Lights, Camera, Action, or A Mix Thereof.

After working at the movie theatre for a grand total of a month and a half, Gerard had realized that Tuesday was, without a doubt, the absolute worst day of the week to work. To many persons, it may have been Saturday, since that was the day that the place was absolutely packed to capacity but, to be truthful, Gerard didn't have a problem with crowds. Although it was definitely easier to make mistakes when you were in a rush, being busy also made his shift fly by.

Tuesdays, on the other hand, were the exact opposite of Saturdays. Tuesday was the day that fun forgot. On Tuesday, business at the theatre basically slowed to a stop. The only customers were a few senior citizens and maybe a dozen working adults who, for some godforsaken reason or another, had Tuesday's off. However, the customers usually came sporadically; three at nine o'clock, four or so at eleven thirty, so on and so forth. In between these trickles, Gerard was forced to find ways to keep himself busy, although his options were rather limited.

The popcorn incident happened on a Tuesday, at approximately one o'clock in the afternoon. Gerard had been working with Quinn, the perpetually stoned man who seemed to always be sneaking free candy out on his lunch breaks, which was where he was when the incident with the popcorn machine occurred. Gerard had been counting down the seconds until his lunch, glaring at the clock on the wall, when Frank had come bouncing out of Cinema 5, a massive grin plastered to his face.

Gerard was already afraid.

"You will not believe what I just did," he said, panting slightly as he vaulted over the counter in one swift movement. His face was lit up with sheer child-like glee, which, to be truthful, Gerard hadn't seen in a long time.

"What did you just do?"

"I just picked the lock for the projectionist room." Reaching into his pocket, Frank pulled out a twisted bobby-pin, his grin only increasing in size as he brandished it. "I've never been inside of one before and it's so cool! You should come see!"

"Can you wait... three minutes?" Gerard asked, looking up at the clock again. "Quinn should be back by then and then we can go do whatever you want in the projection room." Gerard hoped that his subtle hint at sex would be enough to tide Frank over for the one hundred and eighty seconds it would take for Quinn to drag his ass back to the concession stand. However, Frank was determined that Gerard see the projection room at that very moment in time and, after some useless attempts at negotiating, Gerard found himself being forcefully dragged toward Cinema 5, leaving the counter empty.

It was only two minutes until Quinn came back. In Gerard's mind, it was safe to leave early. The next 'rush' of customers wouldn't be in until at least one thirty and the manager was, once again, nowhere to be seen. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, quite a lot could go wrong in only one hundred and twenty seconds. The first thing wrong was that, two minutes later, Quinn had not returned from the break room. This was due to the fact that Quinn was suffering a hangover of absolutely epic proportions and, after scarfing down a plate of nachos and a bag of popcorn, the contents of his stomach had decided to vacate his body. This in itself might not have been a problem; after all, Gerard was right about the rush. If the only problem was Quinn puking, all Gerard had to do was return to the concession stand by one thirty.

However, Quinn puking wasn't the only problem. The other problem was that, as soon as Gerard was out of sight, the popcorn machine began to malfunction. The machine had a sensor built into it that sensed when a certain level of popcorn had been popped and, when that level had been reached, it turned itself off until it dropped to a certain level again. However, unknown to anyone, a rat had taken up refuge in the back of the popcorn machine and had been gnawing on the cord that made the sensor work for some time now.

Two things happened when the rat finally gnawed through the cord. The rat died in a blaze of electricity and that sensor stopped working. Therefore, as the minutes ticked by, the popcorn began to flow over the edge of the machine and onto the floor, slowly coating the ground in fluffy pieces of popcorn.

Gerard, of course, was completely oblivious to all of this. While Quinn was puking his guts out and while the popcorn machine was doing something that could also be construed as vomiting, Gerard was wandering around the small projection booth, caught up in Frank's child like curiosity. This was at 1:05.

At 1:10, Quinn curled up in a ball on the floor of the bathroom and fell asleep while Gerard was sitting on a well worn wooden chair, receiving a blowjob from Frank.

At exactly 1:16, Gerard finished and thirty seconds later, the popcorn machine caught on fire. Precisely two minutes after that occurred, as Gerard entered the lobby and instantly screamed, the manager of the theatre decided to make his monthly appearance. For a few brief seconds, he didn't realize that anything was wrong; he didn't even question that the theatre smelled like smoke or that the carpet seemed especially crunchy on this particular day. It was only when he looked up to see flames consuming the popcorn machine that he shrieked as well and dove for the nearest fire hydrant.

Gerard was also going for said fire hydrant.

As Gerard and the manager nursed bumped foreheads, Frank managed to put the fire out and sweep up the majority of the popcorn. However, before he had time to come up with an appropriate cover story, Gerard had already been politely informed that he was being let go, although, strangely enough, the popcorn incident had only been a contributing factor. The truth was that the theatre was being combined with another one a few blocks down the road and, since Gerard was the newest employee, he was also the most expendable. Despite this fairly logical reasoning, Gerard still felt... empty. He had become quite accustomed to his job; to be honest, he'd actually started to like it. He'd liked the laid-back pace and the menial work and now it was all gone.

"Hey, at least you don't have to wear the uniform anymore?" Frank had timidly asked, stroking Gerard's hand as they'd walked back to the car. "At least that's a good thing."

"I guess." Truthfully, Gerard had even started to like the goddamn uniform.

When they got home, Gerard had immediately sat down on the couch and refused to move. Frank thought a whiff of freshly made coffee would be enough to lure him to the kitchen table but even this seemingly fool-proof plan didn't work. Frank had no idea what to do about the situation; to be truthful, he'd never been fired from a job. He had always quit and so, he had no advice for Gerard. Feeling quite useless, he resigned himself to sitting beside his blank-faced boyfriend on the couch and catching up on some television.

When the phone rang at ten after six, Frank had almost fallen asleep with his feet in Gerard's lap. Gerard, for his part, was still sitting upright, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the wall. When, after three rings, he still hadn't flinched, Frank merely shrugged and picked up the phone, yawning extravagantly.

"Hello?"

"Is this Gerard Way?"

"No, this is his boyfriend. Gerard is currently in some weird sort of trance. Who's calling?"

"Well, my name is Dominic Howard and I happen to be one of the new co-managers of the furniture store that he was apparently fired from. We've been investigating previous employees and have determined that he was fired for a ridiculous reason and, combined with his sales figures, we'd like to-"

Before Frank could even blink, Gerard had snatched the phone out of his fingers and slammed it up against his ear, light returning to his eyes.

"Hello? This is Gerard!"

"Hello there sir!" Gerard couldn't help but notice the British accent in the new manager's voice. He liked him already. The next words out of his mouth made him even more likeable.

"If you were willing and, if you aren't employed anywhere else, we'd like to hire you back."