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Being dead was horrible, Gerard had decided. He'd never been particularly scared of the End – he'd never been particularly scared of any entity. They were all equally mildly concerning. Maybe that was something he should've discussed in therapy, but it was too late for that. It was too late for a lot of things.
Being in the book felt a lot like sleeping, and also didn't at all. It felt like that odd, dream-like state you enter right before you fall asleep, when you're hardly conscious but still very aware of your thoughts and surroundings. Except your surroundings are hot agony and salt in blistering, open wounds. And your thoughts are Pain, pain, screaming, can't scream no mouth, pain pain, agony, pain painpainpainpain-
So yeah. Being dead wasn't cool. 0/10, he couldn't recommend.
It was odd, not-quite-existing in that state. Gerry was aware of every passing moment dragging on like sandpaper over his skin and yet months flew by in a blink. It didn't feel real. It wasn't real. Gerry wasn't real, but he was also too real. It was just odd – in a horrible sort of way.
Being summoned was worse.
He could always feel when the hunters read out his death, letting the scene play out before their own eyes like a particularly gruesome poem. Detached, uncaring. They hadn't been there, they didn't know the pain he'd gone through.
But he had to go through it every single time they read those damned words on the page made of his own skin. The floaty, distant agony of his last moments on earth was all that remained of him, floating in that void that didn't exist. It reached for him, black tendrils wrapping around his arms, his legs, his throat, chaining him back to that hospital bed, making him blind and deaf on medication that seemed to do hardly anything and that he hadn't wanted. The tendrils tried to break from his mouth like words – “Mum- mum, please, I'm scared-” and he clamped it shut against them.
And then the pain faded, and Gerard faded with it. And then he was real.
But he wasn't real, he wasn't even really Gerard. How much of Gerard was left after his death? Nothing? Everything? How much of a person is their body, their existence, their consciousness – and how much is just their memories?
Those were questions he tried not to dwell on and yet dwelled on a lot whenever he not-quite-existed – which was always.
So when the wave of pain overtook his nonexistent body this time, he didn't even question it. Didn't question the way the tendrils seemed to spiral around him, glitching in and out, circling through different colours in a dizzying kaleidoscope. It was hard to notice anything through the blinding pain, so Gerry didn't pay it any mind as he felt himself exist again.
“What's it this time? Vampires again, or-” His eyes opened, and he stood face to face with neon green, flowery wallpaper. Gerry blinked. “Well, that's new. Not very well hidden for a hiding spot, huh?”
“Whoever said I wanted to stay hidden?” Gerard startled. The voice was familiar – twisted in a way to make it nigh unrecognisable, but heartachingly familiar even in its spiraling distortion.
Gerry spun around, uncaring of air resistance or whiplash that had stopped mattering to him when he stopped existing, and didn't matter in this place that didn't exist anyway. Before him – in front of him, behind him, above him, everywhere – stood a tall figure, looming over Gerard so its spiraling locks hung into and around his face, obscuring his view of the rest of his surroundings and narrowing it down to just its too-large face.
Its mouth twisted out of its face as its smile widened. Gerry instinctively wanted to describe it as “impossible”, but such arbitrary words did not apply to the Distortion.
“So you're still using his face?” It was the only thing Gerry could think to ask. So you still won't give him back?, Why do you torment me?, Can't I even rest in death?
“I am not using anyone's face, Gerard. This is my face, I am Michael.”
“You aren't Michael,” Gerard spat, unsure whether it was to convince the thing parading as his old acquaintance or himself.
“No,” it agreed easily, and it didn't take Gerry aback because to expect any form of logic from it would be detrimental. “No, I'm not Michael. I just have his face, and his name, and his memories.”
It lowered its head further, golden locks impossibly long, reaching towards the floor and cascading over the pink carpet like water. It was all Gerry could see, all he could focus on.
“Tell me, Gerard –” It took his chin between long fingers, the touch featherlight and grounding in its sheer reality, heavy with existence. “– if I'm not Michael, then who are you?”
Gerard was quiet for a long time. Not that time was really a factor in these hallways, just as it was not really a factor in not-quite-death, but he could still imagine the seconds and minutes dripping by him like thick honey. Michael was completely still, unmoving, letting Gerry collect his thoughts – even as it drew away to move away and give him space, it did not move.
Gerry sighed, sinking to the floor. He dug his fingers into the coarse carpet, run thin in places with use and yet entirely clean and new. It was real, in the way it didn't exist, in the way he didn't exist. It didn't make sense, neither of them made sense, and maybe that was why it was so grounding.
“You're right,” Gerry admitted. Then, slightly more hysterical; “God, you're right.”
He buried a face that should not exist in hands that should have decayed, running his fingers through poorly dyed hair that should have fallen out.
Gerry wasn't sure if Michael crouched down in front of him, but they were the same height now – Gerry sitting on the floor, and Michael's face right in front of him again as he peeked through slender fingers.
“Unreality is quite hard, isn't it?”
Gerard chuckled wetly, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is. You'd know, wouldn't you?”
“Why, I'd say I'm quite the expert. As far as there is an I to say anything, or course!” Michael laughed, dizzying and long, and Gerry's head spun wildly. It felt wrong in all the ways he needed, and Michael seemed to understand. Or- not understand. It really was a bit confusing.
It took another uncountable amount of moments for Gerry to gather himself enough to take his thoughts off Michael for long enough to think of something to say.
“So, the hunters. You kill them?”
Michael gasped, playfully affronted. Or maybe it was real, not that Gerry could tell.
“I'll have you know, murder is dreadfully boring. No, the old one simply went through a door. It's quite unfortunate that the door stopped existing, and never existed at all.”
Michael waved it off so flippantly that Gerry had to laugh a bit. He'd thought he might feel bad for Trevor, but he honestly couldn't care less. If he was just in the tunnels, he might find his way out. Or not. It, surprisingly, didn't matter to him either way.
“Hm, that's alright. Never liked him anyway. He's a very single-minded conversation partner, absolutely no sense of humor.”
“I take it you like my company better? Michael did always love talking to you, even though he thought you were a bit weird.”
Gerry considered this for a moment. This was not Michael, not in the way he wanted it to be. But he also wasn't quite Gerard, not in the way he wanted himself to be. But …
“Yeah, I think I do. I still … I like talking to you. To Michael. To both of you, or either of you.”
Gerry untangled one of his hands from his hair, digging it instead into the rough carpet, letting it ground and steady him.
Michael's large hand covered his own, steadying it on the floor. Its skin felt like prickling static on his, scratching nerves that couldn't feel anymore pleasantly, and Gerry sighed as Michael's other hand gently rested on his cheek again. He leaned into the touch, grasping both of Michael's hands to keep them there, to keep himself in this not-quite-present.
They stayed like that for a long, long time. Michael was the first to speak, and even then he did not move.
“Michael liked you, you know. You were far younger than him, but he did admire how self-sufficient you always seemed. Michael worried for you, bookburner.”
“And now?” Gerry asked quietly, worried to break whatever intimate atmosphere they established.
“He still does.” Michael's voice lost some of its typical echo, and Gerard looked up to find its face open and earnest.
“And what about you?” It was not a question Gerard really expected an answer to. “You” was not a concept typically applied to the Distortion, but it was the closest he would get.
Michael hesitated. “I … An I does not exist, Gerard. But I … care. For you. For your safety. It is a foreign feeling, but I do not want to hurt you. Michael does not want you to be confused, and Michael is me. I do not want you to be confused.”
Michael paused, swallowed. “I do not know what that means. Such a degree of self is … uncomfortable.”
Gerard nodded gently. He could see Michael shrinking away from him, its hands in the process of extracting themselves from his’ in discomfort. Gerry gently took Michael's hand on the floor, letting the one holding his cheek go in favour of gently brushing its blond locks out of its face.
“You don't need to understand it,” he said gently. “It's not something you're supposed to be used to. But I'll teach you. We have time to do that now, don't we?”
Michael seemed to consider this, then it smiled, wide and playful. “Time is such an arbitrary concept, dear Gerard!”
Gerry laughed softly. Seeing Michael like this, happy, even though its smile made his head hurt … it was nice.
“Gerry,” he corrected softly. “I've always wanted my loved ones to call me Gerry.”
Michael's grin widened. “Ah, names. Such a funny thing! Alright then; Gerry.”