The Drumstick Of Bad Intent, chapter 1

"Tre, you have tonnes of drumsticks! Why do you need that one?" Billie asked, lifting a cushion and looking under it. He threw it back down on the couch, and sighed.

"They're my special drumsticks. John gave them to me. We were doing the making of American Idiot, and he'd brought them from the film set, 'cause I'd left them there. They're... lucky," Tre replied, lifting a corner of the couch to look underneath. Consequently the couch fell backwards, hitting Holly, who was kneeling behind it, on the leg. She swore loudly and sat on the floor, rubbing it. "Oh shit, sorry!" Tre said, rushing around to her, kicking her other leg in the process. "Sorry!"

Smiling, Holly shook her head at him. She drew breath sharply through her teeth. I laughed at her from the doorway.

"Aaaah..." I finished for her. We both burst into fits of giggles. (We laugh at that episode of 'family guy')

"Not again..." Billie whined. He got annoyed at the amount of times Holly and me laughed at stupid stuff from T.V programmes, but only when he wasn't laughing as well.

"Oh shut up, Billie," I said. He pulled a face, and I pulled one back. Maturity personified.

Tre kissed Holly's leg and stood up.

"Where is it?" he asked, stamping his foot.

"Yep, we magically know where you put your drumstick, Tre, it's unbelievable," I said sarcastically.

"Emma. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," he said, lifting the sofa back up, and resuming the search for the drumstick.

"Well, it's the only wit she's got, so you know..." Holly laughed. I scowled at her and poked her leg as I walked past. She winced and I did an evil bad guy laugh as I went into the kitchen.

"Is this it?" I asked Tre, pointing to a drumstick on the counter.

"No, that's the other one." I rolled my eyes at him. He shrugged. "They're my favourite drumsticks... "

"Whatever," I replied, going back out. "Yep, Hol', you got a bare nut case..."

"Just the way I like 'em," she replied, flinging her arms around Tre, who had just come back into the room. "I don't really think you're a nut case," she told him.

"LIAR!" I shouted. She looked around and scowled. Tre scowled too. "Oh, get over it Tre, I come close second in the nut case competition!" I could see Billie nodding out of the corner of my eye, so I hit him and carried on "You know I'm joking anyway!"

"There it is!" Tre shouted, deafening Holly.

"Short attention span, much?" I said. Holly and Billie laughed, but Tre was getting his drumstick and didn't hear. He held it up to the light for a second, inspecting it, then fetched the other one.

"All this for band practise..." Billie said, shaking his head and picking up his and Holly's guitars. He handed Holly hers and I got my bass. Mike was in California, so I was filling in for him, and Holly was being Jason for a day.

We went down into the basement and played a few songs. I whispered to Billie to dedicate 'Longview' to Holly's favourite pastime, and he did, causing Holly to glare at me again, and me to laugh so much I stopped playing and ruined the song.

When we finished we left the stuff downstairs and went up to discuss food options.

"We all know Holly wants lady cake, but as usual, it's not an option... sorry Holly..." me saying this resulted in more glaring from Holly. "What do you want Tre? We'll just leave Billie out..." Billie raised his eyebrows at me. I imitated him and waited for Tre's answer.

"Chicken," he said.

"How specific..." I said. There was a silence, so I shouted randomly, "Do some chicken pickin'!" If anyone reading this has listened to the same version of 'like a rat does cheese' that I have, (I think it may be the only version...) then you'll know what all of this is about. Billie laughed at my crappy impersonation of him.

"Tre would you like to introduce your song...No? Okay, go ahead!" Holly grinned, copying the radio guy.

Tre burst into song, and me and Holly joined in. "Suck my dick until your lips fall off, don't make me ask again pleeease, put it down your throat until it makes you cough. Nibble on my dick like a rat does cheese!" Billie watched us singing with a half smile and a raised eyebrow, and then joined in. By the end of the first verse we were all in stitches so there was no point carrying on.

"Yeah so what sort of chicken, Tre? The pickin' kind?" I looked at Billie and covered my mouth to stop myself laughing at him.

"Just chicken. And fries," Tre said. "And sauce."

"So like KFC chicken?" Holly tried to get some sense out of him.

"YEAH!" Tre said, excitedly.

"What about you?" I asked Billie.

"What's on offer?" he asked, grinning.

"Well, there's these random take-away's, or I can make something," I said, handing him the leaflets for the Chinese, Indian etc. He looked at them for a while, and we all waited impatiently for him to decide.

"What can you make?" he asked. I stared at him. He stared back.

"I take it back, actually. I can't be bothered to cook. Take away or a restaurant." I grinned evilly at him. He tried to look disappointed, but ended up laughing.

"I'll have the same as Tre then."

"Sorry Holly, I don't reckon KFC do lady cake. On a plate or not." Holly carried on glaring. "It's a metaphor Holly..."

"Yes I know that," she snapped. "I fancy pizza though."

"Me too actually...Tre and Billie can go together. Come on." I kissed Billie, and got up. I put on my jacket and grabbed my car keys. Holly, Tre and Billie stayed sitting down. "Take your time then Holly."

She sighed and stood up.

"Does Pizza Hut do lady cake then?" I said.

She growled and chased me out of the door. I got into the car and locked it, which pissed her off more, so she kicked the car until I unlocked it. She got in and did her seat belt, then sat with her arms folded, stroppily.

"Why were you trying to break my car? All you had to do was tell me you wanted to get in... I had no idea." I smiled and revved the car up.

"Why didn't we just phone up?" I asked as we pulled up outside Pizza Hut.

"I really don't know..." she said, smiling for the first time since the start of the drive. We went in and ordered our pizza. It took ages.

"Yay!" I exclaimed as the woman handed over the boxes.

"Took long enough..." Holly muttered into a piece of pizza.

We got home and I unlocked the front door.

"Holy shit! For fucks sake you two!" I waved my arm in front of my face to clear the smoke.

"They're not smoking...aah shit!" Holly shouted. "Tre you better have shut the windows!" she stormed past me into the weedy atmosphere, and confronted Tre. (She wanted the windows shut so passers by and the neighbours didn't smell it by the way, if you're wondering)

"Yeah, we closed the windows. For god's sake..." he walked around her.

"Move over!" I said, to Billie, pushing his legs off the sofa so I could sit down. He turned his head and blew smoke in my face. "Thanks for that... just what I've always wanted. Weed and pepperoni... nice combination," I said, picking up a piece of pizza.

"Dickheads," Holly muttered loudly, before slamming her bedroom door.

"You'd think she'd have got over it by now," Billie said. I grinned.

"You wanna be careful she doesn't grass you up to her dad, like she did to her brother!" I half shouted so she could hear me. The door opened and her hand came out, so she could make a rude hand gesture. I started laughing, but said laughing was quickly interrupted. "Yeah, okay, I get the message, you can stop now!" I told Billie, who had just given me another face full of smoke.

"God, not you too..." he mumbled.

"Well I am eating, Billie!" I flicked a bit of cheese at him. It landed on his nose. I burst out laughing. He didn't notice for a while. I very nearly dropped my pizza because I was laughing so hard.

When we finally got over it (because Tre and Billie had both been laughing too), I looked at Tre.

"I reckon you should go and calm her down, because if you don't she fall out with you, and the earlier you make up the better. To be honest I don't wanna have to try and sleep through serious make-up-sex." He grinned and went into Holly's room.

"I don't understand how the two of you can smoke that much," I said, as Billie put out his stub in the nearly full ashtray.

"Years of experience," he said, grinning widely. I rolled my eyes and stood up.

"I also don't understand why Holly still goes off though. I got over it ages ago."

"You don't understand a lot, for someone who's supposed to be clever." I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows at him. He smiled and carried on. "I guess she has her reasons. I reckon it's the sex though." He smiled again. I giggled.

"Yeah, that's got to be it. Maybe it affects his performance in a good way, and she always storms off to her room, so he can follow her in there... hmm" I said, pretending to think deeply about it.

Billie sat waiting for me to say something else. I grinned evilly.

"Drummers are supposed to be better in bed anyway..." I said. He looked as though he was trying to process what I just said. It took him a while.

"How dare you?!" he said, standing up and putting his hands on his hips. I lifted an eyebrow.

"I dunno what it is about the lead singers, but they're supposed to be much worse." I had to look away to stop myself laughing.

"Is that so?" he said, pushing me onto the sofa.

"Uh, huh," I said. He leaned over me. "Loads of people have said it." I giggled as he lowered his weight onto me. (And yes. It is a rude bit. I just can't write stories without them, so get used to it! Heh heh...)

Sometime later we were sat back on the couch.

"Well, no wonder Holly makes that much noise," I said, indicating to her bedroom door, from which a hell of a lot of noise was emanating. Billie thought about this for a while. "It was a compliment," I told him.

"Oh," he said smiling. "But you're still saying Tre's better than me...I can drum too!"

"I know, and I have no idea whether Tre is better than you. I'm just going by what I've been told. Maybe Holly's just over loud. I feel sorry for Tre's ears."

Billie nodded, grinning, and then flicked the T.V over onto one of the music channels. One flashed up with an interview of him, Tre and Mike. He tried to turn it over, but I grabbed the remote and stopped him getting it back.

"Is this the one you did last month?" I asked.

"Yeah." He smiled slightly.

I watched the interview.

Billie was talking about their new album, ignoring the fact that Tre was trying to grab Mike's crotch. I laughed.

"He seems to lose control of himself during interviews. You just have to ignore it," Billie said grinning.

The interviewer asked them when their next tour was going to be.

"At the moment we're not too sure, the album's only just been released, you know?" The on-screen Billie said. "It's mainly practise now, and we have our girlfriends..."

I looked at Billie. He smiled. I hugged him.

"That's so cute!" I grinned a while later.

"Cute?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah cute!" I said again. I kissed him, and he grinned, but said nothing.

In the silence (apart from the t.v, which was showing a clip of 'Holiday') we could still hear Holly and Tre.

"Ew," I said.

"Yeah, it is pretty gross..." Billie said, getting up.

"I think we should get their room sound-proofed!" I said. Billie laughed so much he nearly fell over, having to grab the sofa to steady himself.

"Yeah, you really are stoned. Go to bed!" I said grinning. He hung his head in mock shame, and shuffled off to the bedroom.

I went to the kitchen and got a glass of orange juice (ahhh, orange juice...I'm obsessed with orange juice by the way...). There was a loud bang from Holly's room, accompanied by even louder noises than before. I grimaced and put the glass in the dishwasher. When I got to my bedroom, Billie was already asleep, sprawled out on top of the covers. I sighed and rolled him over until he fell off the bed.

"Sorry!" I said, rushing round the side of the bed where he had fell off, desperately trying not to laugh.

"Ah, my head. What'd you do that for?" he said angrily as I helped him up.

"I didn't mean to. You were covering the bed..."

"Whatever..." he said, rubbing the side of his head.

"If you say so," I said as I rummaged in my drawer for a night dress. I found one and put it on. Billie was scowling at me. "You don't scare me, little man," I said, grinning. He rolled his eyes, and got undressed.

"Aaw. Don't cry!" I said as I got in bed.

"I wasn't going to," he said bluntly.

"I suppose you can't help being so small," I said. He turned over, and faced away from me. "I was only joking," I said, poking him in the back.

"I know," he said, turning back over to face me.

"I know you know," I said, grinning again.

"You're weird, you know that?" he asked rhetorically.

"I've known my whole life," I replied, sitting up to turn off the lamp.

I lay in the dark, with my eyes shut, but I couldn't shut out the noise from the next room.

"Is it me, or can you just not sleep when they're having sex?" Billie's voice said.

"It's not just you," I said, grinning

"They could have some consideration," he said.

"Yes. Yes they could. But they don't."

"He's just too good in bed."

"Okay, so I'm not even gonna ask how you know that Billie, 'cause that would be going way too far." I couldn't see him, but I knew he was grinning.

"I don't know, not in the way you're thinking. You rude girl," he said. "I'm just judging by Holly."

"Can we please stop talking about Holly and Tre having sex? It's bad enough having to hear them, without you rambling on about how good in bed he is!" I said, laughing.

"Don't cry," he said. I tried to slap him, but missed. "Gutted!".

I tried again and hit him.

"You're becoming too English, Mr. Armstrong. Me and Holly are a bad influence on you..." I joked.

"Whatever," Billie said, lifting his arm up, and letting it drop onto my stomach, winding me slightly.

"Fuck off hitting me! You always hit me! Remember when we first met?"

"Yeah I do. Like it was fucking yesterday. I'm sure my head still hurts..." he said.