Chapter Text
Billie Joe threw himself into a chair on the big tour bus, taking in a big breath and exhaling noisily. The thunderous sound of teen and adult voices chorused outside the bus, shrieks mingling with screams of “Billie! Mike! Tré!! I love you!!”
Only a moment later Mike burst in and did the same on the other side of the small table from his singer and shook his head. “Is it just me or are fans faster than they used to be? How the Big Three got to their buses, I’ll never know.” He paused to listen, “Damn, and louder, too.” Both listened to the chaos outside then Mike chuckled, “maybe we’re getting old.”
“Maybe you are, but I’m not.” Tré quipped before Billie could respond, pulling the bus door shut with a mock royal wave to the people waiting. The sounds of security could be heard outside as they began clearing fans away from the vehicle. “I’m eternally young.”
“Says the man with the much younger wife,” Billie said raising his eyebrows and then smirking. “If you’re eternally young it’s all Sara’s doing.” The dark haired man saw the look in his drummer’s eyes though, that need to extend the conversation to one step past comfortable. Maybe bring up Adie being the older one… However, instead of rising to the bait, he was met with Tré rolling his eyes and settling down in a chair next to Mike.
“She could kick your ass.” Tré stated flatly.
“I don’t doubt it for a second, I’m old, too.” Billie replied with a big grin.
“Didn’t that journalist in New York once joke that we got older and our fans stayed the same age?” Mike asked and he was met with silence and two nodding heads.
“That’s good though,” Billie said as he stood, he needed to move around before he got stuck sitting in one place. Little insecurities reared their heads accompanying little pains here and there. Those were natural for someone who was forty-five, he chided himself and with the amount of exercise he got touring he knew he was in shape. Reaching back he grabbed a Coke Zero from a mini fridge and a bottle of water for each of his comrades, sliding them to Mike and Tré before he sat back down. Cracking open the can of soda he gestured with it, resuming his previous train of thought. “Isn’t it? Good, I mean, it means we’re staying relevant to kids today.”
“Relevant? You sound like a marketer Bill,” the bassist said following a gulp of water. “I hate all those buzzwords... social media, relevant, digital content, instagram.”
“We figured out instagram,” Tré added proudly, “and the puppets are digital content.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point,” Billie said shaking his head. “Green Day keeps growing and becoming more than just music and live shows and photoshoots. Every time I think I have a handle on whatever the next “it” thing bands need to be, I… ugh,” he ran his hands through his product-filled stage hair in frustration. “Wow. Nevermind, I feel old just having this discussion. Mike, this is your fault.” His voice was teasing and his bandmate gave him the finger back in the same good-natured way with a big grin on his face.
The buses had pulled away with the goal of reuniting further outside the city and redistributing the passengers. “Well boys, I’m heading to my bed, since we were forced into MY bus.” Tré broke the comfortable silence that settled on the group a few minutes later, the emphasis apparent on the word ‘my’. The fans screams outside had been replaced with that of tires on highway and the television’s soft murmur breaking down about the latest Raiders game. Billie tore his attention away from the football highlights to narrow his eyes at Tré.
“Already? You’re usually the last one to bed.”
“Tired, that’s all.” Tré said innocently, perhaps too innocently. He saw Billie’s failed attempt at covering a smile on his face and naturally turned quickly to look at Mike, always the co-conspirator, who immediately stopped making the jacking off motion he had been doing behind the drummer’s back. Billie laughed and Tré picked up his phone with a grin and a shrug. “Well I was going to try to be polite, but fuck you both, yes, I’m off to jerk off to the sound of my wife’s voice on her Instagram story. Good evening to you gentlemen.” He doffed an imaginary cap.
Billie and Mike burst out laughing after the blue haired rocker went down the hallway to his bunk. They knew Tré’s face would be covered in a big grin too, even if they couldn’t see it.
Billie slowly woke, opening his eyes and then stretched out his arms and legs. The last remnants of his dream were slipping away and while he was sad to see it go, in few more weeks and he would see Adie again. That made him smile. The contented, quiet smile that was on his face now strained as reality came into view.
He stared, his groggy mind trying to process what was wrong with the picture in front of him. Aside from his bed being uncomfortable, moreso than usual, he was staring at the roof of the bus and not the bunk ceiling he had been staring at when he fell asleep. “What the…” he muttered. Maybe, he considered, he had gotten back up for something during the night and fallen asleep on the floor. Stranger things had happened and he had been extremely tired by the time they had found a truck stop to gather together and go back to their own busses. Then he and Jason had stayed up a bit longer talking through a new song idea...
Wait.
Billie focused on the ceiling, tilting his head slightly and squinting. That wasn’t even the right colour for the roof of the bus, whether it was Tré’s or Mike’s or his own. This wasn’t the bus he fell asleep on. He didn’t like to think that he was on a different bus, that perhaps he had been kidnapped or something, but it made more sense than just randomly waking up on the floor especially now that he didn’t drink.
He sat up and pushed a hand under himself to stand, letting the blanket fall and then shoving back the blanket with a converse covered foot. What the fuck? The sprawled forms of his bandmates weren’t far away, each of them haphazardly tucked under their blankets and heads mostly on pillows that had seen better days, in front of two sets of bunks.
There was a strange level of calm both inside and outside the bus. Billie broke the calm when he threw his pillow first at Mike’s head and then a cushion at Tré’s. The realization of where they were… where they might be, he mentally corrected himself, while it didn’t logically make sense also made the most sense.
They were in the Bookmobile.
There were numerous problems with that though. It had been professionally cleaned and restored when it was donated to charity months ago, and yet here he was standing on a blanket dotted with chip crumbs and there were weed stems all around him. The all too familiar smell of weed and body odour clung to the walls and the crude graffiti near his head in one of the wooden cubbies was still there. BJA HEART 80
If this was a prank, someone had gone above and beyond in their execution of it. The whole environment was comforting in the worst possible way, reminding him of a very specific time of his life, something he doubted many people outside the band could appreciate or duplicate.
Mike’s cough indicating his decision to join the land of the living made Billie turn around and see the look of confusion crease Mike’s face as he rubbed his head and then his eyes. “What’s going on? Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know,” Billie admitted scratching his head. “If I didn’t know better I’d say we were back in the Bookmobile.”
Mike leveled him with a stare. “Very fucking funny. Where are we really, Billie Joe?”
“I’m not being funny, look at it!” He gestured broadly and threw his hands up in frustration. “I’m as confused as you are!”
The bassist looked around for something, anything to prove him wrong and then got to his feet. “We donated the Bookmobile!” Mike exclaimed. He made a noise that seemed to say he was speechless and he walked over to examine the round table covered in a checkerboard, stickers, and stains. “How is this possible?” Neither man could answer.
Billie looked over at Tré’s sleeping form and tossed Mike’s pillow at him; the cushion had apparently done nothing and been co-opted as another pillow. Tré’s sleeping noises turned to a snort and then a yawn and his head rose from the pillow. “Why are we in the Bookmobile?” He asked, his eyes still half lidded and heavy with sleep. Billie was about to answer him when Tré raised an eyebrow and pulled a face. He wriggled to the side and dug underneath himself, pulling out a pair of old drumsticks. His face twisted into a questioning grimace and he looked at Mike and then at Billie.
“I broke these.”
“They look okay,” Mike offered off-handedly as he turned back towards the sink near the door and Tré shook his head quickly.
“No, I mean I broke them in Japan during the Warning tour. I had one set and I thought it would be funny to break them when the tour was over. They were shitty, unbalanced sticks so I gave the four pieces out to some fans after the last show.”
Billie and Mike exchanged glances. Then something like recognition crossed the shorter guitarists face, “I think I remember that. You were making bad anime jokes and the fans were loving it.”
“They weren’t bad. They were great! I know I only had one set, or I’d do it all the time.”
“So why aren’t they broken?” Billie asked and three sets of eyes glanced at each other.
Mike quickly glanced at his band mates. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are we suggesting we... went back in time?” His face was unreadable, changing between confusion and a bit of… excitement?
“Maybe you’re suggesting that, but that’s impossible,” Tré said. “This is probably some prank someone is playing on us. We can call someone and get things straightened out. Ha ha, very funny, great joke while it lasted.”
It was the mention of a phone call that made Billie realize his phone wasn’t in the usual spot in his back pocket. He reassured himself that it had probably fallen out and dug through the blankets for it, not finding it anywhere. “Where’s my phone? Anyone else have their phone?”
Tré pulled blanket, pillow, and duffel bag aside and shook them with no luck. After patting his pants pockets he shook his head. Two heads turned toward Mike who duplicated the behavior with the same result.
“Ok, it wasn’t fun before and now it’s definitely not with our phones missing.” Mike stated, double-checking his pockets and growling out a note of displeasure. “Time travel or not. This is fucking lame.”
“Guys,” Tré began as he stepped forward to join his band mates. “If we were brought here and this isn’t time travel,” he glanced at Mike. The possibility of time travel of all things, was now seeming more likely with every passing revelation, “why are we all dressed in normal clothes? I didn’t fall asleep wearing this.”
Both Mike and Billie glanced down and noted they were wearing what they had changed into after the show the night before, but they were wearing more clothing than they had fallen asleep wearing.
“I was just wearing sweats,” Mike said and Billie echoed that statement.
“Just boxers,” Tré chimed in.
Now all three of the musicians were wearing pants and shirts and Billie Joe had a comfortable but worn hoodie over top.
An uneasy silence fell over the vehicle. The sounds of morning traffic outside hummed along, joined by the occasional chatter of people walking to wherever they had to be. Billie’s mind had begun to drift to the what-ifs. What if this wasn’t a harmless prank? What if this was something with malicious intent? What if they had somehow, some way, actually fucking travelled in time? That was the hardest to swallow.
They could just leave and know for sure. Yet he hesitated to even mention it. Part of his hesitation to just leave the Bookmobile was not knowing what they might find outside the vehicle. He glanced at Mike and Tré and then brought himself back together.
Tré was the one who looked out the window in the door of the Bookmobile, shaking his head at the view. Billie joined him, temples touching as they stared. Although it was light out, early morning he decided, the way the vehicle was parked meant they were staring at the side of a non-descript gray building with some trees beside it. Tré walked away from the door, stopping to study the cubby holes that at one time had held books and now held some equipment, a few photos, burnt ends of joints, the occasional lighter and... Tré picked up the pieces of lined paper that sat there covered in Billie's scrawling script. He read down through the lyrics, his other hand subconsciously tapping a drum beat on the wooden shelf as he silently read.
"What's that, Tré?"
Tré glanced up and extended the paper to the older man. "Early lyrics for Good Riddance."
Billie's face scrunched up when he first took the paper, but it relaxed as he read until he was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the object. "It looks like I just wrote them maybe a day or two ago," he began turning the page over and scanning the rest of the words, "how far would someone go for a joke?"
"I don't think it's a joke." Mike said, “and if it was it’s not funny.” Tré nodded his agreement as he picked through some clothes tucked away on a wooden shelf. "We should go out and look around," Tré said hesitantly, "what's the worst that can happen? If we're wrong then someone will pop up and we admit we got pranked."
"Or we'll get mobbed by fans," Billie added with a smirk, "come on, that's the real reason none of us has left yet, this is the longest I've been with you two in public without security or a camera crew." It lightened the mood a little, and took the edge off. "But I guess we can stick together and see what's going on. You’re a big guy Mike you can protect us."
"But, if we did time travel," Mike interjected, pointedly ignoring the look Billie was giving him at the mention of it, "we need to avoid ourselves."
The sound of laughter and excited speech seemed to materialize outside the Bookmobile side door, their approach lost on the three as they had discussed their plans and explored. With a thud, Billie thought it sounded like someone falling against the side of the vehicle, the door was pulled open from the outside and three figures stumbled inside.