MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE ONESHOTS

ghost (part three)

(trigger warning for violence/gore, death/mentions of death, and ghosts/demons)

I woke up in cold sweat again. What were those ghosts doing to Frank? He said he was being punished... but he also said that this might be happening to us for no reason. There had to be a reason. What had we done wrong?

I wiped my forehead and walked into my bathroom. I yawned, my nose crinkling and making my face look even uglier and more aged. Thankfully, it was a Friday, which meant that there was a break of two days until the cycle of torture began again. I rinsed my face with cold water to wake myself up and clean off the disgusting beads of sweat. Maybe I should just take a shower instead.

I was taking showers an awful lot for someone who usually let their hair stay greasy for at least two weeks like some kind of science experiment. I guessed it because it was kind of refreshing after a night of ghosts and terror. It wasn't refreshing, however, when I stepped out of the tub and there was another message in the steam. This time it said: "I'm going to try to get the ghosts to stop." As soon as I finished reading it, the steam disappeared off of the mirror, like if it stayed any longer, said ghosts would find out and not be very happy. That thought was scary. My thoughts tended to be scary, recently. 

 In the living room, Ray was laying on the couch, the back of his head on Mikey's right shoulder (causing Mikey to have some of Ray's giant curly hair almost in his mouth [gross]), and his left leg dangling off of the previously mentioned couch. Mikey, on the other hand, was somehow able to sit completely upright while sleeping, and his head was tilted towards Ray's head (hence the hair almost in his mouth situation) and he was drooling. There was a fluffy blanket covering Mikey's legs. The TV was still on. Well. It seemed that Ray stayed the night.

I would've left them to... cuddle(?) if we didn't have school that day, so I shook Ray's dangling leg until he woke up, causing his head to jolt up so that his hair brushed against Mikey's face which also woke Mikey up. My plan worked. I wore a slightly evil grin on my face. 

 "Hey, what gives?" Mikey shouted tiredly, looking around for someone to accuse. He ended up looking at me. "What just touched my face?"

I just laughed and slipped away into the kitchen, racing towards the coffee machine before I remembered. Oh. That definitely put a damper on my day. I strolled towards the fridge in the pantry less enthusiastically in search of a toaster waffle, but when I opened the pantry door, I saw Frank. Holding his own head. His neck was dripping with blood, and you could see the bone. His eyes were glossy and gleaming with tears. I yelled out in horror. Ray and Mikey, who were finally starting to scoot like snails off of the couch lazily, sauntered over to me and looked inside the pantry.

"What's your deal?" Ray questioned after a moment of examination. "There is literally nothing in there."

"Are you scared of food or something?" Mikey joked, who was leaning over my shoulder to see.

"You've been a little jumpy lately, man, what's going on?" Ray asked. I inhaled deeply and squeezed my eyes shut, turning away from the pantry. 

"I'm fine," I assured them, although it sounded more like I was consoling myself. "Always like this without coffee."

Ray pursed his lips together like an exasperated mom as I walked towards a cabinet in search of a breakfast bar. "That's probably not healthy, dude."

"Oh well," I muttered lamely. 

When I got home, it was my turn to do the laundry — Mikey and I alternated chores on different days — so I popped in the whites and sat down on a gray folding chair in the laundry room to rest, staring at the clothes in the machine swish around. That was when I realized what I'd put in the machine: amongst the white t-shirts and Mikey's pair of white jeans, there was also bedsheets, which would seem normal most of the time, but not today. My family only changed our bedsheets on the first day of every month or so, or if the weather was getting really, really cold, then we would swap to flannel sheets. The weather might've been windy recently, but "really, really cold" to us meant freezing. It was not freezing. It was also not the beginning of the month. It was the middle of November.

That's when I turned my head and saw Frank in the doorway. He scared me so bad that I bumped my head against the wall. I rubbed my head as I realized another thing: Frank was not wearing white bedsheets over his head. Another common occurrence that didn't make sense at this moment. Frank only didn't wear bedsheets when his head was ripped off or he was bleeding or something. He wore his bedsheets if he was in perfect condition, but here he was, standing in the doorway, with no white bedsheets on. Uninjured. I glanced at the laundry machine. I actually felt pretty smart right now. Like a detective. 

 "What are you doing?" I whisper-shouted. 

 Frank shrugged. "Coming out of hiding." 

I remembered the message on my mirror this morning. "Are the ghosts gonna stop now?" I asked carefully. 

 "No," Frank replied, frowning. "Probably not."

I rested my elbows on my legs and put my head in my hands. "I just want this to stop." 

 Frank silently made his way over to me and put a cold, ghostly hand on my shoulder. He "mhm"ed in agreement. I looked up at him. His hazel eyes looked darker, almost, like chocolate ice cream you'd eat excessively when you're stressed or sad. He never broke eye contact with me ashamedly or sheepishly, and that made him seem bolder, for some strange reason.

"And you can't do anything about it at all, huh?" I asked quietly, a sad smile pasting itself on my face. I almost felt like laughing at how stupid I was to think that this nightmare would be over. 

"I can say no to the ghosts," Frank admitted. "But they'll probably choke me more than they're going to in your dreams tonight and make me bleed and shrivel on the floor again."

My eyebrows lowered. "Don't do that to yourself. You shouldn't be helping me." I couldn't believe I was saying that. "They're hurting you after death. That's insane. How can you help me knowing that they're torturing you like that?" I suddenly felt selfish with the words coming out of my mouth. They were almost like an apology for my greed. 

 "I'm not sure," Frank replied, but then paused and continued, "But I guess it's because I've noticed that you're very sympathetic. If you can be sympathetic for the monster that's ghosting your dreams and making you feel constantly scared, then I should be able to be sympathetic for you. It's only fair."

That made me feel a little better, but now Frank sounded like a better person.

I was silent for a second. "I always thought ghosts were mean," I finally announced, "But I think you're the nicest person I've ever met."

Frank raised an eyebrow, allowing himself to smile a little, and sat down on air. "Is that so?" He crossed his left leg over his right knee, making a box shape. 

"It's so," I replied softly, looking back towards the laundry machine, watching the white sheets swirl around. Frank put his head on my shoulder and watched the laundry machine with me. Maybe I could get through this haunting with him.

(yoooo just experienced some physical pain because of some ghost of you fanart. this ghost series is done !! lemme know if you wanna see the aftermath of the haunting or something and it'll just be a cute, plotless thing with frank and gerard's undead antics)