**ONE WEEK LATER**

“Now boarding Flight 210 to Tulsa International Airport.”

It was finally here. The day we’d all been waiting for. Today was the day the spring tour started, and as the announcer lady’s voice rang out through the airport, and startled some of the crew awake, we were all reminded of the fact we’d be traveling all across the country for a solid two months, some of us playing our hearts out while the rest stayed behind the stage and made sure everything ran smoothly.

While I was excited for the tour to finally start, I was also really annoyed with the fact that we were here at the airport so early. Granted, 5 am isn’t a super early time, and if we wanted to make the 1 pm sound check in Tulsa this was necessary, but I had made the stupid mistake of staying up after the PTV/SWS barbeque party to drink and party even more with all of the guys. I did more partying more so than drinking, but I still had a light headache and I had gone to sleep not even two hours ago. This was the case for most of us though, and as everyone from Sleeping With Sirens and Pierce The Veil made their way to the boarding line for our flight, you could see how much it had taken a toll on us. We all looked like a hoard of sleep deprived zombies waiting for our next semi-solid object to sleep on, which I’m sure was both a terrifying and amusing sight for some of the other people in the airport.

“Jesus, can this bitch yell any louder?’ Mike grumbled under his breath as the next announcement came from the intercom.

“I’m pretty sure she’s not yelling and you’re just hungover,” I say, putting my bags onto the loading line with the rest of the crew.

“Just shut up, Dean,” he snapped.

I snorted my response and rolled my eyes at him. “Rude,” I mumbled to myself. A laugh sounded next to me and I looked over to see Jaime sitting there with a large grin on his face.

“When is he not?” Jaime jokingly asked.

I couldn’t help but laugh at his remark and shake my head in response. “Good point,” I agree, only to be cut off by a grumpy Mike and a few strings of profanities coming from his mouth.

“Dude, just shut up and get on the plane,” Vic said, lightly shoving his brother towards the plane’s entrance. Mike stumbled and started yelling a few more things and profanities at Vic as he got on the plane. I chuckled a bit at that and shook my head. A hungover Mike did not make a very happy Mike.

We all boarded the plane and got seated up in first class. Surprisingly, we were the only people up in first class minus the elderly couple Tony and I got seated behind. Vic and Jaime were in the seats next to us, Kellin and Mike were in the ones directly behind us, and everyone else got scattered amongst each other. I could see that the majority of the guys and crew members were settling down to get some sleep, and I couldn’t blame them. I was planning on doing the same thing once we were in the air and done with our take off.

I set my Jansport down on the floor at my feet and looked over at Tony to see him digging through his own little carry on bag. “Whatcha doin’, Tones?” I asked him.

“Looking for my phone,” he told me without looking up from his bag. “I want to make sure it’s on airplane mode before we take off.”

“Oh right, I need to do that too,” I say in quick realization, pulling my phone out of my jeans pocket and going to turn it on airplane mode. I had just gotten the phone a few days ago, and as weird as this may sound, I was actually incredibly happy that I had a cellphone now. While I could easily live without one, as I have been doing for several months now, having the phone was going to make it easier to keep in touch with the guys and also help with my job. And by help with my job, I mean help Chris by tracking down any missing PTV or SWS guys before a show or bus call.

As soon as my phone was in airplane mode, I grabbed my earbuds from the front pocket of my Jansport and began to look through the music loaded onto my phone.The plane was beginning to take off through, so I actually had to turn my phone off and wait for the signal to turn our electronics back on before I could really do that.

“Hey Tony?” I asked as the plane began to take off.

“Yeah Leia?” Tony looked up from his lap and turned to give me a curious look.

“Mind if I use your shoulder as a pillow?” I gave him a bit of a sheepish smile and used my best puppy dog eyes just in case he had any ideas of saying no.

Tony chuckled at my actions and shook his head at me. “Sure, just as long as you promise not to drool on me,” Tony told me with a smile.

I chuckled along with him and returned the smile. “Don’t worry Turtle, I promise not to drool-”

“Good, because I just washed this shirt,” he joked, causing me to lightly punch him in the shoulder. The flight attendant announced over the PA system that it was okay to turn our electronics back on now, and you could see half of us going for our phones and frantically turning them back on while the other half just didn’t care or was sleeping already.

I slipped in one of my earbuds and started flipping through all of my music yet again. After finally settling on just putting it all on shuffle, I tucked my phone into my jeans and started to snuggle up in Tony’s side.

“You need a blanket or anything like that?” I hear Tony ask.

“Nah, just don’t move,” I told him, yawning a bit and resting my head on the top of his shoulder. Tony chuckled softly to himself, but I didn’t reply or move. I just relaxed against Tony’s shoulder and let sleep overcome me for the next 5 hours of our flight.

---

“Dean,” someone quietly spoke in my ear, softly shaking my shoulder in an attempt to wake me up. “It’s time to wake up.”

I woke up a tiny bit, but my brain and body still refused to wake up completely. In my sleepy state, I naturally assumed that it was Tony who trying to wake me up, so I just groaned and buried my face into his chest. “Five more minutes, Tony,” I mumble.

A light chuckle rumbled in his chest and he whispered, “You might want to open your eyes before you start calling me names, Darling.”

That last word sparked something in my brain and my eyelids fluttered open, squinting momentarily as my eyes tried to adjust to the bright light inside the plane. “Vic?” my sleepy voice asked.

“The one and only,” Vic joked. “But seriously, you need to start waking up, Dean-”

“But whyyyyy?” I whine, closing my eyes again and covering them with my arm.

“Because we’re about to land, and we need to pick up our stuff, load it all onto the bus, and then head off to soundcheck,” Vic explained.

“But all I wanna do is sleep,” I complained, lifting my arm from my eyes and giving Vic a rather pitiful look.

Vic gave me a small smile and let out a bit of a sigh. “I know Darling, and if I could, I would let you sleep some more, but you do have to get up right now-”

“Can I sleep after soundcheck?” I asked with a hopeful lilt in my voice.

A small chuckle fell from his lips and he shook his head a bit at me. “Yes, if you really want to, you can sleep after soundcheck,” Vic reassured.

I gave him a small nod and hummed my response. I tried to sit up to help wake myself up, but I couldn’t bring myself to move that much, so I just let myself fall back and lie over Vic’s lap. Vic looked down at me with a rather amused expression and I could tell from the way he was biting his lower lip he was trying to hold back a laugh.

“I thought you were going to be waking up?” he asked.

“I am, but I’m too lazy to sit up right now,” I say casually, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well, not that I’m enjoying this, but I’m going to need you to sit up-”

“And why is that?” I asked him, my lips turning up in a playful smile.

Vic returned the smile and glanced over to where Tony and Jaime were sitting, quietly bickering with each other over what sounded like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. “Because I left my stuff over there when Tony and I switched seats-”

“Why did you two switch anyway?” I suddenly ask, looking up at Vic with a curious gaze.

Vic gave me a simple shrug and said, “Tony and Jaime kept arguing over who the best Ninja Turtle was, so I offered to switch seats with Tony so they didn’t wake you up.”

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks, and before I could stop myself, I leaned up and gave Vic a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you Vic, that was very sweet of you.”

Vic’s cheeks almost immediately went red, and his eyes darted off to the side for a moment before he began to speak. “I, um, it’s- it’s no big deal,” he quickly mumbled.

If I weren’t half asleep right now, I probably would have been making a bigger deal out of this entire thing and been way more embarrassed than I am right now. But, since I was still half asleep, my brain didn’t think this was a big deal and just nodded back in response to Vic. The flight attendant began to announce over the PA that we were landing and started to say a few other things, but I groaned at the reminder that I needed to get up and couldn’t hear the rest of what she was saying thanks to my random grumblings about how stupid it was that I had to get up.

Vic must have heard some of my complaints, because I could hear him chuckling in the seat next me and saw him shaking his head at me out of the corner of my eye. “Don’t be rude,” I joke, glancing over at him with a tired smile.

“Hey, I was just laughing,” Vic told me innocently. “I never said I was laughing at you-”

“Bullshit,” I say with a small giggle, causing him to playfully roll his eyes at me and stand up to go retrieve his bag from where he was formerly sitting. Tony came back over to me and grabbed his own bag with a huff and the roll of his eyes.

“You okay, Turtle?” I asked him with some slight concern.

“Raphael is a better Ninja Turtle, right?” he asked in exasperation, his eyes almost pleading with me to agree with him.

I just snorted and rolled my own eyes. “Obviously,” I say like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Ha!” Tony exclaims, turning back to Jaime and rushing over to him in victory. “Even Leia agrees he’s better-”

Jaime gasped and placed a hand to his chest in offense. “Dean, how could you?” Jaime cried. “Leonardo is so much better-”

“Yeah, uh, nope, I’m not getting involved in this,” I say, throwing my hand up in the air. Both Tony and Jaime just rolled their eyes and continued to bicker with each other as they both began to exit the plane.

We all eventually boarded off of the plane and made our way back into the airport to claim our luggage. I somehow managed to convince Gabe to give me a piggyback ride into the airport and we all managed to get into the airport itself without being mobbed by fans or stopped by anyone for security or whatnot. While we stood by the baggage claiming center, waiting for the conveyor belt to spit out all of our duffel bags and equipment, my phone started to go off like crazy with notification after notification. I chose to ignore it though because I was still riding on top of Gabe’s back seeing as I was too lazy to let go or start walking again. Gabe must have pulled out his phone at one point, because I briefly saw him scrolling through twitter before he turned his head to look back at me.

“Have you checked your twitter since we’ve landed?” Gabe asked me.

“Um, no, not really,” I told him, giving him an odd look. “Why do you ask?”

Gabe started chuckling and shaking his head. “You might want to give it a look, kiddo-”

“Excuse me sir, but I am the older one out of the two of us,” I sassed, rolling my eyes a bit before reluctantly letting go of Gabe and sliding back down to the floor. Gabe didn’t say anything as a response, he just kept on laughing some more, and as I pulled out my phone to open up twitter, I saw that my notifications were blown up. I had several mentions, a few DMs, but what really surprised me the most was the extreme amount of followers I had just gained.

“Dude, what the hell?” I quietly asked myself, scrolling through the long list of my new followers.

“That’s not even the best part,” Gabe told me, looking over my shoulder to look at my phone. “Check your mentions first, then you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

I turned and gave Gabe a strange look, but I just shrugged it off and started going through my mentions. A few were from some of my new followers asking me who I was and whatnot, but the first thing I immediately saw was a mention from Kellin.

@Kellinquinn: @itsagirlnametoo looks like you’ve got a new stalker (looking at you @piercethevic)

“What?” I quietly ask myself. I had to be missing something here. Curious, I quickly went over to Vic’s twitter page and was about to scroll through his tweets until I saw the very first one on his timeline.

@piercethevic: looks like our flight was pretty boring for her [picture attached]

I clicked on the picture to enlarge it and was surprised to see that the picture attached to Vic’s tweet was of me sleeping on the plane chairs. Gabe continued to sit there and laugh at me as I stared at the tweet in shock. I didn’t even know he had taken the picture, but then again, I was asleep and he probably had done it while he and Tony were switching sweats on the plane.

Considering Vic had only tweeted about this a few minutes ago, the mentions and followers kept on pouring in. I looked up from my phone momentarily to see if I could find Vic, and maybe yell at him, but he seemed to already be looking over at me. As soon as we locked eyes, he just gave me a sly smirk and an innocent shrug.

“Asshole,” I mouthed over to him, causing him to laugh a bit and shake his head at me. Vic pulled out his phone again and started typing a few things before looking back over at me and motioning to check my phone.

Another notification went off at that moment, and when I looked down at my twitter screen, I saw another mention come my way that wasn’t from the fangirls who’d started to follow me.

@piercetheveil: Guess it’s time to welcome @itsagirlnametoo to the PTV family! We’d say go give her a warm welcome but she’s probably still sleeping [picture attached]

The same picture of me sleeping on the plane was attached to the tweet and I couldn’t help but laugh at the tweet. Gabe looked over my shoulder to read the tweet and started laughing as well. Several of the others started to crowd around either Vic or myself to figure out what was going on, and when they did, they all started pulling out their phones to join in on the action.

@itsagirlnametoo: @piercetheveil you guys all suck

@ptvjaime: @itsagirlnametoo hey we didn’t do anything!

@SWStheband: @itsagirlnametoo we’ll hire you if you don’t feel like working with @piercetheveil anymore

@itsagirlnametoo: @SWStheband give me free pizza for life and I might consider

@Tony_Turtle: @itsagirlnametoo no don’t leave! Who else will I watch movies with?

@SWStheband: @itsagirlnametoo done, plus you get partially custody of Bentley thanks to @gabebarham

@itsagirlnametoo: sorry @Tony_Turtle but they’re giving me pizza and a chance to hang with Bentley

“Dean wait!” Kellin cried, running over to me and taking a quick picture with me before going back to his phone and typing away on what I presumed to be twitter.

@Kellinquinn: Let’s welcome @itsagirlnametoo to the family! Guess we’re not as boring as those lame @piercetheveil guys [picture attached]

I started laughing immediately at Kellin’s tweet, and this time, everyone started protesting and bickering with each other instead of on twitter. It was nothing really serious, just some friendly banter between everyone as we sat and waited for our bags to arrive.

“I still think she belongs to us now,” Kellin boasted, casually slinging an arm over my shoulder and giving everyone a goofy smile.

“Excuse me, but we saw her first,” Jaime sassed, glaring at Kellin and pulling me back to where he, Tony, Mike, and Vic were standing.

“But we’re giving her pizza!” Kellin protested, frowning and pulling me back towards him.

“And she’s our guitar tech!” Mike added on, grabbing me and pulling me right back to the PTV guys.

“Not for much longer,” Kellin threatened, grabbing onto me again and starting to pull me back before I finally said something.

“Well I’m tired of being pulled back and forth!” I snap, looking between the two bands. “Seriously, my arms are fragile and I kind of need them for my job you guys.”

A chorus of ‘sorry’ came from both bands and they all gave me apologetic, almost bashful looks. I just shook my head and rolled my eyes at both of them. “Anyways,” I say, looking over to Kellin and the rest of the Sleeping guys, “no matter how much I love you all and Bentley and the prospect of free pizza, I’m sticking with these losers behind me-”

A loud cheer came from everyone with Pierce The Veil and I was suddenly pulled into a giant group hug between band and crew members alike. Several pouts and boos came from Sleeping With Sirens, but I knew it was all in good humor. I’m pretty sure they were all taking this as one giant joke anyway, so really, I had nothing to worry about.

Our bags and equipment finally arrived, and after sorting through it all and handing it out to the correct owner, we all took our stuff and headed outside to where both tour buses would be waiting. My crew parted ways with Sleeping With Sirens and before we could even begin to load our stuff onto the bus, the fight for bunks had begun. Mainly, it was Jaime and Mike fighting over the bunks, but I knew Vic and Tony were anxious to claim their bunks as well, so I took my time with helping load the equipment into the trailer and bus before making my way onto the bus to get a bunk. By that time, the only bunk left was a top one located above Tony and next to Vic, so I threw my stuff inside and went to the front lounge where everyone had seemed to have gravitated.

I squeezed myself in between Mike and Jaime on the couch they were sitting on and listened in on the conversation at hand. They were talking about some basic ‘need-to-knows’ for the show tonight, but that conversation quickly turned into talking about the after party on the bus, and I didn’t find much interest in that, so I pulled out my phone and started going through twitter again. I answered a few of the questions some of the fans on twitter asked, but it was nothing really important or anything that was asked, just the usual ‘who are you’, ‘what do you do’, and ‘are you banging anybody in the band’. Of course, I only answered two of those three questions, but those were the main questions I kept seeing.

At one point though, I did get a question from one twitter user asking if what happened a few minutes ago between the PTV and SWS guys and me on twitter was for real, and after laughing a bit at that for a few moments, I answered them saying that it was all just a joke before adding another tweet.

@itsagirlnametoo: no matter what, I’m proud to be apart of the @piercetheveil family :) can’t wait for the rest of the tour!

“Whatcha doing over there, Leia?” Tony asked, leaning over and trying to see what I was doing on my phone.

“Trying to calm down your fans,” I tell him with a light laugh and a smile. “They keep freaking out because, according to this one girl, ‘we haven’t seen this chick for 10 minutes and she’s already leaving the sexicans!’”

That got a laugh out of everyone on the bus and I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. “Yeah, we are pretty sexy, aren’t we?” Mike asked, draping an arm over my shoulders as he looked down at me with a knowing smirk.

I snorted my response and rolled my eyes. “In your dreams, Mike,” I say as I unwrap his arm from around my shoulder.

Everyone in the bus started laughing again and gave Mike shit for being turned down, which he promptly responded with pouting and an ever-so-polite ‘fuck you’. I laughed along with them at the entire ordeal and the next few minutes were filled with more casual conversation between everyone while Mike sulked on the couch and acted butthurt.

It didn’t take very long, but when the bus pulled up to the venue, we all piled out of the bus and started to unload and bring all of the equipment inside. Sleeping With Sirens was pulling up as we started to unload, and from what I could gather from hearing a snippet of a conversation Chris was having on the phone, the other band that was opening for Sleeping With Sirens and Pierce The Veil was about to arrive as well.

Personally, I hadn’t heard much about the opening band that was touring with us. I knew that the band consisted of four guys and they went under the name Deaf Lions. Other than that, I knew nothing about this band we’d be spending the next two months with. Vic did mention earlier that this band was one of those new breakthrough bands that had just popped up onto the scene and was gathering a quick following, so when their tour manager contacted Chris, the guys had been more than willing to tour with them. The guys were also still promoting Collide With The Sky and Sleeping With Sirens was promoting their upcoming summer album*, so really, this tour was great opportunity for everyone involved to promote themselves.

I had just brought in the last few guitars and basses needed for tonight, but someone was saying there were still amps and whatnot still left on the trailer, so with a bit of a sigh, I abandoned the guitars/basses I needed to get ready and went out to go grab whatever needed to be grabbed from the trailer. I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around me as I made my way back, so really, it shouldn’t have been so surprising when I collided with someone and ended up falling to the floor.

“Shit, I am so sorry,” the guy I ran into apologised. “You okay?”

I groaned a bit and wiped my face with my hands. “Yeah, um, I’m fine,” I say as I begin to get up. “I just wasn’t watching where I was going-”

“Here, let me help,” he insisted, offering out his hand to me as I tried to get up from the floor. I gladly took the guy’s hand and finally looked up into the face of the guy I had blindly ran into on my way to the trailer.

To be honest, the guy was pretty cute. He was tall, but then again, everyone is tall compared to my 5’3” stature, and honestly looked like he had just stepped out of some sort of modeling magazine. His chocolate brown hair looked like the softest thing in the world and his eyes were this rich, deep brown color that could easily pass for hazel when the sunlight hit them just right. And his smile. Don’t get me started on his smile. A small, innocent one was tugging at the corner of his lips as we spoke, but you could tell he had one of those smiles that could make a girl swoon. To sum it up, this guy that I had had the pleasant misfortune of running into was pretty damn attractive.

Then there was me, a freaking trash can, standing lamely in front of him after trying to apologise for colliding with him-

Oh shit, I haven’t apologised yet.

“Um, thanks,” I quietly mumble, smiling a bit at the guy in embarrassment. “And sorry for running into you, I really wasn’t watching where I was going-”

“It’s alright, Darling,” he said with a coy grin. “No harm, no foul.”

I returned his smile, but suddenly, my body went cold. My mind was now brushing past the fact that this guy was hot and focusing instead on that one word he said. Darling. Something in my mind got extremely pissed and overprotective, claiming that this guy had no right to be calling me ‘darling’ and only Vic could do that, while another part was starting to slowly flip out. There were something about the way he said ‘darling’ and how there seemed to be something hiding behind that smile of his. While it was innocent and charming a few moments ago, now it was just unnerving. I really couldn’t describe what it was about it that set me on edge and made me suddenly wary of this guy, but it was there and it refused to be ignored.

“Right,” I say with a weak cough. “Well, um, I have to finish unloading the trailer, so-”

“You work here?” he asked with a bit of shock laced in his tone.

“Yeah, I’m Pierce The Veil’s guitar tech,” I explain to him.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting that-”

“It’s fine,” I blurt out quickly, stammering a bit as I tried to make up an excuse to get out of this conversation. “But really, I do need to get back to work, so-”

The guy gave me another smile and nodded a bit as he said, “Alright, but before you go, can I at least get the pretty lady’s name?”

Again, my brain screamed in warning at his words and started yelling at me to get as far away from this guy as possible. Instead of listening to it’s pleas, I decided there was no harm in at least tell the guy my name. “I’m Dean,” I tell him. “Dean Manchester.”

His eyes immediately shot up as soon as he heard my name, but he quickly brushed it off and replaced his look of shock with another grin. “Ricky Jones, lead singer of Deaf Lions” he told me. He looked me over for a few moments before adding, “And I’m sure we’ll see each other again real soon.”

As Ricky began to walk away, I couldn’t help but stay where I was and watch him go for a few moments. Ricky Jones...so that’s who fronted Deaf Lions. Either way, he still bothered me; there was just something about that smile that was seriously rubbing me the wrong way.

Maybe I had nothing to worry about though. Maybe I was just being paranoid. I had been on edge a bit recently, and of course, with this being my first tour, I was a bit stressed out with everything, so maybe my mind was just overreacting. Maybe I was just bringing up old things from the past and letting my mind come up with some irrational fear of who Ricky was.

Or maybe, just maybe, my mind was right about Ricky after all.

Notes

* = I guess I should have mentioned this earlier, but the story takes place in 2013, so Collide With The Sky is almost a year old and Feel has yet to be released, so yeah. Now you know xD

So here's Ricky Jones! Some of you might recognize him from the characters list on the title page, but anyway, Ricky does have an important role in the story, so make sure you watch out for him. Also, for the twitter names, the only ones I can confirm are real are the ones for Kellin, Vic, Jaime, Tony, Gabe, Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens. Dean's account is totally fake, and if that username is infact taken by someone else, then I apologise. I have no connections with them and Dean is in no way affiliated with them.