Maybe it's just jealousy?

“Where is he?”

Billie stood at the front desk in the reception. His hair was sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. The blonde nurse stared, wide eyed, at the small man.

“Excuse me?” She asked.

“Mike! “ He slammed his fist of the marble, “Where the hell is Mike?!”

The woman opened and closed her mouth unable to find him answer. The doors leading into the private rooms opened and Tre shuffled into the waiting area.

“BJ! Over here man. Stop hassling the woman.” Tre bellowed.

Billie Joe smiled apologetically at the nurse and limped over to Tre. The drummer led him into the separate hallway.

“Dude what happened you hands?” he question.

Billie shook his head sadly, “Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me Bill.” Tre sighed, “You should get that looked at while we wait—“

“Wait? For what? What’s happened Tre? Where’s Mike?”

Tre placed a hand gently between his shoulder blades and manpowered him into the family area. He sat upon his previous seat while Billie sat on the armchair beneath the window. Billie watched Tre with a grim expression; he tapped his foot upon the ground and chewed on his lower lip. Tre began to explain Mike’s surprise visit and the joy of his brief company. He neglected to skip the details of the ride to hospital and he made sure that Billie knew Mike had done this on his own.

Billie sat silently when Tre was finished. He stared at the tops of his sneakers, his bandaged hands lying limply across his lap and his eyes brimming with tears.

“I’ll go and get the doctor.” Tre sighed.

He got up and exited the room without as much as a protest from Billie. The singer felt nothing but undying guilt for what he had done. As far as he was concerned, Mike was at deaths door and he, Billie Joe, didn’t deserve any aid form paramedics for his self inflicted wounds. He stood up and checked out the window for any sign of Tre. When the man didn’t appear around the corner, Billie slipped from the room and wondered aimlessly back into the waiting area.

He stepped up to the desk and the young nurse pointed him in the direction of the bathrooms. He placed a throbbing hand over his trouser pocket as he walked, checking for the small switch blade that he always kept there. How he was going to go about this, he had no clue, but he would make it work.

The guilt that he felt was over riding all other emotion. He was oblivious to all sound around him and the pain in his injured hands was nothing; they were numb to their own shattered bones.

He kicked open a cubicle with his foot, booted it closed again and slid the bar, with much ease, across. He slid down to the floor. The switch blade was gently taken from his pocket and he smoothed it across the naked fingers. The blood trickled from beneath the skin and yet he felt nothing. Not even a sting.

“Mike.” He whispered, his voice was hoarse with muffled tears, “I – I’m so sorry.”

He laid his left arm out along the top of his left knee; his right hand shook as he threw all caution to the wind and took a tighter grip of the blade. Quickly and without a second thought he drove the knife into the skin of his wrist. He drew a deep wound up to the crook of his elbow. A breath, he hadn’t even realised he had been holding, escaped from his lungs. Already, the blood was flowing from the gaping wound and knew there was no chance he could even cut a shallow scrape into the other arm.

His head lent back against the cubicle wall and watched as the blood stained into his jeans. It was drastic, maybe insane, but it was better than living with the guilt he felt for his friend. His best friend. He chuckled to himself; really, who was he kidding? He had loved the man. If it was an ideal world he and Mike would have been together, made love, kept each other warm at night. But it wasn’t an ideal world; far from it.

Billie had thought about this for a while. He had known for a long time what he wanted but he had been too scared to act upon it. Well, now, he had. His veins were filling with a new feeling; power.

*****

A doctor found Billie Joe, cold and lifeless. He had spotted the blood and carelessly beat in the locked door. By then, Billie Joe was well and truly gone. He had bled out onto his jeans, over his shirt and the tiles of the floor were caked with the dried liquid.

They tried to save him anyway; it was hospital policy after all. Ineviditably he was officially declared dead and whisked off to the morgue. Later Mike would complain that it was completely inappropriate and heartless to have taken his body away so soon, but he knew in his heart that he could not bare having his last imagine of Billie Joe an even bloodier one.

Needless to say the bassist was distraught. He kicked and screamed, pulled at the IV’s in his arm and refused any medical attention from the doctors. Eventually he was sedated ‘for his own good’ and Tre was left to occupy himself with breaking the news to a woman he barely knew.

Ollie Armstrong’s anguished cries were heartbreaking. The very look in her eyes was haunted, making her seem older than her actual years. Tre had no doubt that it was hard on her. He, kindly, did the hard task of signing the papers while she dictated, through mournful cries, all of the details needed. She really wasn’t fit to do it herself, even talking about him was painful and it would be for years to come.

Ironically Mike blamed himself. At the funeral he spoke fondly of his memories of the singer’s short life. Tre didn’t speak for him. He felt it both inappropriate and awkward; mostly he knew Billie Joe wouldn’t have wanted it.

It wasn’t until years later, when both drummer and bassist had moved on to form other bands, that Mike’s side of the story was disclosed.

“It was so stupid really.” Mike sighed when there was nothing left to say.

Tre rubbed his knuckles against the stubble on his chin.

“Yeah.” He paused, “Do you think that he thought we were, y’know, fucking?”

“I can’t say it hasn’t entered my mind. I knew he loved me in that way and if I am honest, I saw that in him as well. I just wanted to make you feel welcome around us, as friends and nothing more. Billie Joe took it entirely the wrong way.”

“Humans are funny creatures.” Tre said.

Mike chuckled, “Guess you could say that.”

“Did you guys ever tell each other how you felt?”

“Obviously not Tre. And I’ll tell you something, it is the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life.”

“Even bigger than that waitress you fucked in Paris?”

“ I’d say they are in the same league.”