Forget About It

The office is dark and quiet because almost everyone has gone home. Most of them are just really glad to be going home to their actual beds, so Gerard really couldn’t blame them. He’s got a lot of paperwork to file by the next day, but he looks down at the papers and his head spins at the amount of work he really doesn’t want to do. Most of it is just signing his name, and taking responsibility for everything that happened the past few weeks.

Gerard had learned quickly that even though being the boss is nice, having all the liberty to tell people what to do and be in charge, it’s also infinitely more difficult than his old job. He’s the youngest team leader for several years, which means there’s a lot of pressure on him to do well. He doesn’t exactly mind the pressure, it’s the responsibility that he has to bear that worries him. Gerard’s basically at fault if anything goes wrong. If someone on his team gets shot, it’s his fault. If someone on his team shoots, it’s his fault. If anything at all happens, he’s got to take the responsibility.

The job is not exactly what he’d thought it would be, but he’s become comfortable in the position he holds. Some things are harder than others though. It’s hard being the guy who has to tell people that they’re husband or wife, or daughter or son is dead, and that’s all on him. That’s the worst part of his job. Worse than having a gun pointed at him, worse than fearing for his own life. It’s breaking the news to other people that hurts him the most.

Gerard looks out of his office and sees that most of the lights have been turned off. This office never really sleeps, there’s always people here, night and day, but it’s always lazy at this hour. Gerard’s gotten some middle of the night calls himself, so he knows that there is really no such thing as off the clock. Sometimes you’re not on call, but part of you is always on duty.

He looks out at the desks and sees a few people from other departments shuffling around their cubicles. He sees the top of Hayley’s head, and watches as she gathers her stuff to go. Gerard envies everyone leaving, but he has a few more papers to sort through.

One thing that Gerard really hates is the lull of the group after wrapping a case. There doesn’t seem to be anything to solve the yearning for something new. It’s not exactly like they’re hoping someone gets killed, or something gets held for ransom, but if it’s going to happen anyway, they like having something to do. There’s never a time where they aren’t doing anything, paperwork, or investigating, or being yelled at, or just generally ruining lives. There’s always another murder to solve. There’s always another drug cartel. There’s always another kidnapping, or robbery.

It’s only when Hayley’s disappeared through the elevator that Gerard sees Frank. He hadn’t realized Frank was still there, and it looks like he’d been hiding until Hayley left. Everyone else on the team has already gone, Patrick left a while ago, and Brendon sometime after him. Gerard had just assumed that Frank slipped away unnoticed.

Gerard hopes silently that Frank is going to leave, because the last thing he wants to do is talk to him again. He just wants to finish things up, and then go home. He wants to go to his own apartment, and sleep in his own bed, and pretend he never met Frank. He wants to pretend that Frank doesn’t exist, and that he doesn’t still remember what Frank felt like pressed up against him.

Gerard puts his head down and looks back at the papers in front of him. He tries to ignore Frank completely so that by the time he looks up, Frank will be gone. He wants nothing more than to kick Frank out of the office indefinitely, but he doesn’t exactly have that power. If he did have that power, he would use it in a second.

Eventually though, his paperwork has a final page. At least he didn’t need to do as much as Frank, but he’d had to put it off because he had a conference with the department director about the incident. Mainly he was asked about Frank and his heroics. Gerard had done his best to give credit where credit was due, even if it killed him to say nice things about Frank. Gerard is still a Federal Agent even if he hates Frank, and it’s his duty to be honest.

Gerard picks himself up from his desk and sighs, looking at the stack of paperwork. He walks around the desk, out of his office and then places the files in the bin outside his boss’ office. Gerard may be the lead agent on his team, but even he has superiors.

He turns and heads toward the elevator, wanting nothing more than to go home and have a nice long hot shower, before falling asleep in his own bed.

“Hey Gerard,” A voice says and Gerard halts wanting to scream. He’d hoped so hard that Frank wasn’t there, but to no avail. Gerard turns, and tries to put the most unfriendly expression on his face.

“What is it?” Gerard asks.

“Well seeing as you’ve been avoiding me since this morning, I figured the only way to talk to you was to ambush you as you were leaving.”

Gerard huffs, and then continues walking, “What the fuck do you want?”

“I’m not done talking about what happened.”

“Well that’s unfortunate, because I am done talking about it.”

Frank sighs, and gets up to follow Gerard to the elevator. He doesn’t seem to take the hint that Gerard wants him to go away, and instead follows behind him into the small enclosed box of the elevator. Gerard suddenly realizes how small it is, and his heart starts beating faster. He’s way too close to Frank, and there’s no escape for another minute until the elevator doors open again.

“So we have to talk about it sometime. We’re both adults, we have to take some responsibility,” Frank says.

“I think it’s better if we just pretend it didn’t happen,” Gerard says, staring at the door. He can feel Frank’s eyes surveying him, but he refuses to meet the gaze.

“But that’s not really the most effective thing to do,” Frank says.

“Well look at it this way, I don’t want any part of what happened to affect our interactions. It was a mistake that happened in a moment of weakness. I don’t want it to be something that defines me. I especially do not want to be the boss who slept with the new guy. I would never live that down. I could get fired, you could get fired, and it could ruin both of our lives. Considering there’s that much danger in what happened, it’s best that we just don’t talk about it.”

“Would we really lose our jobs?” Frank asks.

“I’m really not positive, but it’s possible. I’m not risking that over some silly little mistake we made. It’s in the past, and it’s going to stay there. There are rules with this job though. We can’t be emotionally compromised, romantically, mentally, or anyway else,” Gerard says. He’s looked over those rules a million times for some sort of loophole, but it’s pretty explicit. Some things you just need to keep hidden.

“Well than we don’t talk about it in the office,” Frank says.

“Well where else would we talk about it? I don’t ever want to see you outside of this office,” Gerard says, and then mercifully, the elevator doors open. Gerard makes his way out of the little room, slowly so as not to seem like he’s in a rush to get away from Frank, but obviously he is.

“Oh come on, you’re not that oblivious,” Frank says. Gerard doesn’t really want to pay attention to him, so he’s not really listening to Frank complexly.

“Oblivious to what?”

“Well you can’t exactly pretend that you didn’t like it,” Frank says, and Gerard almost trips. He stops himself from making an idiot of himself and looks at Frank for the first time since they got on the elevator.

“You’re kidding right?”

“Don’t act like that, I’m not blind,” Frank says. Gerard rolls his eyes and keeps walking until they’re in the parking garage. Frank can only barely keep up, because Gerard’s sped up.

“I just want to pretend it didn’t happen. I want to forget about it! Let’s pretend it never happened at all,” Gerard says.

“So you’re not going to go home tonight and think about me?” Frank asks.

“Nope.”

“Liar,” Frank says.

“I’m not lying,” Gerard replies.

“Yes you are, you’re lying,” Frank says, and Gerard doesn’t even realize that he’s standing in front of his car. He just knows that he wants to punch Frank in the face so much, and there’s nothing he can do about that desire. There’s also desire of another kind, that he’d hoped so much would have gone away by now, but it hasn’t. He wants to stop liking Frank, but that’s not something he can just cast away.

“W-why would I lie?” Gerard asks.

“Because you know you’re attracted to me, and you’re trying to deny that to yourself. I’m not nearly as childish as you are though, I accept my feelings, but can you?”

“I... did you just admit to being attracted to me?” Gerard asks. His hand has stopped on the handle of the door and he’s trying to figure out what kind of prank this is. There’s no way this is real. Maybe he’s on a TV show, or maybe Frank is going to embarrass him on YouTube, but there’s no way that this is an actual thing that’s actually happening.

“You’re slow, and one of the dumbest people I’ve ever come across in my entire life, but you’re also hot, so I’m not going to deny that,” Frank shrugs.

“Please tell me you’re not being serious,” Gerard hisses at him, looking around to make sure they’re alone.

“Why? Does that make you uncomfortable?” Frank smirks.

“N-no?” Gerard says. “What are you proposing?”

“I’m just saying that we don’t have to talk about it at work. We don’t have to talk about it at all, if you don’t want to, but we don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen either. And as long as no one knows, as long as we don’t talk about it, why does it have to be a onetime thing?”

Frank is getting uncomfortably close, and Gerard’s just trying to keep his thoughts sorted so that he doesn’t end up screaming or babbling. He’s having trouble getting any connection to his brain, so he’s basically on his own with a tongue that doesn’t know how to form sentences.

“Whaaa-” is all that Gerard can manage, and Frank snickers at him, with a diabolical glint in his eye. Usually people who you hate and want to see with an axe embedded in their skull, aren’t the kind of people who you also want to take their pants off. Frank is both of those things to Gerard though.

“How articulate. What do you think though?”

“I don’t want to talk about this here,” Gerard manages to enunciate.

“Where do you want to talk about it?”

“Uh...”

“Your apartment?” Frank suggests.

Gerard wants so much to just tell Frank to fuck off. He wants to tell him that he’s being a dick, and that the very thought of him makes Gerard want to puke. He wants to say that so much, but he knows it wouldn’t be true, and from the look Frank is giving him, he knows it’s untrue as well.

“Su-sure,” Gerard says, because that’s all he can really say. Frank sneers again, and raises an eyebrow.

There’s really nothing he can do to stop Frank getting into his car, and he just doesn’t have the strength to tell him to go away anyway. It’s an animalistic feeling for him, because Frank is just a piece of meat at this point, but he just wants this. He wants it a lot.

So Gerard gets in the car, because he can’t think of any reason why not to. Frank’s right though. As long as they don’t talk about it, why should they stop?