The next two months were torture for poor Gerard. He missed Frank; plain and simple. He thought himself pathetic for missing someone he barely knew, and Mikey was more than happy to remind him of this.

On October 18, roughly a month since Frank had started touring, Mikey couldn't help but comment on his brother's sorry state. "Okay, you're bumming me out," Mikey said from his place on the couch. Gerard was on the other side of the room, next to the ancient landline, looking at it with disdain.

"How am I bumming you out?" He asked, only slightly sarcastic.

"You're waiting by the phone for your boyfriend to call," Mikey supplied. "It's pathetic, Gee, and it's sad and it's bumming me out."

"What do you suggest I do, then?" Gerard asked.

"Come watch Dawn of the Dead with me," Mikey said, gesturing to the television. "It's about to come on."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah! I mean, dude's wearing a goddamn sombrero when he gets taken out! It's hilarious!" Mikey cried.

"Fine," Gerard grumbled and moved across the room to sit next to his lanky brother. As the opening credit scene started to play, he looked over at his little brother and made an internal list of their differences.

Mikey was a few inches taller than his brother, despite the three year age difference, and he was about 20 pounds under his older brother's weight. Miley's hair was short and the color of wheat; Gerard's hair hung a bit above his shoulder, and was dyed pitch black. Mikey had to wear glasses all the time (the poor sap), while Gerard only ever had to wear his when he was reading for a long time.

"Hello?" Mikey asked, snapping Gerard out of his reverie. "Earth to Major Tom? Come in, Major Tom." Gerard gave Mikey a venomous glance, and turned to watch the movie.

After about an hour, and after a good 45 minutes of Mikey squirming and tapping his fingers on his legs, he jumped up from the couch and started to shuffle around the contents of his backpack, resting next to the couch.

He pulled out a red spiral-bound notebook, along with a pencil, and paused the movie, causing Gerard to cry out. "What the hell are you doing?" He asked but Mikey shushed him, flipping open the notebook and starting to scrawl furiously.

Gerard pulled the notebook out of Mikey's grip and started to flip through the pages. It looked like a notebook of poems, but then he noticed a phrase on the first page— "butane on my skin"— and he realized that they were all songs.

There were only a small number of pages filled out. The first page has "Skylines and Turnstiles" on it in large, messy writing; the second had "Drowning Lessons"; the third: "Vampires..."; the fourth: "Knives(?)". Every entry, in the margins, had little notes in Ray's handwriting, things like "chorus: speed up 2 counts" or "vocals: layered, bridge".

"Those are songs that Toro and I are writing together," Mikey said proudly. "We've been doing to ever since you and me wrote Skylines back in September."

"Is this, like... For a band?" Gerard asked.

"Yeah, but we don't have a name yet," Mikey said. "Or a drummer. Or a singer." Then, his eyes lit up and he said "You sing pretty well. How about you do it?"

"Excuse me?"

"Toro loved it when you sang Skylines," Mikey told Gerard. "Said you sounded like Billy Corgan."

"Billy Corgan?" Gerard repeated. After a moment of thought, he said "Sure. I'll do it."

---

---

On the 26 of October, a revelation came to Mikey Way. It was a Friday, and Mikey aggressively did not want to go work the morning shift. Despite this, he was there, at Barnes And Noble at 7:30 in the goddamn morning.

Restocking books is no fun, he decided as he dragged the cardboard box over to the last shelf, where books by authors V-Z resided. His mind drifting to the song he started writing while watching Dawn of the Dead a few weeks earlier, he worked his way through V quickly.

Then, when he got to W, he stopped. Before him stood a series of neon yellow books with a technicolor blue man on the cover. The cover, in orange and yellow font, read Irvine Welsh: Ecstasy.

In later years, Mikey wouldn't be able to say what about the book caught his attention. Maybe it was the bright colors; maybe it was the size— not much larger than his hand. But, when he flipped the book to its back cover, his eyes widened.

Three tales of chemical romance, large lettering screamed, along with a blurb about the collection of stories within. Chemical romance, Mikey thought, turning the phrase over in his head.

He dropped the book suddenly, as if it had burned him, distantly hearing the paperback thud to the carpet. "My Chemical Romance," he said aloud, not bothering about who heard him. "That's... That's it."

He was jittery the whole rest of his shift, ecstatic to tell Gerard. He would have called him, but Mikey knew that Gerard was waiting for Frank to call, and would seriously kill him if he called from an unlisted number, making Gerard think that Frank was calling.

When Mikey got home three hours later, he found his brother on the porch, smoking. In his defense, Gerard had tried to quit, but the stress of 9/11 and losing his job had driven him back. As soon as he shut off the car, he practically fell out and yelled "I've got it! I've figured it out!"

"Figured what out?" Gerard asked as Mikey threw his hands onto his brother's shoulders.

"My Chemical Romance," Mikey said. "My. Chemical. Fucking. Romance."

"My Chemic... What the fuck, are you on drugs?" Gerard asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"No, the name of the band!" Mikey cried. "My Chemical Romance!"

"O-o-o-o-kay. Won't people think we have dependency issues or something?" Gerard asked.

"If they're judgmental jackasses, maybe," Mikey said, his grip on Gerard's shoulders tightening. "I was restocking books and I saw this book by Irvine Welsh called Three Tales of Chemical Romance."

"Who the fuck is Irvine Welsh?" Gerard asked.

"I have no idea, but anyway!" Mikey exclaimed. "I have to call Toro. Let him know. God, this is perfect."

Gerard snubbed his cigarette out on the bricks and followed his brother into the house, resuming his place on the couch as he watched his brother quickly scan the room. "Where's the goddamn phone, Gee?" Mikey asked.

"Language, Michael!" His mother called from the next room over, and Gerard tried to hid his smile behind his hand.

"Sorry, Mama!" Mikey called back, still trying to find the phone.

Then, a series of short beeps started to sound from Gerard's back pocket and he dug his phone out. "Who the heck's calling...?" He mumbled, controlling his mouth. It was an unlisted number, but it was an 862 number, so it was somebody from the Newark area.

Sudeenly, the dots connected for him. Newark; unlisted; calling on his cell? "Frankie!" Gerard cried. "Mikes, it's Frankie!"'

"Good for you," Mikey said, not focusing much on his brother.

Gerard flipped his cell open and raised it to his face. But before he could say anything, Frankie said something that Gerard never thought he would hear Frank say.

Notes

Yes, that is the end of the chapter. Cliffhanger, y'all.

Hopefully, I can update tonight? If I do, it'll most likely be late (or early... Depending on exactly when I upload...)

And now it's Storytime With Oli: so, my friend Cherry (not his real name) and I have a ship in our friend group called "Olirry" and that detail is important to the story. For Halloween, my friends and I are dressing up (I'm going as LynZ and my friend E is going as a a genderbent Dean Winchester [and she's putting her Siamese cat in a trench coat and shoving him in everyone's face all night {get it? Cas? Cat? Yeah, we're hilarious}]). Anyway, E and I bet Cherry (who is a level 1000 emo) $40 between the two of us that he wouldn't dress up as BP!Gerard. He agreed, 'cause what teenage boy doesn't want money? Well, scratch that; who doesn't want money in general?

Then, as E and I were walking away from Cherry, E— the little piece of shit— turned to me and said "I'm gonna have to get you two to make out my Halloween party or sumthin'" (yes, she said it like that). I was obviously confused, so I said "What?"
"You're LynZ and he's Gerard," E informed me. "The time period is pretty accurate, too."

And I swear that there was a moment where I left my body and ascended onto another plain of existence that I go to scream into the void. So, there's a good minute-and-a-half that I'm just looking at E and all she did to remedy this horrible silence was say "Olirry is gonna be real!"

That at would be nice and all— I had a crush on Cherry for a while back in 7th grade— except there's one thing that makes this impossible: CHERRY. IS. A. HOMOSEXUAL. NOT BISEXUAL. HOMO. FULL ON GAY.

And that concludes Storytime With Oli. I'll keep you updated on the Olirry Scandel.

.::stay lovely::.

xoøli