Stuck in the Middle

As it turns out, Hayley is actually the only member of Gerard’s team who has the capability to get them to actually make any progress whatsoever in going in the right direction. Gerard sometimes wonders where he would be without her and then he remembers that, yeah, he’d probably be dead, because Hayley is fucking fantastic at what she does.

She’s the only one who’s able to move the case from where it currently stands at a complete stop, because she takes the time to comb through as much security footage as she can get her hands on. That’s how they manage to find a suspiciously dark vehicle fleeing the scene on a camera a couple of blocks away from the third crime scene. At first, it gets them nowhere because Gerard’s sure that the vehicle has to be stolen, and he’s right, but the interesting thing is that the van was stolen from the house of its owner.

The peculiar thing about that is that it almost definitely means that it was not a crime of opportunity, which narrows down the fact that the robbers were looking for a specific type of car, because a residential area is not your typical hunting ground for a car thief. A car thief prays on parking lots, and parking garages. This car would have been stolen to serve a specific purpose. The second thing that this tells them is that the offender probably doesn’t live in that particular area because you wouldn’t steal a car in your own neighborhood. There’s a chance that someone may recognize you, and criminals tend to think they’re throwing the cops off if they go further from home to commit their crimes.

Without Hayley, Gerard would never have come to the conclusion that the people they’re looking for, are almost definitely white guys. This conclusion is easily drawn when they find out where the car is stolen from, because it’s a higher class neighborhood. People are racist as fuck, if they saw anyone but white people on their street, the cops would have heard about it and looked into this way before now. So basically, Hayley is the only thing keeping Gerard sane.

“Well we can’t rule out that the car was reported stolen, but never actually stolen,” Gerard says, writing things across the whiteboard in their meeting room.

“I think it’s unlikely, the guy who owns it is in his late forties, I think if you’re going to commit a crime with this much disorganization but still with this much intent, you’re gonna be a little younger, not gotten the hang of the business yet,” Gerard says, “We’ve gotta work on leads for my jury theory, I think that’s going to get us the furthest.”

“But there’s no way to tell what jury these people were all on, the files have been buried,” Brendon shakes his head, “Patrick called literally everyone with authority, but no one’s going to unseal those records for us.”

“But we’re trying to solve three murders here,” Gerard groans, rubbing at his temples with annoyance.

“Well you try telling them that. It’s a matter of national security or something, I wasn’t listening completely because I was too pissed off, but we have no valid reason to open those records without real evidence as to why we need to do so. As it is now, Gerard, this is still a theory. It’s a damn good one, because this whole 12 Angry Men thing is pretty transparent once you know what to look for, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“Could we put an alert on the next name of the juror so if anyone makes a reservation under that name we’ll know?” Hayley asks.

“Restaurants have no obligation to grant us that access, and even if they do, they probably don’t keep such great books all around, at least not about reservations, I don’t think it’s going to get us anywhere,” Brendon shakes his head, crossing his arms, “but when the sun comes up, I’ll see what I can do about that, but I’m not making any promises.”

"Okay," says Gerard, glaring at a corner of the conference table with a furrowed brow, "so we have an un-carefully stolen van, a likely Caucasian group of suspects, and a vengeful jury that we know nothing about. Where do we go from here?" He can't help the way his eyes flicker hopefully over to Hayley. He may be the leader, but with the mental state he's recently been in, Hayley's taken charge and been getting more done than they can all keep up with.

Hayley puts her delicate-looking hands up in defeat, and with a sigh Gerard calls the meeting adjourn.

He feels the minutes drag by, each one longer than the last, and he’s not sure how he even lives long enough to see the clock go from late at night to early in the morning, to midmorning. He looks up at last to see Patrick exiting from the elevator, looking sleepy, but upright nonetheless. Gerard pauses the security video he’s watching, and stands up from his seat to look out the window at the cubicles, spotting Brendon’s head, Hayley’s bright hair, and he’s surprised to see that Frank is there also. He must have missed Frank getting in, but he’s not sure he entirely cares.

He decides now would be time to regroup and try to come up with a different game plan for the day. It’s easier now that the city starts to awake and they’re all together to work on everything.

Gerard makes his way out of the office, and says to his team, beckoning them to the board room, “I think we should try to figure out our strategy for the day ahead.”

“Oh, he’s alive,” Frank says, sounding upset, “Bummer.”

“Ha, fuck you,” Gerard says, just as smarmily in return.

The meeting is basically about as helpful as the last one, if not a tad more so; Gerard recites the information on the case that he already knows by heart, and finishes off by shuffling around some papers and taking a clunky seat in his chair. Hayley reports that she’s playing with a few very loose ideas on connections that definitely require some more information before they really become fully developed leads, and Brendon makes a plan to call up the most high end restaurants listed later in the afternoon. The two of them agree to put their heads together and see what they can find.

"Maybe Ray's got something to go by!" Frank pipes up for the first time, after a few moments of silence. Gerard's eyes snap up to where the shorter man sits at the other end of the table with his back slumped and his legs spread, sprawled in the cushiony office chair. Gerard tries desperately to ignore the swooping in his stomach and the way his eyes are tempted to travel south. Instead he opts for narrowing his eyes and scowling.

He scowls at Frank before he says, "I told Ray and his little team to abandon the case a while ago. Why would they have anything new to say on the matter?" He means for it to come out in a rhetorical way that's supposed to make Frank feel stupid for even bringing the lower team up, but Frank just closes his legs and leans forward with wide, important eyes.

"I don't know. Maybe they hada lead before you stepped in and shoved them out of the way."

Instead of biting back, Gerard clamps his teeth shut and glares at Frank. His eye twitches.

When there meeting is over, Frank walks up to Gerard while he erases the board. The inked man waits until everyone leaves to carry on with whatever work they have, before leaning against the wall, seriously breaching in on Gerard's personal bubble. Gerard stiffens.

"What, Frank?" he doesn't really ask, turning to face away from him and wiping furiously at the white board. He hopes to God Frank can't see the red creeping up his neck and cheeks at the shorter man's closeness.

"Where've you been?" Frank's voice is masked with innocence and mock concern, but Gerard can hear the harshness in the question fighting to be heard. Gerard knows he's talking about where their sex life has been. But since Gerard's breakdown, the idea of sex, or anythingaside from getting out of bed, drinking coffee, and sitting at work, for that matter, has just seemed like a huge load of effort. Even with Frank.

"Been busy," he mumbles into the white board, which is definitely clean by now.

"Bullshit," Frank snaps, and Gerard jumps.

“Excuse me?” Gerard asks him.

“You heard me, Gerard,” Frank says. “You’re dodging something between the two of us, and I’m really annoyed with just putting up with your avoidance.”

“You’re being a dick, Frank,” Gerard says, “but what else is new.”

“What’s up?” Frank asks him, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know, I’ve just had a lot going on?”

“What, in your social life, you mean?” Frank asks, “Because I wasn’t even aware that you hada social life.”

“Give it some time, Frank, and you won’t have one either,” Gerard says, honestly. There’s not much room for a social life in this job. The only friends you have are the friends you see at work. Gerard’s only real friend outside of work anymore is his own brother, and that doesn’t count. Mikey’s his brother, he’s got an obligation to be there for him.

“You don’t know me,” Frank scathes.

“I don’t care to know you,” Gerard retorts, gathering up some papers from the table, and doing his best to pretend that Frank’s not there.

“I... just don’t get why you’re being so cryptic with everything,” Frank says, “What’s so important that it has to take precedence over this case, and... never mind what else.” Frank stops himself from saying ‘me’ because that sounds too clingy. It makes him sound like he’s upset over Gerard’s absence rather than just annoyed. He can’t have that. He doesn’t want Gerard thinking that he considers whatever this is, whatever is going on between them, to be anything more than physical. Frank doesn’t actually care about Gerard, he just thinks that the guy is kind of hot. That’s all.

“I have to get back to work, Frank,” Gerard says, when he finishes gathering his things.

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“I’m aware of that,” Gerard says, “it’s intentional.”

“You can’t hide whatever it is you’re not telling me forever,” Frank says, and Gerard halts, staring at him so blisteringly angry. Frank has no idea. He thinks Gerard’s just avoiding him because of some stupidly petty reason. Frank thinks so little of him. Gerard is almost tempted to just snap at him and say that, lately, everyday that he wakes up still alive feels like a miracle to himself. Getting out of bed is like climbing Mt. Everest. Mustering up enough energy to be cordial, even to the people he likes, feels like a war and a half.

Gerard doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, he just slips past Frank, avoiding the question altogether. He needs to be in his office. He needs to be alone. He needs to forget about Frank and how he’s just one more part of his life that Gerard now has to deal with, but he hasn’t got the time nor the energy to face that actuality.

But Gerard decides to be the bigger person. Or at least, he is the bigger person if you don’t consider fantasizing about the other person’s death to be as trivial as name calling.

Frank lets him walk away without saying anything snotty to him. For this, Gerard silently thanks him, because to Gerard, it’s a merciful gift, and he hopes Frank could never have to understand why. Because the way Gerard feels, he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.

Notes

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