Gerard grimaced a little.

They could both hear Mikey and Pete downstairs.

Mikey had opted to explain it all to Pete, of course, after he'd seen Gerard, and successfully not fainted, but generally freaked the fuck out, which was, of course, understandable, if not a little amusing, but by the sounds of it, Mikey wasn't having that great of a time explaining it to him.

Frank was attempting to change the sheets from Gerard's bed; the two stood in silence, in the silence of a room untouched for ten years, but now suddenly Gerard's again, suddenly theirs again. Neither objected to the idea, but still, they didn't exactly know what to think of it.

Gerard wasn't helping, as usual, but at least he'd shut the fuck up, making no snide comments this time, just stood back against the wall - his bedroom wall, not even staring at Frank's ass, but stood there, thinking.

"I feel sorry for Mikey," Gerard said out of nowhere, and probably for the first time in his life, shocking Frank a little as he did so.

"Mmm?" Came Frank's response, pulling the sheets off the bed and throwing them on the floor in a heap, before attempting to pull over the clean ones they'd gotten out of the cupboard.

"I should be there to explain it with him, shouldn't I?" Gerard bit his lip, running a hand back through his hair.

"I think Pete seeing you was enough." Frank added, pulling the duvet over the bed, before standing back and admiring his work, well, admiring was perhaps an overstatement, he was just glad he was done.

Gerard shrugged, "I don't know. It's complicated, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Frank nodded, turning around and picking the sheets up, "where do you think I should put these? Like dump them out in the hall, or-"

"Frank." Gerard's eyes widened, looking at him, or looking at anything properly since Pete had gotten home, having found himself in somewhat of a haze of thoughts: a messy mind and a guilty conscience at work.

"Yeah?" Frank asked, a little confused as he met Gerard's eyes.

"You-... y-you..." Gerard stuttered out, unsure what to make of what he saw, whether it could be anything, or in particular if it could be what he thought it to be.

"I? What?" Frank grew impatient and increasingly concerned.

"Your face, you just, you've got-" Gerard pointed loosely towards his face, "a mark-"

Frank rolled his eyes, "not really the end of the world is it?" Making his way across the room and over to the mirror, he looked himself over, and found that Gerard was indeed correct, confirmed by the presence of a seemingly unexplainable red mark upon his cheek.

"How did it get there?" Gerard asked, his tone a little panicked, and perhaps unnecessarily so, as he made his way over to Frank, meeting his reflection in the mirror.

Frank shrugged: unable to place as to why Gerard could possibly be so concerned with one little red mark upon his face. "I don't know. Probably just banged it on something, maybe rubbed it, I rest my hand on my face a lot - could be that. Come on, Gerard, it's not exactly life threatening, is it? You don't need to get all overprotective boyfriend right now."

Gerard forced a smile, biting his lip, as he considered telling Frank, telling him what he thought to be true, but there was a part of him certain that Frank already had a lot on his mind, and that perhaps once they'd been here a few days and things had calmed down would be a better time to approach it, or if it happened again, because then he definitely couldn't avoid the truth.

Because that mark upon Frank's face, should have been on his own, from where Mikey had slapped him.

Much like the small burn on Frank's foot from when he'd stood on that drawing he'd set on fire, in order to put it out - something he hadn't thought any consequence of, but it was evident that there was always more to it.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Gerard said after a minute, forcing himself to shrug it off for the time being, glancing back to the old sheets dumped on the floor, "just dump them outside," he gestured back to the sheets, "Mikey can deal with them - it's his house."

"Technically yours too." Frank added, shrugging a little.

"Not really." Gerard sighed, "stopped being my house when I stopped being alive, didn't it? Anyway, it was never my house when I was alive, it was mum's house, and now she- now she's... yeah... now she's passed it down to Mikey and Pete... it's their house."

"So therefore we can take no responsibility for the laundry?" Frank asked, a small smile on his lips.

"I guess so." Gerard laughed a little, "take them outside, though, they smell a little."

Frank rolled his eyes, adding a barely audible, "like you," before picking the sheets up and dumping them right outside their bedroom door, just like he was a fucking teenage boy, but whatever, Mikey could complain all he liked.

"They're still talking." Frank announced as he closed the door again. He found that Gerard had sat down on the now clean enough bed, with his legs crossed and an odd look upon his face.

"I'm just so fascinating - no one can shut up about me." Gerard smirked a little, gesturing for Frank to sit down beside him.

"Of course." Frank rolled his eyes, sitting down across from Gerard, letting his eyes wander around Gerard's bedroom and getting a serious sense of nostalgia.

"Yeah..." Gerard trailed off, biting his lip, "I... I just... the last time we were on this bed together, I..."

"We don't have to talk about it, Gee-"

"I think I need to." Gerard let out a sigh, glancing up at the ceiling, "I'm sorry."

"You can see it, can't you?" Frank asked, referring to the memory of what had occurred.

Gerard nodded, "and I can see you, after I left, and I can see now how much of an ass I was. Fuck, am I always so hard to deal with?"

"Not so much anymore. You've gotten easier to deal with after you died, truth be told."

"Well, I'm glad we got that out of it at least."

-

"So, your brother's dead but not dead and you're just so fucking cool with that?" Pete looked Mikey over in disbelief: finding himself honestly unsure as to how the fuck he was supposed to be reacting to all of this.

"Well I'm not just cool, it's not like, oh he's a ghost, whatever-" Mikey cut himself off, letting out a sigh, "it's just... I'm trying not to freak the fuck out about it, because seriously, what does that help? Nothing. It helps nothing. He's here, he's back, and honestly, I'm happy about that, because I get to see my brother again, and our kids will have an uncle."

"A ghost uncle." Pete corrected him: his words little more than a mutter, as he glanced at Mikey from across the kitchen.

"Pete, come on, don't you know that a ghost uncle sounds like the coolest thing in the world?" Mikey exclaimed, and Pete fucking knew it was true, like hell, he wanted a ghost uncle, but being the responsible fun killing parent he was, he knew that his kids most certainly could not have one.

"It does." He admitted after a second, "but-"

"Anyway, it's not like he's a white sheet dude, he's just Gerard. He looks like a person, he is a person. I even hugged him - what's up with that, I don't know. I don't understand how this works at all, you can ask him to explain it in detail if you want to, but he's Gerard, he's my brother Gerard except he can walk through objects and disappear."

"Oh..." Pete raised his eyebrows, "isn't it weird though, like that's your brother, that's Gerard? We went to his funeral, we cried there, and-"

"And, yes, he still is dead." Mikey continued, "but this is just what happens after you die, sometimes, anyway. He said becoming a ghost doesn't happen unless you're emotionally connected to 'this world', like tethered or something, I don't know, I'm not the expert-"

"So what's connecting him?" Pete asked, despite the ever-growing agitated look in Mikey's eyes.

"How about you ask him, Pete?" Mikey suggested, letting out a sigh, before answering his question regardless. "Frank. He's connected to Frank. They're together. Still, again, whatever."

"So Frank's dating your dead brother?" Pete reiterated: somehow just quite unable to get it into his head, but then again, it wasn't the most conventional of things, so you could understand where he was coming from here.

"Y-yes." Mikey nodded, running it back through his own head this time. "As weird as it sounds, yes."

"Why did he kill himself then if he still loves Frank or whatever-"

"Pete, you can seriously shut the fuck up right now." Mikey's tone suddenly grew in volume and anger became suddenly rather present in his voice. "He's mentally ill. It's clear you don't understand a thing about mental illness so please don't pretend you, because whether he's a ghost or not, he's my brother, and I love him."

"Is he still as much of an asshole, though?" Pete asked after a moment, "because, okay a ghost uncle, but a shit uncle-"

"I haven't spent that much time with him obviously, but I actually think he's changed a little, and for the best." Mikey smiled, his eyes growing wide as he looked past his husband, Pete Wentz, his husband, and noticed a certain black haired figure in the door. "So you're eavesdropping?"

"Not intentionally." Gerard let out a sigh, throwing Pete an awkward smile as he turned around.

Pete stood there in silence for what felt like forever as he pulled his gaze over Gerard and struggled to comprehend as to how he stood there and looked so alive, so real, so human, just the same as he had done back when they were eighteen.

"Sure." Mikey rolled his eyes: unconvinced, and a little agitated but far too overjoyed to see his brother again to even consider the possibility of being properly mad at him right now.

"N-nice hair," Pete stuttered out, not quite meeting Gerard's gaze, and instead choosing to fixate upon his now black hair.

"Thanks." Gerard said casually, glancing between the two, having not quite fully accepted the fact that this was his brother's husband, and effectively- in fact, not just effectively, but literally, his brother in law, and they had kids - his nephews. He was an uncle, and already he knew that he was absolutely certain to be the world's worst uncle. "Nice kids," he added in response, before realising how awkward that sounded, "okay, that came out wrong, I just- you know what I mean... you're my brother in law now, and your kids are cute... kids with my brother... my nephews... I am not ready to be an uncle, you know that?" He laughed a little, glancing back at Mikey. "You didn't give me any warning."

"Yeah, and you didn't give any of us any fucking warning when you killed yourself." Pete spat back in response before he could stop himself.

Gerard's eyes widened, and he seemed to go paler than he already was, although, considering the fact that he was dead, he wasn't sure that was entirely possible. "Sorry." He uttered after a moment, "I'm sorry. I really am. I was in a bad state of mind. I was fucked up as it was, and then it was a fucked up day, and-"

"I'm sorry." Pete finished for him. "I shouldn't have said that: I didn't mean to say that."

"It's okay," Gerard shrugged a little, brushing his hair away from his face, "Frank said I should explain myself: this ghost thing, you know?" He glanced across at his brother, "he reckons you don't know what you're saying."

Mikey laughed a little at that, "he's kind of right."

Gerard shrugged, "there's not all that much to it, well basically. I mean, if you want to get philosophical or even scientific about it, then yeah, it's kind of messy and fucked up, but if you want to look at it, just as it is, then it's pretty basic. So I'm basically tied down to this world so I can't move onto whatever happens when you die, which I don't know for sure yet, and some people go there straight away if they're not tied down to anything, or if there's not a strong enough connection or whatever, but basically I'm connected to Frank and my body, and the closer I am to those two things, the more 'real' I appear, and basically the more control I have over my form and my own thoughts. That sounds kind of weird and a little complicated, but the further away I am from Frank, the harder it is for me to appear visible to everyone, it's an energy thing, and he's... he's like the source of the energy, I don't know, you know I fucking failed science at school, but when we were in New York, other people couldn't see me unless I was physically touching Frank because I was further away from my body, but here it's different. I'm 'stronger', if you want to be cliché about it."

"And you just... like how did you even come to realise that you were a ghost?" Pete found himself asking, speaking before he could think about it, which was perhaps not the best method, especially considering that the subject of conversation was indeed Gerard's death.

"Well, I figured it out, I mean, I've had a lot of time, and when you first die you have very little control over what's happening at all, but I've had years of just thoughts to pull myself together and into being able to control my form and well, act like a 'person'. Some people never manage it, some people take ages to do so, some people get it more easily, it varies. But I was connected to Frank, basically, following him around, for years... which sounds weird, and it kind of is weird, but-"

"It is weird." Frank added, appearing in the door way, in an almost unnerving manner. He then turned to the younger Way brother, "Mikey, your baby's crying. I tried to do something but I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing so I stopped before I killed your kid. Maybe it's hungry. It doesn't smell like shit, so-"

"It?" Mikey raised his eyebrows, laughing a little. "He. And anyway, there are two kids. Louis is the older one and Harry is the younger one."

"It was the older one- Louis." Frank corrected himself, blushing a little, "I'm not good with kids." He paused, before gesturing at Mikey, "go stop your baby crying."

Mikey rolled his eyes, before getting up and going to do so, leaving Pete with Gerard and Frank, who shared an awkward look across the room.

"Hey Pete," Frank added in Pete's direction: a certain uncomfortable awkwardness held power over their conversation.

"Hey." Pete responded, brushing his fringe: still emo as fuck, even at age twenty eight, out of his face.

"You know?" Pete asked, again, before he could stop himself, "how the fuck did you exactly come to just accept that Gerard's a ghost, because it seems like everyone's doing so like it's no fucking problem and I'm still here barely managing to get my head around it?"

Frank and Gerard shared a laugh at that one. "I mean, I don't know," Frank began, shrugging, "he just wouldn't leave me the fuck alone until I believed him. He's stubborn like that, and then... then well it was just Gerard and I missed him and I wanted to spend more time with him, so it was a good thing. Something I wanted to accept. I think Mikey's like that - Mikey is more than happy to accept that his brother's back."

"It's not like that!" Pete exclaimed, "I don't hate you, Gerard-"

"That's not what I'm saying." Frank cut him off, "I mean, you just weren't as close to him: you got over him, neither Mikey nor I really ever did, and that sounds really fucking sappy, but it's how it is."

"Oh..." Pete trailed off, biting his lip: deep in thought.

"It's fine." Gerard assured him, "I'm not taking offence. I mean, obviously, you don't hate me, and anyway, if you did, I think Mikey wouldn't be very happy with you, and Mikey means more to you than anything does, so-"

"Gerard, I-"

"Sorry..." He trailed off, "it's just a ghost thing... emotions... and things, are just very obvious to me. Other people's. I don't really have my own anymore. They're more of a reflection of Frank's, not fully, and it's kind of complicated, but through the connection thing, I'm upset when he's upset, angry when he's angry, you know?"

Pete nodded, "is that why you've learned to calm the fuck down and not be so up your own ass now?" He laughed a little: just to assure Gerard knew he was being light hearted, "because Frank's not like that."

"Could be," Gerard shrugged a little. "But I have changed as person. In my thoughts. I have thoughts. In fact, I think I have more thoughts than I did when I was alive. I think a lot. I don't sleep anymore, so I just sit and think about things for like eight hours everyday, so I have a lot of thoughts."

"Good, because I don't think you ever thought anything through when you were alive."

Gerard nodded, "yeah," he let out a sigh, "I know that now-"

"Hey," Frank interjected, "could we maybe talk about something that isn't how Gerard's dead? Don't you think he's gotten bored of it all by now?"

Gerard shrugged a little, "Frank, it's fine, I just want people to understand-"

"No, it's fine." Pete interrupted him, "we could talk about anything you want- hey, do you...?" He trailed off, a small smile on his lips, "so do you want to hold your nephews?"

Gerard's eyes went wide. "If I drop them-"

"You won't." Frank spoke for him, "come on," he gestured upstairs with a smile.

-

hey pals hope u enjoyed this chapter && if u did votes and comments would be cool !!! love u !!!