The (Un)Merriest Time of Year

Donna Lee Way was very enthusiastic about ‘family bonding time’ for someone who was never around.
But when she was, there was no escaping.
For that reason, and that reason alone, Gerard Way dreaded Christmas. He loved all the rest of it, like any other 17 year old boy, of course. As much food as you can eat, presents, what isn’t there to love? There was just that *tiny* little problem of having to interact with other human beings and exchange niceties that put a dampener on his otherwise festive mood.
‘Tiny’ was the understatement of the century. Like any other teenage Tumblr addict, Gerard spent his time crying over fan art, creating gifsets, hating himself, and asdfghjkl;-ing over the latest episode of Doctor Who. Unfortunately, Christmastime dictated that, for at least one day, he must participate in the kryptonite of all the previously aforementioned activities: interacting with the real world [aka the outernet] and pretending to be normal.
This year was by far the worst, because, being the family-nut that she was, Donna had organised a family barbeque in some park, an hour and a half away from home, with the relatives. The whole family, as well as nature? That was a recipe for fucking disaster.
“Mom, it’s freezing,” Gerard deadpanned when his mother gushed on about her plans. “It’s the middle of December. Having a barbeque in thepark is something that Australians do during the blistering Australian summer. We’re not Australian. This isn’t Sydney or whatever. It’s not summer. This is Jersey. We’ll die of hyperthermia.”
“Hypothermia,” mumbled Gerard’s younger sister, Mikey. “Hyperthermia is overheating and there’s no chance that’s gonna happen. Not during the middle of winter in the exposed environment outside.”
But Donna shut them down with her veto power and on Christmas Day, she bustled into the basement, ready to wake up Gerard for the wonderful day ahead.
*
“Gerard, wake up!” she sang out, snapping the curtains open.
Gerard recoiled from the bright stream of sunlight that seemed intent on burning out his retinas, hissing like an angry cat. He squirmed into his bed sheets, burying his face under beneath the pillow.
“Up!” Donna yanked the pillow away, stopping short when she saw his hair. “Gerard, what on earth did you do to your hair?”
“I dyed it,” mumbled Gerard grumpily, seeking refuge from the sun. “I’m getting into the Christmas spirit.” His mother tugged at a few strands of the now bright red hair, sighing, before stomping away through the mess of books, dirty socks and trash strewn around the basement. “We’re leaving in an hour. Take a shower, and clean up, for goodness’ sakes!”
Gerard groaned again.
*
Before long, the family were bundled together in the car, Donna sliding in one of her favourite CDs and humming along. Mikey had her headphones on and was listening to Suicide Silence on full blast. She ignored any attempt at communication initiated by anyone, although the pained look on her face indicated that Mitch Lucker’s vocals still weren’t overpowering Kenny G’s saxophone.
Gerard’s earphones had broken the other day, and he didn’t think he could survive the car trip. A life without working earphones, he decided, is no life at all. It was even worse when the depression of dead earphones was accompanied by his mother’s music taste and a seedy rendition of the saxophone solo in Careless Whisper.
“I’m hungry,” commented Gerard halfway into the drive, trying to distract himself from the boring monotone of trees and doot doot noises pumping from the speakers.
“Wait until the barbeque,” his mom replied.
“But I can’t,” complained Gerard. “I’m hungry now. Time and tide wait for no man, and my stomach waits for no barbeque either.”
“Just wait,” his mom said once more.
“But mom!” he whinged.
“Gerard Arthur Way, shut your pie hole. You will wait until the barbeque.”
So that’s what he did. Until she demanded, “Do you understand?”
“Yes, mom.”
He didn’t understand adult logic. They told you to do one thing but to do something else that contradicts the first. Occasionally, his mother yelled to ask if he was asleep or not, and didn’t rest and Gerard yelled back, “Yes mom, I’m asleep.”
Go figure.
*
The barbeque was even worse than he anticipated.
“Oh no,” Gerard said out loud as the car drew to a stop. “Little shits.”
Mikey pulled off her headphones. “Little shits?” she asked, following Gerard’s line of view to the playground. “Oh no.”
“Gerard, Michaela, you will not refer to your younger cousins as ‘little shits’,” Donna reprimanded as her husband heaved a world weary sigh and Mikey took a few puffs from her inhaler to prepare. She watched them scream and wrestle each other, kicking and punching. “At least, not in front of their parents.”
“Okay then,” Gerard said, staring in apprehension at the howling and brawling infants,before deciding on another way to describe the squealing horrors. “Oh no. The Motley Crew.”
“Oh no,” echoed Mikey once more. “The Motley Crew.”
Donna frowned. “That’s better, I guess. Not sure if I fully approve though.”
Donald tried to be cheerful. “It smells wonderful!”
“If we could smell anything,” Mikey muttered darkly, poking at her long nose. “My sniffing appendages have been frozen.”
Donald opened his mouth, but before he could reply, the little shits spotting the new arrivals. They screamed out, again, and ran towards them. “GERAWRD!” one of them howled, throwing its demonic body towards Gee. He froze in horror as a chubby little terror [Terrifying Thomas?] clung to his leg. Another [Vindictive Vivian?] attempted to teeth on his laces.
Help me, he mouthed to Mikey, who was dying in silent howls of laughter. Those faded soon, though, as another little shit [Deadly Diana? They all looked the same to him: devil spawn] cried out in delight, “MOIKEY!” and launched herself at her. It hadn’t even been 5 minutes yet, and Gerard’s chances of survival were already depleting by the second. He attempted to detach Terrifying Thomas from his leg, muttering ‘Christo, Christo’ over and over in case it actually was a demon.
“Gerard, Mikey, come say hello to Aunt Belinda and Uncle Pablo!” called his mother. He stumbled over, Vindictive Vivian still trying to chew on his Converse laces, hopes of making it through the day being slowly crushed as Mikey wailed in despair behind him.
“Hi Aunt Belinda, Uncle Pablo,” Gerard muttered through gritted teeth, trying to subtly shake Vivian off. He had gone over as many bumps on the ground as he could when he made his way over, praying that they would dislodge the little shit. Like everything else he attempted in his life, it had failed. Miserably.
Mikey’s efforts, however, had been successful. She was child-free and smirking at her success in amateur kid removing and life in general.
Smug little shit, Gerard thought, before re-addressing his relatives.
“Lovely…” [Shake] “Children…” [Shake] “You’ve…” [Shake] “Got…” [Shake]. He took a brief break to catch his breath before resuming. [The only exercise he ever did was running…a blog.] “It’s just so…” [Shake] “Wonderful…” [Shake] “To see…” [Shake] “You and your...” [Shake] “Kids again.” The final few words were strung together as he put all his efforts into moving Vivian.
Aunt Belinda’s eyebrows creased smartly, meeting in the middle of her forehead and making her look like a pissed off orang-utan. “It’s lovely to see you too, Gerard, Michaela,” she said, icicles dripping off each word. Gee thought he could feel the temperature drop even further with every breath Aunt Belinda took. Mikey had scrunched her nose up at being called Michaela. She hated being called Michaela.
Gerard stared pointedly at Uncle Pablo’s eyebrows. They looked like two caterpillars had died above his eyes. His extended family really didn’t have the best of luck with eye hats, he thought. You could pluck them and knit a jumper with all that hair.
Eyebrow gaps, Gerard decided, are definitely more important than thigh gaps.
Eventually, he managed to excuse himself, dithering away with some mumbled stories of mohair sweaters. Mikey joined him soon afterwards, both of them thankfully toddler free.
“Imagine if you had fingernails instead of hair, and hair instead of fingernails,” Gerard said.
“Um,” Mikey replied.
“And have you noticed that balloons are like, rubber sacks of breath?”
“Um. Gee.”
“But seriously. It’s like, happy birthday, have a giant condom thing filled with my mouth odour,” Gerard continued, waving his arms around to demonstrate and then hitting someone in the face. “Uh oh.”
Turning around, he came face to face with yet another of his cousins. However, it was more like face to chest, because this one wasn’t 3 years old.
“Hi, Brett,” Gerard mumbled in the vague direction of Brett’s right nipple. That probably wasn’t the best angle to have a conversation. He stepped back a bit, to fully take in the situation, almost tripping over Mikey and knocking over a pot plant that Aunt Gina had gifted his mom.
Cousin Brett was built like the Michelin mascot, arms crossed over his broad chest, chestnut hair swept and gelled back, looking like the poster boy for a shitty brand of cologne or the local lacrosse team. Next to him, his twin sister Bella simpered, tossing her long, shiny locks, dressed in a matching red and green tracksuit. It really wasn’t a good look.
“Gerard!” boomed Brett.
“Uh, no,” Gerard said.
“Nonsense!” Brett continued to boom. “It’s so lovely to see you! I have to say, you’ve certainly…changed!”
Gerard hadn’t seen the Terrible Twins since Mikey’s 11th birthday, when an incident that involved a frying pan, a pair of lederhosen, and two watermelons had unfolded. During the subsequent three years, Gerard had grown his hair out and lost a lot of weight. He had hoped that Brett and Bella wouldn’t recognise him, but no such luck.
“I mean, you were really fat!” Bella piped up as Gerard winced. The twins were people who always seemed to speak in exclamations and they really weren’t very tactful. [In short, they would make very good door-to-door salespeople or politicians.] “I couldn’t believe that I was related to you!” She smoothed down the front of her ugly red and green striped jacket, as if checking to see if she had caught any lingering fat germs from Gerard just by breathing the same air as him.
“Trust me, the feeling was mutual,” Gee mumbled. As an afterthought, he added, “It still is.” Mikey sniggered.
Bella’s eyebrows twitched [seriously, what was it with his relatives and eyebrows?] and she turned to survey Mikey.
“You look like a boy, Michaela! Your hair’s so…short!” she exclaimed in horror.
“Oh, no. What a disaster,” Mikey replied without emotion. One thing Gerard loved about his sister was that she just really didn’t give a shit about her looks. Also, Mikey let him borrow her eyeliner, which was a plus.
Bella’s eyes widened in dismay. “But, what if, like, people think, like, you’re, like, a lesbian or something?”
“What, because of my hair?”
“Yeah! And we can’t have that now, can we? How about you grow it out?”
“How about you stick a cactus down your homophobic throat, buddy.” Mikey’s permanent poker face still held no emotion.
“Ouch,” Gerard snickered, suppressing a snort. “Would you like some aloe for that?” Bella stared at them with Regina George’s ‘Boo, you whore!’ face before grabbing Brett and flouncing away, casting dark glances over her shoulder.
“Well played, Mikes.” Gerard clapped her on the back before heading over to the barbeque, where delicious scents wafted through the air.
Christmas was basically one of the only times of the year when Gerard would eat as much as he fucking wanted, to the point of self-loathing, and then some more. And he loved every moment of it. This year, however, was different.
The adults seemed to insist on talking about politics the whole time, except for Uncle Brian. Gerard didn’t know about normal people, but having Uncle Pablo complain about the tax and then Uncle Brian demonstrating his latest yoga moves, displaying his armpits to the world, kinda put him off his food. Mikey look no less pleased, especially with Bella giving her the stank eye and Aunt Belinda muttering about her hair underneath her breath.
Mikey pulled out her phone and furiously began texting her friend Ray.
Gerard peered over her shoulder, catching sight of ‘oh great ray of the mighty fro fro pls save me im dying’.
The phone pinged. what r u doing?
Mikey’s fingers moved across the keys. slowly being killed by uncle brians armpit hair display pls help me
hahaha. sucks 2 b u
Ray was enjoying their pain way too much. Gee grabbed Mikey’s phone, swiftly sending off a call for rescue to Pete.
“Goddammit,” Gerard growled when Pete replied with ‘lol nope suffer in silence suckers’. His hopes were raised when a second message followed soon after, but they were dashed when he opened the file attached.
“Oh my god-” Gerard choked.
Mikey made grabby hands. “What’s going on lemme see-NOPE.” She almost dropped her phone when she laid eyes upon an unnameable part of Pete’s body, immediately beginning to mumble an exorcism and making the sign of the cross over the phone.
They were saved from explaining why Gerard was trying to cleanse his eyes with hand sanitizer when Aunt Gina bought up the topic of asylum seekers. All fell silent from shock when Brett asked, “Wait…if we let all the asylum seekers in, won’t that mean that white people will, like, die out?”
This time, Mikey did drop her phone. Gerard spat apple juice all over his dad. His mom developed a look of constipation.
Eventually the deafening silence was broken by Mikey, stating what was on everyone’s minds.
“Okay. Faith in humanity officially lost.”
*
Gerard’s worst decision that day was probably trying to pat Killer, Thomas’s pet dog [read: hellhound]. His name should have provided a clue, but Gee, being sleep deprived and a self-confessed idiot, decided that it couldn’t hurt, and, besides, how bad could it be?
Pretty bad, as it turned out.
One moment, Gerard was approaching Killer, chanting, “Who’s a good doggy? You’re a good doggy!” and stretching out his hand. The next moment, he was being chased by a literal son-of-a-bitch that weighed about half of what he did [and was definitely NOT a good doggy] while screaming “OH JESUS SHITTING CHRIST HELP ME” through the playground while the little shits cheered and clapped their hands, sadistically enjoying his misery.
Three thoughts flitted through his head at that moment:
This exercise thing really sucks.
Do fish have dicks?
Holy shit, I’m the gay cousin.
The last thought ploughed, unwelcome, into Gee’s mind as Killer slathered and snarled behind him. He promptly tripped over his own feet, faceplanted, and flailed his limbs around, somehow striking Killer in the oversized maw and stunning him for an instant. Taking advantage of the few seconds he had, Gerard scrambled to his feet again and sprinted for the climbing frame, wheezing like a-pack-a-day smoker and achieving the approximate speed of a morbidly obese zombie.
Mikey found him there, clinging to the top of the frame for dear life as Aunt Belinda grudgingly lured Killer away with a meaty bone.
“Gee? Are you okay?”
Gerard stared at Mikey and the rest of the family for around half a minute before opening his mouth.
He blamed his next words on concussion and shock from parkour-ing around a playground while being chased by a large, intimidating creature capable of ripping him to shreds.
“Shit, Mikes. I’m the gay cousin.”
There was a second deafening silence, broken, once again, by Mikey as the adults creased their eyebrows.
“Well.” She inhaled a lungful of helpful chemicals from her asthma puffer. “Sure took you long enough.”
And then Gerard passed out from the effort of exercise and fell onto Great Aunt Marie.

Notes

Okay, so I began writing this drabble around Christmas, but being the lazy idjit I am, I focussed all my energies on I'm Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket, and so this fic was only completed about 10 minutes ago. It's a bit different to my usual writing, I guess. Also, I created a few characters, because I doubt that the Ways have twin cousins named Brett and Bella.
So that was the story of how Gerard came out in this universe. It's a kind of prequel to a high school AU that I'm currently writing, which will be out soon. I hope you liked it, and please don't hate me.
Signing out,
Coke/Mikey