The Joys of Marriage

"What do you and Jamia do?" Mikey asked. It wasn't as if Alicia was Mikey's first girlfriend. Or for that matter; it wasn't like he didn't know what to do around her, it was just that lately, he'd wondered: what exactly do people do once they're married?

"Um.. Well we don't play Scrabble, I'll tell ya that much." Frank told him. He looked so serious that Mikey could have almost laughed.

"No, I mean… I mean like, how is married life, man?"
"It's kind of like… having your best friend and your mom combined into one person. And I mean that in a non-weird, non-incestuous way." Frank explained, using hand gestures as if he felt he could better describe it in the motions he made as he talked.

Mikey nodded, and stared at his feet, which were propped up on the coffee table.
"It's like… having someone who's always proud of you, and never thinks your stupid, and who doesn't look at you funny when you suggest staying up all night to watch Barbie: Fairytopia and make prank calls." Frank continued, taking a drink of his beer.
Mikey raised a brow at him.
"See? That's what I mean." Frank said, pointing an accusing finger at him.
Mikey shrugged. "You and Gerard have been spending way too much time together."
Frank narrowed his eyes at Mikey. "Don't judge me." he said.
Mikey just smiled.

Frank moved around a little, letting himself sink farther into the couch. "If you can make it through the wedding, then you can make it through anything." he told him.

"Alicia doesn't want a big wedding." Mikey said.

"Yeah. Big weddings are a hastle. All that preparation, and stress and shit. Totally takes the fun out of it."

"I thought girls were supposed to want big weddings.."
"Mikey… none of that stuff they told us about girls when we were little was true. It may have been true like.. Back when our Grandparents were young, but it isn't true now. Jamia burps louder than me, is more pervy than I am, and can beat my ass in a game of Halo. Last time I checked none of that was considered ladylike."

Mikey leaned his head back and sighed. "Yeah, but Jamia's always been like one of the guys anyway.. I mean, you might as well be married to a man wearing a woman's skin like a fucking armani suit."

"Jealous! Anyway, I thought you weren't getting married until next November?"

"That's right," Mikey said, raising his head again and looking at his friend. "So I only have sixteen months."

Frank gave him a look that labeled him as a mad man. "Dude… only?! you only have sixteen months? What the hell are planning for, a holocaust?!"

"That's not funny, Frank." Mikey frowned.

"I didn't say it was funny I just don't get it…"

"What do you not get? Marriage is a serious thing. It takes a lot of planning and stuff.. It's really got me stressed out."

"Look, dude," Frank began, turning so that his body was facing Mikey. "A wedding does not take that long to plan -"

"Says the one who was engaged for fucking ever." Mikey interrupted.

"Look, marriage is like…" Frank's eyes drifted up to the ceiling and he slanted his mouth to the side as he often did when he was thinking. He let his hand slide up to his face and rest along his jawline, tapping at his chin with his index finger.

Mikey watched him, expectantly, and just as Mikey had turned his head back to the television, Frank blurted out; "Ray!"

Mikey's first instinct, was to turn and look behind him, not to mention, jump, considering that it scared the ever living out of him. When he saw no one, he looked back at Frank. "Ray?"

Frank sat up, and nodded. "Yeah. The Toro. Marriage is like The Toro. Like, you know how he gets really pissed off if we fuck with his hair, but it's like he makes situations to where us messing with his fro is inevitable?"

Mikey shrugged.

Frank arched his brows. "That man sleeps heavier than any human being should, and with hair like that, he should know better than to sleep so heavily. I still agree with McCracken. He's a fucking pod person."

"Don't let Gerard hear you say that. You'll never hear the end of it. He'll start ranting about how filthy Bert is."

Frank laughed in response. "Hey, you know what would be cool? If you invited Bert to your wedding, as one of your groomsmen." he clucked out a laugh.

"I'm trying to plan a wedding, Frankie. Not World War Three."

Frank lightly scratched his right arm, and yawned lazily. "You could always just go to vegas," he said through the yawn. "Then you could get hitched by anyone you wanted.. If I had to get married again, I would get married by Optimus Prime, but, like, not the normal Optimus Prime. He'd have to fix himself up, you know. Like.. With a white tux, and one of those crazy whatever-the-fuck things that people wear over their eye? What are those called.. Mr.Peanut has one.. So does the fucking monopoly guy.." Frank narrowed his eyes. "I fucking hate that game."

"You mean a monocle?" Mikey asked.

Franks gave Mikey a disgusted look. "You mean that thing that lives in, like, the water.. And attaches its self to stuff?"

"No, dude, I think you mean a barnacle."

"What's the difference?" Frank asked.

"One is a crustacean, and the other one is a lens." Mikey explained.

"Yeah!" Frank yelled. "He would be wearing a mon-- fuck... What was that word you used again?"

"Monocle."

"Right. He'd have one of those on.. And like a glass of champagne. Because champagne is classy as fuck."

Mikey just laughed.

"Anyway, you could like ask your mom. Mom's know about weddings and shit." Frank told him.

"I already did. She told me 'not to listen to that Iero boy'." Mikey smirked. "She told me you tried convincing Gerard to get married to a "leprechaun" last time we were in Vegas. And by leprechaun, she meant some naked hairy middle-aged guy with ginger hair and green body paint smeared all over him."

Frank frowned, but it was obvious he was hiding humour, his eyes danced with laughter. "Dude that was so a fucking leprechaun. He had a fucking unicorn!"

"She told me about that, too. That was a miniature pony with an ice cream cone taped to its head."

"Whatever. If Gerard had listened to me, I would have my own candy shop by now. With oompa loompas. And an awesome rapper to sing about it.. like 50 cent. Fucking boss." Frank smirked, a far away look in his eyes like he was picturing it.

"I have a feeling I'll regret it, but I'm going to have to ask why you think Gerard marrying that guy would have gotten you that stuff."

Frank rolled his hazel eyes up towards the ceiling, crossed his arms across his chest, and huffed. "Unicorns grant wishes. Duh." He said, looking at Mikey like the better question was why don't you think Gerard marrying that guy would have gotten you that stuff.

"You're thinking of genies, Frank."

Frank mocked him.
Mikey ignored it and smiled.
"I'm not thinking of fucking genies, Michael I'm thinking of unicorns, you lesbian."

"Unicorns don't grant wishes, Franklin."

"Bullshit. Watch Snow White and the Seven Smurfs."

"It's dwarfs, Frank, not Smurfs, and there aren't any unicorns in that movie."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"You don't make sense."

"Maybe Alicia could just talk to Jamia about it?" Mikey thought aloud.

"Probably.. Jamia's real smart about that shit."

"Hey, have you heard anything from Bob? I haven't seen him since Sunday, and I wanted to talk to him about some stuff."

Frank's eyes looked from Mikey, to the TV, to Mikey again. "Um... me and him kind of have a mutual agreement to not talk to each other for a while." Frank sighed. "I should have never brought up anything about Gerard's package. Especially it drinking from a cup..."

"Excuse me?" Mikey gave him a look, that could have been confusion, fear, or just disgust. Truthfully, it was the latter.

"That son of a bitch was supposed to bake me cupcakes, if I helped him pick out his makeup style for our next show! I had to sit through 3 hours of Gerard asking; 'Frank do you like this color?' 'I really think this brings out my eyes, what do you think?' 'Is my makeup even?' 'Does this color make my cheeks look fat?' 'Do you think red is too "3 cheers" era?' 'I wish I could use this color, but it would never work on me, I don't have your bone structure.' 'Would a lightening streak on my face be too "Bowie"?' Not to mention the music. Holy fucking god don't get me started on the music. Non-stop Madonna songs for 3 hours! 3 hours Mikey! If I ever have to hear Gerard sing "Like a Virgin" again, I might vomit." Frank said.

Mikey blinked. "Dude... Madonna's not bad.. and Gerard comes up with some really interesting makeup designs sometimes!"

"Oh, so you would sit through his never-ending makeup trials?"

"Hell to the no!" Mikey laughed so hard his eyes teared up. "I know better. Last time I had to do that was right before he came up with the makeup for The Black Parade and after that? Never again."

"That's what I thought." Frank said, looking insulted.

"So All that over some cupcakes?" Mikey finally asked.

"Yeah." Frank answered bluntly.

"Yeah? You do know that Gerard can't cook, right? And that last time he tried he accidentally left a plastic spoon in the batter, and so when we got to the middle of the cake we found melted plastic?"

Frank frowned. "The point is, he lied to me... So I might have told Bob something that wasn't exactly true.. About Gerard's junk.. Being like one of those creatures from "Slither".. And that it drinks out of a cup…"

"That's so fucked up, dude." Mikey laughed.

Frank smiled. "Yeah.. Tomorrow we should go look at cakes."

"I think Alicia's hanging out with her sister, and Jamia tomorrow."

"So? They have to give you free cake samples when you look at their stuff."

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"When I was planning my wedding, I had Gerard come sample cakes with me.. He totally freaked the guy behind the counter out cause he was all "I save lives" and shit like that."

"Yeah.. He does that. It's kind of his thing."

Silence hit for a while, and Frank downed the rest of the beer he had and sat the empty bottle on the coffee table.

"We should kick his ass. Just on general principle." Frank noted.

Mikey laughed. "I think he's at my house. Alicia was half asleep a few weeks ago, and she made the mistake of telling him that he could design her wedding dress."

"Oh my god."

"Exactly. He's like her leech now. He's always there." Mikey laughed.

"Yeah, he's a pretty fucking weird dude." Frank said.

"If you want to come over, we could play rock band," Mikey suggested. "Something to do."

By the time Mikey and Frank got back to Mikey's apartment, Frank had already bought 3 bags of M&M's from a vending machine on the street, and had since been throwing them in the air and attempting to catch them in his mouth. Which would explain the trail of candy that was following along behind them.

Mikey swung the door open, just as Frank had caught an M&M in his mouth, and what they saw almost made Frank choke.

Gerard stood frozen, eyes wide with horror in the livingroom with his hands still behind his back from where he had been trying to zip up the zipper. He was wearing a dress that looked a lot like Disney's version of Cinderella's dress, except it was pink instead of blue, the bust area was made up on two-tone tonic fabric, and had rainbow colored sequins along the outline of the bust.. Also, it appeared to have fairy wings sewn on to the back.

The apartment was silent for a while. And all of them just stared at each other.

"I-it's for Alicia. It's one of the Bridesmaid dresses.. That I made her. I.. I was just checking the measurements, um…" Gerard swallowed hard as he stumbled over his words.

"Is.. Is that Frank's tiara?" Mikey asked, squinting.
Gerard's looked up,he said "No." and snatched the pink glittery tiara off of his head.

Mikey looked at Frank then, who was still staring at a very red-faced Gerard.

Gerard had also turned his attention on the unusually quite Frank as well.

He took in a breath through his nostrils, raised his eyebrows at Gerard, popped an M&M in his mouth, and said, "You've got problems Way."