Chapter Text
"Sometimes it feels like we're cursed, no, like actually cursed."
-
It was three very different stories they had told each other many times throughout these three years they were together, yet repeating them dramatically never got old, it was almost like rewatching a favorite movie, a strange feeling of relief washed over them as they relived their tales.
“I fuckin’ DIED dude, it was crazy!” Frank yelled to Gerard, Mikey, and Ray, who were listening intently, eyes wide, acting as if this were their first time processing this information when it wasn't. To put it in a simpler term, they were idiots. And they were bored.
“Ya ever figure out who killed'cha?” Gerard asked with a little head tilt. This was a curious, new question. A slight smirk curled at the sides of his cocky lips.
Frank just shrugged and scoffed a laugh, a light amount of spit spraying in front of him, an old habit with a disturbing origin story.
“PSSHH- Some old, ugly ass motherfucker with a shotgun. I dunno who the fuck he was. Blew off the entire right side of my fuckin' face!" Frank replied, lifting the part of his hair that blanketed the right side of his face, revealing a strange, sloppy stitch that seemed to put pieces of his face and head back together.
The skin that took refuge behind his hair was green on some places, purple on others, and his right eye was greyed out. The flesh looked like a corpse's skin mixed with Frank's fresh human flesh; an unholy matrimony.
Mikey raised his brows high up in an expression that showed he was impressed. He was silent, as usual, but every time Frank showed them his "blemish," he thought it looked super impressive and intriguing. Strangely eye catching...
Ray just blinked. Gerard nodded slowly. He's had seen it a million times but it still never got old. Gerard thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen, the mixture of flesh and rot.
"How did you come back to life, anyway?" Ray asked. He sounded slightly tired, slightly bored, slightly hungry. A little bit of everything, all the time. All at once. Forever. Always. Sometimes life left you in a grey space of limbo, and you didn't know whether you liked it or not.
In the background of the dimly lit living room they were in, some faint yet somehow soothing, Smashing Pumpkins was playing at a calmingly low volume in the background (Mikey's idea). It filled in any random awkward spaces of silence or dramatic pauses from turning embarrassing. It was almost lullaby-like.
"I have no fuckin' idea, man! I mean- one second, I'm fuckin' dyin' and I swear I see "the light," and the next, I get aggressively thrust back into "real" life again, only with my brains on the ground next to me and my right eyeball staring up at me as I'm gettin' up." He said, staring at Ray intently with both eyes. It was an eerie look.
The grey eye resembled that of a blind man... or a corpse, whose cornea got all dried out. He looked like he was trying very hard to mentally recall what happened to him, any sort of imagery of who was responsible, but spoiler alert: it never worked.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that a part of his prefrontal cortex got blown off of him that night.
It was a strange feeling, being almost alive. Not quite dead, but not quite alive either. Movement, thought, speech are still there, but like a demented and forbidden puzzle, there's pieces of dead meat attached that somehow act as a faux "important" piece of the alive body.
"What happened to the two of you again?" Ray asked Mikey and Gerard mid yawn, distorted voice sounding like a puppy whining in a way.
Again, they had said their piece of the tale before, everyone here knew the story, it was just... strangely calming to repeat it dramatically every now and then.
Gerard assumed it was just him being a weirdo, (which he was self-aware that he was by the way), but the thing he was unaware of was that all of the boys got some sort of strange gratification at the recalling of these movie-esque tales that resulted in equally movie-esque lives.
Maybe they were just idiots, maybe just bored. Maybe both? But real, perfect idiots stick together and no one does it better than them. Four idiots are better than one.
"Oh, man, it was fuckin' insane! It's gettin' a lil blurry now... but Mikey was being chased by someone... some guy with long hair and a fucking stupid ass hat... yeah, I remember a hat b'cause I remember thinkin' 'how the fuck is it not fallin' off?'" Gerard snorted a laugh. Mikey also cracked a full smile, as if the memory were a fond brotherly childhood bonding experience, equivalent of going to a zoo, aquarium, or a comic convention.
"Anyway, I ran after him. Mikey was tackled by him and bitten. I was soooo far away- all I could see was Mikey on the ground, unconscious. I thought the worst, y'know? Felt like my heart dropped into my fuckin' feet-" Gerard recalled, bright red eyes staring at particularly no one, he was clearly focused on remembering it just right, the fear of uncertainty, the valid paranoia, the smell of the air that night, the way the moon shone just right to conceal the secrets of the night.
"You're a shitty brother." Mikey joked suddenly, finally cracking a small smile. Simple. Cute.
Ray let out a little high-pitched giggle. Frank smirked, putting his eye back on as it'd fallen out at some point. Gerard waved his hands around frantically to get the attention back.
"ANYWAY... I ran at the motherfucker that attacked him, but he turned to me and tackled me too, he was super fuckin' strong, he knocked me out from the pain of being bitten... couldn't make out his face... actually now that I think about it, I have no fuckin' clue why he did what he did...?"
"Then we both woke up and sat back up..." Mikey began.
"...at the same time." Gerard and Mikey said in sync, cracking silly smiles at that.
"It was kinda creepy. Like Gee said... still don't know why he didn't kill us..." Mikey added, pushing his glases back up his nose and then sitting back, leaning back on his palms, his brows were furrowed a little bit, deep in thoughts and theories.
So many thoughts lay beneath those glass gated red eyes. So many things all processing at once at exceptionally smooth speeds. Mikey was always thinking, questioning, memorizing, adapting.
"After that, you weren't human-?" Ray began asking.
"No. We weren't human anymore." Gerard finished for him at the same time as Mikey... again. Ray winced at how in sync they were, it was creeping him out. It reminded him of those twins from The Shining.
He shook the thoughts off and frowned when he realized he was next.
"Aw dammit, my story is super lame compared to your stories." Ray said bashfully, curly hair flopping as he jerked down sadly yet playfully.
"What, uh... was it again... wolf stuff?" Frank asked, contorting into a strange position down to Ray's eyes with a head tilt. He was licking the sides of his mouth to prevent himself proof drooling. This was just a part of him now: mindless, zombie zoning out, random, unintelligent speech, hunger bursts, energy bursts, or fatigue bursts, and drooling. Lots and lots of drooling. He had to learn to control that, his brain just currently wasn't right. At least the part of him that still had parts of a brain.
Ray shrugged awkwardly, scratching that one spot in the back of his neck that always magically itched on forever.
"It was pretty basic! It was the only night that I decided to go for a walk in the woods for a "change of pace" and some "fresh air," and I spot this enormous, weird looking wolf eating something definitely dead and disgusting on the ground. I start freakin' out and freeze, thinking it was just a normal wolf that'd eat me too if I became frantic.
So, I try to move away silently, obviously breaking a branch, and like the idiot I am, I ran!"
"What a fuckin' geek!" Frank interrupted with a high-pitched giggle, a Frank Iero classic. Ray frowned. All in a playful manner.
"Anyway, it tackled me, bit me and scratched me hard. I remember it began twitching violently, almost like someone inside of it was holding something horrible back. Then I heard a really loud gunshot from afar and a cop or ranger or somethin' that was out had shot at the wolf's paws to scare it away.
The cop took me back home but after that night I slowly realized things about myself... and that I was never gonna be the same again." Ray said, eyes glowing a brief, bright yellow as he looked at his large hands, instinctively retracting his claws. He shook his head aggressively, like a dog drying water off of it, to seemingly shake away the thoughts.
Ray got a lot of strange thoughts since that night. He now owned a lot of strange mannerisms too. Strange twitches and yawns. Scratches and stretches. He was always just a bit hungry and needy for attention. Just enough that it scared the hell out of himself, seeing just how dog-like he could go.
How animalistic could a human being get under the right circumstances? A lot. How about one whose entire mental trajectory was shifted into pure animal tendencies? Like a dart destined to land on a certain target.
"Still have no idea who the hell that was, actually... they ran away!" He added about the werewolf that bit him.
The four of them sat there in timely silence, the song (Bullet with Butterfly Wings) in the background finishing smoothly to wrap "story time" up. They all silently loved how sometimes, certain little things in their lives sometimes just went the same way a well-written movie script would go. It was satisfying.
"Soooo... now that all the spooky, dramatic, scary campfire story bullshit is over with... can we go eat?" Frank asked with a smile, a long drool line dribbling down his chin, he quickly licked and wiped it off, pushing his right eyeball back in as it was slipping out of it's empty socket again, looking at Mikey eagerly since he acted as their "informant" for hunting. Without Mikey Way, they wouldn't know what was "on the menu."
"Oh, yeah, 'bout that. We're in luck, guys... I found one last night... Robert, somethin'... 34, disgustingly dirty, balding, charged before briefly for something else but was let go…" Mikey began rambling and muttering aloud as he typed frantically on his shitty heavy as a brick laptop, slowly pulling something up.
"But I found a lot of fucked up shit on his computer... y'don't wanna know, just know that we kinda have to do this, like I want to do this." Mikey said with a monotone voice that leaned more on resembling anger, clearly alluding to an utterly disgusting human being. He obviously held rage about it, since his red eyes began glowing. This typically meant it was going to be a good night to eat.
Gerard’s seemingly innocent baby face suddenly and disturbingly contorted into a terrifyingly wicked smile. It was like seeing your favorite childhood cartoon suddenly begin to morph into something morbid. It looked wrong.
Frank grinned adorably, getting up eagerly to go eat, hopping around in place. Had you no context, anyone would think this was the most innocent thing in the world.
Ray twitched, ears, claws, and tail coming out, he was seemingly getting pissed about the situation as well. His yellow eyes glowed bright.
Mikey stood up almost elegantly and then they all... ran.
They were a literal blur, nothing but shadows in the darkness of the night, ghost-like glimpses that’d have anyone wondering “did I see something?” but eventually they'd always chalk it up to their imagination. Their perception of speed, time, and distance were now blurred. They could hypothetically get to another state in twenty minutes assuming there's no roadblocks.
The midnight air felt as fresh as ever, it hit their faces in the form of a beautifully gentle slap. The scent of it was nostalgic, borderline addictive. Like drugs. Like injecting yourself with a feeling of joy from a time you used to know. But you needed to keep it low dose, or the joy of it would be pointless once you get used to it.
Mikey, who had advanced speed due to being a vampire, led the way as he usually did, since he knew exactly where their victim was, and he was the best at being focused. Gerard was right behind him, vampire speed just as good as his. Ray had transformed into his full lycanthrope form, meaning, he was literally a werewolf, and Frank was sitting on Ray’s brown, curly, soft back, riding along as Ray raced along on all fours, as a zombie wasn’t necessarily very fast...
They were all together always; they needed each other. Their escapades and shenanigans could turn out wrong if they weren't together. It just wouldn't happen.
Each of them was a (necessary) cog in the murder machine.
After what felt like ten minutes to them, there he was. He was walking down a completely empty alleyway. It looked like he was attempting to meet with someone he shouldn’t be meeting with…
“Poor fucker.” Gerard spat bitterly in a rough, growly whisper as he landed in front of him, hard. He looked like a cryptic creature, his black clothes contrasting with his pale face in the dead of night, creating a horribly delicious illusion.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gerard hissed, red eyes glowing unnervingly and unnaturally, fangs in full display.
“What’s dis? Shome sort of shtupid Halloween coshtume?l” The disgusting individual asked with a dry chuckle, voice matching the appearance, strange and uneducated; absolutely disgusting…
He backed up into Ray, who was currently in his lycanthrope form, but he intentionally transitioned back to human to show this person that this was not a joke… he tried to run past Gerard, who only shoved him aggressively to the ground with just a mere light push. Vampire strength was no joke.
He tried standing back up again, but Mikey, who’s red eyes were ominously glowing through his darkened glasses, stepped on his chest, hard. There was an audible crack, like thunder on a stormy night. It sounded satisfying.
“I love it when they’re scared, they taste better.” Frank slurred his words, biting at the man’s forearm and rippling a piece off with his greedy teeth, you could see his bone as he screamed out, Ray shut him up with a foot deep in his mouth, cracking his jaw. More thunder in the storm this man was going to have to go through.
“Why- why are you doing thish? Who are you? Why?! Pleeash!!” The man slurred out. Apart from his strange and repulsive voice and way of speaking, his breath also smelled putrid.
Frank's thoughts drifted briefly as he swallowed, he giggled to himself as he thought that the man "smelled worse that Gee's old leather jacket..."
“There’s consequences to your actions, Robert.” Gerard whispered slowly, leaning in to the man's neck and aggressively sinking his fangs in, clearly making sure it wasn’t a precise and painless incision; he sloppily ran his fangs around the wound, making it larger, painful, disturbing.
The man’s yells and cries were still muffled by Ray’s foot in his mouth, who stepped harder the louder the man got.
“Hurry up guys I wanna eat too….” Ray said shakily as Mikey joined in, taking blood from his arms, neck, everywhere, draining him absolutely dry. Until his heart shriveled up like the depths of hell for even thinking of ever hurting a child. Until his lungs convulsed violently as he was slowly sucked dry of the thing he needed to survive and it burned. And they couldn't get enough of it. It felt so good.
Eventually, after five torturous minutes of missing pieces of flesh and blood drained away, he stopped moving and screaming. Gerard pulled away with a loud moan of satisfaction, wiping his mouth sloppily. Mikey licked some blood off his lips and stood up, satisfied in a way he could never describe to normal people. People like that man don’t deserve to live, he thought rightfully.
They really don’t.
Ray carried the corpse in his mouth as a werewolf and Frank hopped on as the boys flew back to their place as to not be spotted or caught.
Ray dropped the body onto the dark grass, completely alone for miles. They’d specifically chosen a place to live that was near empty woods, no one in sight. No one to hear their heroic but highly controversial “crimes.”
Flesh squelched as Ray ate up all the skin and meat of his bones, all the good stuff while it was still fresh, he needed it fresh. Needed.
He followed the same eating pattern a wild animal would use. The body no longer resembled a person.
Whenever Ray ate, he used his claws and canines to cut through the body, eyes glowing a completely mindless yellow as all his focus went into eating. He wouldn't pay attention if you slapped him when he got into this state.
Frank hopped around eagerly next to him. He kept reminding, yapping, and poking Ray's large back and repeating “save me some, save me some.” Because last time he hadn’t left much for him at all so he had to starve and eat rotten old animals he found on the side of the road.
Ray managed to pull himself away and turn back into normal-looking “Ray Toro," if such a man even existed anymore. He backed away, he needed to regain self-control and give Frank something to eat too.
Frank dug into the remaining pieces of flesh, little things stuck to the bones like finger flesh, face, eyes, etc... Ray usually all the large, fresh flesh.
Frank loved the small stuff that remained, the more rotten the better, honestly. Sometimes he’d save some of it in his room until it reeked, then it made the best snack.
They always left him the brain and it was his favorite by far. He chuckled to himself as he realized he had literally become like the zombies in those games or movies the Way brothers loved.
All Gerard and Mikey needed and wanted was the blood. A whole human worth of blood was an amazing meal. Sometimes they fought briefly (as brothers do), for who gets more of it, but overall they were alright.
This is who My Chemical Romance was; who they could be given the right circumstances. They felt no guilt, but they were aware that this wasn't like a quick drive thru at a fast food restaurant. It was morbid. Again, this is who they are.
They had two sides to their coin, this is why Matt had left. There was so much more to these guys than met the eye. No one would ever know. No one could ever know. They were wearing masks underneath more masks, covered in mystery, shrouded in deception, reverse psychology, lies; no one knew the truth.
Finally, Ray transformed briefly and bolted somewhere deep into the woods to bury the plain bones, which were all that was left of their "midnight snack." No one would ever find it let alone find out that it was a group of monsters that had done this. It was practically untraceable. Forever.
He came back inside about ten minutes later and they all went to watch a movie together, satiated as they chatted about their upcoming concerts...
-
"...Yes, another person has been reported missing with no signs of violence, breaking or entering, motive, or any clue whatsoever. No remains either.
It is yet another strange disappearance in a string of random disappearances all throughout northeast America. No connections have been found with any of the people that have gone missing except for the fact that there's absolutely no clue where they went... They seemed to have just... vanished.
Another connection seems to be that every single one of the missing people seemed to have some sort of disturbing criminal history that was uncovered during the investigations of their possessions, devices, and records.
It sure leaves you to wonder: Is there some secret, very talented vigilante out there? Or all these all simply... unrelated disappearances-?"
The TV shuts off suddenly. Crashing can be heard in the background, a broken window?
"I need BLOOD, man, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! FUCK-! Please...-" A shaky voice rasped loudly, fading into silent whimpers.
In the dimly lit room, the silhouette of a lanky, short man could be seen yelling at the silhouette of a stubbier, shorter man, who sighed loudly, his voice carrying obvious exhaustion.