Status: Hoping to upload a chapter every Saturday, a little weekend treat :)

Getting Surreal

XXXIX

“Oh my gosh, it’s such a bad picture!” Becks shrieked out through her laughter, rolling around on the couch with tears in her eyes.

“Oh, fuck off!” Frank pouted, stood on his tip-toes and trying with all his might to reach the polaroid that Ray was holding over his head. “Come on, you ass!” He said through gritted teeth (the effort of trying to reach something so high starting to get to him) to his bandmate. “Lemme see!”

“Sorry, man,” Ray laughed, changing the hand he was holding it with and laughing as Frank tried to jump for it, “no can do.”

Frank let out a low, guttural growl of dismay as he tried to jump for the photo one more time to no avail, finally giving up and sitting down on the couch near Becks’ feet in a huff.

“Oh, come on, spoilsport,” she patronized when her laughing had died down to a manageable level. Frank shot her a look that almost threw her into another fit of giggles, but she bit her tongue and fought it off as hard as she could, sitting up and lazily throwing an arm around his shoulders, pulling his tight for a second.

“You sure you wanna see, Frank?” Ray asked, his voice dangerously close to a toying sing-song of a tone. Frank just stared, deadpan back at him. Ray dropped his hand from high in the air and gave the picture one last look, a small chuckle escaping his lips. He glanced at Becks and they both nodded, agreeing in a silent conversation, both biting back their amusement as well as they could. As Ray took a step towards the couch (but not close enough that he could be reached without someone getting off the couch), Becks pulled Frank a little tighter to her, attempting to eliminate the chance that he might reach out for picture again.

After standing there for maybe ten seconds (which felt like eternity for Frank), Ray turned the photo around in his hand to show him.

“Oh, fuck no!” Frank shouted, his eyes widening at what was potentially the most unflattering picture of him he’d ever seen. It wasn’t that Ray had tried to get a bad picture of him, it was just a one in a million chance that he had gotten Frank mid-blink so that one eye was shut and one barely open and looking askew, mid-sentence so that that his mouth was open in a very curious and weird way, and mid-gesture, looking almost as though he were attempting to recreate the famous Hamlet scene.

Seeing the picture again threw Becks into another fit of uncontrollable laughter and, fortunately for her, Frank had apparently given up on the desire to fight for the picture and not tried to just off the couch at Ray, because she was just laughing too hard to stay upright and had fallen back on the couch, her hands covering her face.

“God, that’s so bad, dude,” Frank said, resigned, from his seat.

“You wanted to see.” Ray said, shaking his head a little and turning the polaroid around so he could look at it again, chuckling.

“What’s going on up here?” Came Mikey’s voice as he walked into the lounge from the bunk area.

“Frank – Frank’s picture,” Becks wheezed in between laughs. Mikey looked down at her, laughing so hard she’d fallen over, then over to Frank, pouting at the end of the couch, then finally to Ray who was now standing next to him.

“Check it out, man,” Ray said with amusement dripping from his voice, reading Mikey’s quirked eyebrow correctly as a desire to see.

“Ohhh shit!” Mikey exclaimed, laughing now, too. “Frank, dude. What the hell?” he looked over the photo at his friend on the couch who was now smiling smally in spite of himself.

Frank shrugged. “Talent, I guess,” he said, shoving Becks’ foot that she’d been using to poke at him annoyingly and earning a small whine.

“You’ve gotta show this to Gee,” Mikey said, turning to Ray, amused smile still on his face as he handed back the polaroid. “He’s gonna die.” Ray shot him a huge shit-eating grin and headed past him towards the back lounge to find Gerard.

Once Ray had gone, Mikey looked back to the couch and watched idly as Becks, laying flat on the couch, was messing with Frank, poking at him with her feet and Frank, sat at the far end of the couch, kept swatting her away. It was almost like they were wrestling, but just in the laziest way possible, and if it were anybody else, Mikey may have thought it strange, but…it was Becks and Frank and it just made so much sense.

Smiling and shaking his head, Mikey moved to sit on the opposite end of the couch as Frank, right by Becks’ head. She was so into bothering Frank that she hadn’t even noticed Mikey come to sit until the couch cushion at her head drooped under his weight. Mildly startled, she tilted her head back and saw Mikey peering down at her with that tiny smile of his, and Becks returned it with a full-blown, toothy grin.

“Hi,” she said, not able to break his gaze.

“Hi, yourself,” he replied.

“How are – oof!” Becks started to ask Mikey how he was doing when Frank got a good whack in on one of her feet while she was distracted. Immediately, her gaze shifted from Mikey to Frank, down at the other end of the couch. “You’ll pay for that, Iero.” She said in her most threatening (it wasn’t that threatening) voice.

Frank feigned terror for a second, then looked at her and deadpanned, “you got nothing.”

“Oh, I’ve got nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

There was a pause, then, the two of them staring each other down in what Becks would refer to as ‘a Mexican stand-down,’ both with eyes narrowed and attempts at menacing expressions on their faces. Both too goofy to keep up a façade of threatening, though, it ended up in a giggle fit a minute later between them both and Frank shook his head, standing up.

“Where’re you going?” Mikey asked as he watched the guitar player grab his hoodie and throw it on. Becks, apparently having forgotten Mikey was there, started at his voice and looked back up at him again before scooching up the couch a couple inches so she could lay her head in his lap. Instantly, as if on instinct, Mikey’s hand started playing with her hair and he looked down at her with his lips twitching into a tiny smile.

Frank straightened out his hoodie and looked up at the two of them. They were doing that thing they do again where they looked so lost in each other that the rest of the world barely mattered and physical contact was a must. Not wanting to impose on their moment (and hoping to hell the pair would address their behavior soon), Frank shook his head and stepped towards the bus door.

“Gonna go walk around for a bit. Maybe call Jamia.” He had his hand on the door when he heard Becks’ voice call out to him.

“I’m gonna get you, Iero,” she said, causing him to turn and peer over the small wall by the door to see her looking him dead in the eye with a mischievous smirk on her face. “Watch your back.”

Shaking his head again, Frank smiled and threw his middle finger up at her before opening the door and leaving the bus.

---

After Frank had gone, Becks and Mikey sat in a very comfortable silence together. Well – as silent as Warped Tour could get with constant music coming from somewhere and people always chatting or laughing in the bus or what have you.

Mikey was contenting himself with just sitting there, eased back into the sofa, one arm laid out on the back of the couch while the hand of his other played with Becks’ hair as he stared at her openly and absently, taking in her features. Becks was so soothed by the feelings Mikey’s hand was causing and the fact that she was just there with Mikey, that she let her eyes slip shut, fully aware and yet somehow not minding that his eyes were glued to her.

Finally, Mikey broke their peaceful quiet.

“How are you?” He asked her. She let out a long sigh.

It had been a couple of weeks since her real bad panic attacks and since she and Mikey had had their heart to heart behind the tech bus. Ever since then, Mikey made a point of making sure she was okay pretty much whenever they were together, taking care (very much to Becks’ undying appreciation) to only bring up anything involving her emotional state when the two of them were alone.

And, for whatever reason (she couldn’t quite figure out why, but just that it was Mikey), she would be open and honest with her answers. Sometimes, she was great. Sometimes, she asked him to hold her for a few minutes, and he always, always did. He’d hold her and stroke her hair or rub her back all while whispering soothing words to her. Sometimes, he’d even sing to her.

“Right now?” She asked, her eyes opening, a bright gray-green searching out his hazel and amber ones, locking his gaze and letting a slow, contented smile spread on her lips. “Right now I feel perfect.”

After searching her eyes for a moment for any sign that things weren’t perfect, Mikey returned her smile, shy and tiny. “Good.” He said, not seeming to want to drop her gaze for anything.

Becks couldn’t quite figure out just what it was about Mikey that drew her to him, but she was definitely starting to realize as she laid there, gazes locked, her head in his lap as he played with her hair that she couldn’t even begin to fathom her life without him in it and how utterly dependent on the younger Way she had become in the past few months. Especially in the last few weeks, as Warped Tour was entering its last stint, she had become aware of the constant need to be around him and, as far as she could tell, it was mutual. She would find herself, idly, at some point a day, every day, in his arms and holding him close like she just needed his presence to make the day seem better.

As scary and unknown as that comprehension was, because it was Mikey she was feeling this for, Becks was okay with it.
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