The Black Parade

I was surprised, going on what I had seen of Gerard Way, mainly the odd sexual dancing he decided was ‘appropriate’ for that Roger dude’s pick-up, that he didn’t even try to stick his tongue down my throat. He just kept his lips pressed to mine with his hands on my hips. And I found myself opening my mouth to him. I don’t even fucking know why but I tell you I was mighty disappointed when he pulled away right that moment, grinning at me like the cat that got the cream, or other such fitting sayings people make up when they can’t be bothered to describe things properly. I think the annoyance was because he dared stop the kiss when I tried to make it more. But I found myself smiling stupidly to myself. I know, I know! I shouldn’t have enjoyed such a chaste kiss, but fuck it. Though at that grin…

“I’ve lost my shoes.” Jesus, Gwen, could you have said anything more stupid after sharing a kiss like that with someone like… that?

“I noticed,” his voice was very soft right then. I couldn’t stand being this close to him, partly because I found myself too attracted to this man for my own good, and partly because I couldn’t trust myself not to do something stupid with him. Like kissing him again.

“Um… did you…” I started as I untangled myself from his arms.

He nodded and just let me go. “Ray had to do that.”

How did he know I was going to ask that? Probably knew I was going to attempt to change the topic so I didn’t have to worry about discussing the chaste little kiss we just shared.

“I guess so.”

Though staring at him now I was starting to get confused. I barely knew him but I found myself oddly attracted to him. In however long I had known him, it must have not been that long but I’m not so clued up on other worldly time keeping, but it seemed like a lifetime already. And I think, I think, let me stress this because I was not going to make any statements you could hold against me at a later date, but I think I was falling for him. And the scary part was that it was in more than just a ‘Jesus fucking Christ he’s one hot motherfucker’ way, which was one of the first thoughts I had had when I first saw him, I’m a shallow bitch when it comes down to it really. But now, after seeing and knowing what I did about him, it was an attraction that ran deeper than looks. But I wasn’t going to give into it because he’d like that, and I know how guys like that worked, he’d get a kick out of knowing he’d succeeded in seducing me, and we couldn’t have that, no, not at all.

“I suppose that look is just you thinking,” Gerard said, breaking me out of my thoughts, “though it does look painful.”

“Shut it, blondie!” I retaliated, giving him a hard shove to punctuate my words, which didn’t really do much, but still, it’s the action that counts.

“Blondie?” He questioned, one of his lovely little smirks on those, surprisingly, soft lips of his. “So original Gwen.”

I just sighed, deeply, thinking it all through. His humour wasn’t up to much either. Though even if I was admitting these feelings to myself for the first time the thought of him moving on any moment had me a little worried, considering I’d barely had a chance to know him yet, and I kind of wanted to now.

“We shouldn’t hang around, He might get annoyed,” I said, gaining a confused look from Gerard for a moment before he smoothed it over flawlessly.

“I would have thought you’d like to discuss what just happened,” he replied, grinning again.

“Well… let’s see,” I started, “you went ahead and kissed a poor, defenceless girl without her permission and didn’t even bother to think about the consequences.” I think that about summed up what had happened.

“Okay, one, I did kiss you,” he seemed oddly proud of that fact, “two, in no way are you a poor, defenceless girl, sugar, and three, you were enjoying it.” He finished with a smug look and the idea of sucker punching him was very appealing at that moment in time.

For once I was finding it very hard to come up with a sarcastic response, I think I’ve lost my touch, I was rather saddened by this fact, and especially since Gerard was looking rather triumphant.

“Come on, sugar, we’ve got a job to do,” he said as he walked away from me. Though he still managed to sound like he’d won this, whatever ‘this’ was, and I didn’t like it.

“Now that you’ve kissed me,” I started in an innocent little voice. He stilled at that and turned slowly. “I guess I get to ask this.”

“And what is ‘this’?” He retaliated, walking- stalking? –back to me.

“How did you die?”

There, it was out in the open, the only one of the guys who hadn’t been willing to tell me, and I wanted to know, it was just a childish thing I suppose, but it suitably put him on the spot, and gave me the upper hand once more.

“And what makes you think you’ve got the right to ask me that?” He asked, trying to sound indifferent, like it was all water off a ducks back, but there was a tense look to him that was so obvious it made me proud. “Even my close friends don’t know why.”

“I didn’t ask why,” I said, feeling even more superior as the seconds ticked by, “I asked how.”
His look lightened then, he even managed to smile, which wasn’t very hard for him when it came to an odd grin with underlying sexual connotations, but from what I’d seen of him, he didn’t smile any other way really.

“Well then,” he turned away from me, heading towards his portal at the further end of the room. He turned, looked over his shoulder at me, it was so movie cliché I felt like laughing. “I set myself alight.”

Jesus fucking Christ! What kind of maniac does that to himself? This man had quite a few screws loose. It was unnerving. And I just kissed him? What in Hell was I thinking?
I knew he was a suicide but I thought he would have like slit his wrists or took an overdose of drugs or threw himself off a bridge or gassed himself in his car or something. Not deliberately set himself on fire, how much did he want to punish himself to do something like that? Fire hurts like a bitch, trust me on that one, and that would be one hell of a way to go.

“Coming?” He asked innocently as he placed his hand on his portal of swirling grey mist, still looking over his shoulder at me.

“I suppose I’ve got no choice,” I muttered, rather wary of following after such a maniac.

“Sugar,” he started pleasantly, “none of us have the choice.”

“Sorry,” I retorted, “was I supposed to care then?”

“Your humours wearing thin, sugar.” Though once again, he was smiling, perhaps it was me he was finding funny, if he was clever it would be himself, but then again, blonde jokes must have originated for some reason.

I came to stand by him at the portal, looking in on someone else’s life as if it was a normality now, though I still felt oddly voyeuristic about it, I suppose that feeling would never really leave me. It was a nice room, it wasn’t anything like Veronica’s life of luxury, but it held it’s own. Hell it was better than my one bedroom apartment, which isn’t really saying much. Actually, thinking about it, it wasn’t my apartment anymore. Did I have a place to call my own anymore? Apart from my feet, which were beginning to feel better, though I’d conveniently lost those dreadful shoes Gerard had put me in, but notice he hadn’t offered to give me any new ones, bastard, I wasn’t even feeling tired. Did we get tired? Did we need to rest, to sleep? I was still finding it hard to adjust to this life, or death more precisely, and none of the guys were really helping, what with their tendencies to never explain anything properly or leave out really valuable pieces of information.

Anyway, back to the room. It was a nice little stylish place, with white walls and modern black furniture and red soft furnishings, you know, it was the kind of room I’d like. There was a girl with coppery red hair kneeling on the red bedspread; her face set in grim determination. She was wearing this pretty red dress that complemented her pale skin tone marvellously, it only had one thick strap on her left shoulder and trailed in pools of material around her on the bed.

Without a word Gerard laced his fingers with mine, and it sort of sent a thrill through me, considering all the other times he had just grabbed my hand, but this time it was softer, and stepped into the portal. The warm water feeling was as pleasant as ever and the room we stepped into was warm too despite the winter weather. It was amazing how much I could still feel, I wonder if feeling fades in time, I’d have to ask Gerard that, after ten years he’d know these things, I suppose, if he’d tell me would be a whole different ball game.

“Why do you have to be so- so…” I looked to my right to notice the man for the first time. He was tall and well built, he had dark hair, growing long to leave his eyes in shadow, he was actually quite handsome, if I say so myself. And you know, looking at him, I was seeing a slight resemblance to Gerard, it was kind of scary. He looked really quite frustrated; though his hand was pretty steady as he kept the gun trained on the pretty girl in a one handed grip. He ran his free hand through his dark hair.

“Calm?” The girl suggested, in well a… calm way.

“You’re making it harder for me, Nevaeh.” He brought his other hand up to hold the gun, pointing it right between the poor girl’s eyes. “I don’t want to have to do this.”

“That’s why your pointing a gun at me,” she replied sarcastically.

“You know too much!” He was really starting to sound flustered now, annoyed at the way she was reacting to this. “I can’t let you talk.”

“Then kill me, Caleb, go on.” She tucked her hair behind her shoulders, and offered her forehead up. “Make all your problems disappear with a gun.”

That seemed to anger him. He strode over to her on the bed, grabbed her by her thick red hair, and yanked her up to his level. “You wouldn’t be a fucking problem if you’d kept your pretty little mouth shut, sweetie.”

She was looking him dead in the eye, her breath shallow, but no sign that she was really that scared. “I’m tired of this, get it over with.”

“Fine,” he threw her down on the bed, straddling her hips, leering down at her in a predatory way. “If I had time I’d fuck you right now.”

“You’re such a sweet talker,” she rolled her eyes.

He grinned at her for that. “You know,” he mused, “I wish I didn’t have to kill you.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Nah, I mean it, I’ve had a lot of fun fighting with you, sweetie, but I guess this is it.” He was suddenly struck with an interesting idea. “One more kiss before you go?” He asked hopefully.

“I don’t particularly want that to be the last thing I taste,” she replied.

“It could be worse,” he started, leaning down so his breath touched her lips as he spoke, “but again, I don’t have the time.” He kissed her then, and it was quite passionate, I felt almost guilty for watching this sort of stuff, but before I’d made my decision to turn away a loud gun shot echoed through the room. He sat back on his heels, wiping her blood off his cheek. “You’re probably the prettiest when you’re quiet, sweetie,” he kissed her dead lips one last time.

And it was almost like Prince Charming with the kiss that would awake the fair maiden, except it was just her soul. She sat up suddenly, gasping, right through him and looked around. He sat up and she shivered feeling him pass right through her, then looked him over and chuckled to herself as he stood up and blew her corpse a kiss. She caught my eyes and frowned momentarily before shrugging it off, as if this sort of thing was normal. I stepped aside to let Caleb leave the room.

And then she saw Gerard.

She squeaked and jumped, falling off the side of the bed. Gerard found that rather amusing. He let go of my hand to walk over to her, leaning over the side of the bed to look at her.

“Well hello, sugar.”

“ARGHH! GERARD SEX TALK!” She screamed and scrambled around from the bed, getting onto her feet and staring wide eyed at Gerard Way. I guess his reputation preceded him. This, surprisingly, made him frown. And after all that fun he’d had scaring me.

“You know him?” I asked, slightly confused by that.

“He’s Gerard Way.” She explained, pointing at him impolitely. “I-I… he’s Gerard Way.”

“I think we got that,” Gerard muttered, not looking as pleased with her reaction anymore.

“Right, Nevaeh, wasn’t it?” I decided to try and take some control of this situation, show Gerard that I could do this myself.

“I thought you said Death comes to you as your favourite memory,” Nevaeh said, looking over Gerard with a not so pleased look. “You lied, Mr. Way, yes you did!”

“I guess I wasn’t as clued up then as I am now,” Gerard replied in a bored drawl.

It all sort of dawned on me then.

“You’re a My Chemical Romance fan.” I smiled, pretty pleased with myself for working that one out.

“You’re clever aren’t you?” I decided not to react to that. Smart ass. “I was, and proud, until this bugger killed himself,” she shot Gerard an evil glare then. “You made me sad, you bastard!” She seemed awfully offended by this. “I mourned your death, mister, and it sucked, and now… you are Death!”

“Not Death,” Gerard corrected, some of his usual self coming back to him again, “just one of his many minions.”

“Well la-dee-da, aren’t you up your own arse, how do you put up with him?” She asked me.

I just shrugged. “I’m new, I’m only just finding out how annoying he can be.” I gave Gerard a ‘sweet’ smile and he just frowned at me.

“I guess, you know, you’re with the others.” She asked. Gerard just nodded. “Wow, you’re Gerard Way…” She just had to go say it again. “I’ve always wanted to tell you something.”

“What?” Gerard asked, not at all pleased with that idea.

“Mr. Gerard Way, you are a bad, bad man.” She grinned. Gerard just rolled his eyes. “There, better?” She asked. “You can stop going on about it now.”

“I suppose you like bad men, don’t you, sugar?” Gerard slipped right back into his usual self as he approached Nevaeh, invading her personal space terribly. “Real bad men?” He was so close to her, without touching, and she was starting to look a little worried. I know I probably shouldn’t have even been thinking about this but I was starting to feel a little jealous watching him with Nevaeh. I mean, we only kissed once, so I guess it gives me no right to feel like this, but fuck it, I can feel jealous if I want.

Before Nevaeh could answer the door clicked open and two burly men in suits entered. We all froze at this, even though we had no decent reason, they couldn’t see us, but it just sort of felt right.

“Such a waste,” one of the men said, shaking his head as he walked over to the bed.

“She nearly landed us all in it, she knew too much,” the other added.

“Yeah, but I would have at least liked to have fucked her before she died.”

“Jerk!” Nevaeh exclaimed viciously, immediately forgetting about Gerard being so close to her.

“Well, she’s right here for the taking, if you’re into that sort of thing,” the second guy grinned.
The first guy looked over Nevaeh’s body, then back at his companion, smirking. “Maybe later, when rigor mortis has set in.”

“If you dare, I’ll-!” Nevaeh growled, lunging at the man, to do what? Walk right through him? But Gerard grabbed her and held her close, looking down at her with a pleased little look. Once again she looked suitably frightened, though in a very embarrassed way. I wonder if Nevaeh had a crush on Mr. Gerard Way back when he was alive?

“Double decker I guess?” The second guy inquired, pulling Nevaeh’s body up into a sitting position and wrapping his arm around her waist.

“Yep,” the first guy answered, grabbing Nevaeh’s body from the other side. “She will be spending her afterlife with William Palmer.”

“I fucking hate that guy,” Nevaeh whined. From what I knew of Mafia terminology, double decker was when they buried two bodies in the same coffin. That’s kind of icky.

Oh look, there’s some more music just filtering out of nowhere, a rather nice drum roll with pick slides over it. Gerard was looking very pleased. And Nevaeh seemed to know this song, and it seemed to worry her. She tried to pull out of his arms but he just held her tight. As the song kicked in with proper guitars the goons had managed to haul Nevaeh’s body up off the bed. Nevaeh was again trying her best to struggle out of Gerard’s arms.

“Well, I know a thing about contrition,” Gerard started, his eyes almost wild.

Nevaeh struggled some more as Gerard started doing some odd gyrating of his hips to the rather catchy bass line. You know, out of all the songs I’ve heard so far, in this tiresome parade, this probably was the best sounding. I liked it oddly; it made me want to dance. Though the fact that Gerard was gyrating those wonderful hips of his, yes okay, I enjoyed the man’s hips, so sue me, with Nevaeh had me liking the song a little less.

“Because I got enough to spare.” He let go of her, probably for the chase most likely, and she backed up, but not that far, and Gerard just followed with one of his sexual grins plastered over his face, his hips moving to the beat.

And no, I did not get hot under the collar at that sight.

Jeez, who am I trying to kid?

“And I’ll be granting your permission coz you haven’t got a prayer.”He had backed her right up against the wall and Nevaeh was looking for a way to escape him now, her eyes darting to the door where the goons had just hauled her body through and then the window where a pretty snow covered scene was framed. “And I said,” she darted then, towards the door, but Gerard just anticipated it, grabbing her arm as she passed and pulling her back, “hey hallelujah,” his grin was wicked, “I’ma gonna come on sing the praise.” He looked her over then, making her yank at his hand around her arm, but he didn’t let go. “Let the spirit come on through ya, we got innocence for days.”

He let go of her with a flourish then and she ran straight to the door, surprise in her eyes as she realised she couldn’t open it. She tugged but nothing happened. Was this your doing, Mr. Gerard Way?

“Well I think I’m gonna burn in Hell.” He stepped behind her and grabbed her hips suddenly making her shriek. “Everybody burn the house right down.”

For some reason, which probably had a lot to do with Gerard wanting to play with her, the door pulled open at her frantic tugging at that moment.

“And say, ha!” She escaped into the hallway. “What I wanna say.”

Gerard shot me a look like ‘watch this, this will be a good one’ and followed after her. I had no choice and just rolled my eyes, hitched up my skirt, and followed Gerard into the hallway. Like the bedroom it was white and black and very stylish indeed. What I wouldn’t have given to have a house like this when I was alive.

“Tell me I’m an angel.” Gerard slowly stalked her down the hallway. She looked back in fright when she realised he was so close. “Take this to my grave.”

She tried another door off the hallway, but it too was locked. She banged her fists against it in frustration and shot Gerard an evil look.

“Tell me I’m a bad man,” Gerard sung, grinning from ear to ear, “kick me like a stray.” Nevaeh just rolled her eyes at that. I actually quite liked her. “Tell me I’m an angel.” You really want to be that angel, don’t you Mr. Way? Though for a minute there it really sounded like ninja. He grabbed her hand pulling her close to his body again. “Take this to my grave.”

He gave her a look over once again, leering over her as if he was very pleased with what he saw. I was torn between rolling my eyes at his male chauvinistic pig attitude or getting jealous that he seemed to be having fun scarily seducing the poor girl. Perhaps he just did this to all the girls he met.

“S-I-N-I-S-I-N.” I think this was definitely the sexy bit of the song, definitely. “S-I-N-I-S-I-N.” He pulled her into him, hugging her close to the curve of his body, and began to rotate his hips again, one hand low on her back to keep her hips in time with his. “S-I-N-I-S-I-N.” She looked beyond terrified now. I wonder how many times she’d fantasised about doing this to Gerard? Oh, come on, it was plain in her face she was thinking bad thoughts. “S-I-N-I-S-I-N.”

Gerard turned to look at me over his shoulder once again, he was grinning at Nevaeh’s reaction, he was really pleased with himself for this one, but there was again that look as if expecting me to be jealous. And even if this time I was slightly I wasn’t going to let it show. I smiled sweetly and flipped him off.

“You play ring around the ambulance like you never gave a care,”he let her go then, holding onto her hand until the very last minute but finally letting her go, but he was still moving those amazing hips of his in time with the music. He should have been a dancer, those were some incredible hip moments, I can just see it now, Gerard doing salsa. Yeah, I’ve scared myself too. “So get the choirboys around you it’s a complement, I swear.”
She got to the end of the hallway where a rather expensive looking staircase curved to the ground floor. She hurried down the steps and as I came into view I realised it led into an entrance hallway, white too, and large, and it was filled with people in dark suits and dark dresses, they were paired off and holding each other close all chillingly still.

“I said ashes to ashes we all fall down I wanna hear you sing the praise.” Gerard followed after her in a much calmer way then her hurried steps. I wonder why she was running, actually, you know what, I can’t say much, I was pretty freaked out when he tried to do this to me. “I said ashes,” he rolled his ‘r’ in such a wonderful way I felt a shiver go up my spine, “to ashes we fall down we got innocence for days.”

He reached the end of the staircase as Nevaeh tried to work her way through the suspiciously still crowd. At the two beats of guitar each person in the crowd moved sharply in time. I guess Gerard was using his Jedi mind tricks again.

“Well I think I’m gonna burn in Hell.”Nevaeh jumped in shock when they all moved. “Everybody burn the house right down.” She gained her dignity and tried to fight her way through the crowd once again. “And I say what I want to say.” The crowd began dancing, their movements all rather sexual once again, I guess Gerard just liked sexual dancing. “Tell me I’m an angel, take this to my grave.”

He followed Nevaeh weaving his way through the dancing crowd with a lot more grace than her and subsequently he caught her quickly. She had tried to run around a couple but Gerard had been waiting and she ran right into him.

“Tell me I’m a bad man.” She shrieked and tried to run the other way around the couple but once again Gerard was blocking her way. “Kick me like a stray.”

She huffed in frustration and it looked like she very much wanted to kick him, but she just hitched her skirt up, turned on her heel, and headed quickly in the other direction.

“Tell me I’m an angel,” he reached out and grabbed her hand, and she turned to face him in shock, “take this to my grave.”

She pulled away from him and headed towards a large set of black doors at the end of the entrance hall, dogging dancing couples as she went. Gerard followed in a faster pace. She attempted to side step a couple that moved between her and her escape but ran into Gerard who managed to pin her up against the wall with one hand on either side of her head.

“You better run like the devil coz they’re never gonna leave you alone.”

She seemed to whimper and then ducked out from under his arms, again he let her go, and she headed towards the doors, yanking them open and running inside into what appeared to be a large dinning room with one long, black, wooden table taking up pride of place.

Gerard followed her and grabbed her arm, spinning her around and pinning her against the table. “You better hide up in the alley coz they’re never gonna find you a home.”She scrambled backwards, climbing onto the table in her haste to get away from him. Gerard just followed, crawling onto the table after her until he’d trapped her beneath him. “And as your blood runs down the walls,” she tried to slap him but he grabbed her arms and pinned them above her head with one of his own, “you see me creeping up these halls.” With one free hand he touched her cheek lightly, leaning right down to whisper in her ear. “I’ve been a bad motherfucker tell your sister I’m another.” She seemed frozen in place as he whispered in her ear.

“Go, go, go!”

She gained her sense then, but once again Gerard let her go, and she crawled further up the table.

“And I said say what I want to say,” Gerard stood up gracefully, “tell me I’m an angel,” he began walking towards her over the long table, “take this to my grave.” She’d reached the end of the table and Gerard was looming over her. “Tell me I’m a bad man,” I think he was having more fun scaring her then he had had with me, I was oddly jealous about this fact too, “kick me like a stray.” He crouched before her. “Tell me I’m an angel take this to my grave.” She gave him a dirty look as his hand reached out for her and scrambled off the end of the table.

“Tell me I’m a bad, bad, bad, bad man.” Gerard followed, stepping down from the table with a lot more grace than she had. “Tell me I’m a bad, bad, bad, bad man.” He stalked her once more till he’d backed her up against a wall again. “Tell me I’m a bad, bad, bad, bad man.”

He pulled her forward by the hand, spinning her in so her back was against his stomach, and, like he’d done with me, he placed his hands on her hips and pulled them back into his, gyrating as he went. God, did this man not have any imagination?

“Tell me I’m a bad, bad, bad, bad man.”

She slapped his hands away from her hips and again he let her go.

“So get up.”

She ran around the table, heading to me where I watched from the door.

“So get out.”

Gerard followed after her, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her back against him. He sung the next line into her neck and she couldn’t help swooning. “S-I-N-I-S-I-N.” The song ended abruptly. Gerard was grinning from ear to ear seductively and poor Nevaeh was breathing heavily and looking a little flushed.

I guess none of us could really deny the charms of Mr. Gerard Way. Damn.