The Art Way

Jamia was late for her second day at TAW. It wasn't her fault, really, one of the subway trains she had wanted to take had technical difficulties and for safety reasons everyone had to wait for the next one half an hour later since it was at a station far off the city centre.
When she finally arrived at the building and entered the lobby the two boys at the reception desk stopped their hushed conversation to look at her. She couldn't help but get an uneasy feeling at the look they both threw her, but brushed it off as them judging her for her tardiness and hoped that the bosses would understand that it wasn't her fault.
While she was in the elevator she remembered a conversation she and Frank had had in the evening, about, apparently, another intern called Gerard that worked here that he had met before taking her out for lunch and he knew from back in high school. He described him having black hair and wearing dark clothes, but Jamia was sure that she hadn't seen anybody like that except for her boss G., which could admittedly be short for Gerard, but he wasn't an intern. Also she had been sure that she had the only interning position TAW was offering.
She wondered if she would understand all this today.
The elevator finally arrived on the top floor and the doors opened to reveal a man with a lot of very curly hair that muttered something about paternosters as he made his way past Jamia and into the elevator.
She made her way over to Mr. Hurley's office- no, Andy's office, it still confused and surprised her a little that everyone except for Mr. Way, G.'s younger brother, insisted on being called by their surnames by the intern. As she was approaching the door someone who she at first glance thought to be G. exited it. But then she realised that it was not, in fact, her boss.
“Ex- excuse me?”, she asked, “But you don't happen to be Gerard by any chance?”
The other one looked confused for a moment but then he said
“Oh. You must be Jamia!”
“Yes, I'm interning here, I was assigned to Andy to help with the upcoming presentation of the NGO department...”
“Yes, M...Mr. Way mentioned that. He told me the fact that two presentations are taking place in such short intervals is the only reason that they hired two interns on top level this time... I am helping Pete from the logo department, by the way, he was just sending me over to ask Andy something...”
“So why didn't I see you around yesterday? My boyfriend, Frank apparently saw you, he told me you knew each other...”
“Yes, Frank and me used to be friends in high school but we lost contact, I was very surprised to see him here to be honest. I wasn't introduced to you yesterday because they weren't sure if they were really gonna give the job to me since that whole two interns thing, but I managed to convince them, so here I am, Gerard Sleigh, intern at TAW...”
“Oh, that's nice, I'm happy for you... oh, I just remembered, I'm already extremely late, I should go in and talk to Andy now! See you later Gerard!”
“Yeah, you too”, said Ryan and made his way back to Pete's office.

~*~*~

When Ryan exited Gerard's office that morning, an hour before Jamia would show up, a guy with glasses was leaning against the desk of his new bosse's PA. Upon seeing Ryan he straightened and walked up to him.
“Hi, I'm Mikey and I need to talk to you.”
“O...O.K.?”
"I'm sure Brian already introduced you to Pete and they went over your tasks as an intern here, right?”
“Yes, I know what I'm supposed to do.”
“O.K., but Ryan- Yes I know who you really are, don't look so shocked- I need to clarify some of the things Gee requires of you, because I'm sure he didn't tell you half of the things you need to know about his idiotic plan. For example, you know Frank?”
“Yeah, that's the guy this is all about?”
“More or less. So him and Gee used to be 'friends' in high school”, Mikey made actual air quotes at that, “and now he wants to reconnect but without letting on to Frank that he didn't implement his teenage dreams, at least that's the version he tries to sell me.”
“Oh, that is... weird?”
“Not for Gee, not really. Anyhow, another part of the plan is that Frank hears from Jamia how the bosses here are are actually good people, which is why, even though usually everyone here is on first name basis, in front of her you will refer to me as Mr. Way since you're the only two interns here and it would be weird for you to call me Mikey while she has to stick to my last name. And now you should head back to Pete, and if he asks why you were hired as a second intern tell him Mikey said he should shut up and be glad he got one after all after drawing the shorter straw with Andy. The official reason we hired you is that it is unusual for these presentations to take place so close to each other and so we decided to add you to the team. Just tell Jamia you weren't introduced to her yesterday because you were still in a trial period because of the unusual situation.”
And with that Ryan or maybe his alter ego Gerard Sleigh made his way over to Pete's office, trying to file away all that information. The reason Mikey had given him for this scheme didn't sound too despicable, but apparently not even Mikey believed it to be true. 'Oh well, better not to think too much about it and just be glad you got the job'.

~*~*~

After a few hours of helping Andy plan for the presentation and learning a great deal about the companies ways ('learning by doing' seemed to be Andy's motto, he would set her a task and encouraged her to find a solution by herself, supporting her when she would need help and asked for it, never deciding to intervene on his own) it was time for Jamia's lunch break.
The thing was, she wasn't really hungry and also enjoying her current task. So when Frank showed up to ask her if she wanted to go out for lunch she told him that she'd much rather stay and work to get the time she lost because of the trains that morning, if that was O.K. with him.
Frank could see how much Jamia enjoyed herself, smiled and said:
“Of course that's O.K., I can see you're occupied here, maybe we can go another time.”
Back in the hallway he then realised that now he didn't have somebody to eat lunch with and that he had made the trip here for nothing.
That's when Gerard showed up.

~*~*~

'Gerard Way was sitting in his office. Big surprise. I wonder if the book about my life will start like that. In my office-'
His rather pointless train of thoughts was suddenly interrupted by said office's door opening, revealing, much to Gerard's surprise, neither his PA nor his brother, but Ryan.
Gerard sat down his name plate, that he had picked up again at some point and looked at him expectantly.
“Your guy is here.”, Ryan announced, “Looks like he's having a religious experience at the watercooler or something.”
“Oh, O.K., uhm, you stay clear of him and Jamia now and I'm just gonna, uhm, yeah.”, Gerard said intelligently and left his office. Lindsey watched him a bit puzzled, but he waved her off when she started to get up.
As Ryan had said Frank was standing in front of the watercooler, not really looking at it but through it, lost in his thoughts.
“Uhm, hi, Frank.”, Gerard announced his presence.
“Oh, hi Gerard.”
“What were you thinking about? You looked really far away...”
“Oh, was I? I was just thinking about what to do now, because I wanted to take Jams out for lunch again, but she's busy so now I am here for nothing...”
“I'm on my lunch break! That is, if you wanna catch up, maybe, I don't know...”
“Actually, why not, sounds good. Do you have somewhere you usually go?”
“You know, I am actually 90% sure the Starbucks next door makes 50% of it's money from me.”
“Starbucks it is then.”, Frank smiled.

~*~*~

When they sat down at their table with their order Frank asked Gerard: “Is it just me or does the receptionist not like you? He kept looking at you as if you were... I don't know, leprous or something.”
Gerard raised an eyebrow at that.
“Leprous, really?”
“Shut up.”
“No Spencer s just... I kinda promised him something but I forgot about it and now he's pissed, but I think, I hope he's going to forgive me some day soon.”
“Oh, well good luck with that, I guess... Hey another thing: Believe it or not, dude, I can't remember your last name, which is kinda embarrassing given the fact that you were the first, you know?” Frank smiled uneasily.
'The first?', Gerard thought 'Does that mean there were more? Does that mean he isn't straight?'
The thought made him more exited than it probably should have.
“Sleigh.” He answered. “Gerard Sleigh.”
Now there was no going back.