Reciprocity

It had started innocently enough with a practical joke.

A high school buddy of Micky's had showed up at one of their shows a week previous. The two of them had laughed and joked about past times before the guys were due to start their set. Just as they did, Micky's old friend had gotten together with Davy to set up a prank. They had waited until the band had finished their concert and were walking backstage to pull it off. Davy had pulled Micky aside under the pretense of needing to ask him a question and thus had gotten him into position. Once he was there, his partner in crime was able to spring their plan into action.

"Come on, Davy," Micky had said, his arms crossed over his chest. "What were you wanting to ask me?"

Seconds after saying that a cascade of tiny plastic spiders fell from a bucket suspended from a door behind him onto Micky's head. Startled, Micky leapt about for almost a full minute, frantically swatting the spiders from his shoulders and hair in a blur of frantic movement.

"Don't do that!" he had nearly shouted as he flicked the last of the toy spiders out of his hair. "It's not funny!"

"Man, are you kidding me?" his old friend had laughed. "Looks like I was right about you still being freaked out about spiders."

Meanwhile, Mike, Peter and Davy had watched this spectacle with varying levels of amusement which eventually degenerated into laughter from all three of them. After pouting for a moment, Micky half-heartedly joined in, admitting that it probably did look pretty hilarious to watch. The guys joked about it at Micky's expense for the rest of the night with Micky taking it with a healthy dose of good nature. All of them expected it to be forgotten about it a day or two.

As it turned out though, the incident ended up taking a turn that none of them could have anticipated.

That night, the guys had fallen asleep moments after going to bed due to the long day that had all had. This peaceful slumber was interrupted a couple hours later with Micky letting out a yelp and falling out of bed. Mike had immediately woken up and crouched down beside him.

"Mick? Are you all right?" he had asked, concerned. "What happened?" Micky sat up and shuddered as he shook his head.

"Huh…? Oh…oh yeah, I'm all right," he muttered. "Just had a really weird dream is all." He then started to run his fingers through his hair over and over again, a detail that did not escape Mike's notice.

"Micky, is something up with your head?" he asked. Micky blinked hard and shook his head.

"No, no, it's nothing," he insisted. "It's just…I keep thinking I feel something in there, ya know. Like I didn't get all those stupid toy spiders out. That's the problem with this hair. You really could lose stuff in there."

Mike chuckled. Micky had recently let his hair grow out and it had billowed into an impressive crown of fluffy curls. Mike thought it suited Micky better than when he had straightened his hair, but could imagine it requiring some maintenance. He leaned over and studied the top of the drummer's head.

"Looks to me like you got them all," Mike drawled. "Man, if I had known that it'd bug you this much, I'd told Davy to pass on that joke."

"Ah, it's no big deal," Micky said, waving a hand at him. "I'll get Davy back. Don't you worry about that."

"Don't make me have to keep y'all in line," Mike said in a mock serious tone.

"You won't get a chance," Micky smirked. "You won't see it coming…and neither will he."

Both of them laughed, but quickly stopped when they heard Peter and Davy start to stir in their beds. Deciding that it was better to continue this conversation later, Mike and Micky went back to bed without further incident.

Or so Mike thought anyway.

The next day when the four of them gathered around the breakfast table, Mike couldn't help but notice how spaced out Micky was.

"Micky?" he said. "Hey, Earth to Micky?"

"Wha…?" Micky babbled.

"Are you actually going to eat that?" Mike said, pointing a spoon at Micky's cereal.

"Of course I am," Micky scoffed. "You know I like orange juice on my cornflakes."

"Yeah, I know that, babe," the Texan replied, making a face. "But since when did you start putting coffee on them too?"

The drummer looked down to see his cornflakes swirled around in a dark, steaming pool of brown. He let out a high, thin laugh and swished at the mixture with his spoon.

"Hey, orange juice gets boring, ya know," he stammered. "I, I thought I'd try coffee this time."

Micky scooped out several spoons of sugar and dumped it into his bowl. Then he shoved a heaping spoonful into his mouth. The resulting expression let the rest of them know that this would be an experiment that would never be repeated.

"Micky?" Peter said. "Well, how is it?" Micky gulped loudly, his eyes crossing.

"I…wouldn't recommend it," he choked out.

The drummer shot up from his chair and ran over to pour the offending sludge into the sink. Mike responded by offering to make Micky some scrambled eggs while the others continued to chortle over this latest bit of weirdness.

However, no one was laughing that night when Micky woke up again, this time with an even louder cry than before.

The other three had all woken up at the sound and had sat up to stare at the drummer who was sitting up in his bed, his eyes wide with what looked like terror.

"Micky?" Mike said, getting out of bed. "What's wrong?" Micky looked over at him with one of the fakest smiles the Texan had ever seen on his face.

"Just another weird dream," Micky said, his fingers twining through his hair. "I'm fine."

"You must be joking," Davy scoffed. "You should see yourself right now. You'd think you'd seen a ghost or something."

"I told you, I'm fine," Micky said, rolling his eyes. "It's nothing."

"That sure didn't look like nothing," Mike responded. "You want to talk about it?"

"No!" Micky snapped, tugging at his curls again. "I mean, it's stupid really. I guess that what I get for trying to eat cereal with coffee for breakfast. It's messed up my stomach and gave me some lousy dreams."

"But you didn't eat anything weird yesterday," Mike frowned. "And yet you had a nightmare then too."

"Ok, so I had the same dream twice in a row," Micky said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Big deal. Are you guys telling me that's never happened to you? Come on, let's just go back to bed."

Mike frowned again while Davy and Peter looked at each other with unease. Micky responded by letting out a loud sigh and flopping back onto his mattress and pulling his blanket over his head.

"Well I'm going back to sleep," he announced. "You guys can do whatever."

The other three watched Micky for a couple moments before collectively shrugging their shoulders and settling down to sleep some more.

The next night, Micky's eyes flew open again as his body jerked violently and he let out a strangled cry. This time though, he woke up with a hand gently clasping his shoulder. He blinked several times until his eyes focused enough to see Mike sitting on the bed next to him.

"Mike?!" he hissed. "What are ya…? Don't do that."

"Sorry," the Texan said quietly. "But it didn't look like you were having a very good dream, so I'd thought I'd wake you."

Micky sat up and scrubbed his face with the heels of his hands. Then he combed his fingers through his locks, the gestures clumsy and harsh.

"It's the same dream, isn't it?" Mike asked. "Mick, you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Nah, it's dumb," Micky replied. "It's just…well, it's more like a memory than a dream. When I was a kid, I was staying with one of my aunts and her family at their cabin. I was sleeping in this bunk bed on the top bunk. It went up pretty high. Close to the ceiling. Anyway, apparently I got a little too close to a spider web and it decided to get back at me by climbing into my hair. One second I was asleep, the next I woke up with something crawling on my scalp. It really freaked me out."

Mike nodded silently, his gaze thoughtful and attentive. Micky brushed his curls off his forehead and let out another forced laugh.

"Ya know, I never should have told my friends that story when I was in high school," he continued. "Man, I thought they'd never stop with all the dumb spider jokes. Looks like some things never change."

"Yeah, I guess not," Mike said. "But you know, Micky, if this is really bothering you…."

"It's not, really," Micky said, falling back onto his back. "You know how you sometimes get hung up on something? That's all it is. It'll blow over before long."

Mike watched him, his brown eyes filled with doubt.

"Mike, really, don't worry about it," Micky said with a yawn. "I'll let it go if you will. So go back to bed."

"All right, Micky," the Texan sighed. "If you say so."

Micky rolled over and yanked his blanket over his shoulders. He rubbed his hair a couple more times before closing his eyes and struggling to get some more sleep. Eventually he was able to drift off into a fitful slumber.

Although, he did notice that Mike did not move back to his own bed until he had started to tip back into unconsciousness.

The next two days were more of the same. Micky would wake up at some point in the night and fidget with his hair for hours until he passed out from exhaustion again. Lack of sleep soon took its toll on the drummer's nerves and cranky outbursts became more and more frequent. The rest of the guys didn't like it, but they knew what was causing it and tried to give Micky as much leeway as possible.

At one point, Micky tried to quell his restlessness by sitting down to watch a movie on TV with Mike joining him. He didn't know when he had dropped off, but one moment he was watching a gang of spies creep into a building and the next he opened his eyes to discover that his head was resting on Mike's shoulder. The fact that the credits were rolling on the TV screen told him that he had been like that for a while.

"Aw man," Micky whined as he sat up and stretched his arms. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing," Mike said, leaning back in his chair. "Just the stupidest ending I've seen in a while. Apparently whoever wrote that thing forgot that the bad guys shot that cop at the beginning 'cause he showed up again to catch the foreign agent guy at the last minute."

"Geez, isn't that dumb?" Micky snorted. "Sorry you had to watch it."

"Not like I had anything better to do," Mike shrugged.

Micky nodded and turned his gaze to the floor. He was a little embarrassed to have used Mike's shoulder as a pillow for an impromptu nap, but the Texan didn't seem to mind. Still, the drummer guessed that it wouldn't be long before the conversation would stop being so casual and was not looking forward to that moment.

Sure enough, Mike cleared his throat and turned to face him.

"Look Mick, this is gettin' out of hand," he said. "It's no secret that you haven't exactly been the easiest person to get on with these days. Now, we dig that it's 'cause you're not getting enough sleep, but you can't keep brushing it aside like it don't matter. 'Cause it does."

"I know, I know," Micky sighed. "It's not like I want to keep having those dreams. It's just…I can't get them out of my head."

Mike nodded again and shifted to sit back in his chair again. He stared at the wall for a moment before speaking again.

"Mick, you remember when we had that one big gig back when we were first gettin' started?" he asked. "That one at the Shindig club on the other side of town?"

"Yeah, I remember," Micky said. "You were seriously tense over that."

"Well it was a big deal," Mike said. "We hadn't worked in a month and Babbit was looking to throw us out. Not to mention all those other night club owners who said somethin' about showing up."

"Yeah, but it turned out all right," Micky yawned. "You got all worked up for nothing. We played great and we were able to get a ton of gigs from that."

"I know," Mike said. "But if we hadn't it would have been a disaster. I kept thinking about that. I knew we were good, but I just kept thinking about how it could all go wrong. I, I know I really pushed you guys…."

"No kidding," Micky chuckled. "I don't think we'd ever rehearsed so many times since…well since ever. I was starting to think that my arms would fall off from all that drumming. I know Davy was thinking of clubbing you with one of his maracas."

"I guess I did take it too far," Mike said ruefully. "But it was really getting to me. It was keeping me up at night. I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep a wink until it happened."

Mike paused and took a breath, crossing his leg over his knee.

"But then, I thought about what you kept telling me," the Texan said. "About how I needed to let it go and not get so hung up over something that hadn't happened yet. And you were right. I wanted to control it, to make it perfect, but I couldn't because it weren't never mine to hold onto. I had to learn to accept that I was worried, and still let the rest of it go. At first, I couldn't wrap my head around how to do that…but then we started to do that thing before we'd go to bed. Remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," Micky nodded. "We'd sing a song together, just us, no instruments and then we'd cool it for the night."

"I still don't know why that worked," Mike said. "But for some reason, it was like I could turn off while we did that and let it all go. Then I was finally able to get some shuteye before we had to play that gig."

Mike turned his head to stare into Micky's eyes again.

"That's what you need to do, Mick," he said. "You need to find a way to let it go."

"I get what you're saying," Micky said. "But, I, I don't know how to do it. It's not like I can go back and make what happened when I was a kid un-happen or something. I mean, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if…."

"If what?"

"If…ok, I know this will sound weird," Micky said. "But I just wish I didn't have to worry about something being in my hair when I woke up. Yeah, I know there won't be anything there, but when I'm on the edge of those dreams, it's like…I don't know, it's like I can feel this weird chill all over my head. It creeps me out and makes the dream seem more…real, I guess."

Mike studied him for a moment until Micky laughed again and jumped up from his chair.

"Hey, don't they say that if you keep talking about a dream, you'll keep having it?" he said. "Maybe that's my problem. How about we go do something so I can forget about it?"

"Sounds good to me," Mike said, rising to his feet.

Micky bobbed his head, his curls bouncing as the two of them walked out toward the beach. They did not say another word about the dream for the rest of the day.

The next morning, Micky slowly pried his eyes open and swiped at his face. He felt groggy, but was also surprisingly relaxed. It took him several more seconds to realize that that was because he had actually slept all night without waking up for a change. He let out a huge sigh of relief, refreshed, and smiled as he reached up to scratch his head.

He was surprised, however, when his fingertips ended up touching cloth instead of hair. It was then that he realized that his head felt warmer than usual.

The drummer sat up and ran his hands all over his head, pulling off something that had been covering it. He stared open-mouthed at his hands when he saw that it had been one of Mike's hats.

Micky looked over at the bed beside him to see the Texan curled up on his side, still slumbering soundly. He had no memory of Mike putting the hat on his head and figured that he must have been completely out of it to not have noticed that. After thoroughly searching his memory, he did find a vague recollection of someone covering him back up with his blankets last night after they had gotten tangled, but at the time that had seemed more like a dream than something that had actually happened. Looking back on it now, Micky guessed that Mike must have put the hat on his head after tucking him back in.

The drummer stared at Mike. The Texan was sleeping on the side facing him and Micky noted that there were shadows under his eyes. He imagined that they were probably the result of being woken up night after night for almost a week. He couldn't understand why he hadn't noticed them before, but now that he did, he felt bad that Mike had had to put up with his sleeping issues too.

Micky looked back down at the hat in his lap. It would be easy enough to put it on Mike's nightstand so he could get back when he woke up. He scooted to the edge of the bed, fully intending to do just that.

However, at the last minute, he blinked drowsily and shuffled back toward the center of the bed. Despite getting more sleep than he had in days, he still felt tired. He pulled the hat back on and laid down, his eyes closing the second his head made contact with the pillow.

Three days later, he and Mike were walking down the street on an errand to get some guitar strings and a replacement head for his bass drum. The drummer had slept peacefully for the past few nights and was pretty much back to his old self again.

Micky was about to suggest stopping to grab a hot dog from a nearby stand when a thought suddenly popped into his head.

"Aw Mike, I'm sorry babe," he said. "Your hat. I forgot to give it back to you."

"That's ok. No rush," Mike said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I got plenty of spares."

After that, the subject never seemed to come up again. Mike didn't ask for it, and Micky would always forget about giving it back to him. Most of the time, it stayed tucked into a corner of his mattress, but once in a while, Micky would wear it, noting that it did keep his hair from getting too unruly at night and that it was good for providing a little additional warmth while he slept. Peter and Davy had each asked him about it, but Micky found that he never really had a good reply as to why he kept it. He just knew that he wanted to hold onto it.

And he suspected that he always would.