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Disclaimer: I don't own Green Day. If I did, do you really think I'd have time to write about them with all the sex that would happening.

I don't own the song. It is property of Rufus Wainwright.

A/N: It's a songfic. The first few lyrics might not fit the best, but I liked it overall. Only the last half of the song worked with the story, so that's what I used. It just . . . fit.

And an apology for anyone who loves Adie. I love her, too. But it works, okay?

Home

I've heard there was
A secret chord
That David played, and
It pleased the Lord
But you don't really care
For music, do you?

I won't lie. I really wasn't that in to playing music when I met Billie Joe. I listened to records and I loved the way they made me feel, like an escape, but I wasn't really interested in being the creator. I was perfectly content to listen to the creation.

But Billie Joe played guitar and Billie Joe wanted to write songs and Billie Joe wanted to start a band . . . and I would have done anything for Billie Joe.

So I told my dad I wanted a bass for Christmas and I learned the basics in a week or so and then I told Billie Joe and he was so happy. Huge smile on his twelve-year-old face and I hadn't seen him smile like that since his dad died.

So he wrote a song. And then another and another. And I learned to play them all and Billie Joe found a drummer and we were a band then. But I couldn't have cared less. I didn't know about the high of being the creator until Billie Joe had me help him write a song. And then I got it.

When we finished it, he hugged me and kissed my cheek and I felt it burn for days after.

It goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king
Composing Hallelujah

I loved to watch Billie Joe write. I loved the way he'd close his eyes and go to the thesaurus in the back of his head when a word didn't work write. And I loved the way he'd ask me to play a chord for him and he'd hum this unfinished rhythm softly.

He'd curse if it didn't work and he'd rip the page out and crumple it and throw it at the trashcan, never making it. And five minutes later, he'd smooth it out and cross out lines and start writing again.

I was always the first one he showed it to. Because I was honest. And most of the time it was perfect or we should add an extra syllable into this word or this chord won't work here.

But most of the time it was perfect because Billie Joe never half-assed anything. He'd put his soul onto paper and wait for the ink to dry and then hand it to me for my inspection.

Coming Clean. He handed me coming clean and I just stared at the paper and then looked at those grin eyes and Billie Joe chewing on his bottom lip and I . . . I knew. And then he whispered his confession and he winced like he wanted me to hit him.

But I kissed him instead.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

And he kissed back, slow at first and then opening his mouth when I did and after, when we pulled apart for breath, he said that was his first kiss with a guy.

And I said I was in love with him. He smiled, but didn't say anything.

There were a lot of first that night. Kisses, flesh against flesh. We turned out the light, both terrifed seventeen year olds. Neither virgins except in this way. And we undressed ourselves quickly and hid under the covers and kissed and touched. And laughed at the akwardness of it all.

And kisses moved to hands drifting to hips and 'Oh fuck, do that again' and 'How did you do that tongue thing'. And then it was everything. I slipped a finger inside of him, lubricated with saliva and he tensed and then he moaned softly when my fingers started moving.

And I spit in my hand and then . . . we were gone. I could see how much it hurt him at first . . . but after we got the hang of it . . . fuck, I don't think it lasted longer than fifteen minutes and we'd already both came once before.

And that was when he said it. "I love you, too."

Your faith was strong
But you needed proof
You saw her bathing
On the roof
Her beauty and the
Moonlight overthrew you

It was a secret. No one knew. We never dated, claiming we were concentrating on the band. We pretended we were having one-night stands with various groupies and everyone bought it.

Then there was Adie. And Billie Joe tried to keep that a secret from me. Tried. Billie Joe couldn't keep a secret from me to save his life. He said it was nothing, just some flirting and a few kisses.

And then it was just flirting and a few kisses and sex and candles and dinner and a fucking engagement ring.

I couldn't hate her at first. She was sweet, she was perfect, she made Billie Joe happy. She never was possessive, she never really cared about the studio. She just wanted a good marriage and kids eventually and she got everything she wanted.

And I fell apart on the inside. Fortunately, I can hide shit from Billie Joe.

She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne
And she cut your hair
And from your lips
She drew the Hallelujah

It only took a year for me to hate Adie. When Billie Joe kissed me for good luck at a show and I realized it was the first time we'd kissed in over a year because of . . . her.

I didn't talk to him for a week. He finally cornered me and demanded to know what was going on. And I shoved him and he shoved me back and I yelled and he yelled and nothing was really happening except that my throat started to hurt.

Then he kissed me again and when I pushed him, he knew. He looked at me and his eyes filled up with tears. "I can't help loving her, you know."

"But you could help loving me?"

"It's easier."

"So, you're basically a chickenshit who took the easy way out?"

Billie stared at me for a minute. "Yeah, I guess I am." And then he left.

Only time I ever cut myself. How could Billie Joe have this effect on me?

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

He came in through the adjoining door without knocking. I hadn't shut the bathroom door. And he just sort of looked at me and then looked at the razor blade on the counter and then looked at the cut on my arms. I wasn't stupid enough to cut the vein, not like that time when Billie Joe was sixteen and he wouldn't tell anyone and so I had to fix it myself.

And that cut, that blood dripping on the floor, that sad look in those green eyes . . .

He fixed it, made it stop bleeding, then he kissed me. "Could it . . . could it be a secret again?" he asked softly.

Flesh against flesh, kisses on my collarbone, Billie Joe pushing me onto the bed. The best sex I'd had since he met her. The only real sex I'd had since he met her.

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room
I've walked this floor
I used to live alone
Before I knew you

There was so much more at stake now. His marriage, my marriage, Joey. But we couldn't stop. I know he went home every night to his wife, but even a few stolen kisses was better than nothing. The only time I felt at home was when I was with Billie Joe.

He crashed at my place sometimes. If he and Adie had a fight, or if she took Joey to visit her mom and Billie plead that he needed to be in the studio.

He said 'I love you' to me like it was going out of style, like he needed to convince himself as much as me that it was real. He would lean his head on my chest after sex and wouldn't hold still until his ear was against my heart. I'd have my hand on his neck, feeling his pulse.

It was home. My home was in his pulse, in his heart, in the blood rushing through his veins. In this bed that smelled like sex and that nasty cologne Billie insisted on wearing. On that chair where our clothes always ended up. On that degraded kitchen counter. The shower.

And sometimes when he wasn't there I would pace the house, letting my fingers trace over the places that we had made love. Billie Joe never used that word and I never said it out loud, but I used it in my mind. He told me once the only good sex was a fuck because it was when you needed it most.

But we always made love. Because if you're in love, you make love. And you can fuck and make love at the same time, but it's always love.

This house was full of it when he was here, but there was none when he was gone. I couldn't show any when he was gone.

I've seen your flag
On the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and
It's a broken Hallelujah

Then it ended again. Marriage problems and Adie was pregnant. So Billie Joe kissed me ont he cheek and said after . . . after the baby was born and he kept her from filing for divorce . . . after he'd come back to me.

I believed him because I had nothing else to believe in. My marriage was crumbling. I believed him because I needed him, because if I believed maybe it would come true.

I believed it because I was stupid.

Another two years before he found me again. Another two years before he pressed his lips to mine and I shoved him away from me so hard he hit the wall. It was bullshit. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take the sneaking around and the smiling and the way I felt after he left and the way he kissed her.

I couldn't take that he only found me when it was safe. That he couldn't take a fucking chance with me. That it was his dirty little secret and I was the one he just happened to share it with.

I didn't think he loved me. So I fell apart again. I didn't talk to him for three months, until we hit the studio to record those two songs for the disc.

And after . . .

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

He pushed me into some room and locked the door and threw himself at me, lips tugging at mine insistently. The passion was there. And we fell onto some couch and he whispered 'I love you I love you I'm sorry I love you' over and over until it was stuck in my head. I heard that everywhere I went for the next three days.

And then he came to me again and promised that it would be different this time. He said his marriage was fucked up anyway and he would tell Adie before the year was up and then it wouldn't have to be a secret anymore.

And I believed that because it was true that their marriage was falling apart and that they argued constantly about divorce.

And I believed him because he was kissing me and crying and Billie Joe fucking hates to cry.

There was a time
You let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show
It to me, do you?

But soon after he wouldn't even talk to me about what was going on at that house. It was sex and it was nothing but sex and I stopped trying to trick myself into thinking it was anything but a fuck. Billie Joe had never treated me like that before.

He bit me hard enough to draw blood once, he wouldn't kiss me on the mouth unless he bit my lip after. He stopped saying 'I love you'. He got dressed right after and got in his car and drove off without saying good-bye.

And then he got mean. He called me a whore and a fag even and he tore me once during sex.

And then he stopped. Stopped talking to me, stopped calling me. When didn't talk for a year. I barely ate for a year. I barely left the house, I barely left the bed. I just barely did a lot of things or didn't do them depending on what they were.

I remember when
I moved in, you
Your holy dark
Was moving too
And every breath we drew
Was Hallelujah

I would close my eyes and touch myself and try and trick myself into thinking this was Billie Joe. He came back to me. It was sex that did nothing except make me feel like a whore and I'd lock myself in the bathroom for hours and stand in the shower long after the hot water ran out, scrubbing myself clean so hard that sometimes I drew blood.

And then he came back. And I couldn't even think to protest as his lips touched mine and his hands tugged insistently on my clothes and he made love to me and even called it that. 'I want to make love to you, Mike'. He told me Adie had filed for divorce.

He told me he was sorry for everything, that he was so fucked up, and he had been doing coke and he knew that wasn't a good reason, but he was so so so sorry and he loved me and would I ever forgive him?

And I had to. He was Billie Joe. He was home.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

He didn't go home that first week once. He went to the mall and picked up clothes and called that house every night to talk to Joey and Jakob and told them it was okay that he was just staying at Uncle Mike's house.

And I thought he might stay. I thought he might just sign the damn papers and say.

But Adie decided they should give their marriage another try.

That bitch.

I had him. I had him so close to me. We were happy for the first time in a long time together. Every kiss seemed like the first and everytime we made love it was like we were discovering each other for the first time.

And he left. Left with a kiss and a smile and don't worry I'm sure it's just hormones and I'll sign the papers and it'll be just me and you don't worry.

But I lost faith this time. I couldn't believe him.

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever
Learned from love
Was how to shoot
At someone
Who outdrew you

The next time you kissed me, I shoved you. You tried over and over. You called me on the phone and left messages on my machine crying. You pounded at my door until your knuckles bled. I know. I watched you from the second story window.

Your marriage was over now. The papers were signed and you and Adie were discussing alimony and child support and custody. You had an apartment in the city and you visited the boys everyday.

And I didn't give a damn. You broke me. I used to feel to much. Too much empathy and I told you there was no such thing.

And now I felt nothing. Or at least, I told myself that.

I told myself that I didn't need you. Buried myself in one-night stands and a marriage that didn't last through our next CD. Buried myself in sheets and didn't come out for days at a time.

And that time . . . I found you.

It's not a cry
You can hear at night
It's not somebody
Who's seen the light
It's a cold and
It's a broken Hallelujah

I found you and you kissed back and I thought . . . maybe since she wasn't here anymore, maybe since she wasn't an issue . . . maybe this time you would stay.

And you did. But it wasn't the same. Custody and trying to explain to your kids that you still loved Mommy very much but it was a different love. But we were still a secret.

A secret no one looked twice at. We were just two bachelors living together. No one knew about the sex and the kisses and the fights.

God, the fights. Screams and shoves and I hate you and get out and I wish I'd never come here and I wish you hadn't either.

And making up. But making up was simpler and simpler and the fights got harder and harder.

But I still loved you.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You told them finally. Told Adie first, then told the boys, then told Tre. I was there for that. He just shrugged and lit a cigarette. Adie screamed and asked how long and Billie Joe lied and told her before and after the marriage. And the boys asked questions.

And that made it real. That made it a marriage. That made it last. That was the promise that you kept.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

And then you went away again. Gunshot, blood on the floor, me screaming. No note, no last words.

Just a fucking stone in a place filled with them.

And now there's no place for me to call home.

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Whoa . . . angst. I personally love this piece. Is it conceited for me to say that? I just love the whole 'home' thing. Well, let me know what you think. Peas and carrots.