Forget About It

“Yo Brendon,” Gerard hisses and he motions for Brendon to come closer. Brendon rolls his eyes and walks closer. They’ve been at the bar for three minutes and Gerard is already scouting for something. Probably just looking into getting himself laid, so Brendon takes his own sweet time walking over to him.

“What’s up?” He asks before Gerard shushes him. He gives Gerard a confused look, but he just puts his finger to his mouth and gestures his head backwards.

“Six o’clock,” Gerard whispers. Brendon creases his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. He then watches as Gerard points to his ear which means that he wants him to listen but not to look.

Brendon sighs, but leans down against the counter and perks up his ear. He doesn’t know he’s meant to be listening to or what for, but he’s learned not to question Gerard too hard when he gets like this.

It’s faint but Brendon figures out who he’s meant to be listening to. It’s two men, looking overly cautious and whispering in a hushed tone with huddled postures. Brendon doesn’t heed Gerard’s order not to look so he eyes the men carefully and inconspicuously.

One of the voices is gruff and sturdy, and the other has the hint of a southern accent, but he can hear them pretty well considering the stance Gerard has him in. Gerard’s jaw is set and sturdy, like he’s deep in concentration.

“... can’t buy any more. Too suspicious in large quantities, which is why you have to make runs out. Boss would kill you and then me if-”

“But I’m not saying we go overboard. There’s-”

“Not going to happen, I’m in charge remember,” the first man says. He looks around the bar and Brendon swiftly looks away. They don’t notice Gerard and Brendon and if they do than they are very good actors. Gerard’s pointedly staring at the wall opposite the two men, and Brendon’s eyes are focused on his own fingers.

“We should get going. Too many people,” the guy with the southern accent says.

Brendon carefully watches the two men walk slowly through a swarm of people, late night people celebrating the end of the week with cheap bear and one night stands. Brendon then feels Gerard pulling on his arm violently, and he has no choice but to be tugged through the crowd as well.

“Shit, we’ve got the night off!” Brendon complains as he’s pulled through the bar after the two men. He almost stumbles a few times because Gerard’s grip hasn’t let go and he’s walking forward without thinking about Brendon behind him.

“Yeah but we have the opportunity to stop something before it starts,” Gerard answers, excitedly. He must see himself as some sort of superhero for stopping shit before shit happens. Brendon’s always wondered if Gerard does sometimes see himself as a superhero, but he’s never questioned his boss about it for many reasons. One being the fact that Gerard is his boss after all, and another being that Gerard wouldn’t tell him the truth anyway.

“Sounded like a lab,” Brendon says, “It’s just drugs.”

“Yeah because it’s only worth the investigation if you get a dead body out of it,” Gerard frowns at Brendon. He drags Brendon out of the bar and evaluates the parking lot to see the two men getting into a grey van.

“Valid point,” Brendon says and he follows Gerard to their car, where his superior gets into the driver’s seat. Gerard eyes the grey van like a hawk out for prey until it pulls out of the lot. Gerard follows carefully and Brendon groans, upset about leaving before they even got any drinks.

It takes a few moments before Brendon says anything, but when he does, he does so extremely bitterly, “Where the hell are these guys going?”

“Looks like they’re heading out to Coney Island,” Gerard says.

“Ugh, we are not driving out there at eleven at night Gee!” Brendon complains.

“Quit your complaining, there’s barely any traffic! It’ll take, like, twenty minutes,” He says, brushing off the cranky tone in Brendon’s voice.

It takes more like half an hour, but they do eventually slow the car down, and watch the car in front of them pull into a house, but not before they grab a few bags from the backseat.

“What are two drug dealers doing at a house in Coney Island?” Brendon asks, looking as confused as Gerard feels. The two men hurry inside their house, and slam the door shut behind them instantly.

They didn’t even look back to see if someone had been watching which means that they’re pretty confident that no one knows what they’re doing. That’s a pretty good place to have a criminal be, because that’s when they get careless and leave stupid mistakes. Gerard smiles subtly, feeling way too proud of himself for eavesdropping.

“That’s a damn good question,” Gerard answers. “I know drug money is usually good money, but it’s not good enough for a house like that.

The house is not a cheap looking house. It looks above middle class at the very least, but houses aren’t cheap around here either, so it’s probably more.

“Do you get the feeling that something isn’t right here?” Gerard asks, when he feels a shiver running down his back like a cold shower.

“Um, I don’t know, it’s cold in here,” Brendon says avoiding his question. He adjusts the air conditioning in the car to try rectifying the chilled atmosphere but it does nothing.

“No I mean, does something feel... off to you?”

“Yeah a little,” Brendon answers. He’s not sure what the feeling is, and neither is Gerard, but it’s unfamiliar and it’s unsettling. Neither of them are the kind of person to be scared by new things, but it just feels so abnormal.

Gerard can’t even begin to explain it, but something feels very wrong. It feels almost incomparable, but for some reason he’s reminded of a murky horror film. It doesn’t make any sense, it just feels strange. Like something very weird is going on.

It’s not like he expects some monster to pop out of the house and attack them with a weed whacker, he just feels like there’s something about this place that he’s not picking up on at the moment. Drug dealing isn’t the most serious of crimes this team has worked on, but something about the situation doesn’t feel like that’s all there is to it. It feels like it’s so much more serious, but Gerard just can’t put his finger as to what that is.

Brendon looks around at their surroundings, studying the darkened street. It feels almost like suburbia because the noise from the city is off in the distance. Brendon evaluates the peeling paint on the house right outside his window when he notices something.

“Hey Gerard, look,” Brendon says and Gerard turns to see what Brendon’s talking about. Gerard twists to see that Brendon is pointing to a house on the opposite side of the street from the house of the men they’re tailing. Gerard slants to look at it and sees the for sale sign that Brendon’s referring to.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Gerard asks slyly as he eyes the sign. The gears are already working overtime in his brain, and Brendon is not having it.

“There is no way the guys are going to go for it,” Brendon says curtly.

“Oh come on! We haven’t done anything interesting in forever. It’ll be like espionage!” He says, knowing full-well that Brendon is reading his thoughts.

Brendon sighs, “you’re idea of fun is very different than mine. Why on earth would I want to stare through a telescope for a week just to take in a few dealers?”

“Because it’ll be refreshing to not have to read paperwork,” Gerard says, “and there’s no way we’re getting a search warrant just for eavesdropping! The judge would laugh in my face!”

“And have every reason to!” Brendon says.

“Okay but you have to admit that something feels off,” Gerard says, “and I think it’s worth checking up on.”

“The others are not going to like it. Think about Frank’s expression if he finds out you’re working on nothing but a hunch. He’s going to judge you in the same way that I am judging you now. Because you deserve to be judged, you’re talking crazy.”

“I just have an instinct okay, Brendon? I’m not willing to pass this up when I have such a strong sense that something is really off. I haven’t felt like this about anything in ages, but I’m inclined to listen, because it’s really bugging me out.”

“Gerard you’re not a psychic, nor are you Pete Lattimer. You’re instincts are nothing more than just that. It’s not a supernatural force telling you to look into this, it’s your own brain trying to frighten you into doing something stupid,” Brendon says.

“Brendon, look me in the eyes and tell me something doesn’t feel off. Tell me you don’t have that same gut feeling that there’s something really big going on here. Tell me now and I’ll drop this, and we’ll never bring it up again,” Gerard says, sure that anyone in their right mind would be able to feel that uncomfortable tension settling around the neighborhood. It’s strong, and it’s not computing at the moment, making Brendon stare at Gerard for a little while longer then would normally be appropriate.

He sighs but doesn’t protest, “You’re the boss, it’s your call. Can we go now? Pick up something from the gas station because someone pulled us out of the bar before I even got a drink.”

“Alright fine, but we’re getting up at eight tomorrow no matter what,” Gerard says, to which Brendon complains the whole drive back.