Getting Surreal

“So how’s Jamia?” Becks asked from her position of laying flat on her back on the bus roof, her feet dangling off the side. “I kinda miss her. She’s pretty cool.” Frank let out a little chuckle. The pair of them had snuck up on the roof (assuming that Brian would be less than thrilled that they were up there) after My Chem’s set and Frank had showered.

“Yeah, she is,” he said from his spot next to her, nodding idly. “She’s doing well, last I talked with her.”

“So…doing well an hour ago?”

Frank laughed again. “Yeah, I guess. Another beer?”

“Mmm, yes please.” Becks sat up and accepted the drink Frank was passing, setting down her empty can and cracking open the new one for a sip.

“Three points if you can get it in the tech window,” Frank dared lazily, gesturing towards the window at the back lounge that was cracked before taking a long pull of his own drink.

“You’re bad for my health, Frank Iero,” Becks murmered fondly, sneaking a glance at her friend to see his face light up in a little smirk.

“You love me for it.” He retorted.

With a faux-resigned sigh, Becks nodded and lined up the window and her empty beer can in her sights. “Yeah,” she said, “I s’pose I do.” And with that, she let the can fly, watching as it totally missed its mark completely.

“Wow,” Frank tried to dead-pan, but he was laughing too hard, “you suck.”

“I never said I would make it!” Becks said, giggling herself.

Finally, as her laughter eased away, and she leaned over a little, laying her head on Frank’s shoulder and gave a small, contented sigh. “I missed this,” she said quietly.

“Missed what?” He asked, switching the hand holding his beer so he could wrap his arm around her waist and leaned over so his head was on top of hers. There was a pause where Becks was trying to find her words.

“I dunno,” she said, “I guess just…us? Feels like we haven’t properly hung in ages.” Frank hummed in agreeance.

“Yeah, I guess we haven’t. Between playing and writing –“

“Your guys’ new stuff is sounding awesome, by the way.” Becks interrupted, nodding her head as slight as she could as it was sandwiched between his shoulder and head.

“Thanks. I can’t wait to start properly getting stuff out for it. Warped’s just been….” He let it hang out in the air, not quite sure of the word he wanted.

“Insane?”

“Yeah,” Frank nodded, now. “That’s the word. Anyways…I’m freezing.” He sat upright and Becks took her head off his shoulder to yawn. “Wanna go walk around? Get the blood pumping?”

Becks snorted. “Weirdest way to put it, but I’d love to.”

---

The next day was a free day for everybody; no shows, no pressing duties. The boys of My Chemical Romance all went back to their bus after they ate their late breakfast to continue working on their new material, leaving Becks to hang around with her tech boys, Mince and Barry.

At first, they were just walking around and chatting, then they were walking around and chatting with Mince was carrying Becks via piggyback because she was ‘feeling lazy and can’t go on unaided,’ a statement that made Barry laugh heavily because, to him, it had come so out of left field.

Becks was really enjoying her relaxing day, hanging with her friends, and was just dwelling on the thought when her stomach interrupted by growling loudly.

“Holy shit!” Mince cried, almost missing a step and having to put Becks down because he was doubling over her was laughing so hard.

“Hungry?” Barry asked her coolly, though his voice was laced with amusement.

Becks smiled sheepishly as she straightened out her shirt that had rucked up a little from Mince carrying her. “I guess so!”

“You guess?” Mince asked, finally standing up straight. “It’s like you’ve got a fuckin’ whale in that stomach that was talking!”

Becks looked down at her stomach, laying her hand over it as though she were pregnant. “Yeah…” she said faintly, smiling now like she were proud.

“Yo! My Chem crew!” A voice called, grabbing all of their attentions and Becks’ head whipped around to see Mike and Tom from MxPx walking up to them.

“What’s up?” Barry asked, doing a bro-shake with both of them.

Tom smiled at Becks. “We were just headed over to lunch.
Wanna join?”

“What, you hear her stomach from all the way over there?” Mince asked, the laughter never leaving his voice. Tom took his eyes from Becks to look questioningly at Mince.

“What?” Mike let out, looking at the drum tech as well. Barry chuckled.

“Never mind,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Let’s go get food.” With that, he started walking in the direction of the lunch tent, everybody else following and Becks taking up the end of the line.

“Aww, yeah,” Becks said quietly to herself. Tom must have heard her, though, because he hung back a second so he could fall into step with her.

“Hungry?” He asked, an amused smile on his face.

“Dude, yeah.” She said, looking at him with wide eyes and nodding dramatically. Tom’s smile grew.

“Any idea what it is today?” He asked her, shoving his hands in his pockets and watching his feet as they walked. She shook her head.

“No clue. Hope it’s tacos.” She stated it very matter-of-factly and Tom scrunched up his nose in confusion, glancing over at her.

“She loves tacos!” Mince’s voice called from some ten steps ahead of them, getting both Tom and Becks to look up at him.

“It’s true,” she said with a shrug when Tom had looked back at her.

“Well, here’s hoping for tacos, I guess.” He said and she smiled and nodded again. They walked in silence for a few moments, Becks looking around happily and Tom watching his shoes again, looking as though he were wrestling with trying to say something. Finally, he sighed to himself then chanced a look at the girl beside him. “If it’s not tacos today,” he said slowly and shyly, “maybe you’d wanna go get some with me sometime?” He watched her hopefully.

“Uh,” she stuttered with a slight furrowing of confusion in her brow. “Sure, I guess,” she said distractedly, looking off to the left at something. “Hey, I need to run to the bathroom. I’ll catch up with you guys. Don’t wanna eat with a full bladder.” She shot him a smile and headed off at a slight jog towards where she saw a restroom sign.

---

Becks left the bathroom, skipping and humming to herself as she headed off to the food tent, very excited to dig in to whatever was being provided. “Pizzaaaaaa,” she said quietly and excitedly when she got up to the food table and grabbed a plate and three slices. After she had grabbed her drink and some napkins, she looked around, surveying the tables for where her friends were, spotting them in the far back corner of the tent, all hunched over their food and chatting.

She crouched a little and walked as quietly as she could, deciding she wanted to sneak up on them and hopefully give Mince or Tom who had their backs to her a little scare. As she crept closer, she started to pick up whatever it was they were talking so intently about.

“Were you seriously putting moves on Mikey Way’s girl?” She heard Mince say to Tom and she froze.

“What, are they together or something?” Tom asked.

Barry scoffed and dropped his pizza. “Dude, they’re not together officially,” he used air quotes, “but yeah. She’s Mikey’s girl.” His tone of voice said nothing but ‘off limits’.

‘Mikey’s girl?’ She thought, feeling a small flush spread on her cheeks. It felt like the world was spinning a little faster than usual. Is that what people called her? Mikey’s girl? Was she okay with that? She stared hard at the ground as she processed this, then a slow smile crept on her face as she dwelled on the thought. She didn’t know about ‘Mikey’s girl’, but there were worse things to be called or known by.

Decided that she had listened in on way more than she ought to have and also deciding that she was starved and her pizza needed eating, she tried to walk up to the table as casually as she could, with an air of having not overheard a thing, and shouted,

“’Sup, losers!” All the guys jumped and Barry shot her a smile.