Stop Playing Around

“Hey Pete,” Gerard says, peaking his head into the kitchen.

“Hola,” Pete says walking up to him. “You find that ever important whatever the hell it was?”

“Yeah, I did. So Satan let me off,” Gerard says.

“What? Hey, good for you!”

“Yeah, but if you see him fuming or anything, call me right away, okay?”

Pete nods, “will do.”

Gerard smiles, “and when do you get to leave?”

“Depends. If I have to stay to make some shitty dessert then it could be another couple of hours, but otherwise it’ll be sometime in the next hour.”

“You going to use your already blossoming baking skills?” Gerard asks, with a grin.

“Hey,” Pete says defensively, “so what if I’m not good at making a cupcake or two. I am fantastic at chopping things up and using a blowtorch.”

“So you’re a fan of Crème brûlée.”

“I’m a fan of the part where I get to use a blowtorch,” Pete replies.

“Ah, so you’d be a big fan of murdering people. You can combine both your love of chopping and blowtorching.”

Pete snorts, “shh, don’t let other people find out my secrets!”

“Yeah, whatever. Well, if you get off sometime soon then you should come out. After all my birthday is of extreme importance,” Gerard says.

“Are you asking me out?”

“Well my brother is going to be there, but call it what you will,” Gerard says smiling, and Pete laughs.

“I’m kidding man, but if I can make it I definitely will,” Pete says, and then someone in the kitchen calls his name. “Gotta go.”

“Yeah, well either way, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Gerard says, to which Pete responds with a groan. He stomps off back to the kitchen leaving Gerard to roll his eyes and walk over to the front door.

He manages to escape coming upon Satan’s spawn, who is usually walking around the house randomly at this hour. Gerard grabs his jacket, and then walks out into the rain without any interference.

Gerard checks his watch as he walks down the street. He’s being pelted by rain, so there’s no chance he’ll be able to get a cab in this weather. It’s the kind of rain that comes with wind free of charge, so there’s no escaping it. His hood blows off of him a few times out as he rushes down the pavement.

Gerard’s phone rings sometime when he’s still a few block away from the nearest subway stop, and he has to ignore it because there’s no way he’ll hear a word over the phone in this weather. They call again, causing Gerard to swear at his phone, and catch the attention of someone else on the street. To be honest it’s so windy and blurry that he couldn’t tell there was a person there, but he apologizes anyway.

Gerard ducks under the umbrella in front of a store to check whose calling, but the screen is blurry from the water. He can’t even see it, so he just decides to make a run for the subway.

When he finally makes to the subway stop, which is thankfully dry, he looks at is phone again, and tries to scrub the surface clean. The train isn’t there so he has time to call whoever it was back.

Mikey called him twice so he calls, and he picks up on the first ring.

“Where the fuck are you?”

“Is that anyway to greet me on my birthday?” Gerard asks.

“Where the fuck are you, please?”

“That makes no sense. Why would you put a ‘please’ at the end of that?”

“I didn’t know what else to say and still sound cynical,” Mikey says, “but seriously. Where are you?”

“God, you’re annoying. I will be there soon, okay? I just got off work-”

“You just got off work?” Mikey asks, “Brendon said that you went in at three in the morning.”

“You don’t know what my job is like though. It’s shitty, but I’ll be there soon. The train is coming so, just give me half an hour.”

“We’ve already been waiting half an hour for you,” Mikey groans.

“Well wait another half hour.”

“Fuck you,” Mikey says.

“And on my birthday,” Gerard says.

“You played that card already, you can’t do it again.”

Gerard rolls his eyes, “but it’s still true!”

“Just get here soon,” Mikey says and then hangs up.

“Love you too bro,” Gerard says to the dead line. He pushes his hair up, and out of his eyes.

The phone rings again seconds after he gets off of it with Mikey though, and Gerard groans.

He answers, expecting it to be Mikey who forgot to mention something else, but instead it’s Pete.

“Hey, Gerard, you um, you’re wanted back here.”

“I’m what?” Gerard groans, not necessarily surprised.

“I’m so sorry, man,” Pete says.

“It’s not your fault,” Gerard replies, turning around to start walking back to the house. A few people look at him funny for walking back out into the rain, but he really doesn’t have a choice.

“Yeah, man. I tried telling him that you’d already left, and I tried to tell him that it’s your birthday, but he wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t care that you have friends waiting for you he just cares that you book him a hotel or something,” Pete says.

“A hotel?” Gerard asks, pausing. “I can do that without coming back.”

“He just said ‘get Gerard back here within the hour or he’s fired.’ I decided not to argue.”

“I’m coming,” Gerard hangs up his phone, and runs back up the steps, out into the rain, and off down the sidewalk. The weather is frightful, and it’s not even unlikely for Gerard to get hit by a car in this, because he can barely tell where the sidewalk is. He runs back in record time though, because Gerard doesn’t want to lose his job.

When he steps back into the house, absolutely soaked from head to toe, he throws his jacket on a coat hanger and runs to the kitchen.

“I need a change of clothes,” Gerard says dripping onto the floor.

One of the other kitchen staff, a guy named Spencer, evaluates him and says, “I can get you a shirt, possibly pants, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to find you shoes.”

“I need them within the next five minutes or I’m not going to have a job,” Gerard says. Rule number 22 is that no one is allowed to trail water around the house.

A few seconds later, he’s being thrown one of the many sets of spare clothes that they keep here for reasons like this. He doesn’t really have time to waste in changing in private, so he hides in the pantry.

“Shoes?” Pete asks, coming into the room just as Gerard finishes.

“No luck,” Gerard says.

“What size?”

“Bigger than whatever you wear,” Gerard says. “What’s that say about me?”

“I’m not going to go there,” Pete says, and he starts taking his shoes off, “it doesn’t matter if they fit, just cram your feet in there, and hope that he doesn’t need you for a long time.”

“Thank you,” Gerard says.

“Yeah, just hurry up,” Pete says, pushing Gerard out the doorway.

He rushes up the stairs, nearly tripping on a few steps until he finally gets upstairs and knocks on Satan’s office door.

“H-hello sir,” Gerard says, out of breath from running through the entire house.

“What took you so long?”

“You told me I could leave if I found that statement, and I did. You said I could leave.”

“I don’t recall that,” he answers, and Gerard’s heart falls a little bit. He never remembers things that he finds inconvenient.

“What did you need sir?”

“I need you to write the speech I’m giving at that business conference,” he says. “I also need you to book the flight, hotel room, and I’m going to need a car.”

Gerard’s heart falls a million times further than it had a minute ago. That’s going to take him days. The best part about it though, is that the speech that needs to be written, which is going to need days to be written, has to be done by tomorrow morning.

“Don’t you think that it would be more beneficial for you to write the speech yourself?” Gerard asks, like he does every time. He’s written several dozen speeches for the guy, because he may own some giant company, but he doesn’t do anything in it. Gerard runs the damn thing more so than Satan does.

“I gave you an instruction,” he says, and he hands Gerard a folder with all the information that he needs to include in the speech. It also holds all the conference information.

“Right, I’m sorry. I’ll call you with your flight time later tonight,” Gerard says, opening it up to look at the times. He can hardly believe he forgot that there was a conference but he’s decided not to kick himself over it.

“I don’t want to leave any time before noon,” he says.

“But the conference is in LA, and you need to give your speech by two,” Gerard says.

“So?”

“Well the flight itself is going to be about five hours. If you leave by noon then you’re not going to get there until well after the time you need to give your speech,” Gerard says.

“Ugh, can you make the flight shorter?”

“No sir, that’s impossible,” Gerard states.

“Then make it as late as you can get,” he says.

“But I don’t control the times when planes leave, nor can I guarantee that you’ll make it to the conference in time,” Gerard says, “and the weather could cause delays, so you might get held up at the airport.”

“Did I ask you if you could do it?”

“No sir, you didn’t.”

“Then do it,” he says.

“Right, I’m sorry,” Gerard replies. “Are you going to need me to accompany you at the conference?”

“Who else is going to hold my coffee?” he retorts, and Gerard nods then starts to walk out of the room, before Satan calls him back.

“My son wants you to get him some movie,” he says.

Gerard wants to just die right here and now, because he doesn’t have the time to get a movie. He doesn’t have the time to make a hotel reservation. He doesn’t have the time to book a flight. He doesn’t have the time to write a speech.

“What movie?” Gerard asks through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know, just get it,” he says, and Gerard nods then turns to leave.

“Okay,” Gerard says, and he runs out of the room before Satan can ask for anything else. Gerard is tempted to chuck the folder in his hands off a balcony, or just chuck himself off the damn balcony, but he decides against it.

He swings around to the side of the house where Satan’s spawn lives, and knocks on the door dejectedly.

“What?” a voice snaps, and Gerard pushes the door open.

“Frank, your dad said you wanted a movie, but he didn’t tell me which one.”

“A movie? No, my PlayStation broke, I need a new one,” he says.

“Do you need it tonight?” Gerard asks, because he seems perfectly content playing whatever the fuck he’s playing on his phone.

“Yeah,” he replies like it’s obvious.

“Alright,” Gerard sighs, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“See what you can do? No you’re going to-”

“Do what you tell me to do, I know.”

“Don’t sass me,” he says.

“Alright, I’m sorry. I’ll get it to you as soon as I can,” Gerard turns to leave, and then walks down the stairs hurriedly. It looks like he won’t be making it to his own birthday party after all.