Getting Surreal

As soon as Becks and Mikey had made their way to the front of the bus, Brian immediately sent Mikey off with the rest of the band to do some press interview. He had let out a tiny, not so happy sigh at that, and Becks gave his arm a quick squeeze as if to convey ‘you’ll be fine,’ which seemed to do the trick well enough, because his mood lightened a little and he was whisked off by his brother.

Once the band was gone, Becks looked at Brian.

“What about me?” She asked him, and he peeled his eyes away from the clipboard he was staring at.

“Uh,” he grabbed his walkie talkie off the table and clipped it to his belt before turning his whole attention to Becks. “Your duties don’t really start for a while, yet. Wanna go take a walk around with me and some of the other guys to scope things out?”

“Yeah, totally!”

Brian gave a curt nod and a small smile, then motioned for Becks to follow him off the bus and towards the crew bus, where he banged on the door twice, then took a step back next to Becks.

There was some muffled yelling and a big bang followed by a very distinctive curse being shouted and Becks couldn’t stifle her giggle.

“Was that Mince?” She asked.

“I think it might have been,” Brian answered, turning and looking at her with amusement written all over his face, as well. “I’m pretty sure they’re all hungover as hell,” he said, and Becks gave him a look that asked clearly, ‘how do you know?’ “I had to pick a couple of them up on the way to the convention center this morning,” he explained, gesturing at the door. “I guess they went out and, uh…They didn’t have a car in the morning.” When Becks was done laughing at the thought of how that conversation between Brian and the other techs (Mince and Barry lived together in Brooklyn, she knew) went, she took a moment to really look at the manager in front of her.

She’d thought it before and she’d think it again, she didn’t know how he did it. He put up with so much. Between making sure the band got the right press, the right deals with the record labels, the right shows…. And then there was the fact that he put up with all of their shenanigans and childishness (Becks was embarrassed to know that she was in that category…Lord knows between Frank and her at the very least that she must have caused him some serious stress, that time she got hurt coming to mind) and yet, somehow, he still managed to look (for the most part) like he was enjoying himself. Though, Becks could see clearly, that he did look tired today.

The bus door bursting open brought Becks back to the present and she turned to see Mince stumbling out of the bus, and Barry right behind, a smug sort of smirk on his face as he gave Mince a hearty slap on the back. Mince whipped around and scowled at his friend, but his mood picked up significantly when he turned and saw Becks standing there.

“Well if it isn’t our little daredevil, back for round two!” He exclaimed, going over to give her a hug that she returned happily.

“Hey, man,” she giggled, pulling away. “You look rough.” Mince nodded a bit, stepping aside so Barry could take his turn greeting her and speaking up as he, too, gave her a hug.

“Last night was, well…” He paused and looked at Mince for a moment. “Yeah, don’t remember too much.” With that, he gave a laugh then shook hands with Brian. “Good thing we’ve got this guy on our side.” He said. Brian smiled.

“It’s my job,” he said modestly. “Anyways, now that we’re all reacquainted…shall we?” He jerked his head towards what Becks assumed was the venue, and they all started walking that way, chatting and catching up with what they all did over the small break and how they were all feeling about Warped Tour.

---

About an hour later, Becks found herself on the crew bus with Barry, where they were checking over Ray and Frank’s guitars and equipment, making sure they’d be ready for the show.

“So weird that we don’t have a proper green room this tour,” she mused aloud as she grabbed Frank’s beloved ‘Pansy’ out of its case and began to tune it.

“I know, right? I’ve never done a festival sort of thing before,” Barry agreed. “It’s pretty cool, though.”

“Totally, man. I’m so stoked for this tour!”

“Oh, yeah.” Barry froze from checking the connections on Ray’s pedalboard and looked up at Becks, a mischievous glint in his eye. “I hear there’s gonna be a big party tonight, after the last show.” He smiled as his words got the reaction he was anticipating.

Becks had stilled completely, left hand still on the B-string tuning peg, and slowly looked up to meet Barry’s eye.

“Oh?”

Barry’s smile grew even wider.

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s been some chatter around about it. I’m sure everyone’s invited, but I wasn’t sure if you knew.” Becks pursed her lips a little and nodded at that. She tended to be a little shy and awkward, so she often found herself sticking by the side of Frank or Mikey and never really knowing what the rest of the world was doing outside of the MCR bus. Apparently, other people knew that, too. “You should definitely come.”

Pausing a beat to process everything, Becks then smiled and nodded a little. “Yeah,” she smiled at her friend. “I think I might. Thanks for the invite, dude.” She looked down and continued tuning Frank’s guitar. “I’ll come ready to drink.” At that, Barry snorted out a laugh, and Becks froze again and looked back up at him with a questioning eyebrow quirked. “What?”

“Oh,” he said, composing himself a little and tucking Ray’s pedalboard back into its case, “I know you’ll be ready to drink.” One look at Becks’ quirked eyebrow and he smirked. “Honey, you’ve got a reputation.”

“Is that bad?” She asked quietly, a little nervous that people would see her enjoyment of alcohol as a bad thing.

Barry looked up at her from Ray’s guitar he’d been tuning, a little startled at her words. “Nah, man,” he consoled. “We all think it’s kinda awesome.” Becks searched his face for a moment then decided to take his word for it, reciprocating his warm smile.

---

“Frank, Frank, Fraaaank,” Becks shouted, skipping up to her employer and friend, grabbing lightly onto his arm. “Oh, hi, Ray,” she smiled up at the guitar player who had been chatting with Frank over coffee.

“Hey, Becks,” he greeted.

“What’s up?” Frank asked, throwing an arm around her shoulders and turning to look at her.

“Guys!” She started, clearly very excited. “Guess what Brian just told me! Did you know that sometimes, Warped goes to amusement parks?”

Ray gave a small chuckle at her enthusiasm as he and Frank both nodded. “Yeah, I’ve actually been to a Warped show a couple years ago that was at a…Six Flags, I think?”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, “I think I was at that one, too! Good shit.” Then he looked at Becks. “Why?”

“Well…” she just looked back and forth between her two friends like they were crazy and should obviously know why she was asking. “Do you think we get to ride the rides?” She finally asked when she realized they had no clue. There was a pause before both guys started laughing a little.

“I would think so,” Ray answered kindly, still chuckling.

“Yeah,” Frank gave her a little squeeze, pulling her closer for a second, clearly amused by her childlike, excitable nature. “I’m sure they will.”

“Awesome.” Becks was smiling large, now, very excited for any upcoming date that would have them at a park.

“I take it you like rides?” Ray asked her, taking a sip from his coffee cup.

“Dude, yeah!” She replied. “You guys?”

“Totally,” Ray said.

“Yeah,” Frank nodded. “Rollercoasters are my favorite.”
Becks looked over at him and smiled. “Perfect,” she said.

“Oh, Becks,” Ray stated, walking over to the garbage can at the other side of the tent to throw away his empty cup before returning. “You hear about the party tonight? To kick off the tour?”

“Yeah, actually! Barry just told me about it when we were checking your guys’ gear!” She replied, nodding her head with enthusiasm.

Frank chuckled. “Alright,” he said with a pleased smirk. “Barry’s on his game!” Becks just hummed in response.

“Do you guys know when you’re playing tonight?”

“Uh,” Ray looked down at his watch and Becks saw his eyebrows shoot up. “Actually…”

“Yo, guys!” Everybody’s attention turned to Brian who was jogging up to the tent. “Sound check in five, let’s go!” And then he was jogging off (presumably towards where they were supposed to be going as well), leaving Frank, Ray, and Becks all looking at each other with amused expressions for a moment.

“I think we should probably go follow him,” Ray said with a small laugh, heading out after their manager.

“Yeah, probably,” Frank muttered, earning a chuckle from Becks as he turned them both around, his arm still slung across her shoulders, and they followed at a leisurely pace after Ray, who was speed-walking, his hair bouncing all around as he went.

---

The rest of the day went by and was nothing short of great, Becks thought.

Soundcheck was flawless, and she was pleased that everybody in the MCR camp hadn’t let a three week break throw them off their rhythm. From there, she spent most of the rest of the day hanging out with other techs, walking around the festival grounds and checking out all the different bands as they played. When it was My Chemical Romance’s time to play, they blew her away from her tech area next to the stage like they always did, leaving her feeling giddy and high on life. She didn’t think she could ever get used to seeing them play live, even though she had almost every night straight for a couple months and was about to for another half year.

She loved watching the crowd soak in all of their new songs, and, when her tech duties weren’t taking up her attention, she was singing along at the top of her lungs from side stage, watching her friends play and sing away their souls with nothing but a near overwhelming sense of fondness and joy in her heart.

After the show and all the regular high-fives, hugs, and congratulations between the crew and band, Becks found herself walking over to a smaller stage across the festival grounds to watch the acts there with the Way brothers (Bob and Ray stuck around the stage MCR had played to see who was playing there, and Frank disappeared immediately after giving her a hug to shower and clean off after their set). Becks was really quite impressed by some of the bands, and really enjoyed chatting with Mikey and Gerard about all the music. To all of their pleasant surprise, a few people recognized them, and asked for pictures with the guys, which Becks was more than willing to take.

After the three of them had enjoyed two groups, Gerard got a call from Brian saying that they needed to get back so they could do meet and greet at their tent, so while the Ways went off and did that, Becks hung around with Mince and Barry, watching the last couple bands from backstage before helping with the packing and loading process for all their gear.

She was almost at the top of the small hill leading to the busses (why the hell were the busses up a hill), pushing a cart of not-so-light gear when she heard Mince behind her.

“Yo, Becks!” He called, getting her to turn around. “Put that shit down and grab a beer. It’s party time!” Becks gave him a big smile before giving the equipment one last shove in the direction it needed to go and heading down to her friend.