurts Billie Joe to hear it. But it baffles him, too, because he still can’t quite comprehend why Kevin wouldn’t want to be off the hook in all of this. Besides being in his mid-twenties, Kevin is in a pop punk band with a niche following that allows him to live a rockstar life on the road while maintaining the majority of his privacy. Much like his bedroom, Billie doesn’t know where a baby fits into all of that, but then again, he’s still figuring that out for himself.

“Actually, I’m here to ask you to take the paternity test yourself,” Billie answers and evenly meets Kevin’s eyes when they’re quick to lift up to his.

“You want me to take it?” When Billie Joe nods, Kevin asks, “What do I need to do?”

“Um, well, all you’d have to do is go down to my doctor’s office and get a cheek swab, and then they’re compare it to a blood sample.”

Kevin frowns. “They’re gonna take a blood sample from the baby? That sounds kind of invasive.”

Half-smiling, Billie shakes his head. “No, they take my blood. They don’t need to take anything from the baby.”

“Oh, okay. Good. I was gonna say, it seems dangerous to poke a needle into a tiny baby.” Shrugging his eyebrows, Kevin starts nodding. “Well, anyway, yeah, I’d be happy to do it, absolutely. Just tell me who to call or where to go, and I’m there.”

Billie had kind of figured it would be easy, but he’s still relieved. Now it’s just the actual result of the test that he has to worry about. “Great. Thank you.”

“No problem.” There’s a pause where both of them happen to be biting their lip at the same time before Kevin tentatively says, “You know, I kinda figured Mike would’ve done the test already… Or is this like a thing were they need both of our DNA or something?”

Automatically, his chest gets tighter, and Billie Joe doesn’t know what to say. Thinking about Mike has been making him cry or come close to it, especially since his last ultrasound, but the last thing he wants to do is cry about Mike in front of Kevin. Billie tucks his chin into his collarbone as he shakes his head, picking at his fingernails to avoid looking at Kevin because he decides to be honest. “Actually, Mike didn’t want me to do a paternity test,” he says quietly. “Him and I—we haven’t talked in a while.”

“That must be really hard for you,” Kevin says, and after a beat, one of his hands intertwines with Billie’s. It successfully gets Billie Joe to glance up at him, and the younger man is expressing genuine sympathy. “I know what you guys have is complicated and everything, but I also know how important it is to you.”

How is it that this 24 year old can exhibit more grace to Billie than his 36 year old, supposed best friend? It’s not really a fair comparison, but it hurts regardless. Swallowing, he shakes his head and shrugs at the same time, and for some reason, he says exactly what he’s feeling, which he’s been trying to avoid lately. “Um—yeah. I think I’ve been hurting him a lot more than I thought for a long time, and I think—I think maybe he’s had enough.” Billie blinks back tears and scratches at his nose. “It always bothered him, y’know, that him and I weren’t exclusive, but I guess I didn’t see how much it bothered him, and this all brought it to a head, y’know?” Kevin is nodding along, patiently listening, and maybe that’s why he just keeps going, pushing past the blockage in his throat that strains his voice. “Mike just—he can’t accept that I can have feelings for more than one person at a time. Because he doesn’t operate that way, he doesn’t think I should either.”

Kevin gets up and sits next to him on the bed, close enough that their knees touch, and he lays his hand on Billie Joe’s thigh. “You can’t help who you have feelings for, Billie.”

Though Billie nods, he isn’t sure if he agrees. He’s been feeling so fucking guilty about this whole thing. Billie Joe thinks about it all the time, what Mike said when they last saw each other—that he was the one to refuse trying a monogamous relationship with him because he knew he couldn’t do it. That he would cheat if they tried. If Billie wasn’t such a fuckup, he can’t stop thinking that they could’ve made it work.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts, he doesn’t realize that Kevin has started stroking his belly with just the tips of his fingertips until he says something else. “So you’ve been doing all this alone?”

“Oh,” Billie says, surprised by that question for some reason, and he shrugs. “I mean—I haven’t had much to do. I’m just kinda… growing a baby.”

“You’re doing a good job,” Kevin tells him, but his small smile only lifts his lips very briefly before turning into something troubled again. “I figured Mike was—I don’t know, helping you or whatever. Going to doctor’s appointments with you and stuff. If I’d known—well, you know, I wouldn’t doing that stuff with you.”

“I appreciate that,” Billie Joe says softly. He tries to imagine Kevin being there with him for his anatomy scan, but honestly, just ends up thankful Anna was there with him instead. Billie needed that to be the one thing that was uncomplicated. Clearing his throat, he continues, “Everything’s been all good, though. It’s, uh—it’s a girl.”

His eyes slightly widening, in a wondrous sort of way, Kevin repeats, “It’s a girl?”

Unable to help it, Billie half-smiles and nods. “Mmhm.”

“Wow,” Kevin murmurs. After a few seconds, his hand retreats from Billie Joe’s bump, though that’s where his gaze remains. “Has she—is she, like, kicking at all yet?”

“Yeah, here and there. I just felt it for the first time last week.” Boy, what a surreal moment that had been. Billie Joe had felt it while making himself a pot of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and it’d turned cold before he could stop crying. He lays his hand on the side of his stomach. “She hasn’t been doing it much. Mostly first thing in the morning or late at night.”

“That’s pretty cool, though.”

“It is pretty cool,” Billie agrees. He might say it’s the coolest thing he’s experienced to date, if he wasn’t concerned with sounding like a complete sap.

“You know, Billie, even if—even if she’s not mine, I still wanna be here for you. I know you’ve wanted your space and stuff, but you don’t have to do all of this alone.” Kevin reaches for his hand again, this time taking the fingers Billie Joe has resting on his bump, but he doesn’t move them from where they are. “If you let me, I can be here for you.”

Billie isn’t sure what Kevin is trying to do to him in his hormonal state. He feels so fucking vulnerable, and it’s sort of frustrating because this is why he’s been trying to keep a tight lid on it all—he knew what would happen if he started to let the walls come down. Jesus, it was bad enough being a blubbering wreck in front of Anna, and that’s Billie’s own sister. Coughing around the lump in his throat, he quickly wipes away the moisture from the corners of his eyes, and he says, “Y’know, you’re a really sweet guy, Kev. You should be running away screaming from this whole mess. Should’ve from the jump.”

“I’m not the kind of guy that runs away. It takes two to tango.” Kevin pauses, his lips pursed. “I guess that’s maybe not the best analogy in this scenario.”

Snuffling on a laugh, Billie Joe shrugs his eyebrows wryly and bobs his head from side to side. “Yeah, maybe not.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says, but he’s smiling, looking pleased that he got Billie to laugh. But he just as quickly becomes serious again as he goes on, “I know I’m a lot younger than you, but I am old enough to take responsibility for myself. I mean, shit—” Kevin scratches at the back of his head. “I’ve been looking into selling my car and getting something more practical.”

“What?” Billie frowns. “Kev, you love your Caprice.” If Kevin had a baby, it would be that car. It’s a 1971 Chevy his grandfather gave him that he’s put countless dollars into in order to keep it running.

“Sure, but the thing has bench seats. That’s not practical for a car seat. I’m not saying I’m gonna go out and get a Subaru, but maybe a Prius or something. Those are supposed to be, like, super fuel efficient, right?”

Finding himself at a loss, Billie Joe blinks at him.

Kevin must notice that his mouth is agape because he sighs and waves his free hand dismissively towards himself. “I mean, if the baby is mine, obviously. I’m getting ahead of myself, I know.”

In this exact moment, Billie wants her to be Kevin’s; he wants Kevin to sell his car and buy a Prius; he wants Kevin to move in with him and help him raise the baby; he wants it to be simple. He wants to have done things the conventional way—or closer to conventional, at least—and a small part of him does want to be taken care of. It’s something Billie has sometimes viciously resisted over the years, insisting he can take care of himself just fine, and he can… but wouldn’t it be easier if he didn’t have to do it all alone? 

“Am I freaking you out, saying stuff like that?” Kevin asks him quietly, peeking at Billie Joe out of the corner of his eye.

“No,” Billie answers decisively, still trying to blink away the film of tears covering his eyes. “I’m just, um—let’s call it annoyingly hormonal.” He gives Kevin a weak smile. “I cry at everything. Literally. It’s super embarrassing.”

“I think it’s cute. It’s nice because I don’t get to see you with your guard down much.” Kevin is petting his hair, and Billie is acutely aware of how they’re closer together than they were a few seconds ago. The distance becomes even less when he cups the back of Billie Joe’s head, his nimble fingertips itching into his scalp. “You can let your guard down with me, Billie,” Kevin whispers.

Before Billie realizes what’s happening, Kevin is leaning and kissing him. At first, he’s frozen with surprise, but that doesn’t last long. The soft yet insistent press of Kevin’s lips almost instantly unlocks the fevered desires Billie Joe has been suppressing, and breathing shakily, he takes Kevin by the jaw as he drops his own, offering Kevin invitation into his mouth. Kevin obliges at once, and when their tongues meet, a groan whispers in the back of his throat. Having been touch-starved for as long as Billie was, it feels like his entire body lights up in reaction to the move Kevin made on him, and just like that, he forgets all about his self-appointed celibacy pact. 

Since he’s already sweating, Billie unzips his sweatshirt, shrugs out of it, and throws it to the floor, all without losing contact with Kevin’s lips. They only separate when Kevin tugs the hem of his t-shirt upwards to pull it over his head. The sensation of Kevin’s warm hand on his bare skin is electrifying, so Billie Joe goes willingly as Kevin nudges him up the bed, allowing them to properly stretch out together. Lying on his back, Billie wraps his arms around Kevin’s neck to keep him close, and his hips squirm around in loose figure-eights. He’s already so wet, his body ready for wherever this is going to end up.

“All I wanna do is take care of you,” Kevin is panting into his neck, in between the sloppy kisses he places all over. “If you let me, I’ll take such good care of you.”

Billie grips a fistful of Kevin’s raglan shirt as his palm starts massaging over the bulge in his jeans, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight because what Kevin is saying makes him think about Mike. He’s torn, then, between disgust for himself and the long-awaited pleasure Kevin is promising him with this intimacy. Does Billie Joe really have such little integrity that he collapses in on his convictions after one kiss? Apparently the answer to that question is yes. Still, he doesn’t stop Kevin from unbuttoning his jeans, instead involuntarily moaning when his fingers cup his cock through the thinner fabric of his underwear.

“Fuck,” Billie gasps, “Kev—”

“You want it, don’t you, Billie? I can give it to you, whatever you want, anything you want. C’mon, let’s get you out of these.”

He’s referring to his pants, and with his encouragement, Billie Joe wriggles out of his tight jeans, which isn’t exactly easy for him to do these days. After removing his shirt, Kevin helps get the bunched denim off of his ankles. As soon as the pants have joined his other clothing that’s littering the floor, Kevin leans over Billie to engage him in another heated kiss. The hand not holding Kevin up roams his body, sweeping over his shoulder, down his back, and up his torso, and it’s sliding over his belly at the exact moment the baby decides to kick.

Abruptly, Kevin breaks the kiss, whipping his head to look down at where his hand is. The baby does it again, very lightly nudging underneath Billie’s skin, and he makes a hushed sound of surprise. “Holy—holy shit. Is that—” Kevin snaps his head back towards Billie Joe. “That’s the baby?”

Pushing the hair back from his face, Billie holds it there while trying to get his bearings back. “Um, yeah,” he says, sounding a little winded. “That’s the baby, yeah.”

“Whoa, that feels weird—whoa!” The baby extends a sharper jab this time, and an amazed smile forms on Kevin’s mouth. “Dude, that’s fuckin’ crazy, man, wow….”

He keeps his hand right where it is like he’s waiting for her to do it again, and Billie gazes down at Kevin’s hand on his bump, his heart rate slowly returning to a regular pace. Talk about a snap back to reality. It’s as though she did it on purpose to get his attention. Lying almost completely naked in Kevin’s bed, Billie Joe is glad for her interference, and he starts to sit up. “Uh, Kev, uh—I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

“Why? Because of the baby?” Kevin looks upset. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong at all.”

“You don’t want to have sex with me?”

“It’s not that. I’m just—I don’t think you and me hooking up is the most productive thing right now while I’m still trying to figure things out, y’know?”

“Oh,” Kevin says, lowering his head as he nods. “Yeah, okay. Sorry for, like, trying to start something.”

His dejection is obvious, and Billie feels terrible. It’s why he should’ve shut it down immediately. Now it’s like Billie is giving Kevin mixed signals, which isn’t what he wanted to do. Sighing, his shoulders slumped, he runs his fingers through his tousled hair and says, “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Kevin, I’m sorry. You did kinda take me by surprise just now, but with my hormones and everything, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Yeah, I get you.”

He’s sitting next to Billie Joe with his legs laid out in front of him, and he plays with his fingers in his lap, the thing he always does when he’s nervous or embarrassed. It occurs to him that he ought to go before he makes things any worse, but he doesn’t want to leave Kevin like this, either. Mostly, Billie just wants to stop fucking everything up. Reaching to put his hand in between Kevin’s, he ducks his head to make eye contact with him. “Hey, really, you—you did nothing wrong. And if things were different, trust me, I’d be begging you to have sex with me. This is about me, not you.” 

“You know,” Kevin begins with a small, wry smile, “I think there are rules against using the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing more than once in a conversation.”

Billie winces. He didn’t realize he used that one already. “The thing is, it’s true.”

“I know. But you gotta understand—” Kevin pauses to take Billie Joe’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “—I think about you constantly, Billie. I’ve missed you like crazy. That’s where I’m at. And selfishly, I want you to feel the same way.”

“That’s not selfish,” Billie says softly, and he’s thinking about Mike. “It’s normal.”

“Maybe. What I’m pretty sure is not normal, though, is being in love with somebody and never telling them because you’re afraid it’ll scare them away.” It clearly takes a lot for Kevin to say this out loud. There’s a nakedness in his brown-eyed gaze as he stares into Billie Joe’s eyes, unrelenting and focused, like the way he holds his hand. Kevin’s eyes only falter when he lifts his other hand to brush his thumb across Billie’s cheek, his expression likewise twitching with emotion. “I don’t want all this space anymore. If Mike is out of the picture, then—then maybe you and I could give things a proper shot.”

“Mike isn’t out of the picture,” Billie says, his voice strained because it hurts to hear it described that way.

“Didn’t you say you guys aren’t talking?”

“We’re not, but that doesn’t mean—him and I are going to figure this out.” For reasons that doesn’t make any sense, Billie Joe sounds confident. 

“What if she’s mine?” Kevin questions in a near whisper. “Do you really think he could get past that, Billie?”

It needles at one of his biggest fears, but Billie doesn’t want to admit it. Kevin might be able to see it in the heartbreak of his eyes, but that would be nothing more than speculation. Still, it makes Billie Joe more defensive than he’s used to being with Kevin. “Could you get past it if she’s his?” He counters, matching Kevin’s tone.

“Yes. One hundred percent, I could, because I’m in love with you, and it’s not conditional. I fell in love with you, and everything that makes you who you are, including whatever baggage you have with Mike. Maybe you don’t love me like that, but—”

“Kevin,” Billie interrupts him, taking his face in both of his hands. It feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest at the same time it’s tearing into pieces, which makes articulate speech difficult, so he needs a second before he can go on. The thing is, Billie has only ever told one other person what he’s about to tell Kevin, and they’ve never been words that have come easy to him, so it was always going to be difficult… But he’s got to stop being such a fucking coward, and Kevin is waiting with bated breath for him to continue. 

“I do love you,” Billie Joe says, the words trembling on the way out, “and I would never want you to think that I don’t.” Kevin kisses him, coming in hot and firm, but he takes control, softening the press of their lips. Afterward, Billie rests his forehead against Kevin’s with his eyes closed, sweeping his thumbs across the tops of his cheeks. “My entire world has been turned upside down by this baby, but she—she’s the most important thing to me now. Doing right by her is what matters the most. And I don’t—I’m not gonna know what that is until we do the paternity test. Do you understand what I mean?”

With some apparent reluctance, Kevin nods, and gruffly, he says, “Yeah, I do. I just—sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Billie presses a gentle but lingering kiss to Kevin’s forehead, and against it, he murmurs, “I should go. I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

“Not possible,” Kevin says wryly, though he lets Billie Joe go. He watches Billie start to get dressed as he scoots to sit on the edge of the bed. “When, uh—when do you think we can do the test?”

“I’d like to do it soon. I’ll call my doctor’s office and see when I get it scheduled.”

“Okay. Just, um, let me know, I guess.”

Thankfully, Billie is able to put his pants on without a great amount of effort; he wore his baggier jeans today, which helps. His biggest problem is how damp his underwear is, but he’ll have to deal with that when he gets home. Billie Joe is thinking a cold shower should do the trick… He’ll probably end up turning it into a hot shower and masturbating, but that’s the only way he’s surviving these hormones.

As he’s going to zip his sweatshirt up, Kevin says, “Hey, wait,” and he reaches for Billie. He lays either of his hands on Billie’s bump, leaning his face in close. “I just, uh—see you later, baby,” Kevin finishes in a whisper.

The baby kicks again just as he’s pressing a kiss to the crest of his belly, and looking down, Billie Joe sees the same wonder from earlier passing over Kevin’s expression again. It’s almost too much to take, but he closes the window to his emotions as best he can. Running his palms up and down Kevin’s forearms, Billie gives him a small smile and says, “I think she likes the sound of your voice.”

“She can hear me?” Kevin questions, looking surprised. When Billie nods, he smiles and gives his stomach another affectionate rub. “That’s cool. You can start her on rock n’ roll from the womb.”

Chuckling, Billie Joe says, “Believe me, I’m all over it.” Sometimes he puts the padded ears of his Marshall headphones against his bump—with the volume on low, of course. With his leather jacket back on, Billie zips it over his belly. The zipper fights him when going through the middle, but he manages, though he’s not going to be have success for much longer. “I’ll text you after I talk to the doctor’s office,” Billie says to Kevin over his shoulder as he exits the bedroom. “Thank you for—y’know, being so cool about everything.”

Kevin shrugs when he turns to face him at the front door. “Happy to help however I can.” He pauses, his teeth briefly scraping over his bottom lip. “It was good to see you. Don’t, uh—you don’t have to be a stranger. We can hang out, no pressure, you know?”

“I’ll think about it,” Billie Joe says, and he grasps the doorknob. “Talk soon, okay?”

“Yeah—hey, Billie?” Kevin snags him by the elbow before he can walk through the door, and when their eyes meet, Kevin’s gaze is earnest. “Please let me know if you need anything. Even if it’s just bringing you dinner or something. I’m here.”

“Thanks, Kev,” Billie replies softly. 

With that, Billie Joe leaves, and once he’s in the elevator, he slumps against the wall and rubs his hands tiredly over his face. How is it that things are getting even more complicated, not less?

Chapter Text

“How’s that feel, Billie?”

“Oh my God, it feels so good,” Billie groans, his back arching away from the bed. He fists the pillows underneath him as his chest heaves, panting with pleasure.

“Yeah, I bet it does. You’re so fuckin’ wet.” Mike is kneeling between Billie Joe’s spread legs, which he has draped around him to elevate his bottom, permitting him the access he needs. Every time he scissors his fingers a certain way, it gives Billie a shockwave of pleasure, resulting in his cock to weep and twitch where it rests on his flat belly. “Kev, come feel….”

Appearing behind Mike as if from nowhere, Kevin perches beside the bassist, and his index finger slides through Billie’s pliant hole. He hums over the sound of Billie Joe’s pitchy gasps and murmurs, “Fuck yeah. I think he wants more than your fingers, Mike.”

“He’s gonna get it,” Mike promises in a low growl. When it’s pressed to his mouth, he makes a show of licking Kevin’s index finger, the one formerly inside of Billie. “Tastes good.”

Kevin grins wickedly as he leans in to kiss Mike at the same time his hand curls around Billie’s previously forgotten erection. 

Mouth agape, Billie Joe watches the flash of their glistening tongues intertwining, dangerously close to coming between the sensations and the visuals. He never would’ve thought it’d be quite this hot to see his two lovers making out, but God, it is, especially when they’re pleasuring him at the same time. “Fuck, guys,” Billie whimpers. Kevin’s thumb sweeps over the dewy tip of his dick, and he tosses his head back in reaction. “Oh, fuck—fuck, somebody fuck me.”

Visibly smirking into the ongoing kiss, Mike takes the younger man by the jaw with his free hand and bites his lip. “Give that to Billie for me,” he says huskily to Kevin.

As Kevin comes closer, Billie Joe reaches for him. The kiss is sticky and languid, and Kevin tastes like the promise of sex, making him yearn for more. Fortunately, Mike doesn’t make Billie wait. While he’s kissing Kevin, Mike lifts his hips for him and replaces his fingers with his prick. Into Kevin’s mouth, Billie moans at the wonderful stretch, holding faster to the bedsheets. “Oh God—oh God—yes, fuck me—”

“I think that’s an invitation to suck your cock, Kev,” Mike says with a grunt as he starts to thrust into Billie Joe in even strokes.

Kevin shifts his position in order to present Billie with his hard shaft up by his head, and after stroking it once, he taps the end of it against his swollen lips. “You wanna suck me, Billie?” He asks in heated voice.

“Fuck yeah,” Billie Joe mutters, already wrapping his hand around the base of Kevin’s dick, and he swirls his tongue while bringing it into his mouth.

“You like being spit-roasted, don’t you, Billie?” Mike picks up the pace, fucking him faster. 

“Yeah, he does,” Kevin says, pushing the hair back from Billie’s face, presumably to have a better visual of the blowjob he’s in the middle of getting. “He’s in fuckin’ heaven right now.”

That about sums it up. It’s like having one of your wildest fantasies come true. Billie Joe is in bliss. Mike is hitting his sweet spot with every measured stroke, and he’s so turned on by the weight of Kevin’s heavy erection in his mouth, salty with sweat and pre-come. This is the embodiment of doubling your pleasure. Who wouldn’t be in heaven?

It’s interrupted by a sharp pain Billie feels in his abdomen. He gasps and curls in on himself, and he’s flabbergasted to see that his stomach is rounded, like he swallowed a small beach ball or something.

“Billie, what’s the matter?” Mike asks. He’s pulled out of him and is balancing over him, his concerned face right in front of his. “Is it the baby?”

“The baby?” Billie Joe repeats, baffled, and he inhales sharply when another stab of pain strikes him. “What baby?” He questions through clenched teeth. “Mike, what’s happening?”

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Mike promises, petting his hair. “You don’t have to worry, I’m gonna take care of you.”

They’re alone now. Billie is aware of this, but he can’t be bothered with Kevin’s sudden absence when he’s in pain. “What’s happening to me, Mike?” His voice shakes when he speaks. 

Mike cups his cheek in his hand and smiles sweetly. “You’re having our baby, Billie.”

Waking with a start, Billie Joe starts to sit up before remembering he’s 23 weeks pregnant and that’s not as easy for him to do as it once was. He settles on his elbow and wipes the sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. Squinting at the alarm clock on his nightstand, Billie sees that it’s almost one o’ clock in the morning, and apparently, he’s just woken up from one of the most bizarre dreams he’s ever had. It was a sex dream (which explains his erection and slick crack), but it was also something else entirely.

What woke Billie up strikes again, a tight pain rippling across the front of his abdomen, and he sucks in a sharp breath, his hand flying to the spot. So he wasn’t actually dreaming this part. Grimacing, Billie Joe rubs over the taut skin underneath his bellybutton, his mind sort of racing. He doesn’t know what this pain is. It’s new, and while Billie has had plenty of new aches and pains in the last couple of months, this is markedly different. Thinking about his dream, he worries that it might be premature labor or something.

Unsure of what to do, Billie slowly settles back down, circling his hands around his bump. His eyes flicker across the dark ceiling as he tries to rationalize what’s happening to him. It could be Braxton Hicks contractions. Billie Joe knows those are common, has read about it in countless pregnancy articles he’s read and videos he’s watched, but they assured him they weren’t painful. Most people don’t even feel them, or that’s what he was led to believe. This is definitely painful. 

Billie reaches to take his phone off the charger, and he does some Googling. His research is inconclusive. There’s some anecdotes on Reddit of other people who’ve had painful Braxton Hicks contractions, but there’s also people replying to those people, saying they shouldn’t hurt and the person should get checked out. It’s all very confusing and overwhelming, especially when the shooting pains keep occurring in the middle of Billie’s scrolling. He doesn’t know what to think, and if he’s honest, he’s scared. Being the middle of the night like it is, Billie Joe can’t just call his doctor’s office for reassurance, and this doesn’t feel like an emergency situation… But what of it is? If he’s actually in premature labor, he’d need to go to the hospital so they could stop it or something, right? At 23 weeks, Billie is nowhere near ready to have this baby.

God, Billie is freaking himself out. He anxiously rubs his hand through his sleep-tousled hair, his phone still balanced on his chest but open to his contacts now. Billie Joe considers calling Anna, but he doesn’t want to bother her in the middle of the night. She’s got kids of her own to get up and take care of in the morning. Swiping through the list, he lands on Kevin, but when he thinks about talking to him about whatever this is, he gets an uneasy feeling. Billie doesn’t doubt Kevin would be kind and patient with him, but he doubts Kevin will know any better than him. Then again, maybe all he’s really looking for is comfort anyway, and he’s sure to get that from Kevin, so isn’t it a no-brainer to call him?

His thumb continues inching through his contacts, and Billie ends up on Mike’s name. It would be crazy to call Mike considering they haven’t spoken in, God, like two months at this point, but the thing is, outside of whatever drama there is going on between them, Mike has always been the person he’s called for things like this. For as far back as Billie Joe can remember, Mike has been the one he relies on in a crisis because he’s so levelheaded under pressure and always knows what to do. Mike also has this amazing ability to calm him down when he needs it the most, too; he knows how to handle him and how to talk him back from whatever ledge he’s put himself on. 

Before Billie fully realizes what’s happening or what he’s doing, tears are streaming from his eyes as he quickly jabs at buttons. His trembling hand brings the phone to his ear, and it actually starts ringing—which is a relief because it means Mike didn’t block his number like he worried he might’ve.

And amazingly, Mike answers, albeit sounding very groggy. “Hello? Billie?”

“Yeah, hi,” Billie Joe says, wiping the dampness away from his cheeks. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. “I’m sorry, I know it’s—I know it’s late, and we haven’t talked, so I’m sorry—”

“Billie, what’s going on?” Mike sounds alert now, and concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“I… don’t… know,” Billie answers. He’s starting to feel completely fucking ridiculous. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I—”

“Just tell me what’s going on,” Mike says calmly. 

“Well, I—I don’t really know, I guess, I—I’m having this, like, pain in my stomach, and it’s—it’s freaking me out. I think it could be Braxton Hicks, which are normal, but those aren’t supposed to hurt.”

“How painful are they on a scale of one to ten?”

After thinking about it for a second, Billie Joe says, “A five, maybe?” He’s unsure because he’s feeling more and more like a hysterical moron. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.”

“I’m on my way over.” Billie starts to protest, but Mike talks over him. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes, Billie.”

“You really don’t have to, Mike, I—”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes. Sit tight.”

He hangs up before Billie Joe can say anything else, which is a very Mike thing to do when he’s got his no-nonsense hat on. This isn’t how he would’ve imagined seeing Mike again since their recent estrangement, but deep down, a part of him is glad he’s coming over. 

Mike lives just a couple of neighborhoods away from him, a less than ten minutes drive like he said, so Billie gets right out of bed after Mike hangs up. He puts on a t-shirt, a fresh pair of underwear since he nearly came in the ones he’d been wearing while sleeping, and an old pair of ratty flannel pajama bottoms. The waistband has been stretched out for years, so the pants sit along Billie’s hips, making them quite comfortable in his pregnant state, but his bump is also super obvious in this combination of clothing. His old Cheap Trick shirt is a little tight these days. Billie Joe considers throwing on a baggy sweatshirt so as to avoid freaking Mike out, but another one of those pains hits him while he’s heading back to his closet, and then the doorbell rings.

Grimacing, Billie goes to answer the door, having to disarm the security system on his way there. He’s still grimacing when he opens it and finds a disheveled Mike on his front step, and his “Hi” is somewhat strained.

“Hi,” Mike replies as he slips inside the house, and there’s no question, he’s definitely distracted by Billie’s appearance, at least momentarily. He stares at his midsection for a second, his brow furrowed, but to his credit, he snaps out of it pretty quickly. “So how are you feeling now?” Mike asks him. “Are you still having the pain?”

“Yeah, it—I just had another one. It’s right here.” Billie Joe demonstrates by smoothing his hands along the underside of his belly. 

“Were you doing anything when it started?”

“Just sleeping,” Billie says, and he’s glad Mike can’t read his mind and see the images that are clipping through his head of the sex dream he was woken up from.

“Alright, well, let’s go sit down.” Mike rests his hand in between Billie’s shoulder blades to gently guide him to the living room. “We’ll get this figured out.”

Billie Joe settles on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, at Mike’s insistence. Mike sits next to him and does some Googling of his own. He learns that the easiest way to determine whether Billie is having real contractions versus Braxton Hicks ones is to time them. If they’re coming in at regular intervals, they’re real, and if they’re irregular, they’re Braxton Hicks, so Mike pulls up the stopwatch on his phone to track the time in between. 

The conclusion they come to is that they’re completely sporadic with no rhyme or reason, and even as they sit there, they don’t hurt as much as when they first came on. It feels more like stomach cramps, which is more of what they’re supposed to feel like, according to Reddit. 

“I’m sorry I dragged you out of bed in the middle of the night for nothing,” Billie says sheepishly.

“It’s okay.” Mike sets his phone on the coffee table, stifling a yawn. “If you needed me, I’m glad you called.” He rubs the back of his neck as he adds, “You know I’m always here if you need me, Beej.”

“I didn’t know that actually,” Billie Joe says quietly. He can feel Mike’s eyes on him, but he purposefully keeps his eyes trained on his hands in his lap. “You stormed out, and we haven’t spoken, so I’ve been starting to think you were all done with me….”

Mike lets out a heavy sigh, and he settles into the cushions, pivoted towards Billie with his elbow propped up on the back of the the couch and his knee pulled up, tucked underneath his other leg. “I could never be done with you,” he says in a low voice, massaging his jaw with his fingertips. “I’ve just—I needed some space for a little bit.”

That’s what Billie has been saying to Kevin for weeks, and he knows how uncomfortable it feels  now that it’s been turned around onto him. The thing is, they’ve gone through periods of space from each other before, but this has been different. They didn’t get into some silly fight because he kissed a random guy at a bar in front of Mike or something like that. Billie Joe is encouraged, though, because Mike did come running, no questions asked, so at the very least, he can’t hate him. 

And goddamnit, it’s so good to see him. He has some more scruff than he usually does, which always does a good job of making him look extra ruggedly handsome, and to go with his camouflage printed pajama bottoms, he’s wearing a grey wife beater. His arms have been Billie’s weakness for years, all muscle and tattooed skin, and with his hormones being the way they are, he has to actively keep himself from staring at them. 

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Mike is saying softly, and he wouldn’t notice Billie staring because he’s looking down at fingernails, picking at them. “Worrying about you. It’s not like it was particularly easy for me to stay away from you all this time. If you hadn’t called me tonight, I probably would’ve broken down here pretty soon and reached out.”

Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t, but it doesn’t really matter. “I thought about you, too,” Billie Joe tells him, just because he wants him to know.

After giving Billie a small smile, Mike’s eyes drift down to his bump, and his expression becomes something more complicated. “You look—you look a lot different,” he says gruffly.

Blowing out a breath, Billie circle his hand around his rounded stomach before raising his eyebrows at Mike. “You mean fat?”

“You look pregnant,” Mike replies, rolling his eyes at Billie Joe for good measure. “Which, you know, you’re supposed to.” He pauses to scratch at the side of his head. “I just—last time I saw you, you weren’t showing at all, and now you are. It might take me a second to adjust.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Billie gripes, picking at the front of his tight t-shirt. A stripe of skin is showing between the hem and his waistband no matter what he does. “You wouldn’t believe all of the weird shit that’s been happening to my body. Miracle of pregnancy, my ass.”

“You look good, though.”

“Thanks,” Billie says, half-smiling because he knows Mike means it. 

They maintain eye contact for a moment, but then Mike clears his throat and shifts so that he’s sitting up with both feet on the floor. “It’s late, you know. You should be trying to get some more sleep.”

“Oh—yeah, right.” Squinting at the digital clock built into the cable box, Billie Joe sees that it’s well past two at this point, closer to three AM. When Mike offers him a hand up, he takes it, but once he’s steady on his feet, Mike just keeps walking towards the front door, like he’s going to leave. Just like that. Billie can’t stand the thought of that, not with them finally talking again, so he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “It’s a girl.”

Mike stops in his tracks, and slowly, he turns around. He looks dumbfounded, like Billie was speaking a different language. “Sorry, what?”

“It’s a girl,” Billie Joe repeats, softer this time. Mike is still blinking at him as though he has three heads, so he rests his hand on his bump to help illustrate what he’s saying. “The baby, it’s a girl. I found out a few weeks ago.”

“Well… damn, that’s crazy,” Mike says eventually, stepping closer to Billie. “Are you, uh—how do you feel about that?”

“I’m happy. Y’know, before I found out, I hadn’t really thought too much about the baby’s sex, but now it’s like—like I feel like she was always going to be a girl if that makes sense.” While he rambles, Billie is staring down at his belly, rubbing his hands over it, and when he lifts his head, he sort of winces at Mike. “Does that makes sense?”

“If it makes sense to you, it makes sense to me,” Mike responds with a weak smile. Biting his lip, he appears to hesitate, but ultimately one of his hands sneaks out of the pocket of his pajamas. Mike extends it in Billie Joe’s direction, his fingertips flexing towards his stomach. “Can I, um—”

“Yeah, of course,” Billie says. For some reason, when Mike flattens his palm against his bump, some unexpected emotion rises up in his throat. Perhaps due to that emotion, Billie lays his hand over Mike’s to hold it where it is. “She’s not doing it right now, but she’s been moving and kicking quite a bit lately.”

His gaze rises to meet Billie Joe’s, and Mike asks, “You can feel her moving?”

“Uh-huh,” Billie nods, and he tries and fails to swallow the lump in his throat. Tears are beginning to prick the backs of his eyes, too, and while it seems inexplicable, it isn’t. Billie knows exactly why he’s getting emotional, and it has everything to do with the man standing in front of him that he’s missed so much, it hurts. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that since I found out,” he tells Mike in a wobbly voice. “That she’s a girl, y’know, you’re the first person I wanted to tell.”

“You could’ve told me,” Mike says gently, and he moves to cup Billie Joe’s jaw instead of his bump. “If you’d called or texted, I would’ve been glad to hear it, Billie.”

“I didn’t really get that impression the last time we spoke. You said—you said ‘fuck this,’ remember?”

Regret flits across Mike’s expression. “I was upset. My feelings were hurt. I’m sorry I said that.”

Sniffling, Billie wipes underneath one of his eyes. “I don’t need an apology, Mike, that’s not—I need you, y’know?”

“I’m right here,” Mike reminds him. Billie Joe shakes his head, and he lets out a short sigh in reaction. “I don’t know what I can say, Billie. Yes, I went MIA on you, and I am sorry for that, but—but you might be having another man’s baby. It’d be so easy for me to get attached to just the idea of this baby, and there’s a fifty percent chance it’s not even mine. In spite of everything, I used to know where I stood in your life. Now I have no idea what the hell I am.”

“You’re my best friend,” Billie says forcefully, and it only wavers because of the growing rock in his throat. It’s basically a boulder at this point. “That’s who you are.”

“It used to be simple like that, but it’s not anymore,” Mike replies earnestly, imploring Billie Joe now with his eyes. 

“Why can’t it be simple like that?” Billie challenges, and he’s gesturing animatedly with his hands. “Like—like, fuck everything, man. I’m, like, six months pregnant, do you realize that? And you—you’ve missed everything, y’know, you—”

“And yet here I am, at three o’ clock in the goddamn morning.” Mike interrupts him vehemently, his eyes flashing, but he’s not angry. He’s heartbroken. “Or whatever the fuck time it is. I’m here, Billie, and it’s the same as it ever was. You call, and I come running. Do you wanna know why I come running?”

“Because you love me,” BIllie Joe replies, his voice small but steady and sure. 

After a pause, Mike nods with a tightened jaw. “Yeah. I love you. So here I am. What else do you want from me?”

There’s no easy answer to that question. Billie falters because he doesn’t want to get it wrong. Yes, Mike came immediately running when he called, but he’s terrified of this new dynamic between them where everything is uncomfortable and distant. What Billie is used to is finishing each other’s sentences and anticipating the other’s needs without a word being said, and that’s the way he always wants it to be. He doesn’t know how to operate any other way, and what’s more, he doesn’t know who he is without Mike’s close companionship—physically and otherwise. Mike is an essential part of Billie Joe, a piece of his very foundation as a person. That’s not something he can imagine living without. In its absence, Billie’s very essence would be diminished, and in fact, has been for weeks now.

Thinking about it in those terms has Billie acting rather than speaking, the weight of his emotions making him unable to communicate otherwise. He closes the limited distance between himself and Mike, reaching up to take his face in his hands, and he pulls him down for a kiss on impulse, in part because he can’t stand the idea of never being able to do it again. Mike doesn’t immediately respond, but when he does, kissing Billie Joe back and threading his fingers through his hair, it’s like that piece of himself that he was missing is at once restored. It’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, but above all, it reinforces his entire fucking world.

“Come to bed with me,” Billie tells him even as their mouths move together so desperately, “please.”

“Billie,” Mike hesitates, though he’s holding him tighter around the waist, “I don’t know—”

“Please,” Billie Joe pleads with him, and he touches their noses to together in a bid to implore Mike with his gaze. Sharp blue eyes stare back into his, penetrating enough to have his stomach churning. “You asked what I wanted from you,” Billie says in a trembling voice, “and I’m asking you to come to bed with me.” He kisses the corner of Mike’s mouth. “I want you, Mike, and I’ve missed you, and I’ve been—I’m so fucking horny, you have no idea.”

His slight whine actually yields a breathless chuckle out of Mike. “So you’ve just missed my cock?” He mumbles.

Pulling back enough for their gazes to meet again, Billie mutters an ultra serious, “No,” and he trusts Mike to understand how much he means it.

Mike sinks down for another kiss, and he groans against Billie Joe’s lips. “Alright, let’s, uh—okay.”

Unfortunately, Billie can’t take the stairs as fast as he’s used to. All the same, he leads Mike up to his room by the hand and pulls him into his bed, without much grace, not that he cares. The only thing Billie cares about is kissing Mike, touching Mike, being close to Mike. He revels in the familiarity of his broad shoulders when he clutches them with his hands and experiences wonderful tingles when Mike’s fingers inch underneath his shirt, pressing into the small of his back. It’s more than want and being wanted; it’s need and being needed. Billie Joe is hard and wet, but he finds himself in no hurry to strip or cut to the chase because he’s so wrapped up in the moment. Mike is back in his bed, and he never wants him to leave it. 

At some point, the kissing and touching becomes less frantic. Billie is half on his back, half on his side, and Mike is leaning into him carefully, mindful of his bump. With his lips softening, Mike moves his hand from underneath his t-shirt to cradle his cheek instead, and it’s tender and gentle, enough for his insides to throb. Of course Billie’s raging hormones account for some of this, but it feels like so much more. In this moment, it feels like fucking everything.

But then it all comes crashing down. Mike ends the kiss, sighing as he rests his forehead against Billie Joe’s, his eyes closed. “We—I can’t do this, Billie,” he murmurs.

It’s not what Billie was expecting, and his heart does a nervous somersault. “Why not?” He asks quietly. Billie Joe thinks about cracking a joke, perhaps palming Mike’s crotch, but he’s too afraid of what Mike is going to say to attempt any humor.

When Mike opens his eyes, the look in them does nothing to alleviate Billie’s anxiety. “I met somebody,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Billie questions, confused.

“I met somebody. I’ve been seeing somebody. Like… dating, kind of.”

“Oh,” Billie Joe says dumbly. The information sort of takes him aback since it was just about the last thing he was expecting. Slowly, Billie retracts his hand from Mike’s arm, and he’s blinking a lot, like that will help him process any faster. “Um—okay.”

“It’s obviously not serious, you know, it’s all been casual, and it just kind of happened. She was the hostess at this restaurant, and I was—”

“A woman?” Now Billie is flabbergasted. Mike has been with, like, four total women in his entire life.

Mike nods, and in response to whatever expression Billie Joe is pulling, he becomes defensive. “I’m bisexual, Billie, in case you forgot.”

The thing is, man or woman or whatever, Billie is still thrown for a loop. Mike doesn’t date any more than he does. It’s hard to date people when you’re hard-set on having a sexual relationship with your best friend. Lately they haven’t been sleeping together, however, or even speaking to each other. Billie starts to sit up, feeling nauseous all of a sudden, and he runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t—I don’t even know what to fucking say. We don’t see each other for a few weeks, and you get a girlfriend?“

Mike stays in the position he’s in, laying on his side, and he rubs his forehead as he says, “She’s not my girlfriend. We’ve gone on a few dates, that’s all.”

“Does she know about me?” Mike just averts his eyes, which gives Billie Joe his answer, and he makes a face. “Fuck me, Mike, how fucking tacky are you?”

“I’m just being honest with you,” Mike says flatly.

Billie snorts derisively, and dryly, he says, “Yeah, because that’s the issue here. Not how fucking weird it is that you’re dating some random hostess while I’m pregnant.”

“Do you really wanna talk about weird, Billie?” Mike challenges, and he sits up, too. “What’s weird is our whole relationship or lack thereof. Me going on some dates with a pretty girl I met at the sushi place? That’s normal. You being pregnant and not knowing who the hell the father is? Not fucking normal.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want the paternity test,” Billie Joe reminds him icily.

“And you’re the one who wanted one, so did you get one?” Mike counters. Billie looks away, shaking his head, and he needles in, “So what are you waiting for, then?

“It’s not like I’m waiting for anything, Mike, I just—I’ve been a little busy growing a baby, y’know.”

“That’s all fine and good, but let’s not forget where everything went off the rails. You don’t get to judge me, Billie, or be mad at me for my choices after all that you’ve put me through. And I’m being as honest with you as you’ve always been with me.”

Deep down, Billie Joe knows his friend has a point. Mike might be throwing him curveballs, but at the end of the day, he’s kind of the one who started it by getting pregnant and having absolutely no clue whose it is. Still, it doesn’t keep the pit out of Billie’s stomach, thinking about Mike with some pretty, random hostess at what is an undoubtedly an overrated sushi restaurant. He bites his lip, hanging his head down as he rubs his hands over his bent knees. “Have you slept with her?” Billie asks in a small voice, though he’s not even sure he wants to know. 

A beat passes before Mike murmurs, “Yeah, I’ve slept with her.”

Peeking at Mike over his shoulder, Billie Joe sees him staring steadily at him, and his insides twist in on themselves some more. He really hates being this fucking vulnerable. It’s so foreign to Billie. While releasing a low, long breath, Billie stretches back out onto the bed with his eyes closed and his fingertips massaging his temple. 

“I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to hear,” Mike offers when Billie Joe says nothing, and for what it’s worth, it sounds genuine.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I don’t really have any right to be upset about you seeing someone else, and I know that.” Despite that, Billie’s chest and throat are getting tight with oncoming tears, and as much as he loathes them, he’s helpless to stop them. His voice wavers as he goes on, “The thing is, I don’t need to be taken care of because I can take care of myself. I’m—I’m fully capable of doing this all myself. But it’s hard, and I’ve missed you so fucking much. And I miss Kevin, too. I’ve been keeping my distance from him, y’know, because this is all fucked up.” Billie turns his head to look at Mike with his annoyingly blurry eyes before he keeps his rant going. “I miss how everything was, and I’m sad it’s never gonna be how it was ever again, and I’m—I feel so fucking guilty that I’m bringing this baby into a fucked up situation because I’m a whore.”

“You’re not a whore,” Mike disagrees, and at the look Billie Joe gives him, he sighs. “I’m never gonna think of you that way, Bills,” he says earnestly, extending his hand to swipe underneath one of Billie’s eyes with his thumb. “I don’t want you to cry.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know this, but it’s kind of my status quo lately. It’s all the fucking hormones,” Billie grumbles, turning his head away again. Mike continues to pet his hair, and it feels so fucking good, it just makes him want to cry harder. Billie Joe has his forehead resting in the web of his right hand and his other hand on his bump, which has become a natural resting place recently. “I feel like I’ve been a selfish asshole for so long,” he confesses in a whisper, easier to do with his eyes closed, “and I don’t wanna be that way anymore. Not with her.”

Letting out a breath that’s similar to the one Billie had earlier, Mike lays back down next to him. He rests his cheek on his shoulder and lays one arm above his head so he can take the hand away from Billie’s face, tangling their fingers together instead. “If there’s one thing I know,” he begins quietly, “it’s that you’re gonna be a great dad. That’s the one thing I know for fuckin’ sure. And you know… you’re not a selfish asshole. Between the two of us, I think that title belongs to me.” Mike’s free thumb brushes along Billie Joe’s jaw, and even quieter, he says, “I wanted it all my way, too. I wanted you all to myself.”

There’s a subtle catch in his voice, and Billie forces himself to open his eyes and find the tender blue ones that belong to his friend. “That doesn’t make you selfish,” he tells Mike, deep and gravelly. “It makes you human.”

Mike cracks a weak half-smile. “Thanks for saying that.”

Adjusting his head on his pillow to see the other man better, Billie softly says, “You know you have a part of me no one else could ever touch. A part that is entirely yours. You know that, right?”

His expression twitching with emotion, Mike nods, and gruffly, he says, “Likewise. It’s a pretty big part of me, actually.”

“For me, too.” The baby is pushing or kicking, so Billie Joe takes his friend’s other hand to bring it to his belly. He holds it there closely and watches the further changes in Mike’s face as he feels the baby for the first time, and he’s moved by the tears Mike visibly blinks back. “I do want her to be yours,” Billie admits for the first time, and after keeping that in for so long, it’s like a weight off of his chest to finally say it, even though more emotions comes with it. 

“But she might not be,” Mike mutters thickly, touching his forehead to Billie’s shoulder. “And—you were right, Bills. You should know for sure who she belongs to. We—I don’t think anything can be figured out until we know.”

In some ways, it’s hard to believe Mike is saying this… but then again, it’s not hard to believe at all. Mike may be capable of being overly possessive, but he’s also capable of being exceedingly rational and selfless. If Billie Joe is honest, it’s the complexity of those traits that fuels the attraction, partially at least. He nuzzles into Mike, garnering so much relief from his closeness. “If she’s Kevin’s, are you gonna leave me for the hot, blonde hostess?”

“What makes you think she’s blonde?” Mike asks, sounding amused and sad at the same time.

“Because I know you. You love blondes.”

“You do know me,” Mike sighs, stroking the hair back from Billie’s temple, where he then places a kiss. “I could never leave you,” he adds in a softer voice. 

Billie hears the promise in there, too, and he holds Mike’s hand more tightly to his bump. “Does that mean you’ll stay the night?”

“If that’s what you want, yes.”

“I want you to stay,” Billie Joe whispers.

Mike lays one of his legs over one of Billie’s and moves his head to share his pillow. “Then I’m not going anywhere, Billie.”

It doesn’t take Billie Joe very long to fall asleep with Mike wrapped around him, and it ends up being the best sleep he’s gotten in months.

Chapter Text

As much as Billie has tried to avoid it, for as long as he’s tried to remain in a state of denial, it eventually becomes clear: he’s going to have to use the waistband extender Mike bought him. 

With his jeans around his hips, unbuttoned, Billie rips off the cardboard packaging wrapped around the bit of fabric and then squints at the instructions. Essentially the thin elastic strip is supposed to connect the button to the buttonhole, and though he’s loathe to admit it, the innovative little Amazon miracle does the trick. Once it’s on, his pants fit as well as they ever have, which means Billie Joe isn’t going to have to wear track pants for the ninth day in a row. 

Standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom, Billie inspects the fit of the contraption, and he sighs. He’s six months pregnant—24 weeks and 6 days, to be exact—and there’d be no mistaking it now, if you passed him on the street. His rounded belly juts out, and it’s especially obvious when Billie turns to one side or the other. Doing this now, he lays his hand on the lower curve of his bump, trying to imagine what he’ll look like full term, but it’s too hard to picture. She kicks like she knows what he’s thinking, and Billie Joe rubs the spot before moving on to finish getting dressed. If he doesn’t get going, he’s going to be late for his appointment.

Inexplicably, Billie is nervous. It’s not like he’s going to get the results of the paternity test today; he’s only meeting Kevin at the clinic so they can provide their sample DNA together. They’ve already told Billie results will take at least seven to ten business days to come in. The thing is, though, this means there will be results, and every time he thinks about it, he gets nauseous. What Billie Joe said to Mike was true: he wants this baby to be his. He just has absolutely no confidence that will be the case.

On his drive to the appointment, it replays in Billie’s head, the events that led him here. The reason it’s such a tossup is because he slept with both Kevin and Mike in the same day, within hours of each other, and it’s the only night that makes sense when compared to his due date. Billie hasn’t been this specific about it with either of them. In his mind, it doesn’t really matter, but he has reason to believe it would get under their skin—Mike’s, in particular. And truth be told, Billie Joe isn’t all that proud of it. It’s not like it was a common occurrence. Mike was over one afternoon, and one thing led to another… and then in the evening, he went to a gig with Kevin, and alcohol was definitely a factor... Both times, there was nary a condom in sight. Caught up in the moment(s), against his better judgement, Billie had let things carry on. Mike had been reluctant, but he still fucked him on the coffee table. Kevin was less concerned about the lack of protection, and he had really wanted Billie to ride him on the bench seat in the back of his Chevy. Who was he to deny Kevin that fantasy?

The sex was great with both of them. Billie Joe was equally hard, equally wet, equally eager. He hadn’t thought a lot about it at the time, but thinking back on it, he feels guilty. Two guys in one day? Mike would tell Billie he’s a little old for that, if he knew, and he’d judge him for it, no question. Now, he judges himself for it, too. His recklessness and indulgence caught up to him, and as much as Billie will defend his polyamory, this position makes him feel as gross as it does guilty. If he’d been more responsible, he wouldn’t be on his way right now to get a paternity test like some degenerate on a trashy daytime talk show.

With his temple in the web of his hand, Billie Joe blinks back tears while staring at the traffic before him, his teeth chewing relentlessly on his bottom lip. He really does feel fucking sick. Billie has two men, hopelessly in love with him, and because he couldn’t just choose one, Mother Nature is choosing for him. Mike is going out on dates with blonde hostesses, and Billie is about to get his blood taken to find out if he’s going to lose him to a blonde hostess for good. And on the other side of the coin, if he doesn’t lose Mike, he breaks Kevin’s heart, which is one of the last things he would ever want to do. Neither of those two scenarios are ones Billie Joe feels like he can live with, but goddamnit, he’s going to have to no matter what.

When Billie gets to the clinic and parks, the first thing he does is hasten towards the nearest trash can, posted outside of the entrance. He loses his breakfast, thankful he opted for toaster waffles rather than the hot sauce smothered burrito he thought about having. That definitely would’ve burned coming up.

“Whoa, whoa, Billie!” He’s still bent over and dry-heaving when he hears Kevin’s voice, coming closer until his hand is on his lower back. “Are you okay? Here.”

Billie Joe takes the tissue Kevin offers him, and only once he’s certain he’s done being sick does he use it to wipe his mouth as he’s slowly straightening up. 

“Are you okay?” Kevin asks him again, peering closely at him with obvious concern.

“I’m fine,” Billie nods, and he sighs when it doesn’t seem to console Kevin in the slightest. “It happens, Kev, I’m fine.”

“I thought it was only supposed to happen in the morning,” Kevin says doubtfully.

“That’s a myth. It’s just more common in the mornings.” Billie has removed his sunglasses to clean off the water spots on the lenses from the tears caused by his vomiting, and he squints at Kevin. “You don’t got any gum, do you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kevin digs into the inside of his trusty bomber jacket and produces a packet of Trident.

“Thanks.” Billie Joe wasn’t exactly keen on tasting maple-flavored bile on his tongue for the next hour or however long. He pops the short stick of peppermint gum into his mouth, and as he’s crumpling the paper wrapper it came in, he peeks up at Kevin. “Guess you got here at just the right time.”

Kevin smiles sheepishly, shrugging, both of his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, um—” He glances nervously towards the entrance of the clinic. “I’ve been waiting for you in my car because I didn’t wanna walk in alone.”

Hearing that makes Billie feel a little sad for some unknown reason, but it’s not worth dwelling on, so he just smiles. “Well, here I am,” he says, bumping Kevin lightly with his elbow as he starts to move towards the glass double doors. “Let’s get this thing over with.”

They check in at the front desk, individually signing some forms, and Kevin is brought back almost immediately. The clinic isn’t particularly busy, so Billie has his named called shortly after that. His blood is taken, and he steadfastly stares in the opposite direction of the arm they’re opting to use. Billie Joe has already gotten sick once today, and he’d prefer to avoid throwing up again if he can. It helps that he has plenty to keep him preoccupied, very little space in his addled brain to care too much about a blood draw. 

“The results should be back within seven to ten days,” the technician tells him while she removes the elastic band from around his bicep. She hasn’t made eye contact the entire time, and she sounds bored when she talks. He wonders how many blood draws she does a day and how many of those are for paternity tests. In terms of the latter, it’s probably not many. “You’ll get a call from the office when they’re in.”

“Thanks,” Billie mumbles, his stomach taking another turn at the mere idea of getting that phone call. 

This is the right thing to do, Billie has to keep telling himself. Like Mike said, everything is up in the air until they know the answer to this question. All of their lives hinge on it. He has to stop thinking about it, though, before he gets sick again.

When Billie Joe leaves the examination room, he doesn’t see Kevin in the waiting room, which kind of surprises him. He figured Kevin would be done before him, but he also assumed he’d wait for him. 

His assumption turns out to be correct because he finds Kevin on the concrete steps in front of the clinic entrance, and he pops up as Billie walks out. “Hey, how’d it go?” He asks anxiously.

“Fine,” Billie answers, slipping his sunglasses back on over his eyes. “You?”

“It was fine. Easy, like you said.” Kevin pauses to briefly nibble on his top lip. “Um—did they mention how long it’ll take to hear back?”

“Yeah, a week or two. They’ll mail the results, they said.”

“Oh, good. Good.” Kevin rocks on his heels and scratches the back of his head. “So… are you doing anything the rest of the day?”

“I have a meeting with the record label in an hour,” Billie Joe tells him, playing with his keys. In midafternoon traffic, it’s going to take him at least 45 minutes to get from this part of the city to Burbank. “That’s it, though. Why?”

“Well, uh—well, I wanted to see if you’d let me take you out to dinner tonight.”

“Take me out to dinner?” Billie repeats, nonplussed. That’s not something Kevin has ever suggested or offered to do before.

Kevin nods, and again, the smile he flashes is clearly teeming with nerves, and even through his sunglasses, Billie can see the insecurities in his eyes, too. “Yeah, I thought it might be nice, you know, for us to—to do something, you know? Not like a date or anything,” he’s quick to add, likely misinterpreting Billie Joe’s confusion. Stepping a hair closer, Kevin lifts a hesitant hand that ultimately cups one of Billie’s elbows. “I just—I wanna do something nice for you. You’re going through a lot. And—and I’ve missed spending time with you.”

There’s a million reasons why an ache shoots through his core when Billie hears Kevin say that, but above all, it’s because it goes both ways. He’s missed spending time with Kevin, too, and never as much as right now, when he’s looking at Billie Joe with such adoration, which he doesn’t exactly feel deserving of. At the same time, it sets his hormones ablaze, being wanted like this. It’s all so fucking confusing and complicated, but there’s one thing about Kevin’s request that isn’t complicated: Kevin has no business buying Billie dinner when he struggles to make rent half the time. “Kev, you don’t have to take me out to dinner.”

“But I wanted to,” Kevin insists.

“I’d rather just get a pizza and eat it in my sweatpants,” Billie tells him, and for what it’s worth, that’s one hundred percent the truth. “Can we do that instead?”

“If that’s what you want,” Kevin replies, quizzical and hopeful in equal measure.

“That is absolutely what I want.”

“I’m down for that then,” Kevin says with a shrug of his shoulders, and then the grin starts to build on his face. “My place or yours?”

“Let’s do your place.” Once again, Billie Joe is counting on the presence of Kevin’s roommate to keep him from making any poor decisions. “I can be there around six.”

“Sounds like a plan. Maybe we could watch a movie or something.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Billie takes a step backwards towards his car. He’s going to be late if he doesn’t get going. “I’ll see you then, okay?”

Kevin nods eagerly, heading in the opposite direction, that boyish grin still secure in place. “Looking forward to it, Billie.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, so I can’t fathom why the hell anyone would want this kind of abomination, but I got you what you asked for: an extra cheesy pepperoni pizza with light sauce, pineapple, and extra pickles.”

As Kevin is explaining this, he’s opening up one of the two boxes waiting for them on the coffee table in his living room. With the large pizza revealed, the aroma of Italian seasoning and baked crust intensifies. Already seated on the couch in front of the pizza, Billie Joe leans forward to get a closer look, and his mouth automatically starts watering. He hasn’t eaten since the waffles his body rejected, and it looks nothing short of heaven. 

“This is far from the strangest craving I’ve had so far,” Billie assures him as he reaches for his first slice. “Yesterday I made a tuna salad sandwich with cream cheese, barbecue sauce, onions, and grapes. I don’t even like tuna.”

The weird look Kevin gives him is wiped away when he laughs. “I bet your breath smelled awful.”

Billie laughs, too, and nods. “It did,” he confirms after swallowing his first bite. “Fortunately I was alone so nobody else was subjected to it.”

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Kevin says with a smile, shrugging one shoulder, and he pulls the paper sack that’s sitting on the coffee table towards him. From it, he produces a twenty ounce bottle of Mug root beer, and Billie Joe groans with approval.

“God, I could kiss you,” Billie says through a full mouth as Kevin opens the bottle for him. He didn’t think to ask Kevin to pick up a soda to go with his dinner.

“I’ve never seen you eat a piece of pizza without a root beer, so I figured I better grab you one. I know you prefer Barq’s, but I checked, and it has caffeine in it.”

Chewing slowly, Billie watches Kevin grab a slice of pizza from a different, smaller box, which is notably pickle-free. The thing about Kevin is that he’s so fuckin’ sweet. It’s part of what has always drawn him to Kevin, how pure of heart he is. After being in the music industry all these years, Billie Joe hasn’t known too many people like that.

“So what other weird cravings have you had?” Kevin asks, interrupting his pensive train of thought. 

“Well, there’s the pickles. I wanna put them on everything.” To emphasize his point, Billie picks one off and pops it into his mouth. “Most of the other stuff isn’t too crazy. I’ve just been eating a lot of barbecue chips, and I can’t go to bed without having strawberry ice cream. With chocolate sauce on top.”

Kevin makes another face, this one out of concern. “You don’t put the pickles on your ice cream, do you?”

“No,” Billie chuckles, “but I do drink some of the pickle juice before I eat my ice cream.”

“Being pregnant sounds fuckin’ weird,” Kevin says in amusement.

“You have no idea,” Billie Joe sighs. Even as he sits here, enjoying his pizza, he can feel the baby moving around, something he still hasn’t gotten completely used to. It reminds Billie of the many other changes he and his body have been going through lately, and it makes him want to switch topics. After taking a swig of his fizzy root beer, Billie clears his throat and asks, “So, um, where’s David?” He glances around the cramped apartment for a sign of Kevin’s roommate. “Doesn’t he want some pizza?”

“Nah, he’s at his girlfriend’s place,” Kevin explains. “We’ve been holed up in the studio lately finishing the album, so I’m sure he’ll stay over there tonight.”

Well fuck, Billie Joe thinks. He’s going to have to rely on his own resolve tonight if he wants to avoid crossing a certain line with Kevin. It might be difficult, considering how good Kevin looks, even in his casual clothes. Honestly, Billie is really hard up for a good fuck if he lets himself think about it, which he shouldn’t… And then again, maybe Kevin has his own resolve. Maybe Kevin has no interest in sleeping with him in this condition. Billie wouldn’t blame him; it’s not like he feels super sexy with his rounded belly and overall swollen appearance. 

“Actually, I was kind of hoping to show you some of what we’ve been working on,” Kevin goes on to say, his eyebrows raised eagerly at Billie Joe. “You up for that?”

Music is always a topic Billie is happy to discuss, and it’ll be a great distraction from the hormones that would prefer him to make impulsive decisions. “Yeah, totally,” he answers Kevin, “put it on for me.”

Kevin plays six songs for him that are basically finished, and Billie listens intently to each one, only offering feedback in between tracks. He has no notes other than praise. Billie Joe has been a fan of their sound from day one—it’s how they met, after all—and he’s consistently impressed by how well they’re able to translate their vision onto their records, especially because they’re largely self-produced. Having seen them in the studio firsthand, he knows this is largely due to Kevin, and it’s just yet another reason why he fell for Kevin. Musically, they speak the same language. 

Another thing Billie loves about Kevin is how animated he becomes when they’re speaking that language. His eyes light up with boyish enthusiasm as they finish each other’s sentences and feed off of each other’s ideas, and he bounces a little bit in his seat, like his love for rock and roll is simply uncontainable. Billie knows a thing or two about that, and in a way, it’s like he gets to live vicariously through Kevin. Instead of keeping at the band with Mike and Tre, persevering through weak album sales and disdain from critics, he decided to take the safer route and start writing and producing. As much as he loves and excels at both of those things, Billie Joe misses being on stage, being a frontman… He always thought he was pretty good at that, too. 

By the time they’ve finished thoroughly dissecting Prima Donna’s forthcoming album, there’s nothing left of the pizza but scraps of abandoned crust. Billie is basically back to his pre-pregnancy days of being able to eat a whole pie by himself. Whatever weight he lost during the first trimester has come back. And then some, but Billie is executively not thinking about that. He’ll worry about that after the baby’s here.

After polishing off his root beer, Billie Joe leans back into the couch, sighing as he tears open the brand new roll of Tums he pulled out of his sweatshirt pocket. “Thanks for the pizza, Kev. That really hit the spot.”

“I’m glad.” Kevin closes up both of the pizza boxes and stacks them on top of each other, pushing them to one corner of the coffee table. He pivots his body towards Billie, then, bringing his arm up to rest it on the back of the sofa, and his right leg is bent on the cushion so that his knee is just brushing his thigh. It seems like a pretty deliberate move to Billie, but perhaps that’s just the hormones talking. “And I’m glad you came over. I’ve really missed just, like, hanging out with you.”

He means it sincerely, Billie Joe can tell that much, and some of the guilt he’s all too familiar with comes creeping back. Chewing on his bottom lip, he picks at his fingernails, both of his hands resting in the dip between his stomach and his chest. “I’ve missed it, too. I’m sorry, I know I’ve been flaky. Figuring this all out has just been… such a mind fuck, y’know?”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Kevin tells him softly. In a similar vein to Billie, he’s picking at the lint on his pants. “I know you said pretty much everything hinges on the paternity test, and I get that. It’s just, it’s like I said, you know—regardless of the results, that doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

There doesn’t seem to be a bottom for how low Billie’s heart can sink. The last time he saw Kevin, they said ‘I love you’ to each other, and he has since begged Mike to have sex with him and told Mike he wants the baby to be his. It’s not like Billie Joe can cop to this, but some honesty does feel warranted. “Mike and I are talking again,” he admits. “Not, like, a lot, but y’know—he’s not giving me the silent treatment anymore.”

The half-smile Kevin yields is sad but just as genuine as everything else about him. “That’s good. I know how important he is to you.”

“Yeah, but so are you,” Billie says earnestly, and it comes out of him like a reflex. It brings on a sudden onset of emotion, and he shifts to face Kevin more completely, making a grab for his closest hand. “Kev, I—I am the literal definition of being between a rock and a hard place.” Billie’s voice breaks as he speaks. “No matter what happens, somebody gets hurt here, and I fuckin’ hate it.”

“Hey, hey.” Kevin gets even closer to Billie Joe, close enough to cup his cheek. “Don’t get upset, Billie,” he implores him gently, his brow creased in something akin to pain. “I don’t want you to get upset.”

When Billie rolls his eyes, a traitorous tear breaks loose, and he roughly wipes it away with his free hand. “Everything makes me upset,” he mutters with disdain, directed only at himself. “All these hormones have made me a basket case.”

“You’re not a basket case,” Kevin disagrees, and Billie Joe snorts wetly.

“I’m either hungry, horny, emotional, or euphoric at any given time. It’s like I’m never just me anymore.”

“You look like you to me.” Kevin catches the second tear that manages to run away, and then his knuckles brush along his cheek and jaw. His voice is even softer when he says, “Just more beautiful.”

Billie has been called beautiful before, generally by men trying to get into his pants. It’s the kind of line that he would normally shrug off. Mike has called him beautiful numerous times over the years, and it’s always passed right through Billie, like it’s just something to be said to stroke his ego. When Kevin says it, it doesn’t feel like that at all, maybe because he’s never felt less beautiful in his life. Or maybe it’s because with Kevin, there’s never any expectations. He has no agenda, which is another thing that makes him so fucking special. 

“God, you’re sweet, Kev,” Billie Joe says with a tearful chuckle, laying his hand over Kevin’s. “You’re like a fuckin’ unicorn or something.”

Kevin arches a playful eyebrow. “That doesn’t necessarily sound like a compliment.”

“It definitely is.” They’re so close in this new position they’re in, and the second Billie realizes it, he becomes hyper aware of the texture of Kevin’s palm against his skin and the part of his lips. Kevin is clean shaven, and he’s gazing at him with those deep brown eyes, swimming with enough compassion and adoration to fill the Pacific Ocean. It would weaken a stronger man’s resolve, Billie thinks, one that isn’t desperate and riddled with hormones. Without realizing he’s doing it, he leans his face in closer, whispering Kevin’s name as he tentatively brushes their lips together.

His breath hitching audibly, Kevin kisses him back at first. He holds Billie Joe’s face more firmly, tilting his head for a better angle, but after only a few seconds, he breaks it, though it seems like it’s a painful thing for him to do. “Billie, you said you didn’t wanna do this.”

“I changed my mind.” Billie slides both of his hands from the side of Kevin’s neck to the back of his head and presses in for another kiss. Against Kevin’s mouth, he murmurs, “A guy can’t change his mind?”

“It’s not that.”

Though Kevin is returning the kisses, Billie Joe can tell it’s with some reluctance, and he stops, insecurity trembling in his belly. “You don’t want to?” He asks and hates how meek he sounds.

“Are you kidding? I always want to.” Kevin strokes some of the hair back from Billie’s forehead. “But you said before that you didn’t think hooking up was a good idea, and I don’t want to get caught up in the moment and have you regret it.”

It’s so rational and considerate, and the thing is, it just makes Billie want to have sex with him more. Kevin is such a good fucking guy. Truthfully, he deserves better than this whole fucked up, messy love triangle. But Kevin does love him, and at the end of the day, he loves him back. They might not have the years and years of history he has with Mike, but they have their own connection that is, in this moment, too strong for Billie Joe to deny. Besides, he thinks bitterly, he has every reason to believe Mike is fucking the blonde hostess right now.

“I’ve never regretted having sex with you,” Billie tells him honestly, and he moves his body so that he’s almost in Kevin’s lap. “I want you to fuck me,” he goes on, kissing Kevin’s bottom lip, and a wild spiral of desire shudders through him, his boxer briefs dampening at the same time. An inadvertent groan rumbles through Billie’s chest as he leans his forehead against Kevin’s. “God, I want to be fucked so bad.”

“You’re making a very persuasive argument,” Kevin groans back, his hand sliding along the outside of Billie Joe’s thigh, all the way up to his ass. 

“So let me win,” Billie suggests, too breathless to sound as cheeky as he would otherwise.

After a mere beat of the heart, Kevin says, “Okay,” and he pushes Billie into the couch, reengaging him in a blistering kiss.

Billie Joe figured he’d be a lot more self-conscious, getting naked and intimate with Kevin. After all, his body is not the same as it was the last time Kevin saw him in his nude glory. As it turns out, though, Billie is far too amped up on hormones to give one singular fuck about what Kevin might be thinking about the extra fat in his ass or the swollen curve of his formerly flat stomach. Within five minutes, they’re in Kevin’s bedroom, and within another five, he’s straddling Kevin and fucking himself on the younger man’s hard cock.

“Oh fuck, Billie,” Kevin mutters, gazing up at him rapturously, his hands sliding all over his hips and thighs, occasionally grabbing. “Fuck, you feel so fucking good, goddamnit.”

“Likewise,” Billie Joe groans, rocking his pelvis even faster. He’s not as adept in this position as he used to be; he has to support himself with one palm steady against the wall above Kevin’s head, and he doesn’t feel like he’s getting the same depth as he’s used to. Beggars can’t be choosers, though, and Billie’s body has been begging for this. It feels incredible, and he’s on the knife’s edge of climax from what seems like the get go. “Oh God, I don’t—don’t think I’m gonna last.”

“That’s okay.” Kevin grips both cheeks of his ass roughly, satisfying a very specific itch of Billie’s rather effectively. “I’m not either. Do you want me to touch you?”

“Please,” Billie Joe whines, and the sounds he’s making become something else entirely as Kevin’s fingers engulf his cock. It’s fucking glorious, the combination of Kevin’s pumping fist and the steady downward thrusts that mean sweet friction for both his rim and his prostate. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, Kev—” His eyes squeezed tightly shut, Billie tucks his chin into his collarbone, desperately trying to draw this out. When it feels this good, why would he want it to end in, like, seven minutes?

Unfortunately, Billie’s resistance is futile. Despite his best efforts and without his permission, his orgasm crescendos abruptly and violently. Billie Joe cries out, smacking his palm against the wall as his frame goes rigid, seated fully on Kevin’s dick for maximum sensation. He comes for what feels like forever, and Kevin milks him until his throbbing balls are empty, murmuring heated encouragement to him.

“Oh my God,” Billie mutters once the wave has passed, and because his legs feel weak, he dismounts from Kevin and collapses beside him, graceless but unable to do it any other way. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he pants, still catching his breath. 

“Why the hell are you apologizing?” Kevin pushes the damp strands of hair away from his temples and kisses him. “You were amazing, Billie, I love watching you ride me like that.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t get to come.”

“That’s okay. I’m kinda hoping I’ll still get to.” Kevin reaches over Billie Joe to grab a few tissues from the box of Kleenex on his tiny nightstand. While cleaning off both his hand and Billie’s sticky belly, he kisses Billie some more, softer than before, contradictory to the erection poking forward. In between those sweet kisses, Kevin murmurs, “I just like making you feel good, you know. It’s like my favorite fucking thing in the world.”

Groaning, Billie Joe takes him by the cheek and angles in for a deeper kiss. Hearing Kevin say things like that makes him fall even more in love with him, he swears to God, which isn’t exactly something he can afford to do. There’s nothing for it, though. Billie touches their sweaty foreheads together, his fingers now held onto the short hairs at the nape of Kevin’s neck. “You made me feel so fucking good,” he tells Kevin in a low voice. “So good, I didn’t even think about how fat I am until just now.”

“Shut up, you’re fucking gorgeous.” Kevin moves his lips to Billie’s neck, nuzzling his face there as his hands start to roam his body again. “So fucking gorgeous….”

Some post-nut clarity is attempting to rear it’s ugly head, but Billie Joe is not ready to entertain any of that. Instead he wants to bask in this moment, of wanting and being wanted, of mutual affection and reciprocated desire. For a moment, it’s blissfully uncomplicated. “If you’re willing to flip around, I’ll blow you,” Billie offers, and he chuckles at the noise Kevin makes in response.

“Dear God, say less.”

It’s been a hot minute since Billie has gone down on anyone, but fortunately, it’s like riding a bike. After a few teasing swipes at the weeping tip of Kevin’s cock, he takes him to the hilt, his mouth a tight seal around the enflamed skin. Billie Joe almost smiles at the way Kevin moans. He’s still got it, but that’s no surprise given his many years of experience; he’s been sucking dick since he was fifteen, and according to Mike, his skills have grossly improved over the years. Part of that is because he enjoys doing it so much. There’s few things that are more appealing to Billie than the weight of a heavy erection in his mouth. He loves the musky taste, the virile scent, the texture on his tongue. Better than all of that is the thrill of having control over another person’s pleasure and being responsible for it. Depending on how good of a blow job he’s giving, it can make Billie feel like a god, and he quite likes that feeling.

If the sounds Kevin is making is a reliable indication, Billie Joe is doing a pretty good job right now. “Shit, Billie,” he says, his voice strained, “that feels—fuck….” Kevin has his head resting on the side of Billie’s knee, and his hands continue to roam where they can reach, primarily focused on his ass. Eventually he dips his fingers into the crease of his cheeks and rub around. “Fuck, you’re still so wet, baby.”

Despite his recent orgasm, the attention to his pucker takes his breath away, forcing Billie Joe to leave off of Kevin’s hard-on for a second. “I’m always wet,” he shudders, dragging his thumb up and down the length of Kevin’s prick while he tries to get his bearings back. “For weeks, it’s just—it’s all the time.”

“That probably shouldn’t turn me on, should it?”

“I mean, I don’t—I don’t know.”

Humming but saying nothing, Kevin adjusts his position, pries Billie open, and buries his face between his spread cheeks.

“Oh my God, Kev,” Billie cries out faintly, completely caught off guard by Kevin’s tongue stroking his slick entrance. After just a few licks, his cock is twitching back to attention. “Kevin, I’m supposed to be—you—I already—”

“What, you don’t want to come again?” Kevin jiggles one of Billie Joe’s cheeks and nibbles at it playfully. “You taste so goddamn good. How could I resist you?”

Billie tries his best to give Kevin the blowjob he thinks he deserves, but it’s difficult to not be distracted. He loves a good ass-licking, and he hasn’t had one in months when he’s used to Mike doing it for him on the regular. God, Billie doesn’t want to think about Mike right now or compare techniques. (They do differ, though.) It’s easier to let go of those thoughts once Kevin retakes his dick in his hand, and he whines around the younger man’s balls, which he had begun to suck on while jerking him off. Releasing them with a popping sound, he struggles to warn Kevin, “If you keep—I’ll—”

“Good, I want you to.” Kevin shifts again. “In my mouth.”

Billie Joe gasps at the abrupt heat closing around his cock, and coupled with Kevin dipping a finger or two past his pliant entrance, he’s done for within sixty seconds. This climax is not nearly as momentous as his first, but that makes it no less pleasurable. If anything, it might be better because Billie is less frantic with the added bonus of getting to do it in Kevin’s mouth. He curses through his moans, unable to do much more than give Kevin several lazy pumps of hist fist, and he’d feel guiltier about that if Kevin hadn’t insisted on eating out his ass and gobbling up his dick like candy.

While he’s in the midst of recovery, Kevin gets up on his knees, facing the right way of the bed again. “Can I come in you?” He asks, a renewed urgency in his voice, and he gently guides Billie onto his back, perching himself between his spread legs. “Is that okay?”

“God, of course,” Billie Joe whimpers, and he makes it clear just how onboard he is with the plan by taking the initiative to wrap his legs around Kevin’s waist. He’d put his ankles up on Kevin’s shoulders if the added girth to his stomach didn’t hinder is ability. 

Kevin slides in like a key fitting a lock and yields a guttural groan. “I can’t get over how wet you are, Billie, even more than before… You feel so goddamn amazing.” He lifts Billie’s legs up by the undersides of his knees, making it easier for him to dick in. “Holy shit, I love you, oh my God.”

It echoes in Billie Joe’s brain, after Kevin is finished: Holy shit, I love you. They’ve said this to each other but only the one time. To hear it fall out of Kevin’s mouth so freely, uninhibited, is jarring. Not in a bad way, of course—in fact, it’s the opposite. When has it ever been a bad thing, he thinks, to love and be loved? Well, the answer is it’s bad when you’re in a goddamn love triangle, and Billie experiences the good and the bad of it acutely afterwards as Kevin spoons him and kisses him on the chest, shoulder, and jaw. 

“That was incredible,” Kevin murmurs into his ear, then kissing the lobe, and he intertwines their fingers. “Been missing that so bad.”

“Me too,” Billie admits, his lashes fluttering closed at the tender manner in which Kevin strokes his face. He can’t bring himself to regret submitting to his hormonal urges when they needed to be sated that badly, but that’s only one small aspect of the story. As Kevin’s fingers drift down his torso, coming to the more pronounced curve of his belly, Billie Joe can be honest enough with himself to acknowledge it means a lot more than satisfying an itch, regardless of how deep-seated it might have been. 

Opening his eyes, with his head turned towards Kevin on the pillow, Billie finds that his gaze is cast downwards, where his fingers are. It strikes him, as it does every once in a while, how young Kevin really is, because he looks it in this moment. At 24, Billie was living about as hedonistically as a person possibly could: drinking almost every night, doing all kinds of drugs, and having a crazy amount of sex with a shocking number of people. By comparison, he knows Kevin has never been about that lifestyle, but still, he has so many years ahead of him. Billie Joe wouldn’t call him naive, but at the same time, there’s so much he hasn’t seen, done, or experienced. If this baby is Kevin’s, it will change his life forever, will likely alter its entire trajectory, and thinking about it makes him sad. 

“She’s moving,” Kevin observes in a soft voice, saving Billie from spiraling into tears or something.

Billie clears his throat and says, “She usually does at this time of night.”

“Does it keep you awake?”

“Sometimes. Usually I can fall asleep regardless, though.” Billie Joe feels like he could fall asleep right now, but that’s not a good idea. “Y’know, it’s late… I should probably get going.”

“You don’t have to,” Kevin tells him, and his eyes lift to meet Billie’s, earnest and faintly hopeful. “I’m happy for you to stay.”

I know, that’s why I should go, Billie thinks to himself, chewing on his lower lip, but God, he’s so sick of being torn in multiple directions. That’s not to mention how tired he is after two apocalyptic orgasms; just the idea of getting out of this bed, putting all of his clothes back on, walking to his parked car four blocks away, and driving himself home is exhausting. 

While he’s having his internal struggle, Kevin is pulling up the blanket from where they’d discarded it earlier at the bottom of the bed. “Just stay,” he implores Billie Joe as he lays the blanket over the both of them. “It is late, and you need your rest.”

“You’re making a very persuasive argument,” Billie says with a weak smile, echoing Kevin from earlier.

“Good.” It isn’t accurate to call Kevin the big spoon, but he does like to cuddle up into Billie when they’re in this kind of position, resting his chin on his shoulder and draping his arm over him. He has to put it lower than he where he would normally, underneath Billie Joe’s stomach rather than straight across it, but he tangles their legs together just the same. “I like it when you stay over,” Kevin murmurs, and it sounds like a confession. 

Honestly, Billie hasn’t ever liked staying over at Kevin’s and has always preferred sleepovers be held at his house with the king-sized bed and the quiet of the suburbs. He already knows he’s going to wake up sooner rather than later to some city noise he isn’t used to, such as a screaming ambulance, and his back is going to hurt from sleeping on this twin mattress. The company, however, has never had anything to do with his reasoning, and Billie lays his hand over Kevin’s forearm but otherwise doesn’t respond. His instinct is to reply with a joke, but he doesn’t want to make light of what Kevin said and sound flippant when he knows all of this is anything but. 

“We could have this all the time,” Kevin continues, and his hesitant gaze meets Billie Joe’s again. “If you wanted.”

It nearly causes Billie’s breath to hitch. “Kev,” he whispers regretfully, but Kevin cuts him off.

“Don’t say anything. Just kiss me goodnight.” 

Kevin cups his jaw and kisses him, then, and all Billie can do is kiss him back.