To Love/Hate the Spotlight

"There's nothing to stress over. I'm sure incidents like that happen all the time -except when it's in front of rock stars- but don't think about that. Plenty of people have seen me naked: Doctors, Ben, uh... my mom when I was younger, Nick (take for granted I was drunk) ... Billie Joe-well duh- and... my Gerard, Jimmy, -oh- Ariel when we had to share a shower, a small police squad-"

"What the hell are you saying?" Billie Joe interrupted my under-the-breath-confidence-building babble. So far he found my behavior walking off our bus to theirs highly comical: Jittering, wringing my hands, and off and on neglecting to breathe. I'd be laughing too if it wasn't me..

Getting dressed I had to do "The Works." Blow dried and straightened hair, perfect eyeliner, black pants, and a red v-neck that clings to my curves so well. Despite what happened, I don't want to look anything less than decent. They've seen me at my worse, they're going to get my best.

There was little distance between the two buses. The sun had gotten over its initial shyness, peeking through the clouds to catch another one of my attempts at optimism. Let's just hope I don't crash and burn here. But I should be excited, this is like a fanfic come true -oh god- those are the last thoughts I want to be thinking: Ferards, Waycest, Frikeys, Frays- stop, stop, no more. I must focus.

What the fuck?!

"You're allowed to go in." Billie held the door to their bus wide open. Someone should have told me I was still walking.

Gazing up into the shaded and eerily quiet entryway, the top hinges in my neck were loose and my head shook back and forth. "No... no, I'm good waiting out here."

"Who is it?!" A high pitched French accent exclaimed from deeper inside.

I mouthed a "No."

He latched a hand on his hip. "Rebecca Brittany..."

"You know I hate my name."

"And that's why I said it," he fired back. A smug grin wrenched his lips.

Standing my ground -arms crossed- and staring him down, I nodded once. "... touche." So with shifty eyes and an erratic heart beat, I climbed the step to be met with whistles and applause. Sexist, much? But not thinking, I smiled big and curtsied just like I'd do around my old friends. I should be an actress; I have enough memories to cry on cue. To my discontent, realization hit and my legs felt weak and I wanted to collapse and never wake up. When I straightened, I had no idea what to do next. My eyes lingered on the plain carpeting, afraid to look up.

Billie wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. What can I say? It's a trademark position with us. The coke-sniffing butterflies in my gut slowed. "Did you guys figure out where you wanna go?" He asked, heroically taking the attention off of me.

"Hooters," Tre piped in the corner.

"We said 'No' the first eight times you suggested it." I immediately recognized Ray Toro's voice with its feminine distinctions.

A pair of black-clad legs stepped into my frontal view. I had a bad feeling. "Hi, we haven't been formally introduced." A skeletal hand jutted out. "I'm Gera-"

"I know who you are," I defied my good upbringing by cutting him off and growing a pair of balls -figuratively speaking- and making eye contact... Life is cruel; They're practically identical disregarding age difference.

"I assume my husband told you who I am?"

Billie's hold squeezed as a form of warning. I was being unusually forward, wasn't I? In a warped way, I've done this song and dance before. "Becky's been a fan for years," Billie Joe decided to interject.

The Original's face dawned with understanding. The striking similarities kill me. "Oh, you're a fan? Not one of those crazy stalker ones I hope?" I expected to see fangs within his baby teeth smile but didn't.

"Stalker? No, of course not." I was so smooth even when allowing his upheld hand hang lonely in the air. "I'm just a girl who happens to own a few CDs."

"So do you know-" He moved to the side, pointing a finger at his younger brother sprawled out on the couch.

"Mikey Way, Bass," I answered nonchalantly. He actually waved at me.

Sixteen year-old Becky would love this. Excited and oh so knowledgeable.

"And...?" The Original shifted towards the shag Aryan man propped upon the arms of the couch.

"Bob Bryar, Drums."

Nineteen year-old Becky is hating this. Struggling with a head full of bad memories.

Side stepping the prompts, I went ahead and covered the two sitting at the table. "Ray Toro, Lead Guitar and who could ever forget Frank Iero, Rhythm guitar?" It was just as weird pointing him out than the singer, because he had the VIP seat seeing me at my most vulnerable from a stranger's stand point.

"You're good..." The leader of the quintet grinned. It wasn't such a challenge; Every other girl across the globe knows way more than I do.

Tre leaned forward on the small kitchen counter, happy as could be. Unsettling. "Hey Vampy!"

"What Tre?" I grimaced, too tired of his ongoing list of nicknames to chastise.

"You're the only chick on tour!"

"Oh so you're the one who's handiwork that is." The Original put a hand to his neck and motioned at Billie Joe holding me so close.

"Yep," he answered for me. He swept my hair over my shoulder and planted a light kiss on my own.

"That looks painful." Bob winced at the sight. It stopped bleeding; It doesn't look that bad.

Billie's chin grounded into my collar bone as he shook his head. "Not really."

"You should see the rest of him," Mike commented, flipping through a magazine.

"Like you know," he retorted.

Mike's blue eyes sharpened over the pages. "Bill, I happen to be a scholar when it comes to your body."

Gay references flew. The older Way was the only one still distracted with Billie's neck and my teeth. Half of me smiled with the other guys acting oblivious, and the other was irrevocably conscious to his calculating stare. He frowned, all the sudden very attentive to my exposed arms and neck. Rotting crimson pairs taking their time to fade. Even that nasty scar down my forearm wasn't a good sign.

"... it looks like someone branded you." He swiftly lifted my chin to the side to see the first, overstepping his boundaries entirely. His not-as-magnificent hazel eyes glanced down at my littered arms clinging to Billie Joe's guarding my waist. With that sweet crooked smile, he murmured, "More than once, too."

I fought the urge to scream at him, to shout he knows damn well who just branded me. He bit me, but the one standing before me doesn't have fangs. He isn't My Gerard, even though The Original held my face just like he used to: Being so gentle but securing me in his grasp so I couldn't run away. To keep our eyes locked together, praying for neither of us to blink.

"I never wanted you this way," he whispered into my ear. Never had I heard a voice filled with so much rage and love before he bit down on my neck.

The emotions of bracing myself dropped in accordance with the withdrawal of his boney fingers. The twin scars on my neck stung as if the fleeting memory singed with a renewed bolt of pain. Tears sprung to my eyes, and my grip on Billie Joe loosened.

In response, his hold buckled. The surge of constraint hurt my sides. "So where are we going?" Billie directed most of his volume into my ear. The defensive bite in his words chased off the nagging demons captivating my nerves. Shrinking from the embarrassment.

The Original already had his hands shoved into his pockets. A kiss of pink on both cheeks. I didn't know what quite happened. That squirming sensation in my gut wriggled me out of Billie Joe's embrace only to hold him face on: Hugging his neck and hiding my face in his chest. There, I was steadied and reminded Billie Joe is my always.

I peeked behind me, craning my neck and mustering a smile. "It's cold in here."

"Do you try to be a spaz on purpose? First you give them an in-person Playboy spread and then the performance of a cowering prude. You're so top notch that you sicken me."

Their silence was a legion of needles against my back. Prickling and digging with their piercing thoughts and unspoken words. I meet one of the biggest bands in the world and act like Danny from The Shining. Why aren't I on some heavy medication?

Please, someone say something.

"... you're right, Bec. It is freezing in here. Let's go." Mike sauntered past. He gave me a sympathetic look before going outside. And that's what I love about Mike, my big brother. He'll help whenever; even when he doesn't understand what's transpired.

"You should go follow him. We don't need you fucking up anymore at this point."

So I moved to go with him, urging Billie Joe to come with me. As much as he loves me he refused. Mad at Gerard for having the audacity to touch me at first meeting, or at me for allowing him to do so. Sometimes I can't ever tell. I headed outside in search of a ditch to fall in to.

Mike was a few yards away leaning against the trunk of the limo. It's still too obnoxious for me. I tried not to run to him in fear of being a total weirdo or with my luck, slipping on the rain-doused pavement. He would talk to to me, actually talk to me. No jokes, rebuttals, or sarcasm.

Loud steps smashed into puddles behind me. It had to be Billie Joe; he's the only one that would chase after me.

"Hey Becky." Not Billie Joe. I chanced a look and nearly jumped out of my skin. Frank Iero talking to me? On his own volition?

"Oh, hi..." The glitter blacktop kept me focused on ignoring the inner fan girl I left buried alive in my past. That way I can delude myself into thinking he's not world famous.

"I just want to check to see if you're okay." Even if he was a hero of mine, that was the dumbest thing to ask.

"Yeah, totally. I woke up, hit my head, was found stark naked in all my grossness in front of the likes of you, and then to be forced face-to-face and to be touched by-"

"The likes of me?" He questioned, quirking an eyebrow.

"You know, a rock star." Unfortunately I caught a glimpse of his frown and knew I had offended him. Shame extinguished the irritation his curiosity brought upon me. This isn't who I am.

Just when he fell in step with me, I stopped and faced him. I never tried to pay attention, but the media doesn't do him justice. He is rather short but then again so am I. Even more though, seeing the glints of sun cast shadows across his features was a reminder the he was a real person -like all of the band- and not just some pin up on my wall. "... Frank -shit, sorry- Mr. Iero-"

"No, no, it's alright. Frank is good. I've gotten complete strangers on the street calling me 'Frankie' and unfortunately 'Frank 'n Beans,' but please don't call me that one," he pleaded with a smile possessing all of his facial pros. So he isn't a complete sugar junkie, that's a plus.

"Okay..." I dragged, restraining a giggle and getting over his most disliked nickname. "I'm sorry for being sort of a bitch to you and being so weird in there. This morning has been chaotic-"

"It's fine. I wasn't expecting an apology," he countered, ready to laugh at my worry.

Why is everyone so amused by me? Do I have a sign on my head saying, "Laugh at everything I do or say, maybe you'll get a cookie for it"?

"Everything okay over there?" I squinted through daylight to Mike still a small way off but appearing very interested in the conversation. Frank looked in the opposite direction; the guys were filing out of the bus, except for Billie Joe and Him.

Comforting.

"So... uh... I'm the only one without a dick here?" I resumed walking.

Why didn't they come out? What are they doing in there? Why didn't he come with me?

Frank caught onto my pace. I don't know why; his friends are just back there. He cleared his throat and nodded. "Counting out the occasional make up artist, hair stylist, and wardrobe girl, yep. That makes you the only fem."

Snapshots of Billie Joe breaking all of The Original's fingers gushed through my mind.
"But I thought all of you were involved."

"Well," he started, looking up at the puzzle piece gray clouds. "Mikey and Alicia have a baby on the way; she rather not travel with all that going on-"

A lick of jealousy swam through me at the news of this. Sure, I'm happy for them, but I don't want to hear of other people doing what I couldn't. Tears pricked my eyes. Jimmy. I miss his smiling chubby cheeks and hook birthmark around one of his kaleidescope eyes. Has he done his first anything?

"Bob and Ray are still happily engaged or dating or something," Frank continued in a bitter tone.

The Original's face was so clear in my violent flashes: Wet and war torn. I'm right, because I've seen it before. Billie Joe. I know Billie Joe angry.

"I don't know about Gerard. His wife's in studio, but he doesn't talk about her much."

"Why?" I slipped though I shouldn't care. I remember that fiasco awhile back. Backstage marriage impulse. Not a lot of happy campers on the web.

He grinned and nudged my arm. "Even if I knew, do you think I'd tell you?"

Since meeting them, this was the first time I sincerely smiled. "No, I wouldn't even tell me."

"Why? Gossip hound?"

"That would be safer but, no, I'm that scary branched out species that has a good memory."

"Terrifying," he retorted with a mock-scared expression.

I laughed. Shocking. "You know it."

By now we were in arm's length of Mike and halted. His eyebrows stretched high above his sunglasses, fascinated with my emotional turnaround times four. "Where's Bill?"

Just when I looked back -expecting bloodshed- Billie Joe and not a finger fractured singer strolled off the bus in high spirits. Talking. Laughing. I don't get it.

I thrust my thoughts back onto my immediate company. "... and--- what about you, Frank?" I remember he got married; I saw the pictures somewhere on the internet.

His bit his lip -rubbing his hands together- and looked up once more at the sky. That's when I noticed the absent wedding band.

"I'm sorry," I murmured.

"Don't be." He shrugged. "Better before any kids came into the picture."

A nod seemed most appropriate for my ignorance in the subject. My parents were already divorced before I can remember, and Billie Joe went through it unaffected, as it seemed.

"Time to go." Mike startled the silence and reached to open the door. I guess we're all going to squeeze in... fun.

"Ladies first." Frank motioned for me to get in.

"No, go ahead."

"Raised with manners, so ladies first," he insisted.

"Here, I'll make this easier for the both of you." Mike slipped between us and crawled in.

I pointed after Mike and grinned triumphantly. "See? Chain broken. Get in."

"But-"

"I have to talk to Billie for a sec anyways." It was an exaggeration that this talk would be so fast.

Frank sighed with a pout. (It was adorable.) "My ma would kill me if she found out I wasn't being a complete gentleman."

"I'll try to fight the urge to call her up." I smirked, moving out of the way for the approaching bandies.

"You better," he commented and shot a quick glance at his friends: He looked hesitant upon getting in but pushed past it. He leaned close to my ear.

I froze, watching the pavement.

"This may be out of line, but I think you didn't look gross at all," he whispered and then dove into the limo.

Coming from him, the words didn't make sense.

"... umm... thank---you?"