Short Of a Breath

|Epilogue|

I never realized how much I missed this hillside until I laid next to Gerard, in the soft, familiar grass, staring up into the  dark sky spray painted in flecks of shinning stars.
I move my head to Gerard's chest, as he moves his hands through my hair.
"This has to be heaven"  I sigh up at the sky.  Gerard chuckles into my ear.
"This isn't heaven, Frank"
"Well then, I guess hell isn't as bad as everyone said." He laughs again, making me smile.
"This isn't hell either"
"Then what is this?" I trace pictures into the sky with my eyes.
"Well, what I know for sure is, all the religions in the world traced back to one old folks tale, that if you were bad you were to go to hell, and if you were good, you'd go to heaven. It was told merely to make people and their children behave and do as they were told. To scare them."
"So every religion ever taught to someone, is traced back to that?"
He giggles, tracing his finger on my cheek.
"Well technically yes, it's just all of those religions ended up telling a totally different version of it"
" I knew it." I laugh.
"Says the Catholic"
"You and I both know I had no choice in that"
From when I was five till about fifteen, I had no choice but to carry on my families Catholicism and go to events and church every week. I dreaded it almost as much as going to school. It was total bullshit, in my opinion.
Luckily meeting Gee and Mikey did numb the pain and made me forget alot about how much I despised it all when I started to get to know them better. Making me speak more and more everyday.
Gerard sits up against the fence, moving me in the center of his legs, wrapping his arms around my stomach.
"This place is merely what your brain created from your core memories, and dreams"
"Wait..what?" He chuckles, kissing the back of my head
"Just, bare with me here"
I nod, laying my head back, onto his shoulder.
"So what we never tried to study, or realize on our own is that the dreams we had growing up and going through life, are pretty important and not just something your brain made up while you were asleep"
I blink slowly, extremely confused.
"Our minds placed all of our core memories, which are usually joyful, into something a little difficult to explain."
"So, like our afterlives?" He laughs, playing with my fingers.
"Basically, yes"
I sit up, turning to him, staring into his eyes.
"So what you're trying to tell me is that our minds created our own heaven out of special memories? It created a whole other life while we were still alive?" I sounded extremely confused, and I was.
It really didn't make any sense, at all.
"That's one way to put it. You see, Frank, dreams are basically fragments of different memories and emotions"
I think for a second, putting my arms around his shoulders.
"So what's a nightmare considered then?" He stares into my eyes, moving a stray hair behind my ear
"Well, not all memories are joyful and pretty to remember. Our brains put pieces of any memory we've had, at any time of our life into what we call a dream. To put it bluntly, a nightmare is a dream that isn't a happy one, Understand?"
I nod
"So wait, does this mean..that you're just a memory?" I feel a flash of terror, hoping that what  I said wasn't true.
Is this just another dream?
"Well, it's weird, really. Alot of things in this world are pieces of core memories, but what's pretty strange is, if you die, and the people that you've cared about in your life can remember you, for example, remembering what you looked like, then you can see them here, in glimpses of reality, until they die as well"
"So both get put into the same afterlife?"
"Yes, but only if they can remember you as well." I sigh, laying my head into his neck, breathing him in.
"This is so fucking hard to understand"
"Like I said. It's very complex"
"So we're really dead? No more Illusions?"
"Well, we are dead, but you could say, this could seem like one big Illusion. One huge flashback."
"Well if we're dead, then our brains are too"
"That doesn't mean our souls are"
"Wait, so does that mean Mikey is here?" His smile falls when I finish the sentence.
"That's another thing you need to understand. This isn't the only world you go to when you die, in this universe." He sighs, as my hopes fall.
"Ah, right"
"Well, remember what Party said about the 'kill joys'?" he air quoted.
"Yeah, I do" Party comes to my mind, and I feel like shit again, remembering what happened and what Gerard had said.
"Well that's Mikey's world. His afterlife. You remember how he was always a spaced out kid? He made his own reality with his own core memory"
Knowing that Mikey was at least content with where he was, made me feel alright. In the end I had his brother, who reminds me of him constantly.
I stare into Gee's eyes, a sad smile painted across his face.
"So what do we do now?" He smiles at me, laying a small kiss to my lips.
"We keep going, and help the dying, and the people we-"
"What now?" I stare at him completely lost, as he giggles at my expression.
" Well, this is something completely different. Now, there is something in all of that religion shit that does actually take part in this world."
"..what" he stands, helping me up with him.
"We're guardian angels" I blink at him slowly, completely shocked.
Does that mean I'm Peter Pan?
Holy shit
"I get you're confused so let me explain"
"Yea, I'm all ears" I smile at my funny thought as he  continues, moving his hand across the sky.
"Out of the entire planet Earth you are given someone to watch over and to point into the right direction, spiritually."
"..oh"
"Now, the person we would guard over, is someone we saw before, when we were alive, whether it was someone you knew, or someone you could've saw but never remembered"
I frown, grabbing onto his hands, putting our fingers together
"Only one person?"
"I'm not sure, I guess we'll have to see."
"Well, who's guardian angel are you?" He laughs, cupping my face in his hands.
"Yours"
I'm filled with joy instantly.
Out of all this shit he's told me, this was the one thing that made sense.
"So who am I, you know..."
"Who are you going to take care of?"
"Yes, Gerard" I laugh at him, a little nervous, and afraid.
"Well you know him" I feel something in my stomach, but I'm not sure what it was.
"Tell me, Gee" I shake his shoulders back and forth, and with the parade jacket, it made him jingle causing both me and him to burst out in laughter.
" That little scared friend of yours, Tyler"
I stand there, in front of Gerard, shocked and surprised.
Tyler
With everything that happened I forgot about him.
A smile spread across my face as I jump onto Gerard, holding him tight.
"I knew you'd be happy that he'd be the one. What a baby" I slap his shoulder as he fixes my hair.
"I love you" I smile at him, this being the happiest I've been in a while.
Its going to be okay.
"I love you too, you emotional fuck" he grabs my hand, kissing my knuckles.
"You still have more shit to explain to me Mr. Way, this conversation isn't over" I cross my arms in front of him
"Oh we will. Let's go back, we've got a city to rock" he smirks, smacking my ass as he walks past me, under the gate.
"Asshole" I walk behind him, wanting to get him back.
As I walk up behind him, ready to attack, I feel something under my foot.
Looking down I see a picture on the gravel road in the alleyway. Picking it up, I dust it off, the picture showing me something that automatically looks familiar. With the desert in the background, and the bright colors, appealing to the eye, I knew what it was instantly.
I stare at five boys holding brightly colored lazer guns to the sky in the picture, one coming in focus first.
A boy wearing black sunglasses, a red leather jacket, with his blonde hair tucked behind his ears, and a smile spread across his face.
I grin, amused at the expression he was making. I stare at the boy right next to him, and freeze.
A boy wearing a bright blue leather jacket, a yellow, almost mascaraed looking mask, rounding off his face, and bright  firetruck red hair flowing in the wind. A smirk painted on his face.
"You alright, Frankie?" I stare up at Gerard who was ahead of me, looking at me with concern. I grin at the picture, folding it inside the pocket of my jacket, catching up beside him.
"Yea, I am."