Doodles (Geetrick)

"You're not paid to just sit around and doodle."

Gerard Way loved art. He'd always find some excuse to doodle on the edges of his paper during school. But he wasn't in school anymore, he was an adult, and he had a job where he sat at a desk all day and couldn't deal with his boredom. He'd often times draw little designs on sticky notes or in a small notepad he brought with him, but he always ran the risk of getting caught.

He lived in Belleville, New Jersey, and there wasn't much he could do for entertainment on his days off except run to the closest art supply store whenever he ran out of paints or markers or colored pencils. He could clean up his apartment, but he knew it would just get cluttered with paint easels again. He could try to repaint the walls, but he knew they'd just get covered in all kinds of evidence of his artwork. The walls of Gerard's room and study acted more as notebooks than anything else; whenever he had an idea for an art project he'd take the nearest writing utensil and jot it down on the walls.

But it was Monday. Gerard worked on Mondays. He didn't want to wake up and have to go to work only to be bored out of his damn mind during whatever meeting was being held in his department. He may work in the graphic design department, but that doesn't mean much when you're one of the heads of the department. He just sat and checked his emails all day, occasionally looking at someone's work and critiquing it before sending it off to the other people in the department that were more important than he was.

But, if he didn't get up soon, Gerard wouldn't have enough time to go to Starbucks before work. So he forced himself to get out of bed, and go get ready for his day.

Gerard made it to work on time, and he definitely got his Starbucks. He sat down at his desk right as the clock hit nine-thirty, and quickly pulled up his email. He scrolled through a couple emails, lazily sipping his coffee as he stared blankly at the screen. He didn't even notice how quickly he got bored while staring at the screen. Not even ten minutes passed before he took a sticky note and scribbled little designs onto it.

One of his coworkers passed by at about ten o'clock and told him to put away the sticky notes and read over this week's agenda. He internally sighed, and put his pen down on the sticky note he was doodling on so he could click on the email with the agenda on it and read it... again. It was the first thing he opened and looked at when he first started looking through his emails.

He looked at a couple other emails, then grabbed the pen and continued to draw on the sticky note. It wasn't even an hour into his shift yet, and he had nothing to do. Everyone in the department knew that he wouldn't be there at all this weekend, since one of his favorite bands was coming to town and he had front row tickets. Everyone knew that if they had something that Gerard would need to look at, he needed it by Friday at three o'clock. The concert was on Friday night, and he normally had the weekends off work, so he was able to convince his boss to let him leave early on Friday so he could get home and get ready for the concert.

But it was only Monday, and he could see one of the other heads of the graphic design department walking in his direction already. He let out a small sigh and directed his attention to his computer monitor again, hoping that it would look like he was actually working instead of doodling on a sticky note since he got there.

"Gerard," The person said. He looked up, seeing one of the people that was more important than him, a young woman named Jaimiee. "I've heard some buzz that you're just sitting around."

"That would be correct, cause I've been working here for a couple years now, and I've sat around every day." He said, sarcasm filling his words.

"You know what I meant. You're not doing anything."

"Well, I actually am doing something. I'm looking at emails and doodling on a sticky note. Is it a bad thing for the artist to do art-related things?" His words seemed venomous.

Jaimiee reached over to the sticky note Gerard was drawing on and grabbed it as well as any other sticky notes on his desk. "You're not paid to just sit around and doodle." She walked off, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

Once he was sure she was gone, Gerard just rolled his eyes. Thankfully, Jaimiee didn't take his pens. He rolled up one of his sleeves up to his elbow, and started doodling on his arm. It's not like she could take his skin or his black pens.

Gerard quietly doodled on his arm all morning and afternoon after his lunch, quickly rolling back down his sleeve whenever someone walked by. By the end of the day, his arm was filled with so many different designs that he took out his phone and snapped a picture of it before he had to leave work to go home for the night.

Meanwhile, somewhere on a tour bus between Chicago and Belleville, Patrick Stump examined his arm with curiosity. Intricate patterns and designs filled his arm from his elbow to his wrist, all in black pen.