Painted Skies

Chapter 10

"So, are you finally gonna explain everything to me?" He asked as Frank reached out a hand and pulled Gerard up from their small patch of grass that was surrounded by wild flowers. They began walking towards the city as they spoke. "Well I suck at explaining this, as you know," they stopped as Frank turned to him, "and I was going to take you to Ray but noo, you resisted." He scowled playfully, tilting his head like a puppy.

"What do you mean?" Gerard asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying to ignore how pretty his eyes were at that moment. "When we were trying to pull you out of your body." He said with a 'duh' expression like Gerard actually knew what the fuck was going on. "So that was you." Gerard confirmed, pointing at Frank. The latter just rolled his eyes, "of course, who else would it be?" Gerard honestly felt kind of dumb, there were definitely doubts in his head, but now he knew it actually was Frank, so those thoughts were clearly idiotic.

"It was scary dude, looking back, it still is!" He reasoned, shaking his head at the flashbacks. Frank stood with his hands on his hips, apparently he was very passionate on this subject. "You have nothing to worry about! I'm there with you the whole time!" He explained, grabbing Gerard's shoulders and shaking him exasperatedly. "I won't let anything hurt you." He pointed a finger at Gerard, only centimeters away from his nose.

After Gerard contemplated in his head for a little too long, Frank continued, "and I need you to meet Ray, and tell you some other things... but it's just an amazing experience I want you to feel." He mumbled the middle part but Gerard ignored it.

"Ugh... fine." He pouted as Frank jumped around excitedly. "Okay! You just let us do all the work!" He smiled a huge grin that made Gerard's heart leap. "Who's us?" He asked, suddenly recalling the other voices he had heard during the ordeal. "You'll see." He smiled mysteriously, "now I just need you to do one thing," he said calmly, softly placing his hands on the tallers forearms and then shook violently.

"Wake up!" He screamed, continuing to shake him. They started going up, faster than they ever had before. "What are you doing?" Gerard yelled as they reached the clouds and Frank now started pinching him. Just when Gerard was about to come out of it, Frank stopped and said in a soft voice: "just relax."

•~•~•~•

His heart raced as he sat up on the couch and checked his phone that read 2:23 am. He groaned, plopping his head back onto the uncomfortable armrest. Pete and Mikey were still asleep, pretty much cuddling each other as something random on the TV continued to play.

He sighed, okay, Frank told him to relax. He shut his eyes but he couldn't now, he was nervous. What if something bad happened? But what if something good happened? He could finally get answers from this Ray guy on what was happening to him and why.

He didn't hate having Frank in his dreams, it was just draining. He wanted the real Frank, not the one in his head and maybe doing this could help him achieve that. He got into a comfortable position and tried to clear his mind as he slowed down his heart rate. He tried to think about anything besides what was about to happened.

And then he felt it.

The vibrations running through his body as he felt like he was floating. He opened his eyes, staring at the living room ceiling, then down at himself. It was still freaky watching himself lay unconscious on the couch.

"Like a baby comin' out of the womb." A voice said behind him, the familiar sensation of hands on his feet. "What the fuck Brendon." Another voice said as Gerard drifted further and further from his body. He glanced at Mikey and Pete, still in the same position on the adjacent couch.

The vibrations finally stopped as he felt completely detached from his physical body. "Alright, you're out!" Frank's satisfied voice reached his ears. Everything felt so... normal, like he wasn't in a different realm at all. The only difference he felt was emotional, it seemed like everything he was feeling was just more intense, but other than that, he was fine, no pain.

"Hellooo, get up!" A finger was snapping in his face, "stop harassing him." Another voice, he recognized as Frank, said as he gazed around the room. It looked only slightly different. Everything just seemed... fuzzy, like he could see all the tiny molecules inside of every item.

Mikey and Pete were different too though, they weren't fuzzy, they appeared pretty solid, but Gerard could see a small coloring surrounding their bodies. Pete's was a light pink and Mikey's was still pink but also had hints of purple.

Then there was a face in front of him, pulling him from his thoughts. "You can stand ya know." Frank beckoned. Gerard sat up on the sofa, perched on his own stomach, that was fuckin' weird.

He stood up as two other figures came into his view and waited expectantly for  him to move or speak. Gerard got up from the couch, which was pretty uneventful, but his legs were still shakey.

He sized up the three people in front of him, if you could call them people. They had the shape of a human and faces, they just seemed almost... transparent. They weren't so much physical, but more of an energy and their clothes appeared to almost be a part of them. They each had a color radiating off their frames, similar to Mikey and Pete, but it was almost like their bodies were that color.

The tallest had fluffy looking hair that Gerard kind of wanted to run his fingers through and was surrounded with a light blue mist. The slightly shorter one wore tighter clothes but had better posture, being just shy of the tallers eyesbrows, sporting a yellow tint to him with little streaks of purple rays striping across his body.

And then there was Frank, the shortest of them all, displaying a beautiful red that looked pretty good on him, in Gerard's opinion, with bursts of turquoise showing here and there.

The others looked at him expectantly as he awkward silence continued. "What?" Gerard asked and the tallest laughed which seemed to force the other to grin. Frank just smiled throwing out his arms, "welcome!" He yelled, spinning around slowly for presentation, "to the astral realm!" He approached Gerard's, pulling him into a hug he wasn't excepting.

The hug felt weird, definitely not a bad weird, but it was different. Like it was more than a hug. Gerard could just feel Frank's passion for bringing him here and his excitement for being reunited, in real life this time and not just in Gerard's head.

Gerard returned the hug as he watched the others giggle like school girls to themselves over Frank's shoulder. Frank pulled away, wearing the biggest smile Gerard's ever seen.

"So is this like, real?" Were the first words that came out of Gerard's mouth. Frank laughed as the others chuckled. "Of course it is!" Wrapped an arm around Gerard's shoulder, waving a hand over the two strangers.

"That is Ryan," he pointed to the taller of the two, "and that is Brendon." Who waved excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "They've been helping me," he paused, Gerard couldn't tell if it was to think or something was eating away at him. "Find you, and bring you here." He smiled, but Gerard couldn't help but notice the hint of sadness behind it.

"Welll," Brendon also wrapped an arm around his shoulder, "what do you want to do first?" He smiled, clearly excited do show Gerard around. "Umm, what is there to do?" He asked and Ryan chuckled. "The world is at your fingertips bro." He smiled as they all pulled him to his room.

Everything appeared the same, like he wasn't in the astral realm at all. They pulled him to the window. "Well, where do you want to go?" Frank asked and Gerard shrugged. He didn't want to go anywhere, he just wanted Frank to answer the one question that's been bothering him all week; why was he here?