Who's the Kid in the Basement? Gerard Way

When I walked out to the car my got out of the passenger's seat.

"Good morning!" He greeted us and opened the door the the back seat.

"Good morning, you're not sitting in the front?" I asked.

"Nope, I want to sit in the back with Toni today..." He smiled at me. I bet it was so I could sit next to Gerard. I smiled back at him and shot him a quick skeptical glance before I got in the car. I didn't want Gerard to see it. Toni just walked around the car and got in.

"Good morning," I greeted Gerard, he smelled amazing like he usually did but you could smell what he was wearing a lot easier.

"Hey, Good morning." He smiled at me. I wondered if Mikey had told him that I like him for a second. I figured he didn't though. The ride to school basically consisted of Toni talking to Mikey about how his band practice went and Gerard asked him a few questions too. Before lunch I saw Gerard a few times in the hall way. Once he didn't see me. The second time he smiled at me and right before lunch he walked with me to lunch and I decided to get food as well and we waited in the lunch line together and talked. I looked over at the table we sat at to see that Felecia was sitting talking with Mikey again. Gerard ended up eating lunch with us as well.

On the way back home Mikey told Toni and I that he had to work on a paper and some math homework and wanted to get that stuff done before we all would hang out, including Ray. Gerard offered to hang out with us at his house until Mikey could join everyone. I declined because I was getting a phone and asked if I could be dropped off at my house. I told them that I would most likely be able to hang out later. I didn't want to tell him that I was getting a phone I kind of wanted it to be a surprise as lame of a surprise that would be.. I still kind of wanted it to be one. Toni decided to hang out with Gerard until Mikey could hang out with them so he went back to their house.

My dad had the day off so he ended up taking me to go get my phone that I paid for. We ended up grabbing something to eat with my mom at a restaurant right next to the store. I got back home at 5:30pm and decided to call Gerard with my new phone.

"Hello?" Donna picked up their house phone.

"Hi, is Gerard there?"

"Yup, let me get him for you," She told me I could hear Toni and Ray's laughter in the background and people talking before she gave the phone to Gerard.

"Hello?"

"Hey!"

"Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing much, I'm just done with.. the stuff I had to do.."

"Ok, cool, are you coming over?"

"Yeah, sure, I can head over now.."

"Ok, I'll see you in a bit,"

"Yup, bye!"

"Bye!" He hung up I went to go let my parents know I was going to head over to Mikey and Gerard's house before heading over.

"Hey," Gerard greeted me after I knocked on his door. "Are you hungry at all? My mom just made dinner a little while ago, I can grab you something if you want..." He offered.

"No, I actually ate with my parents. But thank you!" I thought it was nice he offered to heat up some leftovers for me.

"Ohhh ok cool.. we're all hanging out downstairs." He informed me as I followed him through the kitchen. "Are you thirsty? Do you want a drink?" He asked stopping for a second.

"No, it's ok I'm alright, thanks though. When we got into the basement Mikey was sitting on the floor playing a video game against Ray it was the same one we were playing last time. Toni was on the couch. Gerard sat down next to him and left enough room for me to sit down next to him. Right after they were done with that match, they let me play the winner since I hadn't played yet.

"Hey Ray..." Toni said as I was playing Mikey on the video game.

"Yeah?" You know the show this weekend I invited you to, what if I could get you and I a spot to open? Would you want to?"

"I guess if you think we could figure out what to play in time for it.... Yeah, I'd want to! Do you think maybe we should have a drummer though so it's not just two guitar players? Unless you were thinking about something acoustic."

"Yeah.. I know a drummer... I wasn't thinking acoustic unless you'd want to do that, I wouldn't mind. But, I know this drummer from the other day and I can ask if he'd want to throw something together for it, maybe we could do like 3 songs or something?"

"Yeah that would be awesome to play with the drummer. What kinds of songs were you thinking?"

"Maybe like 2 covers and then the last one can be like a jam or something.. we'll pick a chord progression and just trade solos over it..."

"Awesome! we'll have to figure out what two songs to cover.." Ray said I could see he was starting to get a bit excited about this.

"Do you want to go jam right now and see what we come up with tonight and we'll figure out what songs to do and if we make good progress I'll call the kid who's putting on the show and see if he'll let us go on first.... Wait! Before I do that though.. everyone in this room is going right? I can tell him if he let's us play we'll bring at least 3 people to buy tickets?" He asked standing up off the couch.

"If you guys don't mind Felecia going, she might need a ride, I'll ask her and that can be 4 people who will be buying tickets!" Mikey added excitedly. He had just beat me as well so I passed my controller to Gerard.

"Yesss!!! Definitely! I don't mind driving her if Gerard can't."

"Ok! I'll go call her now!" Mikey said running out of the room.

"Cool, just pause and don't ask if I care.." Gerard mumbled to me joking around about Mikey running out of the room. Toni and Ray were rambling about what songs they could cover. "So... what did you have to do after school.. if you don't mind me asking.."

"Oh... I just went to go pick up something.." I said casually trying not to smile too much. I decided I was going to secretly get his cell phone number from Toni and txt him my number when I got home.

"Ohh.... okkkkkkkkay..." Gerard said giving me an odd look. It was funny because I figured I really wasn't being that secretive about it. I was kind of surprised he didn't automatically think 'Oh! You must have picked up a phone.. what else would you have picked up? And we were just talking about that yesterday..' But I guess he didn't or maybe he figured there was no way I'd get one the day after so it couldn't be that.

"Yup.." I said plainly and he still held the odd look. He probably didn't want to ask further since I wan't giving out much information.

"Alright.." He just laughed at me as Mikey burst back into the room.

"She can go but needs a ride!" Mikey yelled happily!

"Awesome!" Ray and my brother cheered at the same time. "Mikey... Ray just told me you play bass! Do you want to play with us if we have a spot?!"

"Uh.... I don't know... I've never played a show before.. I'm not the best bassist either..." He seemed kind of nervous and he looked caught off guard since my brother totally put him on the spot.

"Mikey, I'm sure you're good! We won't pick anything you wouldn't be able to learn in time either, I promise! I can get tabs for you too if you want, and if you can't read them, I'll teach you your parts!" Toni offered.

"Well... I don't know.... I really haven't played in front of other people before and the thought of playing for a whole group makes me nervous.." He admitted.

"Mikey please! It'll be fun! There will be no pressure too, just think of it as something fun to do, not like a big scary serious thing, Ray, Myself and the drummer will be up there with you! Since we'd be the first act too there really would only a few people there." Toni kept begging.

"Well... Ok... I guess I can try and do it..." Mikey gave in.

"Awesome!!!" Toni and Ray jumped up and high-fived. "Do you want to grab your bass and Ray can get his guitar and we'll play at my house until like 10:30, and try and come up with a few things to cover? I'd want to try jamming and getting some songs picked first before I call the kid putting the show on... and we might not even get the spot.."

"Yeah sure.. what time is it?" Mikey said looking at the time on his phone. "Yeah, we've got a few hours, it's only 7:06 right now.."

"So much for me trying to beat him.." Gerard mumbled as they all were talking about what they should cover and exited the room.

"I'll play you and you can beat me.." I politely offered Gerard.

"You'll let me win?" He laughed.

"Well... no, if I really do try, you'll still beat me anyways... I just meant playing up against me you'll win.." I laughed as well.

"Oh.. awwww... you're not that bad, you've beaten us all at least once before.."

"Uh... not Ray.. and the other three times were all luck.." I told him grabbing Mikey's controller he had abandoned. We ended up playing that round and I won because Gerard let me win, he kept trying to convince me that I'm not that bad at the game. I kept trying to tell him that I was and that I was ok with that so he didn't have to keep lying to me. We ended up playing another few rounds and then turned the game off and started talking instead. I was pretty happy Toni ended up randomly wanting to try and open the show with Ray and Mikey. It caused me to get to hang out with Gerard and get to know him better.

"So, do you drink usually at parties and stuff?" I asked Gerard when we some how stumbled on the topic some how.

"Well, I'll drink if I go to one, but I never go to them. I've really only been to like 3. 2 of them I was invited by Ray and the people hosting were from other schools. The other one was someone from school invited Ray and I to one, It was ehh.. we both had a few drinks and decided to end up leaving a little over an hour later. Some of the people who showed up were being dicks to us. They were like football player kind of kids. The person hosting the party wasn't like that though, that kid just invited like everyone in our grade." Gerard explained to me. "I really only drink here though if I can get alcohol and.. I'll drink I guess if I'm mad or depressed or something.. but I'll drink for that reason about half the time I drink. The other half is just because it's fun I guess.." He continued. "I probably only drink about 12 times a year at most... What about you?"

"I don't really drink too much. I have gone to a decent amount of parties actually, just because of Toni though, he'd usually drag me to them. 95% of them were people not from our school as well. He'll usually be the one to drink at parties so I'll stay sober, which is fine cause I don't really like the taste of alcohol anyways. I've been drunk only 4 times I think.." I explained to him.

"That's cool, yeah you don't really seem like someone who'd drink a lot." He told me.

"Yeah, I don't think I come off like that.." I laughed at his statement. I wasn't offended by it I don't consider myself a drinker or a big partier. I felt kind of bad that he drinks when he's upset though. That's not good at all..

"Does it bother you if your brother drinks?" He asked me while relaxing into the couch a little more. We were still sitting side by side since I sat down, being about 5 inches from each other.

"No, I don't mind, I mean if he started getting drunk like every weekend both Friday, and Saturday.. I'd probably say something to him to maybe lay off of it but I wouldn't be like really upset or anything. He doesn't really drink that, that much now. He probably only goes to 2 maybe 3 parties a month during school.

"Have you brought Mikey to any of the parties you went to?"

"Nah, since they were a couple of years ago so my mom didn't want him to be staying out as late as me since he was in middle school..." We continued talking a bit on that topic for a while and moved to a few others when about half an hour later we got onto one that caused things to get more interesting.

"Yeah I hope they do too, if they actually start going out, she'll be Mikey's first girlfriend." Gerard informed me.

"Wow really? That's cool.. So...how many girls have you dated?" I asked casually after we got onto the topic of Mikey and Felecia dating. I decided it would be a great opportunity to take since we were on the topic of girlfriends...

"Me? Uh.. not many.." Gerard sort of laughed while answering.

"Well how many is that? Like 2 people or like.. 22 people?" I asked he laughed a little harder although I wasn't joking around. I've met people who think 22 is a small number... and Gerard's obviously really attractive, and has a nice personality and is pretty interesting so he probably could have dated 22 people.

"Uhh... Well, in my opinion 22's a lot, definitely not 22 people.." He chuckled a little and rambled like he was kind of avoiding the question. I could see his face beginning to turn red a tiny bit.

"So... how many?" I pressed smiling at him.

"Uhh... like none..." He said looking into my eyes to gauge my reaction as the red in his face turned a little darker.

"Don't lie to me..." I said giving him a skeptical squinty eyed stare.

"I'm not lying!" He looked shocked that I would accuse him of lying about that but was laughing at the same time.

"Yeah you are Gerard, it's ok though. Don't worry! Toni's a pretty big man whore. If it really is a number like 22, I won't judge you! It's totally cool!" I looked into his eyes and smiled warmly at him trying to make him feel more comfortable. I was really hoping he hadn't already dated 22 people! I've only dated 3! If we did end up dating or something, he'd have so much more experience on me! The thought kind of freaked me out and made me a bit nervous.. and what were the 22 other people like? He's honestly probably out of my league. I started feeling a little self-conscious, which is completely lame to go and jump to conclusions like I do all the time. But I can't help it.

"What!?!" He burst out and started laughing a little harder. "I'm definitely not a man-whore, ok!" He laughed pretty hard for a few seconds then it died down a little and he came across a little more serious, "Honestly, I've dated no one, and even if I could be a man-whore I totally wouldn't!" He told me then started laughing again probably at how absurd the statement I made prior to his answer was. I sat there giving him a skeptical stare again while he just laughed at me. I couldn't believe that he hadn't dated anyone yet! There could be no way!

"I don't know if I believe that you've dated no one.." I told him still giving him a disbelieving stare.

"Why not!?" He asked pretty shocked, as if I told him I didn't believe his first name was Gerard.

"What do you mean why not?!" I gave him a surprised expression for reacting the way he was which caused him to start chuckling lightly again.

"I mean... I don't know it's just that... I'm me. I'm chubby and unattractive, I usually wear dark clothes, I come off as a loner at school, I'm looked at as that weird art kid.. how could I ever date somebody? No one wants to go out with me, even if I try..." He told me but the way he spoke he was sort of laughing while explaining things. I wasn't sure if it was because he believed all those things about himself and accepted them, or if those things really hurt him and he tried to use the laughter to mask that up. Either way I didn't agree with him about himself completely! Yeah... maybe he's viewed as the weird art kid, but I'm sure there are other people at school who find him crazy attractive like I do, and if they got to know him they'd find him interesting too, and really nice! I sat there for a few seconds after he confessed how he felt about himself to me. I didn't really know how to respond since I wasn't too sure if pouring out how I really felt would inform him that I'm very into him and would love to date him. I wasn't sure if I should reveal that just yet.. if he can't already tell.

Then a few seconds later his smile sort of faded and I could just see in his eyes that he didn't accept those things about himself that he believed were true. I could see sadness start to creep into them. I decided to say what I thought of him regardless, I felt like I couldn't look at him like that anymore without saying what I believe is the truth. He didn't look like he was going to start crying or anything but he just looked so, sad. Like he believed that he was cursed forever to never feel love from another person. It just tugged at my heart.

"I don't believe that no one wants to go out with you.." I started saying a little cautiously. "I think all of your qualities are good ones..." I told him with a warm smile and I saw the sadness start to flee from his eyes, so I continued to tell him what I thought. "I think you're really interesting, you're really good at art and you're a really nice guy.." I spoke slowly as I watched his smile grow and his face turn a bit red again. "And! in my opinion I think you're really fucking hot, and I would love to go out with you." I finished with a huge smile on my face while still looking into his eyes, I couldn't believe I let that out, but I just had to tell him. When I said that his face turned about 10 shades darker and mouth dropped to the floor. He looked so surprised but embarrassed at the same time! It was ridiculously adorable. When I told him I wasn't thinking about the consequences, like maybe he'd freak out in a bad way and never talk to me again. About 10 seconds had passed without him or I saying anything and it seemed like forever! He just sort of looked down a few seconds after I dropped that bomb. His mouth was still open and his gaze shifted around as if he were in deep thought. I was at least glad he didn't argue back and say I was just saying that to make him feel better.

"A-Are you being serious?" He spoke after another 10 seconds while looking into my eyes. His were big at the moment, he seemed like he was still surprised.

"Yup. I wouldn't lie about that.." I gave him another warm smile and he was silent again for another 30 seconds. The whole time I slowly started getting nervous inside wondering if I made a mistake by admitting that. Maybe I freaked him out? Maybe he's trying to figure out how we can never talk again? Maybe he's trying to figure out how to let him down easily..?

"Wow.." He sort of breathed out and let a huge smile spread across his face. He started to look a bit nervous, but he still looked happy. He looked like he was going to elaborate on that when literally a second later we were interrupted.

"Gerard!" Mikey called out running down the stairs, I looked over at the clock and it was 10:09. I was kind of bummed Mikey had to come right then. We also heard a second pair of feet thudding down the stairs.

"We came up with stuff to cover!" Mikey hollered excitedly.

"Mikey says you sing well!" Toni said as he got into the room. We hadn't said anything for a minute.

"Gerard are you ok? Your face is kind of red?" Mikey asked.

"Uh.. yeah. I'm fine.... and -I don't sing well." While he answered Toni quickly threw me a suspicious glare. He could tell something was up.

"But Gerard! We're going to cover a Queen and you need to sing!!!" Mikey sort of stomped his foot. I laughed in my head at that.

"Uh.. no guys.. I can't really sing."

"Gerard you can too! I hear you in the shower everyday!" Mikey still protested.

"It'll be fun!" Toni added.. "We want to do 'We Will Rock You' into 'We Are the Champions'... I know you know them!" He smiled encouragingly. Gerard looked like he was thinking it over for a few seconds.

"You said there won't be that many people there if you guys open?" Gerard asked, he was coming around. I smiled I remembered Mikey telling me he sang well a few times before although I've obviously never heard him sing.

"Yeah! Really, I'd be surprised if we have 25 people in front of us while we're playing that'd probably be like the max number. It would just be a fun thing though.. you know?" Toni answered him.

"Well... do you think there'd be enough time to get everything together?" He asked Toni.

"I definitely think so! I'm sure you already know all the words. Mikey started learning the bass parts and has tabs we printed out. Ray knows a few chunks of the songs already and is learning them still as we speak. We can practice tomorrow, Thursday and Friday before the show. I already have the drummer kid coming over tomorrow, who is Mason by the way and I let him know what songs we want to do.." Gerard looked like he started thinking it over again before making a final decision.

"Ok.. alright.. I guess I'll do it.." He gave in and Toni and Mikey jumped for joy and I smiled over at Gerard who returned it. A few minutes later Toni pointed out that it was almost 10:30 and that we should head out. I said bye to Mikey and Gerard they had both walked us up the stairs. Mikey ended up giving me a hug goodbye which was a first, I think it was because of how excited he was about everything, he gave Toni a hug as well. Gerard just stood back and watched, I decided since Mikey gave me a hug it was cool to try and give one to Gerard. I approached him and he gladly hugged me back, tightly actually! Our hug lasted longer then Mikey's and mine. It was awesome! I got to smell not only the wonderful scent he usually wears that I'll get to smell, but also the scent of his hair which smelled a little different but amazing. I was so happy, it was nice to be that close to him as well. Although it was just a hug I enjoyed every second of it. It was as good as a hug can be.

A few seconds after Toni and I cleared their drive way I freaked out.

"Toni! Holly shit!!!!" I said throwing both hands onto my head.

"What?!" He responded surprised and confused like something terrible happened.

"I told Gerard I think he's fucking hot and that I'd love to go out with him! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I said putting my hands on my knees and leaning forward I wasn't as loud as you'd think. I was trying to have a quite freak out about it. since we weren't that far away from their house and it was 10:30 at night...

"What?!" Toni asked as his face of confusion flipped into shock and delight. "You just randomly told him that?! That's so ballsy!" He said jumping off the ground cheering for me before I corrected him and explained how it came up.

"Now.. I don't know if he feels the same way or what the hell he's thinking.." I told him as we got into the house. I sounded a little bummed. I was a little bummed too. Gerard didn't really tell me anything back. I was a bit freaked out that maybe he doesn't want to date me at all.

"I think he likes you! He gave you a hug afterwards.. if he was truly freaked out he would have went into his room to avoid saying goodbye to you when Mikey walked us to the door..." He told me. "You always flip shit around in your head and convince yourself the other person never likes you back! You really need to try and not do that anymore! I'm not saying get your hopes up.. but just try and chill about it. As hard as it is try not to have any expectations." Toni informed me as I opened the fridge in the kitchen while he sat down at the island. I was looking for something to eat since I ate dinner a little earlier then I usually have been.

"I know, I know, you're right. Hey... do you have his cell phone number by the way? Cause of what I told you about him telling me to get a phone and all.." I brought up. I explained to him what had happened.

"Yeah.." He gave me the number and we talked a bit while I ate some food. When we both went back to our rooms around 11:30 I was hoping I wouldn't wake Gerard up by txting him. He mentioned to me that he didn't usually go right to bed after Toni and I left so I figured there might be a chance that he was awake.

"Hey, congratulations, you're the first person with my new number =]"

I txted him before climbing into bed and plugging my new phone into it's charger. Even though he wouldn't recognize the number I figured he'd know it was me by the message. I wasn't really tired since of all the excitement that happened tonight. I also was in suspense waiting for Gerard to possibly reply back to me. About 10 minutes later I started thinking maybe I shouldn't have sent it since I didn't even know how Gerard felt about what I said. Maybe I was being to overbearing. Right as I was starting to fall asleep my phone buzzed and made a strange noise that I guess it was set at. That was the first txt I was getting with my new phone. I quickly grabbed it off of my night stand and flipped it open to read,

"Thank you for fulfilling my wish! ;) BTW, I'd love to go out with you too I wanted to say that earlier but was nervous then interrupted"

I sat there staring at the txt for a minute not believe what he had said back! I wasn't expecting that! It was the most pleasant surprise. I wanted to go run into Toni's room to show him the txt! I refrained from that though I figured I would show him in the morning. After re-reading it about 20 times, I laid back down and closed my eyes. I was trying to figure out what to say back. I wanted to reply but I really wasn't sure what to say. Before I knew it I had fallen asleep.