January 26th, 2005
Arena Berlin
Berlin, Germany
10:08am
Elliot was exhausted. It was only a week into the tour, but she was exhausted already. Yet she couldn’t sleep, The Man was in her dreams, rather nightmares, every night waking her up, but not letting her sleep. In the past week, she had probably only gotten about fifteen hours of sleep, when really she should get more than twice as much. Exhaustion wasn’t even cutting it as a word to describe her sleeplessness, more like delusional; she would laugh at everything because she was so goddamn tired. She had started to hear things and it scared the shit out of her. Her nightmares were becoming her day dreams.
But that didn’t stop her, she had a job and a duty to fulfill, a Frankie to keep occupied, and a band to keep under control when they decided they wanted to drink foreign beer all night and then somehow function the next morning. Besides Gerard of course, he was her favorite most of the time when the guys would be hung-over hellions yelling at her because she was yelling.
“Well you shouldn’t have drank last night Mikey, or I wouldn’t be bugging you more than usual, all four of you reek of alcohol by the fucking way, what’s the point of showering if you’re just going to get drunk afterwards, and hello! You have a goddamn band mate in fucking recovery!” Elliot ranted, becoming more and more irritated by the second, “Do I have to ban alcohol for the duration of the tour? Or are you assholes going to get your shit together and stop?” she practically yelled to the guys as they sat in the front of the tour bus in various forms of consciousness.
“Okay, okay, Ellie, we get it,” Ray mumbled, “No more excessive drinking…”
“Thank you Ray,” she sighed.
“I think he just wanted you shut up,” Gerard snickered from where he sat his nose in a mug of coffee.
She rubbed her eyes and yawned, she needed coffee.
“Elliot, it’s only a week into tour, why do you look like you’re about keel over?” Gerard asks as she begins to make another pot of coffee.
Elliot just shrugs and turns to look at Gerard.
“I haven’t been sleeping that well I guess,” She says, “And I’m the stage manager, my job is never done.”
“When do we preform?” Frank asks loudly, completely oblivious to the fact that Ellie is about to drop dead from sleep deprivation.
“You go on at 7 tonight, go sleep off your goddamn hangovers, all of you, get!” Ellie says and starts to push all the guys back to their bunks, “If you need something, give me a yell,” she says as they climb into their bunks.
She closes the door that leads to the Hall of Bunks and shakes her head at the complete idiocy of the band she was semi-in charge of.
“Where’s Brian when you need him?” she mumbles helplessly pouring her cup of Folgers Black Silk, the boy’s choice in the addictive drink. It was strong, but smooth.
“I don’t think you need coffee, you need sleep—maybe you should take a nap too,” Gerard says and moves to take the cup for Elliot’s hand, “We have a lot of down time here, go take an hour or two, go on,” He then pushes Elliot towards the Hall of Bunks just like she did moments ago with the drunken/hung-over assholes.
“How much down time exactly?” She asks avoiding opening the door, “I’m half German, let’s go see Berlin!”
“I don’t know, what if we can’t understand something, and Brain—”
“Gerard, ich Deutsch spreche, und ficken Brian, würde er mich nicht in New York zu erkunden. Lassen Sie uns gehen! ” Ellie said in German.
Gerard blinked at the amount of foreign language coming out of her mouth.
“I speak German, fluently… and fuck Brian! He didn’t let me explore in New York, let’s go! I’m not even that tired, give me my coffee,” she rattled off and made grabby hands for the mug.
Gerard agreed, somewhat reluctantly, but agreed nonetheless.
Ellie left a note for the guys when they woke up.
Went exploring with Gee, don’t worry, I speak the language.
Go shower when you wake up and don’t make the bus any more of a mess than it already is!
Don’t burn anything down.
-Ellie & Gerard.
The two found themselves in the heart of Berlin; it was busy and full of life. Everywhere they looked it was something different, yet familiar at the same time. There were children running around playing made up games, parents keeping an eye on the young ones, business men’s hurrying their way’s to work, sulking teenagers sharing a cigarette, and elderly just meandering around what looked like a downtown area.
There were shops around the place and outside vendors selling anything from cheap German souvenirs to food.
“I would love to see this place during Christmas time,” Ellie says as her and Gerard walk around just taking in everything, “Germans take Christmas time very seriously,” she tells Gerard.
“Do they have like a Santa Claus?” He asks when they stop outside of a vintage music store.
“Yeah, but that’s used in like the urban city life Germany; like the people who live in the hearts of like Frankfurt, but they have many other traditions like the Christkind, or the Christ Child,” she says looking through the window of the shop, “My brother and I grew up on the Christkind tradition, the Christ Child is an Angel that comes on Christmas to give the little children presents, it’s also the tradition that started the whole Tinsel thing, when my brother and I were really young, on Christmas morning to prove that the Christkind had in fact stopped at our house at night, our parents would put a little bit of Tinsel on the tree to make it look like the Christkind had gotten her hair stuck on the tree, I find it a lot cuter than the whole commercialized Santa thing, but I grew up around it.”
“Which one of your parents is German?” Gerard asks completely enthralled at the stuff he was learning about the German culture.
“My mother, she was born here actually, Berlin is her birthplace, but her parents left Germany when she was about two, she doesn’t remember living here, she just has pictures,” she says, “Let’s go inside here,” she smiles and drags Gerard into the music store.
The music store was small and it smelled like cigarette smoke and cardstock, a familiar smell to the both of them. There were records and CD’s and posters everywhere they looked. There were no empty spaces on the ways from the amount of artist posters, ranging from Rammstein to Japanese Pop. There was even a My Chemical Romance poster that was nailed above the rock/pop section of the store.
“Your face is everywhere Gerard, I swear to God,” Ellie laughed looking at the poster.
“That is so old, I was probably stoned or drunk or both in that photo,” Gerard sulks, “And it has our old drummer.”
“No need to go all grumpy pants,” Elliot laughed elbowing him in the ribs, “What happened?”
“We decided he needed to leave the band…”
“I don’t mean Matt,” Ellie rolls her eyes, “With you getting clean?”
Gerard hesitates from where he’s standing and looks at the ground. He takes a deep breath, and looks up…
“I hit rock bottom…” Gerard sighs and follows her to the vinyl records on the other side of record store, “I didn’t want the band to become some Behind the Music scenario, and then everything collapsed, I didn’t want that to happen, I wanted us to keep going, to keep fighting the good fight,” He looked down at her, “And then you ended up on our door step only three months after the fact and it really opened my eyes, I was struggling with the whole staying clean thing… I really was—but then you came along and distracted me from it, so in some regard, you saved me just as much as we saved you…”
Elliot smiled huge and tackled him in a huge hug.
“Nah, you would’ve gotten clean without my crazy ass coming in and becoming a loud nuisance,” She giggled into the embrace.
“And how do you know that?” Gerard pulled his head back so he could look at her through the hug.
“Because you love your fans too much,” she says seriously and pulls out of the hug, “you have a message to get across, and I know for a fucking fact that you weren’t going to let alcohol and drugs get in the way of saving lives, I have nothing to do with it, I’m just another life you saved, and the notion isn’t vice versa, you chose to get clean and you stuck with it, and some eighteen year old girl from Boston is not going to take the glory of that, you are, be proud Gerard, getting and staying clean is no easy feat, and if you haven’t heard it lately, I’m proud of you, and so is Mikey, and Frank, and Ray, and Bob and Brian, I have a feeling that Brian is especially proud of you…” she laughs at the last part.
Gerard goes speechless and just tackles her into another python hug.
“Gerard—need—air—” Ellie chokes out.
“No you don’t.” He laughs and releases.
“Whatever, loser…”
“Guten tag. Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen? ,” a voice spoke from somewhere behind them.
The voice belonged to a young girl, probably around Elliot’s age, her hair was dyed blue, and she had her lip and nose pierced. She was about Frank’s height, so about five and a half feet tall, with what Ellie’s mother would say ‘German birthing hips’ that gave the girl a beautiful physique. She was wearing a black leather jacket, an old faded band tee, ripped jeans and tattered old high-tops. Her eyes were an emerald green that was lined with eyeliner, and when those eyes fell on Gerard they widened and the girl stuttered.
"Ich bin Elliott," Ellie spoke in her native tongue, "Und das ist Gerard, was ziemlich haben Sie herausgefunden ..." And that’s Gerard, which I’m sure you’ve already figured…
The girl stays quiet for half a minute before she gathers some of her wits and begins to speak.
“Mein name ist Lila, Schoen, Sie kennen zu lernen,” ( My name is Lila, nice to meet you) the girl squeaked and shook Elliot’s hand, a common thing in Germany, “Ich bin schockiert… du bist Gerard Way…” (I’m shocked, you’re Gerard Way…) the girl rattled off, her hands were shaking at her sides and her eyes were filling with tears…
“Elliot?” Gerard asked confused as to what the girl was asking.
“She’s just shocked to meet you,” Elliot answered, “Lila, du sprecte Englisch?” (do you speak English?)
“Oh yeah, sorry, a lot of German teenagers know English, I’m just surprised,” The girl says in English with a thick German accent, “I’m Lila and I love your band, you guys are my heroes—how you say Superhelden?”
“Super heroes,” Elliot translated.
“Well thank you Lila!” Gerard answered excitedly, “Will you be at the show tonight?”
“JA! I get off vork in half an hour and I’m going to go line up vith my friends, they are saving me a spot in line,” She smiles excitedly, “Can I get a photograph?” she asks a tint of pink creeping onto her face.
“Of course,” Gerard says, “Do you have a camera?” he asks the girl.
She nods and pulls a SideKick out from her back pocket and hands to Elliot.
Gerard and Lila stand close together, Gerard’s left arm wrapped around Lila as the two smiled for the camera.
“Wunderbar!” (wonderful) Ellie grins, “Okay, now a funny one!”
Lila puts up the ‘Rock on’ sign with her hand and sticks out her tongue, as Gerard kisses her on the cheek. It was the most punk-rock thing that Elliot had ever seen in all her years.
Lila’s eyes widened after the photo is taken and turns an embarrassing shade of red. Rendered completely speechless after Gerard’s actions, hell, even Elliot was a little shocked; he only kissed Frank on the cheek.
“Danke,” The girl manages to stutter, “Danke.” She repeats.
“No problem, darling,” Gerard smiles and takes the girl into a hug much like the one he and Ellie shared, “We’ll see you tonight, yeah?” he says moving out of the embrace.
Lila just nods and takes her phone back from Elliot.
“Definitely,” Lila nods.
“Okay, then! It was nice to meet you,” Gerard grins and hugs the girl one more time before heading out of the store dragging Elliot behind him.
Seriously, what is with these boys grabbing you and dragging you out of places?
“Shut up,” Elliot whispers.
“What?” Gerard asks.
“Nothing, auf wiedersehen Lila!” She shouts into the store.
“Auf wiedersehen!” she echoes and waves excitedly after the both of them as they leave the store.
They walk back out onto the busy downtown area of Amsterdam. Gerard releases Ellie’s wrist and they began to walk around the area again.
“What the hell was that, Gerard?” Ellie giggles moments later as they approach a fountain.
“You totally kissed that girl on the cheek… she was like my age,” she says and takes a seat on the fountain.
Gerard mimics her actions and gives her a look, his eyes looking with her’s. In the bleak, cloudy, and snowy day that was Berlin, his looked a lot darker than usual.
“I kissed her on the cheek, I wasn’t about to have sex with her,” he laughs.
“But this is Germany! You could’ve just started like World War III,” Ellie exaggerates making wild arm movements with a faux crazy look in her eyes.
“Shit, when the Nazis come knocking down the tour bus door, we’ll offer you up as sacrifice, you’re blonde and blue eyed…” he trails off when a dark, serious look appears on Ellie’s face.
Almost a downtrodden look, it scared the shit out Gerard.
“Uh, Ellie?” he asks confused, he makes a move to touch her shoulder but decides against it when she changes her look capriciously the next second.
“Hmm? Let’s go in there!” she points excitedly to a camera store, “I’ve been waiting to get a good camera and the American dollar is worth more than an Euro, it shouldn’t be that expensive, come on!” she says excitedly and drags Gerard off the fountain toward the store.
Half an hour later Elliot was walking out of the store with a Nikon professional camera. She was so excited; she was snapping pictures of everything she could, the fountain in the middle of the shops, of Gerard smiling at her childishness, and random people she deemed photogenic enough.
“I am going to abuse the hell out of this fucking camera, like you have no idea Gerard,” she says excitedly.
“Even though we have a photographer on tour,” Gerard points out.
“Yeah but he only takes pictures of you guys on stage, I want to capture what goes on after and before the show,” she says as they head for the bus.
She snaps pictures of everything as they make the short walk back to the parking lot of the amphitheater they were performing at that night.
They arrive back at the bus sometime before lunchtime and everyone was still asleep.
“So much black mail is about to ensue,” Ellie whispers when she opens the door leading to the bunks.
There were different sounds of breathing coming from each of the bunks meaning all of them were still asleep. Ellie grinned mischievously and peaked into the nearest bunk which was Bob’s. She snapped a few pictures of him drooling on his pillow and moved onto to the next bunk which was Mikey.
Mikey was cuddled up with a stuffed animal of some sort and looked like a little kid. Ellie giggled quietly and moved to Ray’s bunk across the small hall way.
Ray’s hair was splayed out against his pillow, his mouth was open and he was snoring softly. She snapped the photo making sure she didn’t wake him with the click of the camera.
She moved down to Frank’s bunk. The little shit was facing to the inside of his bunk, so she couldn’t get a proper take of his face.
Elliot made a face and cursed under her breath.
Frank shifted in his sleep and turned his body slightly towards the outside and opened his eyes. He locked eyes with Ellie and grinned sleepily.
“Hi,” he mumbled groggily, and closed his eyes again reaching his right arm out of the bunk to grasp onto to Ellie’s hand and gave it a small tug inviting her into the bunk.
She sighed and smiled and pulled her hand softly from his and set her camera in the bunk above Frank’s which was hers. She kicked her shoes off in the hallway and climbed into the bunk. She sat at his feet, her knees brought up to her chest trying to take up as little space as she could.
“You can come over here,” he laughs.
“I don’t wanna,” Ellie sticks her tongue out.
“Fine then,” he sticks his tongue out, and lays back down on his pillows, “Where’d you two go?”
“Around Berlin, taught Gerard about the German Christmas culture, met a fan in a music store, bought a camera, you know… stuff,” Ellie says as she kicks her legs out over his perpendicularly so her ankles stuck outside of the bunk.
“Sounds fun,” he mumbles.
“Is your head okay? Do you need some Tylenol or something?” Elliot asked quietly.
“Nah, I went and got some an hour ago? That’s when I saw the note; my head is only throbbing now,” he laughs drily at his own joke.
Ellie rolls her eyes and smiles small.
“Well, do you need anything at all?”
“My girlfriend to lay with me and just chill,” Frank says seriously.
Girlfriend? What the fuck, Elliot? What is he going on about?
Ellie stays silent and moves her gaze from his to the curtain that was blocking the sight of the hallway
Frank stays silent too…
Two minutes later he sits up and moves his blanket off his legs, then pulls a reluctant Ellie to sit in-between his knees facing him. She curls up into her knees and looks at them as well.
“Hey,” he mumbles, “look at me,” he says softly and rests a finger under her chin and light lifts her head, “you’ve been weird since we got here, are you sure you’re okay?”
“First Rule to Being Okay: Admit that you’re not.” Ellie suddenly remembers from the first time she met Frank. She smiles fondly of the memory that escapes from her mouth as if she were reciting the lyrics of an old favorite song—the words just come out.
“So you’re not okay?” Frank asks worried.
“I’m fine,” she giggles, “but it just reminded me of what you said that got me to follow you to the bus the night you found me.”
“Oh, well that’s great I think…” he trails off.
“Girlfriend though? When did this happen and why the fuck wasn’t I informed that I had a title?” Ellie gives the dirtiest look she could muster and glares at Frank jokingly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were into the whole sappy girlfriend/boyfriend event when someone finally makes it ‘official’,” he teases.
“Just because I’m a hard ass sometimes—” Frank gave her a look questioning because—sometimes, “Okay, most of the time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be a girly girl,” she argues.
“You’re going to regret telling me this…” he sing-songs…
“I’m aware,” she rolls her eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers.
A blush creeps up Ellie’s face much like Lila’s earlier and she shakes her head.
“I look like a 12 year old and cuss like a middle aged Bostonian man, I have a curious side that will get me killed one day, I’m a bit insane at times, I hate mornings and you know exactly why, my eyes are too big, the only reason why my teeth are straight is because I had braces, I short and blonde and weird and loud and immature and—”
Frank shakes his head and attacks her lips with his, “You’re beautiful because of all those things,” he says when he pulls away an inch, “and your eyes are gorgeous,” he murmurs and kisses her again, “the cussing makes you endearing,” another kiss, “I don’t trust anyone who likes mornings,” another, “it’s perfectly okay to be curious, and loud and insane, and it is perfectly perfect to be short because goddamn, there has to be at least one person in the world that gets to look up at me.”
Ellie felt her chest get warm and fuzzy and all of the crap and decided against jumping out of the bunk and just decided to jump Frank’s bones instead.
She straddled him and threw every lick of doubt about him out the fucking window and kissed the mother fucker hard. Her hands grabbed at his neck in an attempt to not hit her head on the top of the bunk, but somehow bring them closer. Frank was only surprised for a split second before attacking Ellie with the same ferocity and pushed her back to lie flat so that he could dominate. And Elliot was totally okay with that.
But only for a minute.
It began to heated, Ellie’s shirt was hitched up to her bra, and Frank’s wasn’t even on anymore. It would’ve gone further had Bob not decided to crash their party and open the curtain rather rudely.
“That is a sight that I could’ve gone the rest of my life without seeing,” Bob said.
Frank closed the curtain once again and told him to fuck off.
“We got sound check fucker, in half an hour,” Bob calls.
Frank goes limp on top of Ellie which made her giggle.
“Maybe next time,” she laughs and rubs her hands up and down his back.
“Fucking Bob always trying to kill my game,” Frank grumbled not making any moves of getting off of Ellie.
“As much as I would love to just lay here and continue our little endeavor,” Ellie said.
“Endeavour huh?” Frank mumbled into her neck leaving little kisses.
“It is my job to make sure you get your ass to sound check,” she continued as Frank moved to her jaw.
“Shh, it is my job to decompress you,” he mumbled before taking her lips on again.
Elliot tensed up and tried to move away from him but it was a little difficult because well it was a hilariously small bunk.
Frank felt the change in the charge in the air and Elliot knew that she wasn’t comfortable…
“You okay?” he asked leaning up on his elbow on either side of her head taking the weight off her chest.
There was something pressing on Elliot’s chest, but she didn’t think it was just Frank.
“It’s just,” she tried to string something out her head besides the fact that not only was she uncomfortable, or that she was a virgin, but the last time she had a guy pinning her to a bed it wasn’t exactly consented, “I’m a virgin, and a bunk on a tour bus is not where I want my first time,” she mumbled so quietly and blushed so red she could feel the blush creep all the way to her toes.
Frank’s face contorted to worry, then to sympathy, and then finally apologetic.
“I am an asshole,” Frank then proceeded to open the curtain and clamber out of the and grab his shirt before throwing it back on, “I’m an inconsiderate asshole who was thinking with his dick, and I am so sorry, Elliot,” he says his face still contorted.
Elliot fixed her shirt and sat up, her feel dangling out the bunk.
“It’s okay, really, it’s partially my fault, I was leading you on and I’m sorry too,” she says looking at him. With her sitting in the bunk and him standing outside of it, they were almost eye level.
“Are you sure? Because I won’t touch you for like a week if you’re not comfortable with it,” he says frantically.
“Frank, I’m a virgin, not a goddamn prude,” she rolls her eyes and leans over to give another kiss, “You have to go to sound check,” she says when she moves.
“Okay,” he grins and kisses her again, and then one more, “Okay last one,”
“Frank, go!” she laughs.
He smiles and kisses her once last time before retreating out of the bus to follow his band mates.
“Elliot! I swear to God—” Brain yelled from the front.
“Shut up, Brian, I know what I am doing,” she yells back.
“Frank’s boner begs to differ,” he yells again.
“I’m done with this conversation,” she yells.
“Are you going to sound check?” he asks.
“I think I’m going to take a nap,” she says.
She ignores Brian’s request to go, closes the curtain again and falls back onto the pillows. She knew she was exhausted, but she didn’t realize that relaxation felt that good.
Stop.
What are you doing?
Taking a goddamn nap and you’re going to let me.
With that act of defiance, Elliot was asleep like a kitten.

Notes

*peeks out from under rock* shit they got torches and pitch forks...
*waves* evil eyes
Before you come and try to lynch me or something, let me apologize!

Fuck, I am so sorry... this chapter went through a fuck ton of fucking re-writes and finally I found a balance. So just don't hate me too much.

OKAY NOW WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KERRANG AND THEIR TALENT OF MAKING US WANT TO THROW OURSELVES OFF SKYSCRAPERS. (jerks)

Who liked the fluff at the end? Raise your hand in the comments!
If you're still reading, thank you!

xo Taylor.