Dan had always been kind of special, the way he'd made their band whole again, the way he had an immediate connection with any fan he met, the way could cheer up anyone with a hug and a smack on the ass, and the way he convinced Bert and Quinn that they should be fucking.

"That was not you," Jeph argued as they hung around Bert's living room eating Cheetos and playing video games.

Bert looked up from where he was straddling Quinn on the couch and licking his face. "No, what you said was 'you two should go fuck yourselves'. Dan said 'you two should fuck each other'."

"It was an important distinction," Quinn added.

"The point is that I am special," Dan continued. "Which is why none of you should be surprised that I've invented a time machine."

"You did not invent a time machine," Jeph said as he gunned down a stationary player on screen. "And will someone please pick up their controller?"

Bert mumbled something unintelligible as he undid Quinn's pants with his teeth.

Dan stood up, took his shirt off, and stood facing away from the other three.

"Holy shit," Quinn said.

"Your edge tattoo is gone," Jeph said.

Dan nodded. "I went back in time, found me when I was about to get it, and kicked my ass."

Bert pulled his head out of Quinn's crotch. "You could kick your own ass?"

Dan gave an embarrassed smile. "Actually, I gave myself two hundred bucks to not get it."

"I wonder if that changed the future," Quinn said. "Like if now you don't have your edge tattoo, but you have a tail or all plants are extinct."

"I think you've smoked enough for one night, Quinn," Jeph said.

"If you really have a time machine, we can go back to when Gerard Way was a fetus and abort him," Quinn suggested.

Dan pointed at him threateningly. "There will be no abortions performed with my time machine."

"Yeah," Bert said, straddling Quinn's crotch now. "Don't be mean."

"I didn't say we should kill his mom like Terminator," Quinn said defensively. "Don't I get points for not killing his mom?"

Bert leaned over and kissed Quinn's nose. "You're a sweetiehead."

"We can only use this technology for good and not evil," Dan said.

"We can go to when they discovered diamonds," Quinn said as Bert kissed down his neck. "And then we could steal all the diamonds. And then we could build a birdfeeder out of diamonds."

"Seriously," Jeph said. "No one give him anymore weed."

"I got it!" Bert straightened up, still sitting on Quinn's body. "We'll go back to when me and Quinn met and we'll convince us to have sex."

"That's perfect," Quinn said.

"Think of how many bad relationships we can avoid," Bert said.

"Hey, hey, wait a minute." Jeph turned off the game console and turned to face them. "Think before you do this. This could fuck up the band."

Bert belched and rolled off Quinn, onto the floor. "How's it gonna fuck up anything? We'll just cut through the bullshit and get this shit started back when it should've been started."

Quinn sat up. "Where's the time machine?"

The time machine ended up being a small brick box with a touchscreen on top, not much bigger than a microwave. It was in the trunk of Dan's car, and he and Jeph hauled it into Bert's living room.

"The brick is decorative," Dan noted.

Bert poked at the touchscreen, and Jeph smacked his hand away.

"It's okay. There's a code." Dan typed in the code and the display lit up with options. "So what was the day you two met?"

"January 5th, 2001," Quinn said. "Though maybe we should go to January 6th. That was the first night you spent at my house."

"January 6th," Bert agreed.

Dan tapped on the top of the time machine. "And when do you want to return?"

Bert shrugged. "How long does it take to get me into bed?"

"Eight seconds," Quinn said. "You filthy fucking whore."

Bert leaned over and kissed him.

"How about four hours?" Dan entered it on the top of the machine. "And Quinn, this your parents' address, right?"

Quinn leaned down to read the display. "Yeah."

Dan clapped his hands together. "Okay, you're ready to go. Me and Jepha have to get at least 50 feet away, so when we're upstairs, hit Enter."

Dan and Jeph rushed into the upstairs hallway.

"So you think we can do this?" Quinn asked.

Bert rubbed his eyes. "I'm so fucking high. What's happening again?"

Quinn leaned over the time machine and hit Enter, and they were engulfed in a bright white light.

The next thing they knew, Bert and Quinn were standing in the middle of the street, in front of a familiar house.

"Dude, it's your house," Bert said.

"Yeah."

"Are your parents home?"

Quinn jogged over to the garage and peered through the dusty windows. "No, they must be out." He turned back to Bert. "Yeah, remember the first night you stayed, you didn't even meet them because they went to a party?"

"Right," Bert said as he caught up to him. "But we should be home, right?"

"Man, this is gonna be fucking weird," Quinn said as they walked up to the front door.

They knocked on the door, and a moment later it opened to reveal Past-Bert and Past-Quinn. Past-Bert was unhealthily thin, and had hair that went just past his ears, while Past-Quinn had thick, bleached-blond hair.

"Hi." Past-Quinn said. "If you're LDS my parents aren't into that."

"Do we look like fucking missionaries?" Bert said. He leaned forward and squinted at Past-Bert. "I fucking hate you. How did you get so thin?"

"Um," Past-Bert said. "Meth?"

"Look, you fucking weirdos," Past-Quinn said, stepping in front of Past-Bert. "Whoever you are, fuck off."

"Awww." Bert leaned his head on Quinn's shoulder. "Remember when you were a little bitch? That was so cute."

"His hair looks so much better than mine," Quinn said. "This is fucking depressing. Why did we do this?"

"We have a mission!" Bert proclaimed, straightening up. "Check it out, kids. We are you. Us..." he gestured to he and Quinn, "You." He pointed at the two of them. "We are from the future, and we can prove it. Quinn, who's President?"

"Hillary Clinton."

"Nah, man, I don't think -"

"Oh, right," Quinn said. "It's that dude."

Bert held out his wrist to show his watch. "This is the height of new technology. Digital watches. In the future, everyone has them."

Quinn dug his phone out of his pocket. "And this is an iPhone. It can do all kinds of cool..." He tapped on the face of the phone and frowned. "Fuck, battery's dead."

Past-Quinn began to close the door.

"Wait!" Bert stuck his leg in the door to keep it from closing. "My name is Bert McCracken. I was born February 25, 1982 on 139 Main Street in Provo. My sisters are Katie, Melanie, and Rachel and my brother is Joseph. And two weeks ago, your time, I got so fucked up I passed out in the frozen foods section of Albertson's and woke up licking a raw fish."

The door swung open. Past-Quinn nodded at Quinn. "And you?"

Quinn shrugged. "I'm Quinn Allman. My dick is seven and three quarters inches erect."

Past-Quinn took a step back. "Come in."

They ended up in the living room, sitting on couches opposite each other. Quinn reminded Past-Quinn that he had Dr. Peppers in the refrigerator, and Past-Quinn reluctantly got drinks for all of them.

"So tell us about the future," Past-Bert said.

Bert opened his can of Dr. Pepper and sucked the foam off the top. "Dude, you're gonna shit when you see what happens on Buffy this season."

"The band makes it," Quinn told them. "John Feldmann loves your demo and you make a record and travel around the country and it fucking rules."

Past-Quinn and Past-Bert looked at each other with wide eyes.

"Do we do Warped Tour?" Past-Quinn asked.

"Fuck yeah," Quinn said. "You do all the big tours."

"Oh my god!" Past-Quinn squealed. "We really make it!"

"And we can tour and we can make music," Past-Bert said, bouncing on the couch excitedly. "And we can fuck tons of whores!"

"About that," Bert said.

Quinn leaned forward. "That's kinda why we're here."

Past-Quinn's eyes widened. "Does Bert get STDs?"

"No," Bert said. "Well, yes, but that's unrelated to the issue. The issue is that you two are in love."

Past-Quinn and Past-Bert stared at him.

"In love with who?" Past-Quinn asked.

"Each other," Bert said.

Past-Quinn and Past-Bert looked at each other warily.

"Uh...we're not gay," Past-Quinn said.

"Yes you are," Bert said. "Well, I know I'm a big slut who'll fuck anything alive and a few things that aren't, but Quinn here, he's more selectively gay. He's pretty much just gay for me."

"And Hugh Jackman," Quinn added.

"The point is," Bert said. "If you two date other people, you'll have tons of bad relationships. But if you let yourselves fall in love now, it'll be smooth sailing."

Past-Bert and Past-Quinn inched away from each other on the couch. "Maybe you guys should leave," Past-Quinn said.

"No!" Bert yelled, making everyone jump a little. "Bert," he said to Past-Bert, "Last night you had a wet dream about Quinn."

Past-Bert flushed pink. "How did you know -" He turned to Past-Quinn. "I didn't. He's lying."

"Quinn," Quinn said. "You've had a hard-on for Bert ever since you met him."

Past-Quinn looked at Past-Bert guiltily. "Because I love your voice," he said. "Not because of any..."

Quinn dug in his pocket and took out a small ziploc bag. "If you kiss each other, I'll give you all my weed."

"Wow," Past-Quinn said. "You're really serious about this."

Past-Bert poked the bag, as if eyeing the quality. "Okay, I'll do it."

Past-Quinn leaned back against the arm of the couch, like Past-Bert was about to attack him.

"Fucking relax," Past-Bert said. "It's just one kiss, and then we'll smoke up and pretend it never happened."

"Okay," Past-Quinn said, but he still looked wary, and they eyed each other uncomfortably for a minute before Past-Bert breached the distance between them and pressed his lips to Past-Quinn's.

It was a gentle kiss, with barely any tongue, just their lips parting and closing over each other's a few times before Past-Bert pulled his head back and said, "See, that wasn't so -"

Then Past-Quinn was on him, kissing him hard, grabbing his hair and pressing their bodies together. Past-Quinn shoved one hand up Past-Bert's shirt and Past-Bert started fumbling with Past-Quinn's belt.

Quinn stood up. "Our work here is done."

Bert was leaning forward and watching the two younger versions of themselves intently. "You don't want to watch us fuck?"

Quinn grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet. "It's gonna be gross and awkward."

"Remember that lube is your friend," Bert called out to the pair on the couch as Quinn pulled him out the door. "And don't buy acid from a guy named Skippy."

They locked the door behind them and started walking down the street aimlessly. It reminded Bert of when they were kids, poor and without cars, hiking for miles just to get to the grocery store and shoplift some candy. It occured to him that, with all their success and money, walking next to Quinn was still the best way to spend an afternoon, and he took Quinn's hand and squeezed it.

They approached the park in the center of town and Bert slowed down. "I like that park," he said. "I always regretted not blowing you in that park."

"You've almost died three times from drugs and booze and this is what you regret?" Quinn asked.

Bert ignored him and pulled him to a bench at the edge of the park that was partially hidden by a bush. Quinn sat down on the bench and Bert crouched between his knees and began undoing his pants.

"Remember when we used to hang out here?" Bert said. "We would get high and talk about where we'd go once we made it."

Quinn laughed. "But we were so fucking stupid we couldn't think of anyplace cool. We were all, 'When we're famous we're gonna tour to like, Canada.'"

Bert pulled Quinn's dick out of his pants and slid it into his mouth. Quinn hissed his approval, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

"Then we'd lie on the grass," Quinn continued. "And feed bread to the birds. And talk about kids from school. And we'd laugh at like, nothing."

Bert hummed around Quinn's dick.

"Excuse me, gentlemen?"

They both looked up to see a police officer standing over them.

Bert slid Quinn's dick out of his mouth with an audible wet sound. "It's cool, officer," he said. "We're from the future."

"Please stand up," the cop said.

They ended up sharing a cot in the holding cell of the local police station. They didn't want to get their past selves into trouble, so Bert made up fake names - Model-T McCrackfuck and Bacardi Alldick - which for some reason didn't amuse the cops at all.

Bert put his arms around Quinn on the narrow cot and kissed him on the cheek. "In jail in Utah with my best friend. This is like a honeymoon."

"So what do you wanna do tomorrow?" Quinn asked.

"Fuck," Bert said. "Smoke up. Play some music. Fuck some more." He yawned. "Actually, pencil that into your dayplanner every day from now until we're dead."

Quinn put his head against Bert's chest. "Sounds good to me."

Then the jail cell went suddenly white, and disappeared.

Quinn and Bert came to in the living room of their house, sitting on the floor on either side of the small brick time machine. Jeph and Dan were sitting in front of the TV playing Halo.

"You're back," Dan said, looking over at them.

Bert frowned. "Where were we?"

"You were playing with the time machine," Jeph told them.

"Right," Quinn said. He remembered the time machine, and Dan's missing edge tattoo, but he had no idea what had happened next.

"Did we go somewhere?" Bert asked him.

Quinn shrugged.

"Oh, Bill called," Jeph said. "You wanna tour with My Chem in the fall?"

"Sure," Bert said as he got to his feet. "I love those guys."

Quinn stood up and stretched, his shirt riding up to reveal a small tattoo on his hip. Bert pulled down the side of his pants, revealing the word 'Bert'.

"We should get these touched up soon," Bert said, exposing his own hip and the word 'Quinn'. "They're starting to fade."

"Yeah," Quinn said. "What time is it? I'm exhausted."

"Mind if we crash here?" Dan asked.

"You know where the guest room is," Quinn said. "But look out, I think I left some guitars on the floor in there." He grabbed Bert's hand. "Bed?"

They walked upstairs, and Bert paused to look at the framed gold records in the hallway. There was one for each album: The Used self-titled, In Love and Truth, Pretty Handsome Gorgeous, and the EP Into My Web. As the hallway continued down toward the guest room, there were a series of framed magazine covers, which Quinn's mom had given to them one Christmas, including the Advocate cover that showed Bert kissing Quinn while flipping off the camera under the headline "Screamo Bad Boys Don't Care What You Think". There was also a framed poster from John Feldmann, showing a sunset, with the caption, "Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." Underneath it Bert had scrawled in Sharpie, "and buttsex".

When Bert finally made it into the bedroom Quinn was already naked and under the covers. He stripped quickly and leapt into the bed, bumping into Quinn, who elbowed him in the ribs.

"Dude, I don't think Dan's time machine works," Bert said once he was settled with his arm around Quinn.

"Fuck it, what do we need to change?" Quinn cuddled up underneath Bert's arm. "But we could play with it some more tomorrow. Like we could try to prevent 9/11 or kill Hitler or whatever."

"Cool," Bert said. "Yeah, maybe we'll do that tomorrow." He leaned over, kissed Quinn, closed his eyes, and fell asleep quickly. He dreamt about their first kiss, but it was taking place underneath the ocean. When they were done kissing he asked Quinn if he could remember their real first kiss, but the water ate up his voice, and all he could do was make fish faces until Quinn laughed and they kissed again.