Stuck in the Middle

“Another long night ahead of us,” Brendon scowls, looking at his stacks of paperwork sent over from the NYPD’s investigation. Gerard is sure that some of these papers are completely pointless, but they were sent over just to make his job harder.

“Patrick, you can go home,” Gerard says, looking over the table at Patrick.

“Nah, I’m here now, I’ll stay for a few more hours,” Patrick replies.

“Why does he get to leave?” Frank asks.

“Well he’s not leaving is he?” Gerard replies.

“Fine, why does he have the opportunity to leave and I don’t?”

“Frank, I would be ecstatic if you decided to leave,” Gerard says with a fake smile.

“No thanks,” Frank says.

“You just asked to leave!”

“Well that was before I knew it bothered you.”

“Fuck off,” Gerard says, looking down at a paper.

“I found something interesting!” Brendon says to interrupt the bickering between the two of them.

“What?” Gerard asks, looking over at the file in Brendon’s hand.

“These robbers,” Brendon says, “there’s some unreleased details in the files that I didn’t read about in the news.”

“Well duh,” Gerard says, “oh wait, no. Sorry, that was just kind of a stupid thing to say, I thought you were Frank for a moment.”

“Hey!” Frank shouts.

“Well anyway,” Brendon says, “on the second robbery, the one before this, they got some partial prints off of one of the robbers.”

“What?” Gerard asks, grabbing the file from Brendon, “how? They were all wearing gloves.”

“Well one of the gloves was damaged it looks like,” Brendon says, “and they left a print on one of the counters in the restaurant, but it’s only a partial and it didn’t bring up any matches in the database.”

Gerard starts shaking his head, “no I don’t buy that. Must be a mistake. How do they know it’s our robber, and not someone else? A suburban house wife who wanted a piece of pie from the counter. A waiter? Anyone who has fingerprints, basically.”

Brendon rolls his eyes at Gerard, “well yeah, that would be a good assumption, but the fingerprint stood out because it was covered in blood.”

“Ew,” Patrick says, making a face.

“How was there blood on a fingerprint?” Frank asks.

“Well gunshots aren’t exactly famous for cleanliness,” Brendon says, “shooting a person in the head, there’s a certain amount of splatter involved with it, so, unsurprisingly, our perps got a little... messy.”

“Even more ew,” Patrick says.

“Well yeah, Patrick,” Brendon says, looking at him like he’s lost his head, “you work in the FBI, you work with dead people for a living. You literally study death every day, and you’re grossed out by spatter patterns?”

“I mean, I don’t cut up dead people for a living,” Patrick says defensively.

“No, Brendon’s girlfriend does that,” Gerard smirks.

“Jeez! Not my girlfriend! I don’t even, ugh!” Brendon says. Gerard snorts at the angry look on Brendon’s face.

“Well study up guys, I’ll be back with coffee in a few minutes,” Gerard says, needing to get away from the files for a few moments.

“Where’s Hayley?” Patrick asks.

“What? Oh Hayley’s out of town, she’s working on a case in LA,” Gerard replies.

“Why?”

“Because she’s smarter than all you numbskulls,” Gerard says, making his way out of the room for coffee.

“Hey,” a voice says and Gerard groans loudly when he hears Frank following him.

“What?”

“I can’t bother you if we’re still in there,” Frank says, “or talk to you either.”

“About what?” Gerard asks, rolling his eyes as he heads to the break room. He isn’t exactly keen on being anywhere near Frank now. That’s only going to fuel the jokes Brendon is going to be making later. Gerard wishes he wasn’t so transparent about it. Maybe Patrick can’t tell, but Brendon knows him better than almost anyone, so it’s unsurprising he was able to tell.

Though if Gerard is going to be proud of anything, he’s happy that it took Brendon almost two weeks to figure it out. Two weeks since Frank and Gerard drove home together. Two weeks of fucking Frank with everyone being blissfully unaware.

Why did Gerard have to pick up the phone? If he’d just let it go to voicemail... no he’d probably just have gotten into trouble if neither he or Frank had shown up at the crime scene. That would’ve made it more obvious. Maybe if Gerard had presented himself better, not like he’d just been having sex, but it’s too late now.

“Why won’t you make eye contact with me right now?” Frank asks when they reach the break room. Of course, considering the fact that it’s pushing midnight, there’s no coffee, so Gerard has to start a pot himself.

“Because, ugh,” Gerard fumbles with the coffee pot, “Brendon knows.”

“Know what?”

“About us,” Gerard says, as if Frank’s stupid for not catching on, which, he is.

“Oh,” Frank replies, not sounding as cheerful as he had sounded a moment ago. Gerard looks over at him through sideways eyes and scoffs as he starts heating the coffee up.

“Yeah ‘oh.’ We have to be better at keeping this secret if we’re actually going to do this. I don’t know why I agreed to it, but I did.”

“I can’t find a more attractive fucktoy in such a short amount of time though,” Frank says nonchalantly.

“I am not...” Gerard starts, “don’t call me a fucktoy, asshole.”

Gerard just brushes over the part where Frank called him attractive, because that’s all Frank ever really does. He says Gerard is attractive but then combats it with saying something like ‘but that’s just someone saying sorry for your shitty personality.’ Gerard’s concluded that, in Frank’s eyes, his only real value is that he’s good looking. To be fair though, Gerard’s opinion is that Frank’s only real value is the fact that he has a nice ass.

“I’ll call you whatever I wish, dickwad.”

“If that’s what you want than fine, midget,” Gerard responds, and then turns to appreciate the anger he just put onto Franks face.

“So you were stupid enough to just let Brendon know about us then,” Frank says, but it’s not a question, it’s a statement.

“I was not! He’s my best friend, he figured it out without me having to say a thing,” Gerard replies.

“Yeah, so basically what I’m hearing is that you were stupid enough to just let Brendon know about us.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Gerard turns to the coffee again.

“Oh come on now, Gerard,” Frank says with a honeyed voice, “we both know you’d like that, wouldn’t ya? Would probably get all hot and bothered-”

“I fucking hate you,” Gerard says, preying the coffee finishes soon so he can get away from this nightmare.

“I know you do,” Frank snorts, “about tonight-”

“We should’ve done a better job pretending nothing happened. Next time, you’ve got to make your own way here. On that note, you also need to stop staying the night. We’ll just take two cars, in your case, a douchey motorcycle, and I’ll take my car.”

Frank rolls his eyes, “fine. Any more rules, mom?”

“Don’t call me that,” Gerard says, “No, I don’t think so. We’ve just got to do a better job at hiding it. I’m starting to think Patrick might have some idea too.”

“Fucking hell, who didn’t you tell?”

“I don’t think Patrick knows anything huge, but he knows that,” Gerard stumbles, because he does not want Frank to know about Patrick catching him staring at Frank’s ass, “Patrick, um, saw you staring at my ass.”

“Fuck, he saw that?” Frank asks, and Gerard smiles to himself while looking at the coffee pot. He had no idea that Frank did any such thing, he was just throwing darts and hoping something would stick. Now he has the information that Frank stared at him though, which he might be able to catch the guy on at a later time.

“Yeah, he saw that,” Gerard says, and finally the coffee is done, so he grabs the pot and pours himself a cup, and then a second one.

“Aw, it’s really sweet of you to consider me,” Frank says trying to grab the second cup, but Gerard snatches it away before Frank can get it.

“For Brendon,” Gerard says, and wishes that he could stick his tongue out at Frank without seeming like he’s six years old. Frank grits his teeth and watches Gerard leave the room. Gerard makes his way back to Brendon and Patrick who are quietly looking through files on the case, familiarizing themselves with it.

“You got any leads on who are Jane Doe with the boob job is?” Gerard asks, setting the coffee down next to Brendon.

“Uh, well, Patrick found one thing.”

“What’s that?” Gerard asks.

“Well that dress she was wearing, it was a high end Alexander McQueen. Worth a few thousand dollars. That kind of dress doesn’t come cheap. Add in that pearl necklace that was taken off the body and the matching shoes and bag, which are also worth several thousand each, we’re looking at a woman who, just sitting down in that restaurant tonight, was worth a little over $30,000. So unless this lady had a really picky sugar daddy, I’d say we’re looking at someone with money,” Patrick explains.

“Look at you, throwing out names of designers,” Gerard jokes, “I thought I was supposed to be the gay one.”

“Yeah well, I’m the one who’s got a wife that cares about this sort of thing,” Patrick says.

Frank enters at that moment with a coffee for himself, and presumably one for Patrick. That guess is confirmed when he puts the extra cup down next to Patrick who thanks him with a small nod. Patrick’s not really a giant coffee lover, but it’s midnight and they were all about to go to bed, so any extra energy boost isn’t to be turned down lightly.

“Did I miss anything?” Frank asks.

“We think this woman might be rich, which might narrow down our results somewhat, but I don’t know how much,” Brendon says.

“Well you mentioned a purse,” Gerard says, “what was left in the purse?”

Patrick looks through the file in his hand, “some mints, makeup, an umbrella, pepper spray, and sunglasses. Pretty basic stuff.”

“Well yeah, but there’s some things missing,” Frank says.

“The robbers looted everyone,” Brendon reminds him, “wallets and phones were taken, which is why they were not found in the contents of Jane Doe’s bag.”

“No, he’s right,” Gerard says, “there is something missing. House keys.”

“Keys?”

“Yeah, keys,” Gerard replies, “why on earth would this lady be out and about, on the town, going on a date and all that if she didn’t have house keys?”

“Maybe she didn’t expect to be going home to her apartment that night,” Brendon says, winking at Gerard and shrugging his head toward Frank. Gerard sends him a death glare and rolls his eyes.

“No, that doesn’t make any sense,” Gerard replies, “think about it, she’d have to make it back to her apartment eventually, even if she expected to go home with her date.”

“So that means the robbers took her keys,” Frank says.

“And if they took her keys the logical reason for that would be that-”

“They know where she lives!” Frank finishes.

Gerard nods and forgets for a moment that he’s smiling at Frank. He then walks across the room and looks at the file that Patrick has in his hands.

“Oh this just got exciting,” Gerard notes.

“I’m lost,” Brendon says.

“Well,” Gerard says, grabbing his phone from his pocket, “if the robbers knew where this lady lived, that means they probably know who she is.”

“Okay?” Brendon says, “Who are you calling?”

“I need a favor from the NYPD,” Gerard says.

“They’re not going to like that,” Patrick says.

“No, but when I say ‘favor’ what I really mean is ‘order.’”

Frank seems to be the only other person, besides Gerard, who understands what’s going on, or seems to be happy about this discovery. Patrick and Brendon are looking from each other to the other two, trying to figure out what they know.

“What’s this order you’re giving them?”

“I need a list of any B and E’s in high-end neighborhoods that took place any time after our robbery. Or I need to be informed of any in the next few days that match that description.”

“I’m still lost here,” Brendon says.

Frank rolls his eyes at Brendon, “if the robbers know who this woman is, know where she is, than the logical assumption is that she was a target. What that means is that-”

“The victims killed at the robberies are not random,” Gerard says, “they were targeted from the get go.”

“What does that mean then?” Patrick asks, “in relation to our case?”

“Well what it means is that the NYPD have been profiling this incorrectly. These aren’t robberies that happen to involve murder.”

“They’re murders that happen to involve robberies,” Frank finishes.

Notes

So my coauthor's been busy which is why this took so long, but here it is.