The Art Way

Gerard Way was sitting in his office. He didn't really have a reason to be in his office except the fact that he didn't have a reason to be anywhere else because his company had become so successful that in the last two years all the work he once had to do himself was now done by newly hired or promoted employees. He was, for all intents and purposes, just the poster boy. No really, if there was a poster needed for anything he'd design it, but there were almost never any posters needed and designing a poster was not a long process, he'd actually just choose one of the pieces he'd drawn at some other point, because of course he was still drawing, either in his office or at home.
The only reason Gerard still came to work was that it gave his life more of a purpose than spending all day in his big and empty house.
The only people he had contact with outside of work were Ray and Mikey, maybe Bob, with Mikey and Ray actually also working for TAW and Bob having left it just a few years prior.
So most of the day Gerard would be in his office either drawing or daydreaming, sometimes playing games on his phone or computer and occasionally wishing for a boyfriend that he had no chance of finding since he never went out except for presentations of TAW's work. In the past Mikey would have dragged him to clubs where Gerard would sit at the bar, drinking too much and ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him. At some point they both realized that these trips were more destructive to Gerard than helpful and so he stopped forcing his brother along. Now all Mikey is doing is to at least try and keep Gerard and Ray in contact, resulting in at least twice monthly moive nights at one of their houses.
At one point every day Gerard would pick up the little prism at the front of his desk that claimed in bold letters 'G. Art Way' and ask himself what on earth had moved him to make this decision, that was, in his opinion, the worst of his career.
Today, in the middle of his disgusted staring contest with the offending thing, his PA Lindsey walked in, without bothering to knock, since she knew as well as everybody else that he had nothing to do.
Snorting at the familiar scene playing out in front of her she informed her boss that “The new intern is here, and she basically already has the job but since you're the boss you kinda have the final word so you should talk to her”
“O.K., let her in”, said Gerard, placing the name plate back at the front of his messy desk.
How it always got so messy Lindsey would never understand since her boss had basically nothing to do but she decided not to think about it and instead tidied it quickly before letting in the new intern with a friendly “Mr. Way will see you now”
As the young woman walked in Gerard noticed that Lindsey had placed an info sheet on her in front of him on his desk. It informed him her name was Jamia Nestor and she was currently studying art.
Jamia cleared her throat, which caused Gerard to look up and realise that he had kind of ignored her while reading the sheet and asked her to sit and “Please call me Gee”, even though he knew she'd only call him G. Most people wouldn't hear the difference, but he did. 'Gee' would come from people who knew his real name and shortened the monstrosity that it was, 'G' was the name he had chosen for the world to give him years ago and he hated it. But not as much as he hated being called 'Mr. Way'. Sometimes he daydreamed about a world where everybody, including people on the streets called him Gee or Gerard, just like Patrick who'd come to visit somebody in the building every now and then (Mikey told him who the lucky guy was more than once but Gerard always forgot the name), nobody even considered calling the singer 'Mr. Stumph', he had reached that level of famous where everybody would just know him as Patrick or not at all.
Failing to notice that he once more ignored the person in front of him he snapped back into reality when she, after a while, said “O.K., hello G.” and smiled.
“I am very glad that you consider to let me intern at TAW”, she continued, “I always wanted to work with you, I admire your work, I really do.”
“Well, hopefully you won't become a rival with your own business then”, Gerard attempted to joke, but Jamia seemed more shocked than he had anticipated which made him wince a little.
“What no, that's not no!”
“O.K. Then welcome to TAW”, he rushed, hoping that she'd get the clue and leave his office.
Apparently she did, because she stood up and left, but not without thanking him profoundly first.
After she had left Gerard collapsed onto his desk and buried his head in his arms scolding himself for his bad people skills.

~*~*~

An hour or so later the door to Gerard's office was opened once again, but this time more carelessly then Lindsey would do it.
Knowing that his brother would have no regard towards his privacy he quickly folded the sketch he was working on and hid it under his desk. He had been absent minded almost the entire time he had worked on it, but seriously? Patrick Stumph? The guy was not only present on probably one or multiple walls of every teenage room across the world but apparently also the boyfriend of one of his own employees, he shouldn't even subconsciously think about it.
“Pete needs a poster!”, Mikey announced as if it were cause for immense joy.
O.K., it probably would be if Gerard had any idea who Pete even *was*.
At his brothers blank stare Mikey elaborated “Pete. Pete Wentz? Head of the logo department?”
When that still got him no reaction from Gerard he added “Patrick's boyfriend?”
“Oh!”, Gerard exclaimed and asked himself if he he had started to subconsciously erase every memory of Pete Wentz, head of the logo department because he had a cute boyfriend.
“Yeah, so maybe you should like, go there and talk to him? Maybe take whatever you were working on just now with you, you tend to use your latest work for the posters anyway...”
“Yeah, uhm, no, I don't think that's a good idea”, Gerard fidgeted, “It's more, y'know...”
“O.K., whatever Gee, I was heading out to Starbucks, I know you want some, I'll bring it to Pete's office so maybe get your ass over there yeah?”
And with that he left.
“Love you too, bro”, Gerard mumbled to himself.
Collecting some of his older sketches from the pile Lindsey had created earlier, Gerard made his way over to Pete's office.

~*~*~

After he knocked at the door to Pete's office he could definitely hear talking inside. He didn't try to eavesdrop but the hallway was deserted and so he could easily follow the conversation inside.
“Who knocks at YOUR door?”, somebody asked amused. No, not somebody, Gerard knew it was Patrick, everyone would know that voice. O.K., maybe not everyone but, you know, people with good taste in music.
“I told you, I need a poster.”, that had to be Pete.
“COME IN”, he shouted.
Gerard opened the door, shifting his sketches around and loosing some in the process.
“Shit”, he mumbled, picking them up again and finally greeting the other two people in the room with a simple “Hi”.
Patrick regarded him curiously, obviously having no clue as to who he was, in fact, most people who happened upon him in the building without prior knowledge of how he looked like assumed him to be some sort of intern and that was not helped by the fact that he looked younger than he actually was, sometimes he was still being carded which was a little embarrassing.
“G.!”, Pete exclaimed, causing Patrick's eyes to get huge and look between Pete and Gerard as if saying: “Seriously? This guy??”
“Uh, yeah, uh, hello Pete, Mikey said you need a poster design...?”, why did Patrick have to be there? Gerard was definitely loosing his cool here! Not that he ever had some to begin with but...
“Yes, yes, for a presentation to several sports teams, we designed some examples and next month they'll will be presented at a fair...”
They had discussed the basics and designs for a while when Mikey barged in as unannounced as he had in Gerard's office. He was carrying four Starbucks cups in a cardboard tray and handed each of them one, not wanting to interrupt his brother and Pete too much.
A while after Mikey had left Patrick announced to Pete that he had to leave, confusing Gerard who had honestly forgotten that he was actually still there.
After that it didn't take long until they finished up, having agreed on one of Gerard's sketches as the poster design and now the digital artists on some other level would get instructed to create the actual poster and pass it along to print.
On the way back to his office Gerard didn't pay much attention to his surroundings, so it was no wonder that he ran into someone. What was a surprise was the fact that he actually knew the person.
“Sorry, sorry I didn't see... Frank?”
“Gerard??”