My Favorite Part Was Dying

It played over and over in Gerard's head:

My favorite part was dying.
My favorite part was dying.
My favorite part was dying.

He stared at his dead brother, at a complete loss for words. The tears that had been drowning him just seconds ago had disappeared. Insufferable pain had been replaced by numb confusion.

He finally opened his mouth, "What do you mean? How can you say that?"

The words were barely audible but Gerard knew that he understood. Mikey smiled and sighed slightly. Gerard just looked up at him, silently pleading for answers. Very slowly, Michael's form evanesced, leaving the questions Gerard had voiced hanging in the air.

The tears suddenly came rushing back and began to drown him again. He curled in upon himself and cried until he was so weak he could barely move. The world faded away from him, just like his brother had.

* * *

"Gerard? Gerard!" the concerned voice of Ray Toro sounded in his ear.

Strong hands grabbed Gerard and pulled him into a standing position. He couldn't keep himself up, he was falling before anyone realized it. His eyes still closed, he felt hands pull him up again and lean him against someone.

"Gee?" Frank Iero's voice called softly to him. Gerard finally opened his eyes to see his three best friends around him.

Bob Bryar -- muscular, fair-haired, frowning to hold back tears -- was holding Gerard against him. Ray -- his wild hair tucked away in bobby pins for the funeral -- looked at his distraught friend who could barely stand, his eyes filled with concern and just a hint of tears. And Frank -- tiny and delicate, yet strong -- crying freely with his hand on Gerard's shoulder.

Gerard snapped his eyes shut once again, it was too much to see them there like that -- just as real as Mikey had been less than ten minutes ago. He wanted to tell them what Mikey had said to him.

The five of us always tell each other everything... four of us now...

The thought ate away at Gerard -- they were no longer five slightly maladjusted but happy teens. They were four broken boys who had just lost their little brother. Mikey had been everybody's brother even if he was only really related to Gerard. And now he was gone.

He was gone, no matter what Gerard had seen or heard. Michael James Way was dead. And it was impossible for Gerard to talk to him now. It was impossible to have heard those words leave those lips -- impossible for those lips to have even been there. And yet, he had heard them, he had seen Mikey.

My favorite part was dying.

Gerard clung to those words, filled with despair and hope as to what they meant. Maybe he had gone insane, hallucinated his little brother, but if that was insanity, Gerard wanted it more than anything in the world. He wanted to see Mikey, talk to him, find out what he had meant, and never ever let him go.

Since he talked to me now,
Come, angel of my heart,
Come, angel of my broken heart...