FicWad

They had already arrived in Salt Lake City when Gerard and Monica woke. It was still early just before 6 am. Mikey and Ray had ventured out to find a Starbucks and had returned with coffee for everyone. The wonderful aroma is what had made Monica open her eyes. When she tried to slip out of Gerard's embrace he had opened his eyes and gave her that drop-dead sexy smile.
"Morning Sugar" he said reaching out to grab her, his voice sleepy.
Monica leaned over and kissed him. "Morning Gee."
"Just where are you sneaking off to?" He rolled over on his side to face her. His hair was mussed and she automatically began to run her fingers through it.
"I'm sneaking off to follow the smell of coffee."
He let her arm go, "I can accept that. I'm guessing Mikey found a Starbucks. The boy can't go without his hit of java." Monica stood and he scooted over to follow her. When they reached the kitchen area Mikey was smiling.
"The Starbucks is right down the road. I got everyone something." He nodded to the trays of styrofoam coffee cups lined up on the table. Gerard and Monica chose theirs and sat at the table with him. Ray with cup in hand joined them.
"According to Jerry we have to be at the radio station, The Blaze, at 8:00. We do an on-air interview. Then at 11:00 we go to a local community center for the charity kick ball game." Ray was always making sure they were informed about their schedule. He lived in constant fear they would miss an event and inadvertently disappoint fans.
"Shit, I hope it isn't like that kick ball game we played during Warped in Pennsylvania." Gerard said.
Monica had never heard the story. "What happened?"
"We thought we were going to be playing a game against some fans. You know just fun. Instead it turned out we were playing against like a professional team that took it way too serious. It sucked."
Mikey nodded "Yea, those guys were vicious. I'm mean I've been playing kick ball most of my life but it's always been fun. Fun it wasn't."
Ray agreed, "They were out to win and make us look stupid in the process. So I checked and this game is against fans mostly kids who are from the Big Brothers and Sisters program."
"Cool, that's the kind of game I want to play." Mikey said happily.
"OK, so after the game we head over to a restaurant for another interview for the paper. After that is the signing which should take us up to sound check time." Ray told them.
Gerard sighed, "No "Monica Time" in that schedule."
She laughed, "You had enough "Monica Time" yesterday."
He smiled loving how she accepted the bands schedule. Mikey and Ray were impressed too. Liv had always complained about the time Gerard spent away from her.
Frank stumbled in looking very sleepy. "Coffee" he croaked before falling on the sofa.
Mikey took him his cup. "Rise and shine Frankie, we have a big day ahead of us."
Frank took the cup then flipped him off.
"Ouch, that hurts man. I should take my coffee back." Mikey told him with a smile.
"Just try it Little Way. I can take your big brother, I can take you. Ain't no one alive can take this coffee from me."
Bob was the last to show up. He too looked sleepy. Ray was dead on him, "Oh look Bob is tired imagine that. Maybe if someone didn't talk on the phone all hours of the night he could get some sleep."
"Shut up Ray. I happen to have a girlfriend I miss and want to talk to." He took his coffee and sat down by Frank.
"Yea, well I seem to have heard Ray on the phone too." Mikey said looking over at Ray. "Lot of whispering going on."
Ray ignored him. "I think Torosaurus has someone back home he's not telling us about." Mikey said with a smile.
"I get that feeling too," Gerard said looking over at Ray. "Want to share info with us?"
Ray looked down at his coffee cup and shrugged, "Nothing to tell."
Monica smiled "Don't let them get to you Ray."
He returned her smile. "I won't. These guys are always trying to get me to tell them my deep dark secrets and that ain't happening."
Once they had all dressed they headed for the van. The trip to the radio station was fairly quiet. Bob and Frank fell asleep, Ray seemed to be writing a letter and Mikey was texting on this Sidekick.
Gerard had his arm around Monica and was nuzzling her neck. "So have I told you I love you today?"
What he was doing was causing her to shiver. "No I don't believe you have."
He moved his lips up to her ear. His breath in her hear was warm and sweet. "I love you."
Monica turned and kissed his open mouth, "Right back at you." She whispered. "Gee, does Ray have someone back home?"
He shrugged "I'm not sure. I think so but with Ray you never know. He's kind of mysterious. It's like he keeps so much to himself."
Monica thought about the secret he had kept about Liv and the baby. She wondered how many other secrets he really had. "I hope he does. Sometimes he just seems so lonely."
Gerard nodded, "Yea, I think that's why he is so driven. It keeps his mind occupied so he doesn't have time to be sad."
They arrived at the radio station and as the boys were ushered into the studio Monica was taken to the lounge. There she meet several of the on-air personalities who were their drinking coffee and talking.
The interview started and the room quieted. The first question was about all the crazy things the band was asked to do in interviews and such, "How much will you put up with you've probably been asked to do a hell of a lot, at what point to you go enough is enough we're not doing this?"
Gerard answered, "Well here's the deal, if we meet someone and they are really genuine and really sincere about what they do they can be as crazy as they want. We've put up with quite a bit from certain people."
Bob spoke up "A lot of times we just put up with it and we're like alright it's time to go...chicken suit? It's time to go."
The booth was filled with laughter. "Chicken suit" Gerard repeated laughing.
"Have you guys always love playing dress ups?" Was the next question.
Gerard answered, "Yes, I think so. If you save it and make it special and keep it for the show, make it a definite separation then when you put it on it make a change happen. It's actually pretty important to off stage be a little more normal cause you save it for the show. It's almost like your uniform. Yea, we've always, I've always, liked playing dress up. I used to collect costumes."
"What sort of costumes?"
Gerard thought a moment "More like masks, Frankenstein masks, skeleton masks, Dracula masks. Um, I really want to buy a gorilla suit really bad."
Once more there was lots of laughter. "Can that be the next My Chemical Romance look?"
Gerard laughed, "Yea, I think gorilla suit no mask. I think that's a good look."
Monica got the mental visual of that and giggled.
She missed the next part of the interview because she had a call from Bert. "Hey Bert is there some reason you always call me when Gee is doing an interview?"
He laughed "Yea, I'm trying to distract you from Lover Boy. So what's new?"
Monica lowered her voice, it didn't seem like anyone was listening to her, "Well I got engaged."
"Holy shit, that's great. Oh man, Gee is gonna be an old married guy. When did this happen?"
"After the concert in Denver."
"Boy am I gonna have fun messing with him about it. So are you still gonna be able to meet up with me? I really need to talk to you." Bert's tone was suddenly serious.
"When?" she was starting to get a bit nervous. Whatever he had to say she knew had something to do with Liv.
"I got a bunch of stuff I have to do today. Maybe we could get together before the concert. Like when they are doing their sound check."
"You don't want Gee around, do you?"
He sighed, "Nope, I need to talk to just you about this."
She heard the guys talking about guitar solos in the interview. Something about the guitar solo in the song "Dead" having a Woody Woodpecker vibe. It was hard trying to listen to them and Bert at the same time.
"Earth to Monica" Bert said "I know you are trying to listen to Gerard so I'll let you go. I'll see you at the E Center around 5:00 O.K?"
"I'll see you then Bert." She hung up just as they guys were all laughing at the fact that they actually named some of the guitar tones used in Black Parade.
"What is the name of one of them?" the radio personality asked.
"Nemesis" Gerard said with a dark kidding voice.
The next question was about their fans. "You guys have these, I don't want to use the word crazy fans"
Gerard corrected him "Passionate, that's the word we use, passionate. Yea, we do we have very passionate fans I think because what we do is very honest, we're not trying to pretend to them that we're something else so I think they feel a lot closer to us because of that they feel that this band is as much theirs as it is ours and I think a lot to times they have a right to think that. We do take them into consideration when we're making what we do."
Once more Monica's attention was drawn to her phone. She answered, spoke briefly and walked out of the lounge. When the interview was over Gerard was puzzled she wasn't there. One of the people in the room told him she had gotten a call then hurriedly left.
He rejoined the guys in the hall who were waiting. "I don't know where she is. They said she got a call and took off."


Authors note - For those of you keeping track of the real events in this story the kick ball game in PA they talk about is real. You could have gone to YouTube and saw the MCR Latin Diary which it was in but stupid YouTube has pulled a lot of videos. Including the great Japanese interview I just love. The quotes from Gerard and Bob during the radio interview in this story are from an interview they did recently called the Triple J Radio Interview.