Disenchanted

Chapter 8

**That's right, I'm back. I finally posted the last chapter of May Death Never Stop You, which goes side by side with this book, if you're interested, and I'll be starting a new one tonight. Sorry I've been inactive, I've been working on my other account lately.**

After (y/n) left, I went to find Gerard, hoping that I wouldn't run into Mikey first. I somehow got lucky, or maybe it was just the sobbing in the distance that tipped me off, but whatever the circumstance, I found Gerard quickly.

"Hey, dude, I narrowly escaped a tough interrogation for you, so you better tell me what the fuck is going on so I don't mess this up for you."

He sniffed. "Okay, fine. That woman out there? That's my wife. Not only is it painful to see her again after all this time, but it's painful to know that she's dead. Not to mention the look on Frankie's face. I could tell he had feelings for me. He always has. But now that Lindsey's back—" he broke off.

"Do you want to hurry and swap places before something happens?"

"No. We do need to end this, but I want to just come clean about it. Then I can start to figure out what to do with poor Frankie."

"Okay. Should we go tell them now?"

He sighed. "Yeah," he nodded, but I got the impression it was more to convince himself than me.

We walked together, back out into the main area, where everyone stood awkwardly staring at us in the doorway. Lindsey, as I now know her, Mikey, Frank, Ray, and Bob.

"Okay guys, it's time to come clean," Gerard said in a quiet and timid, yet commanding voice.

"That sounds like a good idea, from what I've heard," Lindsey said.

"So, as you all know, Gerard disappeared for awhile, correct?" Everyone nodded. "Then Mike shows up, and you guys send him to find Gerard." More nodding. "Now for the part you don't know. When Mike showed up at the hotel, we switched places. At the time, my reasoning seemed valid, but now I see that I was being a coward. The thing is, while I was on my little trip, I happened to die. Yes, I know, we are supposed to be immortal. We are, but only from old age and disease. We can still be killed. And I was. I was afraid of what our people would think, what you would think, if you found out that your leader wasn't invincible. So I convinced, no, I blackmailed Mike into pretending to be me. It worked out for a while, but then all of this stuff started happening, and I really miss my family, and, well, I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if you don't."

I was expecting someone to be at least sort of mad, but the first thing that happened was Mikey ran to his real brother and gave him a hug. "I knew that wasn't really you," he said. I could see tears forming in Gerard's eyes.

"I missed you baby bro." The exchange brought tears to my eyes too, because I was thinking about my baby brother, wondering if he was okay or not. I decided to just trust (y/n) to handle it. She can keep a close eye on him.

You mean like she did for you? You thought she had your back, but the next thing you know, you're dead.

No. Shut up. Don't think like that, you know it wasn't her fault and you don't blame her.

Don't you? Where do you think these thoughts are coming from?

This needs to stop. I don't want inner demons. I fought them off my whole life, I don't need them to come back now that I'm dead.

Admit it, you missed me.

No. I didn't. Please go away.

You can never get rid of me. I'm always here, ready to tell you the truth.

I realized people had been trying to talk to me, so I shook it off. "Sorry, what was that?" I asked Gerard, who looked like he was talking to me.

"We were just wondering what we should do with you now. Are you okay, Mike?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." And as far as I could tell, I was.

"So what should we do with you now? We can let you have a normal death in the Black Parade," Frank suggested.

"No, I think he's as good as family at this point. Do you want to stay here with us?"

"Yeah, sure. I don't see why not."

"You can join the band!" Ray exclaimed.

"Sure." I didn't know what else to say at this point.

"Or we could keep him a secret and he could fill in for Gee when he has stuff to do," Mikey put in.

"That sounds better," I admitted. I didn't like the idea of being famous and out in the open, not after my past life, not even in death.

Still scared of letting people down? You really are pathetic.

"Shut up!" I suddenly yelled, not realizing I had said it outloud until it was out of my mouth.

"Woah, man, I was just talking to my wife, what's your deal?" Gerard asked.

"Oh, um, sorry, I, uh, don't know how to make this sound not crazy, so I won't try. I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the voices in my head." I blushed.

"Oh, that's fine. We all have those, am I right?"

A few of the people in the room shook their heads no, and Gerard grimaced. "Just us then?"

"Yeah, bro, we've always known you were crazy, don't sweat it," Mikey said.

"Anyway, time to go back to the Parade. We have a whole day's worth of welcoming dead people to the afterlife," Frank interrupted. Sounds awesome.

"Hey, Mike, can you fill in for the day so I can spend some time with my newly deceased wife?" Gee asked. "Besides, you're already dressed for it."
"Yeah, sure." He smiled and thanked me. We went back out to the stage and began to do our thing. All was well until I saw one person I hoped never to see come through here.

"Dr. Death?" I asked in disbelief.

He smiled and nodded. "Well, it looks like you did a good job in the afterlife, Party Poison."

"Where's (y/n)? She's still okay, right?"

"As far as I know. She wasn't with me when I died, so that's a good thing. You haven't seen Show Pony pass through here, have you? I want to know that they're okay."

"They haven't come through here, but I'll keep an eye out. It's pretty great to see you walking again, Uncle Steve." I smiled defiantly as I said the name.

"Oh, so you do remember my name. I guess Dr. Death-Defying doesn't really fit when I'm dead."

"Nope, but anyway, let's do this and get on to the next people."

After a long morning, or I guess it was morning, it's hard to tell, we took a break, and I just sat there on the stage, wishing I had someone to talk to.

**Hope you're enjoying, and also root for me because I got an actual book deal to write a book for the Ameri-scares series.**