Stuck in the Middle

Gerard sits in his office staring at the computer screen, but seeing nothing. He doesn’t hear much of anything, he’s not thinking at all, and all he’s actually seeing is the light of the screen against his eyes. He’s not absorbing any of the information that he’s trying to look at. The only thing he’s really aware of is the fact that his head seems to be on fire.

“Gerard?” someone says, knocking on the glass door. Gerard looks up and he can tell from the tone of voice that he’s catching Patrick after multiple repeated addresses of his attention. He hasn’t been paying any mind, he hasn’t heard anything. If anything, Gerard’s concentrating on not throwing up, which is weird because he doesn’t really need to throw up. That’s not what he’s feeling. It’s a different sort of sensation, somewhere in the bottom of his stomach, and he understands that it’s unsettling, he understands that it’s uncomfortable, but what he doesn’t understand is what ‘it’ even is. He just knows he doesn’t like it, whatever it is.

“Yes? Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Nothing really,” Patrick says, “I just looked over the file you gave me and followed up on the lead, but it was a dead end.”

“Oh, right, okay,” Gerard says, not fully understanding what he, himself, is saying. He doesn’t remember what he’d asked Patrick to do, and honestly, he doesn’t really care either. His heads not in the right space to be thinking about this right now. The only thing his head is well suited for at the moment is probably being unconscious.

Gerard hasn’t slept in a very long time though. When he totals it all up, it’s probably been around 28 hours since he last slept. He’s used to pulling multiple all-nighters at a time but it doesn’t make him feel any better about it. He wishes that he’d gotten some sleep last night before he was called in, but Frank was over and things just got blurred. Priorities didn’t seem to be all that imperative, and he’d expected to have time to himself after Frank and he were... done.

“Excuse me for saying this, but you don’t look great, Gerard,” Patrick says, still standing in the doorway.

“What? Oh, yeah, just... haven’t slept,” Gerard says.

“Well none of us have,” Patrick says, “but you look a lot worse than Frank or I, no offense.”

“What’s Frank doing anyway?” Gerard asks, trying to take the topic off of him and onto insulting Frank, which is one of his favorite things to do.

“He’s looking through some security footage that I don’t have the time to look through,” Patrick says. “Is there something else you want him working on?”

“No, I don’t think so. I was just curious. I’m, uh, not certain what there is for us to do right now though,” Gerard says, “have we gotten anything back from ballistics on the bullet at the most recent crime scene?”

“Not yet, but preliminaries say that it’s a 9mm, same as the other two.”

“Okay, well tell me when we know anything more,” Gerard says. “I should get some coffee.”

“Yeah, coffee or some sleep,” Patrick says.

“No, I should stay in, I don’t want to bail on you-”

“But we’ve all been up for hours and you’re honestly no good to us when you’re functioning like that. I mean, you’re not doing anything, really. You haven’t done anything but stare at your computer since you and Frank got back.”

“We’re already a man down with Hayley gone, and Brendon’s out because he needed sleep way more than I did. I’m not just going to leave you two by yourselves.”

Patrick shrugs, “it’s not up to me, ultimately. You just aren’t going to get anywhere if you burn the candle at both ends.”

“Save your clichés for later, Patrick,” Gerard says.

The blonde raises his eyebrows and, with a tired sigh, turns on his heel towards the direction of the hallway. “Alright, Gerard. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you’re going to stay, at least try to be productive; else your efforts will be a waste.”

Gerard, too far gone to snap back or even respond at all, simply nods and slumps his shoulders, placing a heavy head in his hands. He doesn’t hear Patrick walk away, or the exasperated sigh that escapes his lips, or the quiet explanation he gives to a curious Frank in the other room. In the depths of his slow-moving brain, he registers that it’s suddenly very cold and that he’s shaking. Rather violently, actually. Gerard is shivering so hard that his tailbone is being driven into the cushioned office chair and his elbows are moving all over the place on the hard wood of the desk. Somewhere, he digs the word ‘coffee!’ out of his brain muck, and remembers, ‘Yes, coffee is warm, coffee will keep you awake.’

A few moments later, even though Gerard distinctly remembers thinking ‘I don’t want to be awake, I don’t want to stand up,’ he finds himself standing hunched over the coffee maker, waiting for it to finish its duties. He’s going through the motions, and he can’t even remember how he found it in himself to get into this room, let alone start making coffee. His head is pounding so hard that he can’t hear, and he feels very sick. There’s an icy pit in his stomach, and it’s making his whole being feel heavy. Gerard’s head is buzzing with cruel thoughts and drowsiness and nerves and random dark thoughts and memories of violence, and where is he again?

“Gerard!Gerard!”a familiar voice shatters Gerard’s thoughts, piercing his tender brain and making him wince. He turns over his shoulder to see a small figure crossing its arms and looking annoyed. Gerard blinks once before registering that he’s in the office break room. His name is Gerard, and that figure has a pretty nice face. Not a second later Gerard realizes that the figure is Frank, and he is immediately disgusted that his first thoughts regarding him were positive. Gerard’s face reveals these thoughts, and he turns back around towards the coffee maker. He’s self-aware and isn’t swimming anymore, but his head is still pounding and he’s still going to be sick.

“What do you want?” His voice sounds slurred and hoarse, and muddled in his ears.

“Well ideally I want my boss to stop being a prick, but I assume you want to know what I want in the immediate future, because we both know that that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

“I don’t really have time for this right now, Frank,” Gerard says. He’s only vaguely aware of the coffee maker lurching to a halt, and he also knows that he’s now going to have to make an effort to get the liquid from the pot into a mug that he has to go retrieve, and it all sounds like way too much effort. He’s trying to remember why they don’t employ someone solely for the transport of coffee because it sounds entirely too arduous.

“Time? You’re not even fucking doing anything!” Frank says, “Like you haven’t done a damn thing since we got back.”

“Maybe I have other things to do, Frank,” Gerard says.

“Like what?”

“I have some paperwork to fill out from the last case, okay? And reports I’ve got to write on you guys,” Gerard says, spouting off whatever comes to his head that sounds like a plausible excuse for not working. He doesn’t have an enormous backlog of paperwork at the moment though, and he does have some reports to do specifically on Frank, and his progress so far, but he can’t fill them out presently because of the fact that Frank hasn’t worked with him long enough yet.

“If that’s the case then why were you just sitting in your office staring at your screen? You’re not actually doing anything, and we both know that.”

“Would you just back off?” Gerard asks, unaware of how he manages to find himself holding his mug a moment later which threatens to burn his fingers from the hot coffee inside it.

“Why should I? You haven’t gotten any less sleep than Patrick or I, but you’re acting like a giant baby about it.”

“I don’t need this right now,” Gerard says, walking out of the room and back to his office. He’s aware of Frank following him, but he direly hopes it’s because Frank intends to go back to his cubicle. His cubicle is just outside Gerard’s office so it’s always possible that that’s the reason.

Frank just follows him through the transparent doors to Gerard’s office though, and he can feel himself being suffocated by the pressure of it. He feels like someone’s tied a noose around his neck and they’re squeezing it tighter with every breath he takes. On top of that, the feeling in his stomach like he’s going to be sick any second now hasn’t let up. He’s starting to feel a bristly feeling in his fingertips like little bees buzzing around him, and it’s only adding to the headache that’s driving him off the wall.

“Would you please leave?” Gerard asks, “I know for a fact that you can’t be done looking through those security tapes.”

“If you’re not working than why should I?”

“Because I’m your boss and I just told you to,” Gerard says.

“Are you really though? Or are you just my supervisor?”

“I’m the guy who can recommend for your transfer, or, if you really piss me off, you’re dismissal,” Gerard says, “which is just a fancy way of saying that all I need to do is a little persuading to get your ass fired.”

“You don’t have that much power and we both know that,” Frank says, rife with snark.

“Whatever my degree of power, I am still your superior, and I’m telling you to leave my office and get back to what you were doing,” Gerard says, sitting down at last, and relieving the shakiness in his ankles like they’re about to give in. He sets his coffee down, feeling it spill out over the edge and he knows that it drips onto some document that he really doesn’t care about. It’ll make a ring on his desk if he just leaves it there, but Gerard just isn’t in the head space to care. He’s having trouble thinking more than one thing at once, and the thing at the top of his head right now is ‘sleep.’

“You’re such a jerk,” Frank says, shaking his head, but at least Gerard’s successful in getting him out of his office.

Frank rolls his eyes heavily and walks briskly from the office, and Gerard feels a tiny ounce of relief. At least that’s one problem done with. Without the pestering of his coworkers, he can at least be miserable in peace.

With a quivering breath, the dark-haired man gathers what little strength he has to lift a hand and place it on the mouse. Though Gerard may feel like a corpse, there’s still work to be done, and Patrick’s right. If he’s going to stay here, he might as well do something. Feeling as though there’s something metal chained to his arm, he manages to drag the mouse over to open some of the digital case files. Once they’re open, Gerard blinks quite a few times against the brightness of the screen, and tries in vain to make sense of the microscopic words. Most of it just looks like a jumbled mess that hurts his eyes and, upon realizing that Gerard won’t be able to get any real work done at this point, another wave of nausea hits him, and he lowers his head so that a curtain of greasy hair covers his face. Gerard isreallysure that he’s going to be sick, and he finds himself with his forehead pressed against the cold of his desk. The cold takes a bit of the edge off, easing the feeling that he’s heating up to the temperature of the sun, but that’s about all it does. It doesn’t actually make anything better.

Gerard’s feeling like he can’t escape the horrid buzzing of his head. He’s remembering things, really unpleasant things, and he’s thinking about how slow the case seems to be moving, even if in reality it really isn’t, and he’s feeling pretty low. He wants to close his eyes and never have to open them again, but he can’t. Because he’s still here, feeling useless. However, if he goes home, he’ll feel even more useless because he won’t evenlook like he’s making an effort.

It’s maybe ten minutes later, and Gerard hasn’t moved, but he’s come to the decision that he can’t stay here. If he does, he’ll end up vomiting and passing out underneath his desk, whichsurely won’t go over well in any case. On jelly-like legs, Gerard stands and pulls his coat on. He doesn’t even touch his desk or gather anything before dragging himself through the glass doors, hunched over with his hair as a shield. He ignores Frank’s and Patrick’s eyes following him through the hall, or more accurately, he doesn’t even notice them. Gerard presses the “down” button heavily and leans his head on the wall next to the reflective doors. It seems no matter where he is, he cannot escape the sickness and dark, looming thoughts consuming him.

“What, are you punking out on us?” Gerard can hear the sneer in Frank’s voice, but can’t pull together the energy to reply. “Why are you being such a whiny baby, Gerard? Patrick and I have had just as much sleep as you, if not less.” Gerard shuts his eyes and wonders why the elevator won’t just ding already. “And why the hell do you keep ignoring everyone? You’re being incredibly rude. Is it that time of the month already?”

“Frank, please,” Patrick mutters, attempting to keep the peace as always. Although, he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about defending the damaged superior either. “You’re behaving like you’re two right now.” Gerard doesn’t hear them. He hears roaring in his ears and little demon voices telling him horrible things. And eventually,blissfully, he hears the elevator ding.

“What, you’re seriously just abandoning us?” Frank asks, as Gerard steps into the elevator, still not talking to him. “I cannot believe this.”

“Just let it be, Frank,” Patrick calls at him.

“You’re seriously such a hypocrite,” Frank says, shaking his head, but he just lets Gerard stand there, and watches silently as the doors close.

He stands in the spot, feeling the floor that’s not as firm or as grounded as he would like it to be, and he watches the doors slide closed after a few seconds in front of him. He watches Frank disappear behind the silver doors, and part of him feels insatiably guilty, but the rest of him isn’t even capable of describing how much of a break it gives his racing heart. Gerard takes a large sigh of relief, like he’s just escaped some painful death at the hand of Frank, when in reality, all he actually has right now is a staler version of the quiet that Frank was interrupting.

He can feel the pull of the elevator messing with the delicate balance keeping his insides from needing to be puked out. It makes him feel a lot worse for all of a decade, or that’s what he thinks it must be, because he suddenly can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in this elevator. It has to be years since the elevator doors closed, any less sounds impossible, yet it’s only been a couple of seconds.

Gerard can feel a cold sweat breaking out over his body like fire and ice. He’s not sure if he wants to rip off all his clothes and take a cold shower, or if he needs the heat of a dozen blankets and soup.

He’s going to be home soon. He’ll be able to lie down and let his head cloud up for a couple of hours, hopefully he won’t have to think about anything. He can just lie there and pretend he doesn’t have a job for a little while. Maybe he can pretend he doesn’t have a life for a little while too. Or pretend Frank’s not in his life. He’ll definitely have to pretend that he can’t smell Frank on the sheets.

That’s what keeps Gerard going when the doors open again in front of him, and he walks quickly through the lobby. He’s never been the kind of person who makes friends with the secretaries or really anybody that he works with, because he’s found that it just gets in the way of the job. He’s made a few exceptions, and it’s easier to be friends with someone when they’re on your team, like Brendon, but then there’s the fact that every once and a while you get a Frank.

Gerard hasn’t worked this job long enough to see too many people like Frank, and he’s glad of that much to say the least.

When he steps out into the parking garage, he’s caught in his inability to understand how his feet are knowing where to walk when he’s this dead on them. He’s really not even controlling himself right now, it’s all just some sort of learned reflex of him to walk through the parking garage to the same spot that he almost always gets when he parks his car. He once tried to park closer to the entrance because the space was available, but it took him about twenty minutes to find his car when he did that, because he’s so used to being against the back wall of the garage, the part that has a little opening where you can look down at the street below. There’s not much outside of that gap that could be classified as a window if it weren’t already outside. Someone once figured out that it’s an extremely thriving business to have a coffee shop directly next to an FBI building, and ever since then, there’s always a place to buy coffee near any place that employs law enforcement.

Gerard gets to his car, having lost a minute of his life just allowing his brain to wonder off. It’s a wonder he didn’t get run over or something. That brings up the question of whether he should really be driving, but he’s here now, and he’s not going to turn back. He’s just going to keep going, and be as attentive as he can. Driving is just a second nature to him by now. He might run into a lunchtime rush hour, but he doesn’t live that far away, so it should be doable.

He sees that dumbass motorcycle parked not far across the garage from his car and he just hates looking at it. He hates knowing who it belongs to, he hates that there’s something hot about people who drive motorcycles, and most of all, he hates Frank. That’s just the way he feels. He hates it so much, and he wants it to fall into a tar pit, never to be seen again. And he also wouldn’t mind seeing Frank fall into that very same tar pit.

Gerard unlocks the car tiredly, and he forces his brain to stay focused, and not blip in and out of conscious thought like it has been doing. His mind seems to like screwing him over today, but he’s just got to force himself not to get distracted. All he needs to do is get home, turn his phone off, and fall asleep for hopefully the rest of his life. He also should focus on not puking, because that’s growing to be a real fear of his right now.

About fifteen minutes later, Gerard, somehow still alive, though barely, stumbles into his small apartment. He's hardly even reached the bedroom before he sees his bed and an overwhelming wave of relief washes over him. Following this, he instantly changes his course to the bathroom, where he throws up pretty violently. He stands over the toilet, heaving, and gets sick again.

When Gerard's finished and his limbs feel like jelly, he shakily washes out his mouth and shuffles into the bedroom. His knees buckle, and he falls face-first onto his bed. Gerard's asleep before his head hits the pillow.

Notes

So the good news is that I have finally found a new coauthor! The bad news is that this chapter took too long to write and I apologize for that.