Forget About It

“I want to talk about what happened,” Frank says.

“I don’t,” Gerard replies flagrantly.

“Well that’s exactly the attitude I was hoping for from you,” Frank replies.

“What did you expect?” Gerard replies.

Gerard has come to the conclusion that Brendon is absolutely, undeniably, certifiably insane. He is officially off his bonkers. He forced Frank and Gerard to have the same shift watching the house across the street. They have the same shift. With each other. How did Brendon think this was going to go?

Of course for the past several hours they’ve been suppressing the desire to strangle each other. Frank is really pushing it by bringing up what Gerard has officially dubbed as ‘the incident.’

“We have to talk about it someday,” Frank says.

“You’re right. I’ll pencil you in for some time next millennium.”

“Pretending is not going to do anyone any good,” Frank states.

“You’re wrong. It will do me a whole lot of good. I will never be able to sleep again at night if I have to even think about the incident.”

“You say that like we killed some guy. This isn’t a film noir. It’s not like it’s a bigger deal than assassination.”

“No, it definitely isn’t as big a deal as killing people. I’ve killed people before, and it wasn’t nearly this awful afterwards,” Gerard says, “It will certainly require more therapy to get over how disgusting you are than it was after that.”

“Come on,” Frank says angrily, “I am not that bad, have you seen you? Maybe you should try a mirror sometime, because you’re not a bed of roses.”

“Have you ever heard of friendly fire?”

“You’re a bitch.”

Gerard scoffs, “so are you.”

“Not as bad as you.”

“Oh really?” Gerard says icily.

“Absolutely. I’ve never shot anybody so that’s one point for me,” Frank says.

“You’ve never saved your partners life, because someone shot at them either though, have you? I bet you Brendon appreciates still breathing, thank you very much,” Gerard scolds him.

“Specifics,” Frank deflects.

“Yes specifics! The specifics are fucking important. And believe me, that scotch free record ain’t gonna last forever.”

“I’ve also never thrown someone’s cellphone at a wall,” Frank says.

“I’ve never squealed to my prissy dumbass friends about how much I hate my boss,” Gerard rebuttals.

“But you have said an awful lot about how much you hate me to Brendon,” Frank says.

“Brendon’s my best friend.”

“The guy I was on the phone with was my best friend!” Frank shouts. Gerard vaguely remembers that it’s only about seven in the morning so they’re probably interrupting the sleep of everyone in the house, but really, it’s Brendon’s fault. If he wanted a good night’s sleep, he shouldn’t have paired Frank and Gerard to work together. Stupid planning on his part.

“But he doesn’t know me! There’s a difference between saying ‘oh I hate the new guy for being a fucking bitch,’ and ‘this guy you’ve never met is a bitch,’ because he’ll take your word for it, since he’s never met me! You’re desecrating my reputation.”

“You’re such a pain in the ass. Your reputation is shit! You’re shit! Everything about you is shit, and I fucking hate you more than anything in the world,” Frank says.

“Way to use you’re vocabulary,” Gerard snarls.

“Oh you want me to use my vocabulary? Thou art a royal pain in the buttocks, sir. Your infamous standing is complete manure. You are, by designation, guano. Every last thing about thine self is dung, and the animosity I hold for you is paralleled by no element on this entire planet. Oh, and I fucking hate you.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

Frank snorts and mocks, “you want to help?”

“You disgust me,” Gerard says, pulling his face into utter revulsion.

“Is that why you had sex with me?”

“We’re going to forget it ever happened,” Gerard says, standing up in his seat to look at Frank harshly.

Frank looks up at him and mouths words, but no sound escapes. He picks himself up from his seat as well, and balls his fists by his side. Frank has a lot of self-control right now for not knocking Gerard’s lights out.

Gerard is the one that snorts this time, as he looks at Frank and says, “I’m so intimidated. The guy who’s five feet shorter than me is angry.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, Way.”

“Why? What are you going to do to me?” Gerard teases, “tie my shoelaces together?”

“I’m going to fucking kill you, you fucking prick!”

“Oh really? You’re too short to do enough damage, you’d probably just be one of those extras who dies in the movie when they try to fight off Godzilla.”

“You think? And you’re probably the over confidant bastard who thinks the battle is won before he even enters the warzone, and has his head blown off within seconds for comic relief. Dude, you’re like a dark-haired General Custer.”

Gerard grits his teeth, and stares down at Frank wishing he could mentally make the boys’ head implode.

“You better realize how lucky you are that I haven’t punched you in the face yet,” Frank says.

Gerard gives him a contemptuous face, “go on then. What do I care? Punch me right in the fucking face! If you can reach.”

Frank steps closer, and Gerard is kind of conflicted as to what he wants to happen. He’s on the fence between wanting to kick Frank in the balls, give his pretty little face a broken nose, or take his pants off.

Gerard’s eyes widen at the last thought, and he tells it to go away. All that does is make him vividly remember what happened the last time he’d had that kind of thought though.

“Your face is literally begging to be punched,” Frank says. He leaves the part out at the end where he wants to say ‘or kissed.’ Oddly enough, the two of them may have had wild hate sex the other day, but Frank’s never even kissed Gerard. It’s not really something you think about when the adrenaline is pumping. Frank’s not sure if he regrets that or not.

“I dare you then,” Gerard says. The first time they dared each other to do anything they ended up grinding on each other, and Gerard is starting to realize that they’re almost the same distance from each other back then as they are now.

Gerard’s face is turning a red color, and Frank’s a few minutes away from having steam come out of his ears.

“You can’t deny that you think I look good,” Frank spits at Gerard.

“I think you’d look good with two black eyes.”

“I think you’d look good hanging off the edge of a cliff,” Frank says.

“Yeah?” Gerard asks, and he asserts his slight advantage in height by pushing Frank backwards. It’s rather demeaning and Frank opens his mouth to say something, but he can’t think of the right words to describe how he hates the man in front of him.

“Definitely,” Frank responds.

“Then fucking do something, Frankie,” Gerard says surreptitiously. “I’m asking you to. Please.”

Gerard opens his arms out as if to embrace him, but it’s more of an invitation to attack him, and Frank’s trying to find a reason not to just hit him. Gerard did just call him Frankie. He’s having trouble finding the catch, because he’s highly tempted to just punch Gerard. He knows it’ll feel really good to hit the guy, and the cons are growing blurrier by the second.

“Alright,” Frank says.

“What?” Gerard asks, raising an eyebrow, but maintaining his poised bravado with a smirk.

“If you’re offering, I would be happy to knock you out,” Frank says.

“You’re not strong enough.”

“Wanna bet?” Frank takes a step closer, and he’s inches away from wiping that grin off of Gerard’s face.

Gerard unconsciously licks his lips at the closeness between him and Frank, and his eyes glance to the doorway to make sure that they are alone.

“I loath you,” Frank hisses and he’s so ready to just go for it.

“Wait!” Gerard stops Frank’s thoughts with a shout.

“Chickening out now? Really?” Frank asks, unimpressed.

“No! Look! Fucking look!” Gerard says, eyes popping out of his skull as he points elsewhere in the room. Frank rolls his eyes, because he’s not that gullible.

“Like I’m going to fall for-”

“I said look!” Gerard shouts, and he spins Frank around to look in the direction of the window. Frank is winded for a minute, but he blinks his vision back to normal, and he’s vaguely aware of Gerard walking past him to the window.

Frank thinks it’s some game Gerard is playing until he actually looks out the window himself, and sees the actual main attraction.

“What’re they...?”

“I don’t know,” Gerard says. The men across the street are loading up their car, and it does not look like a supply run this time. This looks like something else.

Neither of them were at all prepared for the daunting number of bombs there actually are.

“Shit! Frank they’re getting ready.”

“Getting ready for what?” Frank asks uneasily. The anger that had been there a minute ago immediately dissipated when Frank got an eye out the window.

“What do you think?” Gerard says.

“Fuck.”

“Precisely.”

“We have to do something!” Frank says.

“If we interfere and they drop one of those it will be dominoes, Frank. Everything will go off. Everything. One goes off and the rest follow. That’s enough explosives to take out an entire city block, what do you think it’s going to do in the middle of a residential street?”

“There’s families with kids all down the street!”

“We can’t risk a standoff that results in that number of deaths,” Gerard says.

“Well... but if we don’t than they’ll set them off somewhere else. You said so a few weeks ago, and if you follow the logic, they’re going to try to kill as many people as they can, right?”

“Right?” Gerard says.

“Well how many more people will they kill if we let them go now?”

“Could be a dozen more, could be a hundred.”

“So balance the tables,” Frank says.

“Frank, there’s five Federal Agents in this house,” Gerard reminds him.

“What? So we’re more valuable than other people who might die? We have to protect ourselves over the general public. Last I checked, it was about protecting other people, not ourselves.”

“What! I didn’t say that! I didn’t mean that.”

“We have to do something. You said it yourself, we have the chance to stop something before it starts. This is that chance. If we don’t seize it, than this was all in vein, and we failed.”

Gerard shakes his head, and takes a long inhale of breath.

“Alright, we have to go,” Gerard says.

“What?” Frank questions, because he’s sure that just a moment ago, Gerard was refusing.

“Come on!” Gerard yells, and he starts grabbing at things around the room.

Frank’s about to ask him what he’s doing until Gerard grabs a glock, and holds it up to check the safety.

“Whoa, I need a gun?”

“What? Does that surprise you?” Gerard asks, looking at Frank like he’s the definition of stupid, “did it not occur to you that you might need to defend yourself?”

Frank splutters, and tries to sort out his thoughts, but it’s not an easy thing to do, because he’s freaking out.

“Grab your gun,” Gerard instructs, “and badge. Handcuffs won’t hurt.”

“But I-”

“I know you have a gun,” Gerard says, “You’re a federal agent. Of course you have a gun.”

“But I’ve never-”

Gerard throws something at him and Frank barely catches it to see that it’s a magazine of ammunition. Frank’s eyes widen, because he’s actually expected to shoot if something happens that requires him to. He is not prepared for that. It’s seven in the morning.

“I’ll wake up the rest of the house,” Gerard says, and he runs out of the room yelling. Frank blearily tries to assemble himself, but he’s feeling dizzy because he cannot believe this is happening. His stomach feels like mush, and he’s all of a sudden regretting every single choice he has ever made ever.

He regrets wanting to become a cop, and he regrets reminding Gerard that more people will die if they don’t act. He regrets that C- he got in tenth grade Biology because he really could have gotten a B if he’d worked a little harder. He regrets that one time when he forgot to hold the door open for the people behind him, and it slammed into a crotchety old man’s face.

“Frank, let’s go!” Gerard says, poking his head into the room, and Frank realizes he’s just stood there and had a time lapse for several seconds, if not a whole minute.

“O-okay?” Frank says, and he follows without a second thought. His feet seem to be moving without his input, because he’s sure that he wouldn’t have sent the brainwave to lead him to his untimely death.

Frank doesn’t even process that he’s running until he’s out the door following behind Gerard. Everything suddenly wipes from his brain. Every word of every textbook he’s ever read is obsolete, because this is real. This isn’t a simulator, or an essay, or a hypothetic. This is real.

He looks at the car in front of him, a large red truck that looks like it was purchased on a whim to overcompensate for something, and his blood freezes. His joins are stiff from nerves, because he’s never actually done this before. He’s never seen a real bomb before. He’s starting to freak out a little.

Then Frank looks over at Gerard and he hates himself for the fact that Gerard looks so confident, striding across the pavement with such assurance. It makes Frank remember how Gerard thinks of him, the idiotic kid, and he decides to fake it. If he’s going to scream internally for fear of dying, than he’s not going to let Gerard see it.

The way that Gerard composes himself though, kind of stuns Frank. He’s an awkward son of a bitch, clumsy and uncertain in a lot of things, but right now he looks to be in his element. This is what he knows, and Frank feels it like a blow to the gut, because Gerard’s right. He does know nothing. He knows absolutely nothing about this life. He’s inexperienced and he acts too quickly without thinking first. He’s too spontaneous. Every word Gerard ever spit his way was absolutely true, and Frank feels even more terrified in realizing that.

Gerard pauses just before he crosses the street, and makes a gesture for Frank to stow his gun away. Frank’s never fired his gun before in an unsanctioned location. At a gun range, sure, but never in the real world. Gerard sticks the gun in the back of his pants and then pulls his sweatshirt over it to disguise it from view. Frank does the same, and then sticks his badge into his pocket.

He’s not an idiot, he knows this is one time where he really can’t start arguing with Gerard. He’s got to do what his boss says. Frank looks over his shoulder before they keep walking, and his heart jolts, because he doesn’t see Brendon or any of the rest of the team making their way over. The house doesn’t stir at all, and it makes his fear multiply a million times more.

Gerard turns to Frank and quickly says, “Remember our cover makes you my boyfriend. If things go south, I take lead, and you follow my instructions to a tee. Are we clear?”

Frank doesn’t have time to respond to anything, before Gerard is going up to the men who are still loading their car. They don’t seem to notice Gerard or Frank until they announce their presence.

“Hey excuse me!” Gerard shouts, and he steps closer to the car than someone normally would given any other circumstances.

“This isn’t the right time,” one of the men says. There’s three of them altogether. None of them are particularly interesting looking. One of them is young, about the same age as Gerard, but better groomed, with his hair sleek and smooth. Another one of them is big and balding, not very polite looking and the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to get in a bar brawl with. The last guy looks like he’s worked in a cubicle for all his life, he’s a very small, thin man, with dorky glasses that frame his head oddly, and a poor attempt at a comb over.

“Yeah, but my boyfriend and I were wondering if-”

“I said that now is not the right time!” the small man with the glasses says. Part of Gerard thinks he’s the least criminal looking guy he’s ever seen in his entire life. He looks like the kind of guy who lives alone and reads a lot of cookbooks. He doesn’t look like a hardened criminal, but then again, criminals come in all shapes and sizes.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Frank asks, and Gerard doesn’t have the time to tell him that that’s a dumbass thing to ask.

“It doesn’t concern you,” the man replies.

Gerard’s always had a certain knack for reading people. He looks at the small man, and he tries to quickly get a read on what kind of person he is. On the outside he looks perfectly extraordinary, but the way he carries himself suggests that he’s deeply self-conscious, and trying to cover that up with fake poise. His eyes are twitchy, and hardly stay in the same place they were a second ago. It’s not that he keeps looking around, it’s that he seems to be unable to keep his pupils in focus. This suggests to Gerard that he’s extremely anxious about something. Probabilistically it’s the fact that he’s loading a bunch of explosives that could go off if they make any wrong moves.

Gerard also decides that the man had no kids. He doesn’t look the father type. He’s probably easily angered, but his demeanor suggests low status. He’s a nobody. A nobody with delusions of grandeur. That’s the most dangerous kind of man to faceoff with. They don’t care who lives or dies, they’ve already solidified their insignificance in their head. Men like him like to take as many people out in the crossfire as they can. He’s in charge here though. That’s obvious. Mr. Comb Over is the man with the plan.

“I think we really would like to have a word with you though. See, we’ve only just moved in,” Gerard tries, “and we’re not familiar with the city. We’re from out of state.”

“That’s what google is for,” the young one says with a gruff voice. Gerard recognizes him to be one of the men they’d heard at the bar. He assumes the big balding one is probably the other man they’d heard, the one with the southern accent.

Frank tries to play along and puts on a smile, and he nods along with Gerard’s cover story. He curses himself for when he’d pretended Gerard was his boyfriend a week ago, because now he has to feel that uncomfortable prickly sensation at the idea of it. He’s just done that to annoy Gerard, and now it’s eating him up too.

“But this one,” Frank points to Gerard generically, “isn’t good with technology and still hasn’t figured out how to setup the computer. We’re without internet still.”

Gerard smiles as well, although he wants to puke at the insinuation that they’re an item. He’s trying to pretend that the incident didn’t happen. Obviously it did, so maybe this isn’t as big a lie as they’d wish. They’re not a couple, and they never will be, but they did sleep with each other. Once.

“Just back off, okay?” The young one says, and Gerard pulls Frank a few steps back, but he doesn’t move out of their driveway. They can’t let these men leave.

“Where’s the rest of the guys?” Gerard asks quietly through his teeth in a fake smile.

Frank thinks about it for a minute and then it hits him unpleasantly, “Fuck. We’ve been crying wolf, Gerard.”

“Fuck,” Gerard echoes as he realizes the gravity of the situation in full. They have been crying wolf. Brendon, Hayley, and Patrick all think they’re just having another argument. Obviously they didn’t pay any attention to the yelling. Why should they? They have no idea what’s happening, they just think Frank and Gerard are at it again.

The realization sinks in for the both of them like a heavy weight.

They’re on their own.