The Chasing of Moons

Part II

When Frank grabs the CD case, he huffs as he opens it and that's when a folded piece of paper flutters out and onto his lap.

Frank, curious, picks it up, throwing the case in the passenger's seat.

He recognizes Gerard's handwriting immediately.

He's read over that note at least a thirty dozen times, he would recognize a comma in Gerard's handwriting at this point. The words and letters are etched into his brain like a chisel in rock.

The letter looks to be a continuation of the previous letter Gerard wrote him, and Frank, hungry for more information, reads through it so fast he barely takes a word in.

Part II

So, not to ring my own bell or anything, but guess who is probably half psychic? I'm actually descended from Raven Baxter. Because seriously, not only did I know when you would open this CD, I also knew what happened to make you open this CD. I'm on fire, I'm awesome.

I'm going to start this off with the fact that you are a lying little shit. I know you claim your aunt gave you this CD, and it's not a bad back story, it really isn't, because aunt's don't know how to use computers, therefor are incapable of sending you iTunes gift cards for you to figure out yourself what you want for your birthday, but the real kicker is that you left the price sticker on it. I mean, no person in their right mind leaves the price sticker on an album that they're gifting to someone else. When you gift it, you don't want the recipient to know how much you spent, and that means that the fact that you kept the sticker on it is because you bought it. Maybe I'm actually Sherlock Holmes, or, it's entirely possible that you left the receipt in the case and I worked it out from the name on the receipt but the specifics are not important.

The fact of the matter is that you bought a Taylor Swift album and you didn't want anyone to know about it. Personally, I wouldn't have gone for Red, but that's just me, I mean I liked her eighth album, but that hasn't come out yet for you, but just you wait until you find out what happened with- I'm getting ahead of myself, I promised not to give you any spoilers. You haven't earned the juicy details of Taylor Swift's love life. But as a completely unrelated advance, make sure you watch the series finale of Iron Chef, that shit was fucked.

First, a word on why all of this is necessary. What I'm about to tell you, I'll admit, is not fact. I don't have a sheet of paper to give you stating for certain that this is true, but I'm pretty sure it is.

Basically, if it weren't for the whole time travel thing, we never would've happened. I don't know how clear on that you are, but that's something I'm pretty sure of. I think, if you put the pieces together, a long time ago on a plane separate from either of our realities, we didn't end up together. That's my theory at least, and that theory then goes to follow that with every time this timeline repeats, it becomes more and more dire that these events fall into place accordingly, because otherwise shit will happen. Paradox type shit, mind you, so we're talking serious shit.

I've seen too many movies about time travel, I know that, so I'm seriously grasping at straws, but I'm most definitely sure that if we don't end up together, one or both of us will die before we ultimately were destined to, as a way to cut any loose ends in this timeline. Am I sure of this, on one hand, no, but on the other, yes, I am. Time is a tricky thing, it's flexible to some extent and not to some others, and I really wish there was a guidebook that explained all this shit, but there isn't. Time Travel for Dummies, find it in a store near you. Sadly not.

To make things more clear, my belief is that in the first timeline of existence that contained you and I, we didn't end up together. In that timeline myself, or a version of myself decided that not being together wasn't good enough and time bent itself to aid me, which is why I ended up going back in time to get myself and you together. The science aspect I'm iffy on, but the reasoning behind it I am not. That long off Gerard would have died alone in his universe sadly, but he would have put the next timeline of you and me together, with an inflexible demand for it to happen again for the next timeline.

In a sense, this theory works as a metaphor for one life being the end of a book. Once you turn the final page, the book begins again, the same, but slightly different. If you were to tear out a page, or if you and I were not to make it work in one timeline, this timeline to be specific, then the gravity of that rip would cost us our lives and the story. My timeline has already been formed, it cannot change, and I still believe that yours is indeed fixed, but without knowing for certain, it's safe to assume that if you really did mess everything up, you would be messing up more than just your love life, you would be messing up both of our lifespans, and possibly more than that. By more than that, I mean black hole shit. That actually isn't a metaphor, I mean an actual black hole.

This is some freaky shit we got ourselves into, and yes, if you keep things calm, it shouldn't affect either of us in anyway, but if something goes amiss, we will have a debt to pay. Don't force us to find out just how high that debt really is.

I'm getting off point, so instead of scaring the shit out of you, I'm going to talk about your present. In summary: You're a little bitch who keeps getting angry with me because I have 'commitment issues,' and I'm being an asshole to you about you not being willing to expose your entire life to the public eye. I'm not going to tell you how we settled that argument, but I'm just going to tell you that it's okay, that was supposed to happen. This is how things are meant to go. Probably. I mean I can't show you an entire list of what happens and what doesn't because then there's no fun in it. You would have little triumph, because then you wouldn't have had to fight for anything. I'd damn well better be worth fighting for.

What I will tell you is to seriously stay the hell away from Pete until after my birthday because he will feed you some majorly dumb ideas, and I don't care what year you're from, there is nothing romantic about jumping up on a lunch table and singing All Of Me to a crowded cafeteria. It just doesn't work, I mean maybe in a movie, but even in a movie the amount of secondhand embarrassment can be cut with a knife, and really, I don't need that hanging over my head for my entire life. Basically, just don't sing any love ballads to anyone in a room full of high schoolers and all will be grand.

Also, Mikey is a prophet of some sort, I mean not actually, but that dude could seriously rake in the cash if he were to set up a psychic detective agency with his, let's be honest, far more attractive best friend and I'm losing my point again, but what I need you to do is listen to Mikey like he has the key to life sewn into his words. I mean that. I need you to take every word out of his mouth as gospel. If Mikey says jump, you ask how high. Got that? If Mikey says to buy yourself a pair of crocs than you had damn well better buy a pair of crocs, just never wear them okay, because I can't date a guy in crocs.

So anyway, some updates, no, you absolutely cannot name our future child Boba Fett, and while we're at it, yes, Galadriel is also out of the question. I can be talked into Leia or maybe even Samwise, it depends on what kind of day I'm having, but that's the most I'm going to budge on the subject.

In conclusion, please, do not burst into song ever inside a cafeteria, absolutely do not buy an Apple Pencil, and for god's sake listen to Mikey! I can't stress that enough, you need to hear that boy and learn from him, because I know he's younger than you but he is about sixteen times smarter than all other humans ever.

Love,

Gerard (not your Gerard, the other Gerard, the one with the cuter butt)

P.S. Mikey's not joking when he says he'll fuck you up if you ruin my birthday, he had a whole plan drawn out and it involved jalapeños and an enormous misuse of pipe cleaners so you seriously need to get on that.

Frank thinks that this letter has got to be longer than the last. There's less information crammed into his for some reason however. He doesn't know what the hell is going on with his life, or with the universe, or why Gerard and he are so important, or anything at all really.

All that Frank has taken from this letter actually is that his life is about a thousand times harder than he had originally thought. And also, Mikey is terrifying.