Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A lot can happen in twenty-four hours, especially with a time machine. Around the time that Bill and Ted find themselves air-guitaring to a crowd of adoring future-fans, Ted's watch swears that it's only around 2 AM in San Dimas. It should be well within the range of their usual nighttime antics, but he's struggling to keep his eyes open.

The breakneck tour of eras and the phone booth's coaster-like careening through the time-stream aren't exactly lulling Ted to sleep, but he's still tired. Even once they have to turn the phone booth on its side to accommodate the pressing heat of a dozen sweaty bodies, even shouting into the weird wind whipping past, he's tired.

The sparking machine crashes out of time, and when it settles down, they're in... nowhere. They're in a massive blackness. Briefly lit by the dying crackle of electricity around the phone booth, Ted can barely make out a big boxy car reflector and a larger-than-life painting of a stallion. After the sounds and lights they brought with them die down, it's like there's nothing around at all. The horse could well have been some sort of hallucination.

Bill slides the door open with a squeak-shuffle noise Ted hadn't even noticed before. The world stays full of darkness.

"Woah, Bill," Ted says, mostly to break the silence.

"Woah indeed, my friend."

They stay just barely inside the phone booth, even with all of the bodies at their back. Even leaning out, they can't see much.

Ted squirms. "Where are we?"

"When are we?" Bill corrects.

"Oh, yeah." After another moment of thought, he adds "I mean, I think it's probably nighttime."

"Most observant, Ted."

With both of them thinking again, the world returns to its unremarkable silence. Except... It's not quite silence after all. The insects are making their own music, softly surrounding them in all directions. And it's not quite utter darkness. The phone booth is in the shadow of some sort of structure, but as they poke their heads further out and turn, as their eyes adjust, they can see the edge of the shadow. Soft starlight lights the blades of grass just beyond.

"We're in a field!" Ted announces, turning back to where he knows Bill is, though he still can't quite see. They start to air-guitar at each other, but finally somebody behind them shoves with enough intent for the whole motley crew to spill out into the night air. Ted and Bill faceplant a bit against the now-invisible horse wall and So-crates immediately starts another lecture that no one can quite understand, but otherwise, it's peaceful.

With a soft clunk, another, previously-unseen door opens towards their group, spilling real light out to the side. The dark silhouette of a van door hides whatever or whoever opened it. Bill steps back towards Ted, and Billy the Kid's now-familiar warning shot shatters the peace, leaving Ted's ears ringing.

The van rocks a little in response. "Woah, dudes!" A familiar voice shouts from inside. "We don't have any money in the van! And if you wanted some combos, dude, you could've like. Asked."

"Ted," Bill whispers in confusion, "How did you make your voice come from over there? I didn't know you were a ventriloquist dummy."

"I don't know, dude," Ted blinks down at his own hands like they'll have an answer. He can't really see them. "I don't think I have any puppets."

"Ted," Bill's voice says from inside the van, sounding even more tired than Ted feels. "Duder, I think that might be Billy."

A head pops up over the van's back door, lit strangely from the side. "Mr. The Kid?" He asks, squinting into the night. He's got the same long, dark hair as Ted, but also a slightly grown-out goatee and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that seem enormous with the way they catch the angled light.

"Future Me?" Ted asks with a squint of his own.

Future Ted nods back at him. "Right on, Bill! It is Billy! With past us! And Mr. Beethoven and Socrates and Freud-dude and Genghis and Ms. Of Arc!"

"And Abraham Lincoln!" Abe adds.

"Sweet," The two voices from the van say in unison.

The other van door opens, and two sets of feet land on the ground. They walk out until they're sort-of-visible, standing at the very edge of the cone of light coming out of the van.

The older Ted walks out first, wearing a holey Wyld Stallyns t-shirt that somehow doesn't look handmade over fluffy yellow pajama bottoms. He's pulling future-Bill behind him, who's got a blanket pulled around his shoulders and curls sticking out in every possible direction. There are a few tattoos dotting his forearm where it peeks out from the blanket, stretched toward Ted.

"Do you know how to fix the phone booth antenna, Future Us?" Ted asks.

Older Bill opens his mouth to say something, but all that comes out is a massive yawn.

Ted's never seen himself smile the way his older self is smiling at Older Bill. Not in the mirror, or school photos, or candids on cheap disposable cameras, or even watching back the videos out of the clunky camcorder they borrowed from Bill's dad. He thinks he might remember the feeling, though. It's somehow... melodic.

Sometimes the quiet moments with Bill do fill his head up with music he doesn't have any way to play.

"Sorry, dudes," Older Ted says with a shrug that jostles Older Bill a little. "We're musicians, not time machine repair guys."

"Bogus," Bill and Ted say in unison. Current Bill slumps against the van.

"Maybe we can look it up in the morning," Older Bill offers, seeming strangely unsympathetic to their plight.

"No way, dude! Rufus told us we had to be back in our time by the time our presentation starts! We don't even know what Socrates thinks of San Dimas yet! We can't just sit around and sleep."

"Ted," Older Bill says, "Did you remember to wind your watch?"

Ted looks down at his watch, which he can't read. He keeps his gaze fixed on it as he steps forward into the light trickling out of the van. When he finally does, the hands are all very confidently pointed just after the 2. They stay there, unmoving, for several blinks. "Aw, man! Bill, Older Bill, this is most non-triumphant. I forgot to wind my watch even though less-older me reminded me!"

When Ted looks up, Older Bill and Ted are right in front of him, smiling even wider than before.

"Younger me," Older Ted says, leaning in even though he's not really any better at whispering than Ted has ever been. "I would like to impart to you a most excellent secret."

"What?"

"Okay, so. Time is passing here, and it's also passing in Past San Dimas. But since you have a time machine, you can punch in any day you want when you go back. If you leave here tomorrow, and you punch in yesterday in San Dimas, you can totally get back in time for your presentation, dude."

"Woah," Ted says.

"Why didn't we think of that, dude?" Bill says in return.

"You remember the last time you met Past Us when they were Future You?" Older Bill asks.

"Yeah, dude! That was just yesterday."

"Well," Older Ted says, "that happened because we punched in yesterday in the phone booth on accident."

"But now that we know about time travel," Older Bill adds, "you past dudes could totally do it on purpose."

"Radical," all four say in unison, followed by a moment of air-guitaring.

Which is, of course, about as long as any of the Historical Dudes can behave, so that's when Socrates and Billy start conversing loudly past each other and Genghis Khan starts trying to topple the van.

Older Bill and Ted shush them immediately. "The princesses are sleeping, dude!"

"Okay," Bill says, "So we can rest up here in the future, and then tomorrow, we can fix up the phone booth and go back to San Dimas yesterday with plenty of time to finish our report."

"Right on, dude!" Ted says, "I'm most egregiously bushed."

Sigmund Freud yawns, as if on cue, with surprising gusto.

"Hold on," Ted says, "Is there room for Us and Future Us and the princesses and all of the historical dudes in the van?"

"Most definitely not," Future Ted says, "But we have tons of sleeping bags that are perfect for a night such as this."

It is quiet out. And dark. And surprisingly temperate, Future Bill's attachment to his blanket aside. The group agrees, and older Bill and Ted climb back into the van as quietly as Future versions of them are probably able. They go digging around in the close quarters, unearthing the perfect number of sleeping bags from where they're tucked in strange nooks and crannies. They pass them back to Current Bill and Ted, who pass them out to their entourage who all settle down to the nearby edges of the field without much fuss.

It's just Ted waiting by the back doors of the van while Future Ted keeps digging for one last sleeping bag, leaving him nearly alone to watch his older self, since Older Bill has curled up on the large bedding pile that takes up most of the floor of the van, in-between the amps and other equipment, drifting off again. The light catches on a ring that's on Older Bill's free hand. It's got one pink gem mounted in it, and it's definitely on the finger between his middle and pinkie.

The floor of the van is also the only place that could possibly hold two people. In spite of that, he can see curly hair waterfalling out of two separate hammocks strung from the van ceiling, one on either end of the back compartment. And Older Bill curled up, alone, on the ground, while Older Ted climbs over him to lift up a tangle of cords.

"Ah-ha!" Older Ted says at last, "Found it!"

He brandishes the last sleeping bag, black and easily-camouflaged, like a trophy. Older Bill makes a soft noise of approval. Ted takes the sleeping bag from him, and the moment is somehow the most like a dream the whole weird day has felt.

Ted mutters his thanks. Older Ted closes the van door with one last emphatic "goodnight, dude!" and Current Ted stands there for a while, staring at the back of the van, trying to imagine the scene inside of it. Every wild possibility in Ted's head has the van rocking, but instead, after the gentlest waver as the frame settles, it just sits there. Impenetrable and still.

Eventually, his contemporaneous companion comes back to check on him, and they set up their separate sleeping bags side-by-side under the stars.

As soon as Ted closes his eyes, the whole strange day falls away. Sleep immediately sweeps him along to a dream-time-stream with several Bills and several Teds crammed into the dream-time-machine, trying to outrun a dragon.

Chapter Text

The morning starts loudly, waking Ted with a jolt. Bill's eyes are the first things he sees, opening in unison with his. It's not the first time, pretty far from it actually, but the particular closeness compared to the wide-open space of the field is quite unusual.

Before Bill and Ted can have any thoughts about their most unmistakable proximity, before either of their hearts can so much as beat, a second, third, and fourth crash draw their attention. Someone, somewhere, is shouting. Both boys cast their eyes past the other.

"Dude, where are we?" Bill asks, taking in the scene of the van over Ted's shoulder.

"When are we?" Ted corrects.

"Oh, right." Bill nods. The next banging noise draws both of their attention to the forest, where Genghis Khan is trying to tear down a tree for a cheering babe they've never seen before.

No, that's not quite right. The babe has Princess Joanna's face, although she's traded the elaborate dresses for worn jeans and a fuzzy sweater, her coppery hair pulled back into a messy ponytail with a huge scrunchie.

"Dude," Ted whispers, "I think Genghis is flirting with the princess! Isn't Older You going to be upset?"

"Why would I be upset, dude?" Older Bill asks from behind Ted. Both boys turn to face him, jaws slack like they've been caught out. Older Bill is sitting on the tailgate of the van, placidly eating a stick of jerky with a bag of chips open on his lap. He's casually towering above Current Bill and Ted in their sleeping bags, but his eyebrows are raised in genuine curiosity.

"Uh," Ted says, glancing back at Current Bill briefly. "Aren't you married?"

"Yeah, dude," Future Bill says through a mouthful of chips. Future Ted emerges from the van to grab a handful out of the bag and then sits immediately in Future Bill's space, almost wrapped around him to drop the first few chips into his mouth.

Ted looks back and forth between the two men in front of him and the scene at the edge of the clearing, where Joanna is now hitting the prized hollow log with a set of smaller sticks, much to Mr. Khan's delight. They're not really that close, not touching anywhere. They're both looking at their shared project, bobbing their heads in time with the beat.

"Oh, I think I get it," Current Ted says after a while, nodding to himself in relief. When he turns back to Older Them, they're still practically in each other's laps eating out of the same bag of chips. "You're from the totally triumphant future. It must seem most backwards to you all to restrict the company that your most bodacious life partner can keep just because she's a babe."

"That would be most unrighteous, Past Ted. Babes and dudes have more in common than uncommon, thanks to our shared personages." Older Bill nods emphatically, chases the potato chips with a swig of Pepsi, and then looks back and forth between the Teds with a dawning confusion. "But, uh, who are you talking about, duder?"

"Uhh." Current Ted looks back and forth between the Bills, who are wearing matching expressions of confusion. "Princess Joanna?"

A peal of laughter rings out from yet another direction. Ted looks just in time to see an older and casual-er Elizabeth with a partly-shaved head emerging from around the van, holding a banana. She smiles like she knows something they don't, which would normally make Ted feel much more self-conscious, but right now all he can think about is that she looks so much happier than when she was supposed to date those Gross Ugly Dudes. "Oh, that's hilarious," she says once she's gotten the laughter under control. "Jo and Bill would never get married."

"Who are we married to, then?" Asks Current Bill from just behind Ted. Ted nods along.

"Me, dude," Future Ted says, holding up his own left hand to show off his wedding ring, this one with a blue gem. In the light of day, it sort of looks like an arcade prize. He's grinning like he just announced that he got his hands on a new Van Halen album.

Current Ted blinks several times, shocked every time he opens his eyes and the ring is still there. "You can do that?" he asks.

"Yeah, dudes!" Future Bill and Ted says in unison, like they're breaking the most excellent news to their younger selves.

Maybe they are, but Ted can just about feel the gears grinding inside his chest. It's a shame he can't see the look on Bill's face, but he suddenly doesn't want to turn around. "Oh," he says.

An even louder crack than before interrupts the conversation, and the fact that it's Billy the Kid shooting at a deer so he can get Joanna a deerskin for her woodsy drum only further derails things.

The small army of strays from all across time is even harder to wrangle with everyone well-rested, especially because nobody else is as upset by Billy's butchering as Bill and Ted themselves. They eventually all circle up for a breakfast of various bagged and canned delicacies out of the Wyld Stallyns van, on the grounds that they don't, in fact, have time to cook a whole deer.

Nobody picks the Bill and Ted conversation back up, but Ted still can't stop himself from stealing glances at the matching plastic rings.

On one such glance, he catches Older Bill wiping the chip-dust off on his older self's pajamas so he can wiggle and slide a little plastic brick out of his pocket.

"Oh, dude, it's Station!" Older Bill beams at Older Ted, who smiles just as brightly back, faces only slightly closer than Current Bill and Ted had been when they first woke up. "He sent pictures!"

"Excellent! Shall we go and try our hands at this handyman thing, my closest compatriot?"

"Indeed we shall, my eternal adventuring partner."

Ted swears he can hear the air guitar even though they just sit and smile at each other for a few more seconds before turning back to the group.

"Just hang tight, Past Us," Older Ted assures with one hand forward. "We've got an intergalactic expert on the line! We'll get the phone booth fixed up good as new so you can get back to Past San Dimas most expediently!"

"Thanks, dudes!" Current Bill replies. It's only once their older selves have waddled around the van loaded up with frayed wires and duct tape that he turns to the princesses and asks "Who's Station?"

Joanna launches into an explanation about a pair of aliens that can become one bigger alien, somehow fuzzy on the details of how they'd have met such a creature (creatures?), but Elizabeth isn't any help beside her. The whole time, Liz is almost bouncing up and down, biting her lip. She's glancing around, taking little breaths whenever there's a momentary pause and huffing when they turn out to be not quite long enough to butt in. It's sort of familiar, because Ted often feels that way when other people are talking, but there's something a little sinister about the secretive smile.

It doesn't help untangle the weird knot that's twisted its way into Ted's stomach.

When Jo has finally finished answering Bill's questions and there's a long enough silence, Liz waits just long enough to glance between Bill and her sister. "Jo," she asks, sounding like the thought has just occurred to her even though Ted has watched her sit on it for at least ten minutes, "did you know that our young William thought he was going to marry you?"

Joanna's eyebrows jump skyward and she chuckles lightly. "Heavens! Well, thank god he got over that."

Ted discovers a previously-unknown temperature in his churning belly. He feels twitchy and stupid and strung too tight. Bill makes some little sputtering noises next to him. Ted leans forward, maybe a little bit in front of Bill, and words just start tearing out of him. "Party foul, dude! Bill is a most triumphant catch! He's an impressively accomplished equine artist, and, like, most wise and patient and stuff. Plus, one day he's gonna be as good as Eddie Van Halen on guitar!"

Jo softens. "You're totally right, Theodore. I just don't want to get married."

"Oh!" When the sudden strangeness drains out of Ted, he just feels fidgety again. He can't quite look anybody in the eyes. "Because of... like... feminism?"

Joanna scrunches her nose up a little. It reminds Ted of an expression his fourth grade teacher used to make to him, the one who was his favorite but who his dad thought was too soft. "Sort of? A lot of extremely bomb feminists are married. I guess I just don't, like... get it?"

"Get what?" Bill asks, sounding mostly confused now that his pride has been defended.

"Marriage." Jo shrugs. "Back when we're from, it was all about, like, what your family wanted you to do and marrying up where more people would look at you but you could do less stuff. Those rich, ugly dudes would've basically owned us. Like dolls. Or record players."

"Bogus!" Bill and Ted agree.

"Marriage isn't really like that anymore," Liz adds half-heartedly, "Not really."

Jo nods, though it's also sort of a shrug. "I just don't really get why someone would do it."

There's a long pause. Unlike most such pauses, Bill and Ted don't look at each other. It's a real testament to just how unprecedented the whole day has been.

"Love?" Bill suggests, eventually.

Joanna and Liz look at each other and shrug.

"It was in stories and stuff, but it never really felt... real. We didn't know anybody who married for love, or even anybody who seemed like they loved somebody else in the fairytale way. I guess I always figured it was a nice little lie your parents use to sweeten the deal when they're trying to sell you on the whole selling-you-off-like-a-show-pig thing."

As Joanna speaks, Elizabeth nods along, but at the end she does something complicated with her face, lips pursed, and glances between her sister and the boys on the ground.

Joanna rolls her eyes. "I mean, I think I've seen love like that. Here in the future. But I've never felt it."

After another beat, Ted finally glances at Bill, who looks just as lost as he feels. "Sex?" Ted suggests, sounding even less sure. Bill nods microscopically, like even though they're both totally lost reassuring Ted might just be habit.

Elizabeth eagerly leans past her sister to waggle her eyebrows at Bill and Ted, wearing a smile almost too big for her face. "Oh, you don't have to be married to have sex."

Joanna rolls her eyes again, and Elizabeth jostles her with her shoulder.

The smile retreats to a more manageable size, but Liz's eyes stay crinkled as she focuses in on Ted. "Don't worry, Theodore, heartfelt and passionate are a good look on a young musician. Keep that wonder about you and I think you'll do just fine."

"Thanks, Princess Lady Elizabeth."

"Liz is fine, truly."

Socrates, as he often does, takes the moment of downtime to start philosophizing for the gathered crowd. Bill and Ted turn, heads tilted, trying to make sense of his gestures and casting back through their minds for any relevant lyrics like any game of charades. It's not really much more confusing than the conversation with Liz and Jo has been.

Before Ted can start to free-associate, though, another voice, softer and more hesitant, starts making very similar sounds back at him.

Socrates lights up, sitting several inches taller and speaking in a rush, while Bill, Ted, and Elizabeth all turn to Joanna. Her face is scrunched up under the attention, almost regretful, and she shouts the same set of sounds a few times until the deluge of Socrates' words slows down.

She says something else, which starts him up again, slightly slower this time.

Liz, looking shocked but mostly impressed, leans in and asks, "You still remember your Greek lessons?"

Jo pulls another face. "I don't not remember them. He's talking unconscionably fast, though. I'm not so good at Future Greek, when I've heard it, but this... the headache logic is familiar."

The philosopher and the princess go back and forth for a while, the other three swivelling their heads like they're craning to catch dueling guitar solos on opposite ends of the stage. It is more like music, with all three in the dark about what any of it means but able to catch the emotions.

Socrates continues to push, delivering confident monologues for minutes at a time. Jo's rebuttals grow longer if still a little stilted, and her voice ramps up until she's definitely yelling, practically snarling at something clearly stronger than the frustration of recalling something from a class she slacked off in too many years ago.

"Joanna!" Bill asks, starting to reach out before his hand stops awkwardly mid-air. "What's wrong? What's he saying?"

Jo huffs, eager to turn her shoulder towards Socrates while she looks at Bill. "He says... well, many of his treatises are most perplexing and would have made my Greek tutor box him 'round the ears, but-" she squeezes her hands and then shakes them out. "He says that marriage hasn't got anything to do with love. It's a... like... Marriages are like record deals. Sometimes the music is good, it's certainly supposed to be, but at the end of the day it's a contract. The music isn't in the contract." Jo's lip is twisted in a hesitant scowl. She's leaning back a bit, like she's trying to distance herself from the words.

"And our dad hardly cared about the music," Liz adds with a gentle sigh.

"Yeah, I'm starting to think I know where he got it from." Jo jukes a shoulder towards Socrates like she's winding up to punch him, and the man flinches back in shock. He asks something in Greek, and she ignores him, turning fully toward her sister. "He said the church and the crown had nothing to do with it in his day, but that the 'high-born' would be better off if they did."

Liz leans back, too, giving Socrates a major side-eye. She squeezes Joanna's shoulder.

"What've crowns got to do with weddings?" Bill asks the princesses, back to mostly ignoring Socrates.

"The crown, like... like the people who wear the crowns. The king, the queen," Jo explains. "Royalty."

"People who are in charge because of who their parents are," Liz adds.

"Yeah," Jo agrees. "We've got a different government now, but they still care a little too much about who can get married if you ask me."

"How do you get married without a church or a courthouse?" Ted asks.

"Common law marriage," says Billy with an uncharacteristic calmness, fingers coated in orange dust and nowhere near his gun.

"What?" Bill, Ted, and the Princesses ask in unison.

Billy shrugs, licking one of his fingers clean. "You move in together, you tell everybody you're married, you're married. Not too many priests or desk-working cronies in my neck of the woods. It's private business."

Ted catches Jo and Liz smiling at each other again, but Socrates manages to pester Jo into arguing with him in the old language again before he can even figure out how to ask about it. Liz mean-mugs at the philosopher, too, so Ted does his best to help even though he feels supremely bad at it.

Before a real fight can break out, Older Bill and Ted emerge from around the van, lightly singed.

"Dudes!" Future Bill shouts, "we have fixed the time machine most satisfactorily."

"Yeah," agrees Future Ted. "We went to last week to be doubly sure."

"Right on!" Current Bill shouts, standing up and dragging Billy the Kid to his feet as well, starting to corral the unruly group back towards the time machine. Billy collects Socrates from where he's still arguing with Joanna, Future Bill and Ted high five and pack themselves into the front of the van, and before long it's mostly Ted looking at the Future Princesses, trying to piece together the most unusual conversation in his head.

With all the doors of the van still open, Ted can hear Older Bill's voice when he starts talking to Older Ted. "Oh, Ted, Past You's watch!"

He can then just barely hear something that sounds awfully like "Oh, good thinking, babe!" before his older self half-stands on the door frame to twist and shout "Past Ted! You should really, actually wind your watch this time, dude!"

Ted looks down at his watch and then back up at his future self, the word "babe" filling up every nook and cranny of his head.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks, Ted," he replies automatically.

Liz pokes him in the rib when both of the front doors shut and he still hasn't moved or wound his watch.

"You need the time?" she asks.

"Uh... yeah. Yeah, thanks, that would be most serendipitous of you."

Liz pulls out another one of the little plastic bricks and uses it to tell him what time to set his watch to. She watches him wind it, and ruffles his hair affectionately before she walks out into the clearing with her sister.

"Bye, Ted!" Joanna cheers at him when she comes back with two arms full of sleeping bags gathered from around the clearing.

Elizabeth follows her in, climbing up into the back of the van. Ted taps her on the arm before she can start to pull the door closed, surprising himself a bit. She turns to him, not seeming surprised or bothered, listening eyebrows up. It reminds him inexplicably of Bill. "Princess- Liz," he starts.

She smiles again.

"Are you married to Future Me?"

She grabs his hand and squeezes it firmly. "No, Ted. I'm not married to Future Ted."

"Oh," he says, looking at where she's still loosely holding his hand. "And that's because... because..."

"You're going to be a most stalwart and charming and supportive husband, Theodore. To someone who never wants to leave your side. I never wanted that. I can never thank you and Rufus enough for showing us the wide world of possibility for us here in the future. Except... well, I'm trying now. The future has beautiful things for you, too, Ted. Every single day I think you're happier than I've ever seen you before."

Ted only realizes he's crying when the soft pad of a finger wipes the moisture away. He looks up at Liz, who's still smiling at him so softly, and... maybe it should be weird that he's not upset. He's just... confused. Most perplexed. He's got too many puzzle pieces on top of each other, jumbled up with half of them turned the wrong way to see the picture.

"Um, thanks," he says, eventually, once he's sure he actually means it.

"You're most welcome, my excellent friend. I'll see you soon," she promises. Ted wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

They nod at each other, and she closes the door, and Ted is staring at massive red and yellow letters spelling out Wyld Stallyns in the light of some not-so-distant future day, and the van is bouncing softly as the inhabitants shuffle inside.

Chapter Text

After Older Bill and Ted fix up the time machine, Current Bill and Ted spend the rest of their secretly-yesterday running around San Dimas with the Historical Dudes, they get swept up in having the unprecedented attention of all their peers at once for their improbably non-bogus history report, they take everybody back home, and then suddenly it's just the two of them in the phone booth in Ancient Greece.

The same booth Ted remembers squeezing into with Bill the first time feels almost cavernous, now. There's too much space in it for just the two of them. Ted watches, from right over Bill's shoulder, as he picks the phone up to dial number for their normal world where all of the moments happen one after another and nobody outside of San Dimas has ever heard of them.

"Wait," Ted says, causing Bill to immediately crane up to look at him. "Dude, the princesses! We totally saw them in the future! We can't just let them marry those royal ugly dudes!"

"Bogus," Bill agrees, grimacing for a minute before it's replaced by a contagious smile as he pats Ted on the shoulder. "That's most chivalrous and considerate of you, my friend. I guess our historical duties aren't over quite yet."

While Ted chuckles at the invocation of "doodies", Bill flips through the phonebook again, finding a dog-eared page and punching in the final number with an extra emphatic jab. With just the two of them and the door firmly shut, the trip through the time stream is more like taking a fast turn in the back seat of a car, but the roller coaster excitement bubbles up in Ted all the same. It's most satisfying to have a goal, and he remembers Future Liz's face-splitting grin warmly.

She'd thanked him. Specifically. They can't just leave her behind.

When they get to Old Timey England and shush each other the whole giggly way through the forest clearing, though, the princesses aren't up on the balcony and there are no convenient passers-by to ask about it. They decide to park themselves out and wait, to see if the girls will emerge after the sun sets, or if a better idea will knock itself loose from either of their skulls.

The coming up with ideas part doesn't work very well. Ted flips through all of the secret mission movie and comic plots he can remember, suggesting that they could disguise themselves, or send some kind of secret signal, or convince the guards that the castle is on fire and needs to be evacuated. At every stage, he's met with questions like "With what clothing?" or "How will the princesses know the secret signal, dude?" or "Why would the guards believe us?"

It's most unusual for Bill to be so harsh on Ted's ideas, but the stakes are most crucial. Ted doesn't want to jeopardize the princesses' future, either, so he understands the frustrated energy that has Bill clenching his fists and kicking at tree roots and flaring his nostrils whenever Ted mentions the dudes in armor.

"Maybe I could sneak in and you could wait out here for the signal, dude," Bill suggests after a while, although there's something most unnatural about his attempt at a good idea grin.

"What? No way!" Ted shakes his head vigorously, hair flying everywhere, and then kicks a root himself. "What is up with you, Bill? Why are you acting like I'm some sort of... useless... baby?!"

Bill rubs both hand across his face to cover his grimace. "No, dude, I don't- It's not- I'm sorry, Ted. I did not mean to impugn your most righteous chivalric capabilities. Or call you a useless baby."

He's mumbling by the end, the half-hearted reluctance bristling against the maybe-oversized hurt in Ted's chest, so Ted repeats (insistently, definitely not petulantly), "I'm not a useless baby."

Bill's agreeing, "You're not a useless baby," is more heartfelt, but maybe not most heartfelt.

The silence that stretches between them isn't exactly comfortable, but Ted knows they'll get over it. They don't look at each other, so he's a bit surprised when Bill picks the topic back up.

"I just thought-" Bill starts, although when Ted looks back at him he looks away and cuts off with a frustrated little throat sound. "It'd be easier to stay all stealthy with just one of us, and who better to understand my signals than you, duder? Besides, somebody's gotta stay with the time machine. In case we need, like... backup, or... supplies from the future. Or more time."

"Well then why don't I sneak in and you can stay out here with the time machine? I'm the one with the watch, and you're the one who does the dialing!" Ted makes big gestures between the two of them to emphasize his point, and Bill tenses up again.

"Because- Because- Because we're not doing that, Ted!"

"You're being most incorrigible right now, Bill!"

"It was a bad idea! I get it. We'll just have to... keep thinking." Bill huffs and crosses his arms, still not looking at Ted, and they both try to cool off in silence.

As the muffled sounds of the forest stretch on without them, all the critter-noises sounding very far off indeed, Ted's certainty that the tension will eventually slip away is much less assured. Bill certainly seems to be holding onto the edge of it, and now Ted can't let go of that, and it's getting in the way of all his usual thinking-space.

"Dude, this isn't working," Ted sighs, flopping back on the forest ground and looking up at where the reddening sky peeks through the strange dark shapes of the trees. "These conditions aren't conducive to constructive brainstorming, like, at all. I wish we'd brought the tape deck."

Bill responds with a thoughtful hum and then there are a few soft snapping noises. "I guess we'll have to make our own music, History-Style."

When Ted looks over, Bill is holding a couple of floppy branches in one hand and a pair of large rocks in the other. Ted sits up and takes one rock in each hand, hitting them together experimentally. It's not a particularly musical sound, on its own, but at the end it does have a bit of a satisfyingly crunchy scrape. Like a metronome played through a lightly-distorted amp.

He hits them together a few more times, pretending he is a metronome, and finds it strangely hypnotic. When Bill waves one branch above his head and cracks it like a whip, slightly off the beat, the sound startles Ted so much that he stops altogether.

"Dude, keep going!" Bill encourages, smiling in satisfaction at the loudness of the whip crack the same way he always does when the two of them are engrossed in making noise.

Ted starts clacking the rocks together again, and listens as Bill fills in the gaps with various different tempos of whip-cracking. It's not what Ted normally thinks of as music. There's no melody, no reverb. It's maybe like a two-person drum solo, except neither of them are drummers, even more than neither of them are guitarists.

Still, it's fun. It passes the time, as the shadows get longer and stranger, and the constricting worry that was keeping Ted from fully stretching out his mental muscles clears in the face of the novel familiarity.

"What about paper airplanes, dude?" Ted asks, not fully consciously aware that he was thinking about it until the words leave his mouth.

Bill grins sunnily back at him, panting a little from their most excellent percussion. "Now that's an idea I can get behind, dude!"

They air guitar at each other and then get to work.

For their parchment, they dig out some no-longer-necessary schoolwork from their bags. For their quills, they, eventually, unearth a single unexploded pen. In the very last light of the day, Bill writes out the message that they draft aloud together, then passes it to Ted to fold. Ted freezes over his half-folded pentagon, realizing, "Dude, wait, we still don't know where the princesses are."

"We'll just have to make more than one airplane, then, dude. Just like Top Gun."

"Alright!" Ted agrees, going merrily back to folding while Bill starts a new letter on the back of a D+ math handout.

Ted makes one of every basic paper airplane style he knows how to make and then starts making repeats of his favorites, feeling engrossed in his work even though he's having to squint in the low light. His eyes adjust, and his hands know what they're doing.

The silence is comfortable, this time, perfect for thoughts to bubble up into while he's not really paying them much mind. "Do you really think that we're going to be, like, important, in the future? Big musicians and... all that other stuff?"

"Yeah, Ted! We saw it!"

"But how do we know that weird dome place was the future? How do we know Rufus is really a future dude at all? We don't know what the future is like."

"Yeah we do, Ted. We saw the future. We went there." Even though Bill is having to repeat himself, Ted can hear the dreamy smile in his voice. Bill can't really believe it, either. These are just the roles they've landed in for this conversation, on the same page and passing it back and forth to work on.

"You make a most astute point, my friend. We have seen many strange visions today. And yesterday. And I guess a lot of other days, too. But like... how do we know that the strange things we saw... are future things? We wouldn't have known what the future was like if we didn't see it. It's not like it's written down in one of the history books we just don't want to read. Mr. Ryan couldn't, like, give us a grade on it."

"The Future Uses told us so, dude."

Ted keeps putting more and smaller folds into the paper in front of him, cutting right angles at the very edges of flat planes. It feels like he's putting his thoughts in order with each crisp pass of his stubby thumbnail, making ideas meet that weren't before. "I mean.... yeah, we remember being the Younger Future Uses who told us to trust Rufus... who I guess are Past Uses now?" Ted looks up at Bill for confirmation, who scrunches his nose up for a second and then nods his agreement. "But those Uses don't know what the future is, either. Not other than seeing it! We don't know if any of that stuff is actually going to come true! Some of it does seem most improbable, Bill."

Bill thinks about it for a minute. "My esteemed colleague, becoming famous rockstars and touring with the most excellent princesses is basically all of our most bodacious dreams come true. It is also most conveniently in line with our established plans. Why change now?"

"I would never want to back out on Wyld Stallyns, Bill! I guess I just... I want to know if we know, y'know?"

Bill considers it for a while, finally replying, "I guess we don't know if we know, Ted. But when we get there, we'll know."

Ted isn't sure exactly what year they'd slept in the night before, but he does know it was after all the stuff he's trying to figure out whether to worry about. And all of Wyld Stallyns was definitely older. It's not going to be next year, or the year after that, and probably not the year after that, either. It's not the most reassuring, and it's also most perplexing that Bill thinks he's talking about the rockstar part, not the rest of it.

Wyld Stallyns is no matter what. But if, somehow, the future they saw wasn't really the future... well, that may affect his plans with Elizabeth. No matter how real her smile and the hand in his felt.

"That's very zen of you, Bill."

Once Ted finally finishes making the most recent airplane truly resplendent, with all the little carefully folded-down edges and frills, he puts out his hand towards Bill for the next one.

Bill chuckles and shoves the hand away. "Ted, dude, I kinda can't listen and write at the same time."

"Oh," Ted says, blushing. "Right." He picks up a piece of paper from the un-written-on pile to fiddle with while Bill goes back to writing, feeling very self-conscious of the way his circular questions got them out of rhythm while the clock is ticking. Bill has to write, after all, and that's hard to do without the light-

Although, Ted can actually make out Bill's name at the top of the paper he's ripping in half. When he looks up to glance around the clearing, long tree shadows cut across the mud and grass, but when he looks up, the sky is pitch black.

"Bill," Ted hisses.

"Working on it, duder."

"No, Bill, look!"

Bill looks up at Ted, then follows his pointing finger towards some sort of swinging light in the distance. It's still many trees away, bobbing side to side. Ted thinks it might be getting closer.

"Oh shit, Ted, what if it's a willow wisp?"

"That would be most inauspicious, Bill."

The boys start to gather their stuff up, shovelling the remaining papers into Bill's bag and trying to scoop up as many of the airplanes as possible without squishing them. Unfortunately, Ted can't get more than two steps along without losing another airplane from the pile, and even with Bill stooping to pick them up and tetrising them back in, they move too slowly.

Streaks of the clearing get lighter and lighter until, suddenly, a very human voice shouts "Halt! Who lurks there?"

Bill and Ted freeze, looking at each other with wide and panicked eyes. Slowly, they turn to see a robed figure, parts of their face lit awkwardly from beneath. The parts that are in shadow beneath their hood look even darker than the night had been before.

"Wherefore have you been making such a cacophonous racket?" The figure demands, light catching on a drop of spit that flies from their mouth.

"Uh.... herefore, dude." Bill replies. He and Ted shrug at each other.

"Ye idle wretches! Get you away from the castle walls!"

"Uh... we're, uh... actually looking for somebody, dude."

"Do you know Joanna and Liz, past dude?"

"Ha! Ye believe the king would not have already searched nearby so thoroughly? The runaway brides or whatever wretched ne'er-do-wells have nabbed them have most assuredly driven their horses to exhaustion sneaking as far afield of these grounds as they can."

"Uh... what?" Ted asks.

Half a beat later, Bill asks, "They're not here?"

"Their royal highnesses went missing in the final hours before their weddings," the figure snaps, as if it should be obvious. It reminds Ted inexplicably of his third period English teacher. "I hope for your sakes that ye are as ignorant as ye appear."

"Wait," Ted asks, "How do you know they got taken by ne'er-do-wells? They, like, totally didn't want to marry those royal ugly dudes!"

The figure physically recoils, making the lantern swing wildly and everything in sight bob queasily. "It matters not what they desire, such whims are the one thing they're ill-born for. His Majesty is furious, and threatening to set his men to ransacking the local convents looking for stowaways. The lord's ladies do not deserve that."

"That's pretty heinous of the king, dude," Bill replies.

The cloaked figure just huffs. "His daughters would do well not to provoke his moods when the welfare of so many rest upon it. And ye would do well to get far from here before ye do the same. Now is not a good night to go calling. Get you elsewhere in your search for shelter."

Bill and Ted stand still for a minute, looking at each other in the strange rocking light.

When the figure repeats, "Get!", they stumble to start running into the darkness of the forest. Ted holds onto the pile of paper airplanes a bit tighter, but neither boy stops when they start to shed missive missiles this time. They keep jogging until they're in utter darkness, free from prying eyes but not able to see even each other.

Ted can feel panic rising in his throat. "Bill?" he asks.

A hand fists itself in the back of Ted's shirt, followed by Bill's voice, comfortably close. "I'm here, Ted. We totally lost that dickweed with the light. It's just us."

The panic that had been rising sizzles out, leaving Ted, just... tired. "What about the princesses, dude?"

"Well, they... escaped, didn't they? They didn't have to marry the royal ugly dudes. And we saw... we saw that they find us, somehow."

"I guess," Ted says with a sigh.

"I'm just-" Bill starts, and then stops.

"Just what, dude?"

Bill's hand tightens in Ted's shirt for just a second. "I'm just glad you're okay, duder."

"I hope the princesses are too, Bill."

"We'll find out. Let's go home, Ted."

They stumble their way back to the phone booth, the forest getting ever so slightly more visible with each blink. Just bright enough to see the path they're walking alongside, and to make out the strange box shape in the darkness.

Bill punches in the number, and they land in the familiar parking lot of the San Dimas Circle K directly between their houses, totally empty of other wayward time-travelers. Bill tells Ted to stay in the booth for a minute, walking inside and then coming back out with a pack of twizzlers and a copy of Rolling Stone.

Ted is confused to be handed the copy, because they just bought the newest one on Thursday and new editions only come out every two weeks. But when he looks at the cover, it's not Uma Thurman's already-familiar midriff staring back at him. It's a cover advertising a second ghostbusters movie, which someone at school had vaguely mentioned might be coming out next month. The spine advertises, in microscopic letters, that it's the June 1st issue. He runs his thumb over the date letter-by-letter, twice, just to be sure, and then grins up at Bill.

Soon, they'll know if they know.

Bill grins back, proud and knowing exactly what Ted's thinking, and Ted can hear the air guitar while Bill punches in the number and the whole world swoops the way his stomach is.

Chapter Text

With the magazine safely tucked away in Ted's backpack and nothing to do but wait, Bill and Ted go to their respective homes to sleep. It's hard not to worry about whether they're supposed to be doing something else to shepherd the princesses safely to the present, now that there's such a big supposed to in the room, but even in the fresh light of the morning Ted is stumped about what else they could even be doing.

Through sheer inertia as much as anything, Ted stumbles to Bill's house the second he's awake. Flopped on the couch in Bill's garage, he reads the Ghostbusters II article, twice. The whole squinty process just gives him a headache.

When Ted can't even keep his head upright, Bill claps a hand over the strings of his electric guitar, making a muted squeaky slap without any amplification. "Come on, dude," Bill says, tapping Ted's shoulder with his free hand. "Don't you think the Wyld Stallyns need a new music video, in honor of our newfound knowledge of our most bodacious future?"

Ted just replies "Yeah, duder," and puts the magazine aside.

Going through the motions of getting set up, Ted worries he's going to have to start faking enthusiasm to avoid bringing the mood down, which would be totally bogus. The chunky distortion from plugging in the thick cables and the white noise their amps make when they strum their guitars like pinwheels are familiar, but somehow the usual electricity isn't making it into Ted's chest. He's squeezed into his skin like a uniform. The air has the heaviness it does when Captain Logan is right around the corner, just waiting to tell Ted that he's useless and small. There's too much of something truly heinous in the garage with them.

When he closes one eye for the camcorder viewfinder, though, it focuses Ted's entire world down to Bill S. Preston, Esq.'s carefully-coifed curls and carefully-curated clothes. Ted's limbs finally loosen and he grins without even noticing.

Then the electric crack-and-hum of the phone booth shepherds Rufus into the garage to tie a bow on everything. The whole time Rufus is talking, Ted keeps catching himself taking little waiting-to-talk breaths, not quite listening.

When there's a long enough silence, not totally sure whether it's a sequitur or not, Ted asks, "Do you know... where the princesses are?"

Rufus smiles the same knowing smile, the one that everyone from the future seems to have perfected other than Future Bill and Ted, and when he steps to the side he somehow reveals Joanna and Elizabeth from behind him, dewy-faced in bouncy curls and neon and beaming and covered in glitter.

Relief floods through Ted's body like the opposite of brain freeze, and with the feeling threatening to press out of his skin, he folds them into a hug that's perhaps too much and too tight. Jo and Liz laugh like bells in harmony, squeezing back, comfortably solid. Liz fits solidly under Ted's arm, but to catch Joanna, Ted has to lean. Jo reaches back to grab Bill, pulling him into the hug, and suddenly Ted's chin is resting right where Bill's curls peek out from the front of his hat. He huffs a laugh of his own and feels the hair bounce against his chin.

Bill squeezes tight, too, and Ted feels like he's floating.

Each new impossibility that happens--the new guitars, the autographs, the reveal that Jo and Liz aren't merely bodacious groupies but Wyld Stallyns in their own right--sends Ted's emotions ricocheting like billiard balls, loud and never settling long enough to name.

Even though Rufus is the only one who actually knows how to play and the jam session was his idea in the first place, he leaves after just a few songs, while the day is still young and the air is just starting to get sticky. The four Wyld Stallyns in the garage look at each other, sweaty and together in one place and time, and without sharing a word Jo counts them off on the drums.

The sound in the garage is still much more noise than music, but the same air is so much more full than ever before. It's harder to find a place to fit the reverberating scratch of his guitar in between the constant driving drumbeat, the plinking piano, and the familiar sound of Bill's own screeching guitar. It's not just that his fingers can't keep up with the melody in his head, it's that he's suddenly left spinning trying to figure out which of his three bandmates to be in musical conversation with. The chaos makes it feel different when he does stop to think and listen, though, like silence is suddenly something he can contribute to the thing they're making together.

Even if they're bad... it's fun. It's worth getting sweaty over. It feels like Jo and Liz are exactly who they were missing.

Bill's dad, eventually, comes out to bribe them with pizza money to shut the hell up for a while. The routine spiel is halfway done before he notices the presence of the princesses and furrows his brows at Bill. "I thought this was band practice. I didn't realize you two were having girls over."

"Liz and Jo have, like, totally joined our band, dude!" Ted announces cheerily. The girls beam. In agreement, Joanna hits several drums at random, and Liz responds with a ten-fingered mash of the keyboard.

"Ah, well, I see they'll fit right in," Bill's dad muses. "Seriously, though, you kids go get a pizza or something. You've been out here for hours."

Bill snags the twenty his dad is holding out, huffing a little but relaxing once his dad does finally shut the door and leave.

"Bogus, dude. I really feel like we were just starting to get good."

"No, dude," Liz says with a wince. "I think we're all still pretty bad."

"But that was most invigorating!" Jo replies, giving the drum set one last set of cascading thumps before standing up and twirling the drumsticks into her hair. "What's a pizza?"

The princesses, too, eventually have to leave, greasy-fingered and laughed out. After the door shuts behind them, the foyer of Bill's dad's house is dense with silence, like the feeling in the air right before it rains.

"Ted, my friend, should we put on a record?"

"Bill, my friend, you continue to outdo yourself on the front of most excellent ideas."

They snag the last few uneaten snacks out of the pantry, even though they're not really hungry, and when they get back to Bill's room Ted vaults himself onto the bed. Bill contemplates the record choices and Ted tosses cheez-its into the air two at a time, trying to catch them with his mouth and mostly succeeding.

A second cracker vanishes behind Bill's bed frame, never to be seen again, when the music starts.

He's heard it probably a thousand times before, maybe even just in this room. A drone of sound narrows the whole world in, just to make sure you're really paying attention when the steady guitar starts to set the rhythm for the drums. Bill and Ted start air guitaring along in unison, before Bill's even done turning around, in a move that dumps cheez-its all over the bed. Ted predicts, without even thinking about it, that Bill will open his mouth when the singing starts, and manages to nail his best friend in the wind-pipe with another cracker.

Bill collapses towards the bed, coughing and shoving and fighting for the box. Ted squirms and prods and laughs. The familiar cadence of the album keeps the pair in sync, settling down in parallel with Bill's head by Ted's knees, just in time for the masterpiece that is Eruption. The notes come faster than Ted can even think, blurring smoothly together. Staring at the same old ceiling, neither boy does anything but listen.

Van Halen's guitar solos are a breeding ground for wandering thoughts--the idea of Wyld Stallyns itself was birthed listening to this album in this bedroom--but Ted's thoughts have been racing all... day? All two days? All the way back from Ancient Greece? With a bow neatly tied on the adventure and Bill beside him, the slackening strings at the very end of the song threaten to lure him to sleep. The opening beats of You Really Got Me slam just in time to stop Ted from actually nodding off.

You really got me, the chorus sings, and Ted lifts his head up partly to scoop some cheez-its off of the bed and partly to look at Bill, who's idly air-guitaring and bobbing his head.

I only wanna be by your side, David Lee Roth sings, and Ted thinks, yeah.

Yeah, he and Bill are going to get married.

With that option on the table, all of the alternatives--marrying separate babes and buying separate houses and raising separate kids--seem patently ridiculous. For a long time, Bill and Ted were Wyld Stallyns. Now that Wyld Stallyns has grown bigger and better, maybe they do need another way to mark each other as a unit, as the most excellent thing in each other's lives.

They fall asleep with their clothes still on before either can get up to flip the album to the B side.

Two weeks later, when Ted sees the familiar Ghostbusters II ad on the cover of Rolling Stone, he's mostly forgotten why it ever felt important.

"Dude," he says to Bill, who's obviously right there. "Look!"

"Woah! You know what this means, Ted?"

"That we've gotta show the babes Ghostbusters I pronto?"

Bill elbows him right in the squishiest part of his side. "That we've officially been to the future, duder!"

"Oh yeah! Radical! We're totally full time-travellers, Bill!"

They air-guitar at each other in the aisle of the Circle K. Once their status has been sufficiently celebrated, Ted adds, "You do wanna go see the new Ghostbusters opening day, though, right?"

Bill smiles up at him. "You've read my mind once again, my most accomplished friend."