Bob had gotten me—get this—a Nintendo DS. It was fucking wicked awesome too; it was one of those ones that gets customised by the buyers choice, and he had gotten the thing in canary yellow, with ‘System of a Down’ written in red, bloody letters on the front. It was totally kick ass, considering he got me at least twenty damn games to go with it, along with a carrying case and lots of accessories.

Ray had been as predictable as his best friend. A Sony PSP. I didn’t know what the hell was with those two and video games, but they did like to trick them out amazingly. This one was red, with a red kanji symbol for love in black on the back, a symbol that held extreme love in my heart. Duh. I almost laughed at this too.

Becky had left yesterday with the other girls to just hang out with Avenged Sevenfold, her favourite band. Alicia had been asked to fill in as bassist for their normal dude for the job, and Becky had decided to tag along (Bob had been horridly depressed the rest of the day and was even sort of depressed today). Anyway, she had been talking to Frank, and they had both decided to go with me yesterday to get my first tattoo. I was extremely happy with it, and the fact that Gerard had tagged along had been a major bonus, even though he had gotten sick and had had to leave the room for the half-hour it was being done. It was my kanji, in blood red and outlined in black, behind my right ear. It was still shiny because of the A&D that I had to put on it, but it was all good. I loved it to death.

Gerard was going crazy, saying that he was going to spoil his best friend, which annoyed Frank to everyone’s laughter. I had offered to share the hyperactive singer, but he just grinned at me and rolled his eyes. He had been like this for a while really. God knows why.

I fought a cough, and tried not to smile as Bob pretended to pick Mikey’s nose.

This morning, when I had woken up, everyone had already been awake. They had decorated the whole bus in yellow and red and black, my favourite colours (although the red and black had been easy, considering the whole bus was red and black anyway). They had strung yellow streamers everywhere, and yellow confetti had been chucked on me by a grinning blonde drummer. I had smacked the bastard with his own drumsticks afterward, but that’s besides the point, because we were laughing our asses off during the whole thing.

Within two seconds, I had all of my new presents. I had drooled over all of them—not literally, of course—and I had been attacked by Gerard, who had practically thrown me head-first into the shower, rushing out while he yelled behind his back, “You better hurry up!”

What we were doing was beyond me, but I was anxious to find out. Knowing Gerard, it would be awesome. We were pretty similar, after all.

And now we were driving down the road in the tour bus. The drapes on all the windows were all closed, because I wasn’t allowed to look outside to get any kind of idea of where we were going by road signs. Normally, I’d be totally pissed, but because it was all Gerard, then I was willing to make an exception. He was my best friend, after all. Besides...I had a good idea, after hearing a crew member talk about gambling when they stopped next...

He finally grinned and drew away from my face, leaving me the opportunity to see something else in my vision besides Gerard Way, and I fought the urge to kick him at the smug little smirk on his face. I noticed that everyone in the bus had stopped what they were doing, and were looking at me, enraptured.

And then Mikey began laughing.

“What?! Why are you laughing?!” yelped Gerard. “Did I do something wrong?!”

“Nah,” choked Mikey, falling over onto the floor and beginning to turn red from the lack of oxygen in his brain. Gerard, fuming, began preparing his fists to have an ol’ fashioned brother-beatdown in defense of his ‘wickedly awesome artistic ability’, but thankfully, Michael James Way finally decided to breathe long enough to clarify the reason for his amusement. “It’s just the look on your face, Gee, ‘cause you look so in love at the moment. Jesus, the look on your face is priceless.”

I raised a slender eyebrow while Gerard did plop a fist over his head. “I should be in love with it! It’s my art, and she’s freakin’ gorgeous, so fuck you, you asshole.” Leaving Mikey to his pained groaning-slash-uncontrollable laughter, he grabbed my wrist and dragged me away from the other guys, shoving me in front of the mirror and introducing me to a stranger.

She was glorious, with the brightest emerald eyes framed in delicate and smooth black eyeliner, just enough to make her eyes stand out in perfect contrast to her pale, unblemished skin. Said skin was so fragile and shockingly white in such a way that it was like the touch of clean snow on a living, breathing face. Her lips were glossed in a deep red, complimenting the scarlet and black eyeshadow upon those sparkling green eyes. Her lashes were long and thick, brushing against a pale and smooth cheek every blink. Her hair was in a long, shiny curtain around her thin face, the black strands lightly tousled and slightly wavy because it hadn’t been straightened, giving her the appearance of the most erotic of women. Her thin body was clad in pyjamas, throwing off the whole sex goddess effect, but when Gerard Way’s own pale face came into the mirror with the breathtaking stranger, he was holding a neatly folded bundle of clothes and a pair of black sandals. This stranger...this stranger with my name and my broken heart...she was getting dressed up, in a vermillion and raven ensemble by the looks of it.

“You are a size two. So this outfit should pretty much fit you,” said Gerard, his green-hazel eyes glittering with his own little secrets. “Here’s shoes. You wear size seven shoes, itty-bitty feet, so these are perfect. I hope you don’t mind sandals.”

He handed the clothes to me, and skipped out, slamming the door and automatically yelling at Mikey for being a total prick.

Okay, so holding up the black and red outfit—one piece thing, a dress unless I was losing my mind and getting it wrong—I knew that Gerard Way was freakin’ crazy as hell.

“I’M NOT FUCKING WEARING THIS!” I bellowed towards the closed doorway, and Gerard bellowed right back in retaliation, “YES YOU ARE!”

“AW FUCK YOU!” I screamed, and then opened the door and chucked a bar of soap at his grinning head. And then I slammed the door and resigned myself to wearing the scrap of fabric. Naturally, I gingerly took off the shirt so I wouldn’t fuck up Gerard’s immaculate job of straightening my hair. I glanced at the top portion of the dress, and then reckoned that my black, sorta plain bra wouldn’t be needed. With a defeated sigh, I stripped out of it as well and threw it with the rest of my night clothes bundled on the floor.

Yeah, it was definitely a dress. I stepped into the scarlet and onyx outfit and pulled it up, thankful that it was just a slip-on instead of a zip-up, a type of dress I hated with a passion. But I looked at myself in the mirror and grudgingly acknowledged that the thirty-one-year-old had a kick ass taste in dresses. The top of the dress with a halter top, the strings holding up the dress a brilliant red the colour of the deepest tone of blood. The neckline plunged down to mid-breast, showing a bit of the creamy flesh of my small breasts. The chest section was skin tight and went down to the waist line, where a black, seven inch cloth wraparound belt-thing hugged my hips. From the belt down, the red dress swished loosely around my legs, ending just below my knee. The black belt and the halter straps trailed down my back after the double knot holding them tight, so the remaining cloth hung down. I slipped on the simple thong sandals, black with a small scarlet bow on the side, and sighed again, putting on the black sleeves that reached my elbows, effectively covering the scars. Damn that Gerard. What in the hell was he trying to accomplish with this?

I made sure that my make-up and hair was still in order, for I didn’t want to have to deal with the singer freaking out over an insignificant detail, grabbed my discarded pyjamas, and opened the door.

The first thing I noticed was Gerard grinning his face off and jumping up and down like a six-year-old. Mikey was right; the look on his face was priceless, with that sparkle of excitement and love shining bright in his hazel-green eyes. Excitement about what he was planning in that diabolical mind of his, and love for the art that he had created on my paintable canvas, also known as a body.

The next thing I noticed was Frank gaping, but I chose to ignore that.

“Yes! Gerard victorious!” cried the dark haired man, his face stretching in a grin so wide that I thought his face was going to rip in two. Silly little man; he really did know how to get excited.

He advanced on me, bowed low with exaggerated amusement, and then pranced, literally pranced, to the bunk rooms, humming to himself. I raised a slender eyebrow and Bob explained in a draw, “He’s getting ready for tonight. He’s gonna get himself all faaaaaaancccyy.”

“FUCK YOU!” yelled the thirty-one-year-old good-naturedly in a bad imitation of my tone of voice, although he didn’t open the door to throw a bar of soap at his head like I did to him. Probably because if he had a bar of soap in his bunk, we’d all laugh at him.

“You do look beautiful,” remarked Mikey, smirking. “I just didn’t want to give Gee the satisfaction that he did a good job. All to jerk his chain.”

I rolled my eyes. “Some positive intake will probably make him love you more, ya know.”

He snorted. “He loves me enough. Besides, he gets tons of ‘positive intake’ from the battalion of fans that stalk him like he’s God.”

I shrugged, agreeing. Eventually, while I tapped my foot absently, waiting for my best friend to make an appearance, the dark haired singer did just that, coming out in a black button-up long sleeve shirt with a few of the buttons undone at the top, really dark blue jeans that were slightly baggy and hanging low on his hips, a scarlet tie that was loose around his neck, plain black Vans with red stitching, and a black studded belt. Yep, if he was planning on leaving the tour bus in plain view of a fan or two, they’d probably have about ten orgasms a minute. But that was just the fans.

I raised an eyebrow, watching him skip towards me, automatically heading to the couch. He promptly sat down in the same spot that I had occupied, turned to the wall-length mirror that was on the right side, and reached for his eyeliner in that big-ass white case beside him on the floor. He muttered a bit under his breath, seemingly unaware of his audience, and began applying his face, transforming himself into the man that the world saw on a day-to-day basis.

As I watched him with the rest of the band, sitting down in one of the grounded bar stools in the kitchen, I suddenly realised that I liked him better when he looked natural. Yeah, he was good-looking—I never said he wasn’t, ‘cause he was, and I wouldn’t deny it—but when he was clean and bare, his true skin showing through all the make-up, he looked like himself. Like Gerard.

I smiled softly, wistfully, when I remembered the day I had left Bridgeport. I had disliked him, because he was taking me away from a life with my love, and I had really hated him when he had been with my mother.  I had really hated him...

And now here we were, after a month of goofing off and twenty-five shows later, and I was as close to happy as I could ever get. The band was friendly and Becky was perfect (she was working with the road crew, helping with selling merchandise and putting up the sets with the other road crews), and Gerard made my day every single moment that I was here.

It was pretty much ridiculous how that damn thirty-one-year-old had thrown me head-first out of that depression. I had never really thought that I could ever get out of that black void without the love of my life, and here I was, Haven with me in the essence of Gerard. It was shocking sometimes how much they were alike, and he made me happy, really happy, something that I had believed I could never feel again. Yes, I missed Haven, and yes, I’d never really be the same, but I felt normal when I was with Gerard. He really made me feel normal.

In a month, I hadn’t really found anyone that was in his league. Twenty-five shows, hundreds of thousands of fans, hundreds upon hundreds of autographs, and not one woman that I deemed good enough for him. It was actually harder than I had originally thought, because no one really deserved him. He was better than any of those girls, and he deserved someone that was beautiful, could deal with his over-enthusiasm, and someone feisty enough to handle him when he got too down or too hyper. He needed someone with a sense of humour, enough stamina to keep up with his lifestyle, and someone who would be able to be alone and still be happy. Because that was the truth of the matter. Gerard Way was always gone, and that was one of the main reasons his relationship with Lindsey worked so well. Lindsey loved human contact, but she had her band, and she was doing what she enjoyed doing all the time. She didn’t have the time to be lonely. Her life was so upbeat and wild that it never got boring, especially with someone like ‘Jimmy Urine’ in her midst. It was the same with Gerard too, and he didn’t have the time to be lonely either, because there was so much going on. So many autographs and shows and emotional highs and lows and craziness that he didn’t need his wife with him every second of the day.

So finding him someone with all of those qualities was a pain in the arse. Almost impossible. He needed another celebrity or a hermit. Ha. Good luck with that...

“What are we going to do?” I asked Bob slyly, and he shrugged, sincerity shining in his bright blue eyes. “I don’t know. He won’t tell anyone. Well, he told Brian, but he won’t tell the rest of us either.”

I raised a fine eyebrow. “Why not?”

He shot me a pointed look. “He knows we’ll sucker in and tell you.”

“Yeah, but won’t you guys be surprised too?”

He looked confused, scratching the back of his head. “Uh, he didn’t tell you that we aren’t going?”

I choked on my air intake. What?! “Whatcha mean, you aren’t going?”

He slumped as if bewildered. “He has forbidden us to go.” He shot a look at Frank, who I realised was trying to steal Gerard’s eyeliner mid-stroke as he applied it. “Especially Frank, which was kinda weird, since they used to do everything together.”

I narrowed my eyes at the dark haired man and he glanced at me through the mirror, his eyes hazel-green today. He paused long enough for the rhythm guitarist to finally steal the black stick and he looked away, automatically digging in his bag and just retrieving another eyeliner instead of getting all touchy about it. Ray snickered at Frank’s annoyed expression, and Mikey just shrugged, fighting a laugh of his own.

One couldn’t steal Gerard’s make-up. He’d just pull out his other replacements. Hence the need for such a huge freakin’ awesome Japanese case in the first place.

Gah. What was I thinking?

Without my wanting it to, my mind automatically went back to Frank and Gerard.

Frank and I hadn’t done anything in weeks. If the thirty-one-year-old was still throwing an internal hissy fit, then he really needed to get over it. He had been polite with the rhythm guitarist since that day in the hotel and had been perfectly civil, but it was still kinda weird between him. It was a tension that the whole band plus others felt, but only three knew the answer to. Gerard had been trying with almost annoying insistency to keep the shorter man out of my line of sight like a dude with a mission, and it was hidden poorly. Most of the people just wanted to know why. Especially one Brian Schecter.

But today was one of the days where the whole set-up could take it easy, being one of the far and few-between days off. And considering today was my birthday, and we were going to be in Las Vegas, Nevada (at least, I suspected), I was pretty excited. It wasn’t everyday when your best friend could take off such a special day.

Now, what we were doing, on the other hand, was a totally different story.

He put up the eyeliner and began peering closely at his eyes for any clumps or mistakes. I watched him with amusement, just for the sake of watching him. I ignored yellow hazel eyes as the owner watched me watch Gerard, not really wanting to face Frank Iero. I had told myself dozens of times that we wouldn’t mess around again. I didn’t want to be a third wheel, and I hated being the reason that Gerard was losing sleep. We both loved Jamia, and she was a fantastic girl who didn’t deserve being cheated on. So Frank and I stayed away from each other, any possible moments to be alone being torn to shreds by one black haired singer, and all the life on the road was filled with the smallest hint of tension and a whole shitload of fun.

I finally looked away from the thirty-one-year-old and sighed, pulling myself up to grab my sketchbook. After a couple of days of Gerard trying to ‘accidently’ look at my sketchbook, I had finally huffed and stole one of the Lincoln Navigators that trailed behind the busses on their way to the next destination. I had proceeded to head to the nearest Ace Hardware and buy a duffel lock so I could effectively keep the little jerk out of my art. It wasn’t as if it was such a bother to show him my multitudes of works within the three books that were almost all filled up. I just was afraid of anyone else seeing the art besides Haven.

One book was filled with the love of my life, alone. Various poses, whether it be singing or playing the piano or laying in bed sleeping or eyes closed in unbearable pain as the nurse in the hospital gave him his shots of chemotherapy.

The second book was just random, filled with clouds and landscapes and apples and Serj Tankian and bass guitars and museums and all kinds of off-the-wall shit. There was even a picture where the entire page was filled with ladybugs, climbing all over each other in frantic movements. There were abstracts and still-lifes and portraits, of all sorts of people except Haven Thomas and five men that were now a major part of my life.

The other book had been empty, bought one day before Haven’s death and effectively empty from then on out. The first picture was of Gerard, sitting in my mother’s living room, face expressionless, while my beautiful mother grinned sadistically in the background. I had sketched this on the plane so long ago, the visit still so fresh in my mind, and after that, the My Chemical Romance pictures just started coming. Drawings of Mikey stealing Gerard’s coffee beans while the singer bellowed in anger, of Bob and Ray playing Mario while Gerard yelled out instructions, Becky and Gerard cackling madly as they put salt in Frank’s applesauce, Frank and Gerard playing the guitar and singing respectively, the five of them playing in a concert, Gerard eating a piece of bacon in front of an annoyed Iero, Gerard and Mikey and Bob and Ray pretending they were secret agents in San Francisco, Gerard grinning as he beat me in a hand of Texas Hold ‘Em poker...