Gerard had woken up an all too familiar position, slumped over his art desk, pencil pressed into his cheek and a cold cup of coffee half spilled across his discarded sketches. The paper now just a waste of an evening, instead of being neat little character profiles as they were last night.
He pulled his head up from the desk with a load groan, the rumbling in his stomach matching the volume of his mouth surprisingly. "Fuck.. What time is it?" He muttered to himself, his eyes still blurry but immediately recognising the brown tint across all his drawings and pulling his face into a scowl. Well, he ruined his sleep schedule for nothing.
Gerard was an unlucky fellow in most things, unfortunately. Love, money, success, even health was not a natural win for him- he had been riddled with bad luck since birth.
Having to work a twelve hour shift today didn't make him feel any luckier.
After he messily mopped up the spilled brew with a dirty shirt, throwing the sketches away and giving his paint brushes a quick bath, he finally started getting ready for work. Throwing his cleanest black shirt on- his Batman merchandise- and a faded green jacket, he prepared for a long day. A very long day.
Although comic creating was his passion, Gerard didn't happen to be too passionate about handing grubby kids and their rude parents mint condition items that he would definitely take better care of. He may or may not have been jealous of those snot-ridden children.
Gerard sprawled himself out on his bed, feeling the gust of wind creep in through the small crack in his window, feeling thankful for the cool air as he couldn't be bothered to turn his AC on because he was pretty sure Bert hadn't fixed that since last month and he couldn't be bothered to argue. He was just thankful that he had a little while to relax before work began.
A short time turned into a long time, then turned into Gerard scampering around his bedroom for his clean black jeans, realising it was a twenty minute walk to work and he had exactly five minutes before his shift started.
"Shit, shit, shit. Aw, fuck." Gerard mumbled, cursing every second he spent enjoying the nice morning breeze.
Stupid enjoyable morning breeze.
But after a struggle to shimmy into the half-clean jeans, he did the right thing as a responsible worker- he was twenty minutes late to work.
~~~~
After a stern talking to from his boss and a pouting session that was much too long for any reasonable adult, he finally set up shop. The comics and books neatly stacked on shelves, the action figures in the window dusted and shined (all by done by Gerard's cleaning expertise) all neatly displayed by the stores dim yellow lighting that Gerard wouldn't trade for the world. The flickering stockroom light felt more familiarity him than his own apartment- that was definitely because he spent more time in there than his own bed.
He had just kicked the old CD player into use, a random old mixtape whirring away in response as Gerard began to pull out his sketch book and pens. He never drew with a pencil at work, not since a little kid poured out the trash can filled with pencil shavings and Gerard had to pick each piece up- he couldn't work out how to use a vacuum cleaner- hence the early retirement of pencil sketches in his book.
The pens glided over the thick pages, the soft sound of scribbling entrancing Gerard and encasing his thoughts in the creative process which he all too frequently slipped into, the black ink sharpening each edge and giving each piece a darker theme than the regular comics that lined the walls around him. Well, besides the gore section. With the rhythmic rolling of the ball of the pen, his mind began to wander and time seemed to slip by in a haze. Gerard ended up drawing darker and darker pieces, reminded subconsciously that Frank was supposed to be in today, picking up one of his beloved gore comics and it seemed as Gerard's hand followed his subconscious thoughts from the way the large sketch sprawled against the page soon turned into the Frank himself- a decapitated head tucked under his arm and a pool of blood nestled under the murderer that Frank had somehow become.
