The Black Parade

The world began to fade again and in the sudden bright blinding white light I saw Gerard’s smiling face as he took his brother’s hand. And within a blink of an eye they were gone. It was all gone.

The Parade Street looked grey and dull, a wind blowing from nowhere that rustled through my hair. Bob, Frank and Ray were standing silhouetted against the grey horizon, looks of matching sorrow on their pale faces. Everything seemed a lot more depressing without Gerard around. Perhaps it was the blonde hair; it was bright enough to light up any situation. Somehow even a joke like that didn’t seem right at that moment in time.

“They’re really gone,” Bob muttered, looking a little lost.

“Didn’t fucking say goodbye though, did they?” Frank grumbled.

“Shut up,” Bob muttered, hitting Frank around the head.

“Are you all right?” Ray asked me suddenly.

“W-what?” I stuttered, noticing how tear filled my voice sounded. I wiped at my eyes viciously, surprised that I had been crying without my knowledge. “I’m fine,” I reassured quickly, “just fine.”

“You know, this isn’t the end, right?” Frank said to me suddenly, wrapping a friendly arm around my shoulders.

“It isn’t?” I questioned through the tears.

“No!” Frank said happily. “There’s one more track left on the album.”

“Frank!” Bob whined from somewhere behind us.

“There is?” I said in the same confused, wet tone.

“Well they encourage your complete co-operation,” Frank began singing to no one in particular, with no backing music either. I guess Frank just wasn’t as talented as Gerard was with the making of music appear out of nowhere thing. I had just thought about Gerard in the past tense for the first time, like I would never see him again, and perhaps that was right, perhaps I really would never see him again.

“Shut up, Frank!” Bob said, whacking the smaller man around the head again. What really is it with that man and people having the urge to hit him round the head? “You’re so bad you’re making Gwen cry again.” I guess the realisation I would never see Gerard again had made me start crying again. God, I couldn’t help it, I’m so fucking pathetic.

“Make me!” Frank retaliated, sticking his tongue out before running off fast as Bob lunged at him.

As I watched Bob chase Frank around the parade street I began to feel a smile on my face again. I may have lost the closest thing to my one true love but at least I had found these guys in the process to entertain me. Somehow it wasn’t the best substitute but I was slowly trying to think up reasons why Bob, Frank and Ray were better than Gerard.

“Send you roses when they think you need to smile.” Frank continued to sing as he ran around excitedly. He then stopped before me suddenly and appeared to offer me imaginary roses. I accepted the imaginary flowers gratefully and gave him a slightly confused smile. Frank beamed excitedly and ran off again.

“Quit it, Frank!” Ray added.

“Why?!” Frank asked in that annoying tone children use when they’re trying to wind you up.
“It… feels wrong,” Ray finished.

“What does?” Frank asked.

“Singing Gerard’s songs when he’s gone.” Bob explained, stopping to gain his breath, obviously not as fit as the short one was.

“Who cares!” Frank said loudly.

“We do!” Bob answered.

Okay, perhaps they weren’t as good as Gerard.

Oh, god, I miss Gerard so much already.

“Wow,” I turned round to see Nevaeh wandering over to us, “who died?” She stopped and re-thought that statement. “What’s up?”

“Gerard’s gone,” I muttered.

Her eyes widened incredibly at that fact and she looked to the other three for confirmation. They all nodded; they’re looks sullen once more, even Frankie’s.

“Really?” She questioned. She got another round of nods for her obvious question. “He didn’t say goodbye.”

“I know!” Frank said, sounding personally offended by that fact.

“Right, Gwen,” Ray stepped in before those two could start a rant about how evil Gerard was for not saying goodbye to us properly. “As you are the Leader of the Black Parade now, what should we do?”

So this really was happening. Gerard was gone and I had to replace him as the Leader of the Black Parade and I still really did not have a clue what to do. They were all looking at me expectantly and I felt like running and hiding. There were still tears in my eyes but I suppose I’d have to leave my grief for later, whenever I’d get the chance to mourn his departure in my own time. But we never got the chance to have our own time in this place, perhaps that was a rule I was going to change straight away. I did have the authority after all, well after Dave, but he wasn’t here right now.

“Be like the dead, and rest.” I told them.

“I love this girl!” Frank declared happily and threw his arms around my shoulders and hugged me tight. “Gerard would never have let us have a break!”

“Because we have a duty to perform, Frank.” Ray said.

“You are one mean man!” Frank whined, sticking his tongue out at Ray.

“He does have a point,” Bob said, siding with Ray. “People will keep dying no matter what we do about it.”

“Let the others deal with it,” I said. “There are other Paraders right?” Bob and Ray nodded in unison. “So let’s take some personal time, we are all grieving after all.”

“Oh, I am going to enjoy working for you!” Frank said happily before giving me another tight squeeze and finally letting go of me.

“So, as we’re ‘resting’,” Bob started, rolling his eyes, “what shall we do?”

“I don’t have to tell you what to do all the fucking time!”

“As you may have noticed we aren’t alive, we don’t eat, we don’t sleep, we don’t do anything but collect souls and bring them back here.” Bob said.

“You people have no lives,” I stated.

“Exactly!” Bob retaliated.

God, this was a losing battle.

“Okay, what would you usually do to rest?” I asked, then realised the stupid looks they were giving me. “When you were alive,” I tacked on quickly.

“Have sex,” Frank grinned at me.

“Do you want to have sex with anyone here?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well, I can think of a few,” Frank smirked at Bob.

“Keep away from me!” Bob complained, trying to hide behind Ray.

“I know! I know!” Frank said suddenly, dancing around on the balls of his feet in excitement. He took a deep breath. “Well they encourage your complete co-operation.” I just think he really wanted to sing that song. Bob and Ray groaned in frustration, Nevaeh grinned excitedly as if she really enjoyed this song. I could see eternity with these guys was going to be one fucking long annoying time.

“Send you roses when they think you need to smile,” both Frank and Nevaeh were singing that line. They grinned at each other before Frank threw his arm around Nevaeh’s shoulders and they started swaying in time to their singing. “I can’t control myself because I don’t know how.” Even if Gerard had written that song I think that line was definitely about Frank, no doubt about that. “And they love me for it honestly I’ll be here for a while.”

I decided I might as well try and be of some help to them, and I could use with doing some practice at this sort of thing. I concentrated real hard, but I wasn’t so sure what the song sounded like, so I had to pick it out of their heads. It was some kind of piano driven thing, it sounded like a war song, it was so odd. But as I started to get the feel of the song I could hear it coming from nowhere around us.

“So give them blood,” Frank and Nevaeh were singing, looking around wide-eyed as the music began to filter through the empty Parade Street. “Blood,” they both grinned at me suddenly when they realised I had done it, “gallons of the stuff.”

Bob and Ray were too giving me impressed looks. Perhaps I could do this. I had the power, I was in control, and I had a good little team of helpers below me. This could be easy. Could being the significant word.

“Give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough.” Bob and Ray were even joining in with the singing now, it was one big sing-along, and as I had pulled the music from their minds I got the lyrics too, so I joined in. “So give them blood.” I didn’t think I was capable of having fun once Gerard was gone, but this was proof that there was still hope for us yet. “Blood, blood.” We drew out the word, all trying to stop ourselves bursting out laughing. “Grab a glass because there’s going to be a flood.”

Frank and Nevaeh started dancing, linking arms and swinging each other around; it was odd, but fun. That would be the way I’d take this job on, everything was odd, but I’d make sure it would be fun. I would not be a hard taskmaster like Gerard, I was going to be the cool boss that everyone loved.

“A celebrated man amongst the gurneys.” But at the moment we were all singing, so I suppose we’d better finish the song first before we did anything else. “They can fix me proper with a bit of luck.” Surprisingly making music appear out of nowhere isn’t that hard at all. Gerard really didn’t do anything that amazing really. “The doctors and the nurses adore me so.” Nevaeh and Frank were pretending to look into each other’s eyes in complete adoration, but they ruined the moment by cracking up laughing. “But it’s really quite alarming.”

“Coz I’m such an awful fuck.”

We all stopped pissing about, turning slowly to face the source of the noise. Only to see Gerard standing there singing, a large grin on his face, his brother a few steps behind him more blended into the bright white horizon.

But wasn’t it just like him to turn up for the oddest lyric in the entire song? I sure hoped he wasn’t such an awful fuck, if you get my drift.

I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a hallucination or what. But I still screamed and ran at him. He was very much real. He grabbed me, lifting me off my feet to hug me, holding me tight against him. I flung my arms around his neck and snuggled into his embrace. He’s so good at giving hugs its ridiculous. But he was back, for some reason he had came back, and he looked just excited as I felt to see me again.

“Oh thank you.” Frank said in a sarcastic voice.

“I gave you blood.” I only just realised that the song hadn’t stopped around us and people were still singing. Gerard put me down on my feet but didn’t remove his arms from around my waist. “Blood, gallons of the stuff,” he seemed to sing to me, moving one hand to brush my odd purple dyed hair out of my eyes. “I gave you all that you can drink and it has never been enough.” I reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. I felt a flare of electricity course through me and I shivered pleasantly. “I gave you blood, blood, blood.” He drew out the last ‘blood’ in the most adorable way. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling so much. “I’m the kind of human wreckage that you love.”

“Nice timing, Gee.” Frank laughed.

“Your back!” Bob exclaimed. “Why are you back?”

“Gwen,” Gerard started, his hand on my cheek softly. “I realised something suddenly.” I could feel the sting of tears in my eyes again, but I wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy or sadness. “And I don’t care what you said before because I’ll make you like me if I have to.”
“You don’t have to,” I replied wetly, snuggling tighter into his arms. “I already do like you.”
“Good,” he said in a finalising tone. “Because I love you and I can’t live- well okay, I can’t exist -without you.” Had he really just said that? I could feel the tears pouring from my eyes. He hugged me tighter, running a hand through my hair as I pathetically sobbed into his parade outfit. “I decided to come back and tell you that.”

There was suddenly a rather impolite cough from behind him. I pulled away to look at Mikey who was giving Gerard a ‘really?!’ look.

“But enough of this,” Gerard said suddenly, pulling out of the hug. “I’m back and there’s work to be done.”

“No,” Mikey cut in suddenly, “Gerard, you’re not taking credit for this.”

“Right, people, work.” Gerard said a little more forcefully, trying to usher us away.

“I had to argue with you to make you come back,” Mikey continued, ignoring his brother. Was that true? Did Gerard not want to come back and see us?

“This is not the time,” Gerard said.

“Oh, no, I think this is the perfect time.” Mikey said. “You were too much of a proud fucking fool to realise you had made a mistake.”

“That is not true!” Gerard retaliated.

“You didn’t want to come back and face Gwen- everybody -because you were too ashamed that you had run away again.” Mikey finished, looking pleased with himself.

“God! Must you do this?” Gerard complained loudly. “Fine, I’m a proud fucking fool. There are you happy? I just thought I’d stick to the plan, I wanted to give you what I never had in death, I wanted to give you that peace, that security. Hell, you got to see grandma again!”

“You’re so stupid, Gee.” Mikey said, but he was grinning now. “What made you think I didn’t want to join the Black Parade?”

“Shut up!” Gerard huffed. He grabbed my hand and started trying to drag me away.

“And you didn’t even give Gwen a chance to explain herself,” Mikey continued, now trying to hide his laughter.

“Go away!” Gerard whined, trying to pull me along after him but I had stopped walking and was trying not to laugh now. I must have looked like a maniac, I was laughing with tears in my eyes.

“And how could you even consider the idea of spending eternity without Frankie to entertain us?”

“Fuck off!” Gerard realised I wasn’t going to move then and stormed over to me, grabbed me around the waist, picked me up and started walking away again.

“Yeah!” Frank complained loudly. “Why would you want to spend eternity without me?”

“And you can fuck off too!” Gerard said to Frank as he carried me past.

“Gerard,” I said suddenly.

“What?” He said, putting me back on my feet again.

He was giving me a cute little confused look. He wasn’t really getting as annoyed with his brother as he had pretended. I looked into his dark hazel eyes, trying to ignore the bleached blonde hairdo, and saw the smile there. I kissed him, catching him off guard, but he began to get into the kiss, running his tongue along my lip seeking entrance. We depended the kiss and started getting rather into it when wolf whistles and odd sexual noises started coming from the people surrounding us, mostly Frank and Nevaeh. I pulled back laughing; realising eternity was going to be a blast.

“I love you, Gerard.”

“Finally,” Frank said, rolling his eyes. Nevaeh hit him round the head for that. “Owe,” he complained, rubbing the back of his head, “what did you do that for?”

I looked to Gerard, realising he was smiling from ear to ear now. He grinned at me and winked.

“Frankie!” We all whined in unison.