Forget About It

Gerard is laying down in his room trying not to think about how nice it would feel to strangle Frank until he turns purple. Just minutes ago, Frank was singing loudly, and very off-key to one of the songs that plays non-stop on the radio for teenagers. He’s doing so while Gerard is trying to take a nap. Needless to say, Gerard is not happy.

Suddenly there is a crash in the kitchen and Gerard clenches his teeth at Franks stupidly annoying giggle and obnoxious, “Oops!” His head is pounding and Frank’s annoying shenanigans aren’t helping at all.

“Frank!” And, no that can’t be Brendon’s voice sounding amused, for fucks sake, “Are you serious? This is coming out of your paycheck, I hope you know.”

Brendon chuckles, and Gerard can just see his smile. Maybe it makes Gerard a bad person for not being happy that his best friend is enjoying himself after a stressful couple of weeks, but he can’t help it! He hates Frank, so he feels, irrationally, that Brendon should too.

After that thought, Gerard grumbles to himself and rolls over to try and get some sleep. Until the radio comes on unnecessarily loud again, even for Frank, playing the same song he was just singing, and Brendon’s laughter is the last straw.

Gerard rips the blanket away from him and storms towards the direction of the kitchen, and is horrified to find Hayley there as well, a smile on her face as she watches Frank make a fool of himself, swinging his hips obnoxiously.

“I can’t fucking believe it-”

“Gerard! I’m glad you’re awake. There’s something I wanted to tell you. All of you actually,” Hayley interrupts him as Frank turns off the music. “I just saw our suspects leave the house in their car, most likely off to go make a deal. If someone can follow them, we might be able to get the evidence we need for a search warrant.”

“I’ll go,” both Gerard and Frank say at the same time. Gerard turns and glares at the shorter man, only to be met with a patronizing smirk.

“Yeah, like shorty over here is qualified enough for reconnaissance,” Gerard scoffs, knowing it’ll get the smirk off Frank’s face, and it succeeds. Frank sneers at him instead, and somehow, Gerard is glad. Then Frank gets a gleeful look on his face, and Gerard frowns suspiciously.

“He’s right. I think Gerard should come with me and help me on the skills that I am obviously lacking,” Frank says seemingly seriously, but Gerard can detect the sarcasm and pure fucking evil in his voice.

“Oh, hell n-”

“That’s actually a good idea. Gerard, you and Frank will follow those men and see where they went. Once you know, page me on my cell, and scope out the area if you can,” Hayley commands, leaving no room for argument. You’d think she was the one in charge half the time, by the way she acts.

Gerard and Frank find themselves in the car a few moments later, Frank looking so proud of himself, and Gerard feeling like he drew the short straw.

“I fucking hate you,” Gerard mutters.

“Yep yep yep. Now follow that car!” Frank says.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he answers, but he pulls the car off in the direction that Hayley had specified. He takes a detour to catch up, and they pull up behind the right car only a few seconds later.

They follow the car, a little ways behind so as not to attract suspicion, for almost ten minutes. The car pulls up to a building and Gerard gets a parking space a safe place away to watch them enter the building. He then looks at the sign above the door they entered and his heart stutters a bit.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Frank says unbuckling. He looks at Gerard who’s still sitting there looking way more afraid then Frank would have thought possible.

“But it’s a... a strip club. With, like, girls.”

“As opposed to what? A strip club with chicken strips?”

“I- I, um, I don’t-” Gerard mumbles, feeling his heart rate quicken.

“Oh don’t tell me,” Frank starts looking absolutely delighted, “you’re afraid of naked women aren’t you? You’re afraid of naked ladies!”

Gerard blushes wanting nothing more than to punch Frank in the jaw, but he’s not exactly wrong. Gerard wouldn’t necessarily say afraid. Maybe faintly horrified, but not scared. It’s just that he doesn’t want to be near anyone without clothes on who has female genitalia. Yeah, okay he’s afraid of naked women.

“I just... I don’t like the way they objectify women,” Gerard says. It’s not exactly untrue, but there are definitely other reasons why he does not want to go into that strip club.

“You’re afraid of boobs,” Frank concludes and the look on his face is like Christmas has come early.

“I am not!” Gerard says, looking at the steering wheel in front of him enviously. He wants to just drive away from here and pretend they never followed the two men.

“Then how about you get out of the car and you come with me,” Frank says, and he hops out of the car. He keeps the door open and stares at Gerard expectantly and pompously. He thinks he’s so much better than Gerard, just because he’s not afraid of going in there. Gerard can’t help it, the very thought of stepping inside of a strip club makes his heart turn to lead, and weighs him down into place.

“I don’t... why do we have to go in? I mean what’s the point? It’s not like they’re cooking drugs in the strip club, is it?”

“Well maybe they’re making a deal. Buying supplies? We could catch them red handed,” Frank says.

“You don’t even believe that. You just...”

“What? I just what? In case you haven’t forgotten I’m as straight as a basketball. I’m just not so emotionally immature that I get freaked out by women,” Frank says.

Gerard sets his jaw stubbornly, and very slowly pulls himself out of the car. He’s shaking like mad, but he does his best to pretend that he’s not so nervous. Frank doesn’t need any more ammunition.

“You okay, Gerard? Do you need a paper bag or something?” Frank asks condescendingly.

“Fuck you,” he responds and walks around the side of the car. Despite his quick pace over to the door of the building, Gerard has absolutely no confidence at the moment. He’s actually not opposed to being given a paper bag, but he is not going to let Frank win.

“Do you need me to go in first?” Frank says in the most sarcastically sugared down voice Gerard has ever heard.

“No, you should. I’m a gentleman, and its ladies first after all,” Gerard replies. Frank wrinkles his nose at him, but Gerard feels a little better about himself, because when he’s standing up, Gerard is at least three inches taller than Frank. It’s so hard not to make fun of Frank’s height every other minute. Plus Frank is going to use this all as fuel to make fun of Gerard, so he has no condolences for making fun of his stature.

“You’re a dick,” Frank says, but he grabs the door and enters the building. Gerard takes a big long breath, trying to get enough oxygen in his lungs for the next however many minutes they’re going to be in there. At least there’s a bar next door. He’s going to try to take advantage of that in the near future. Gerard really doesn’t want to be soberly near a strip club, but it’s too late so he just walks in.

The room is dimly lit, and already, Gerard feels like hiding under a desk in the fetal position. There’s a stage thing with poles, and he doesn’t focus too hard on what’s going on up there. He just looks around for the two men, but he doesn’t see them.

This was a horrible idea, he shouldn’t have come in here. There’s a bar which looks very tempting at the moment, but Frank is staring at him surreptitiously. There’s a bunch of seats in front of the stage, which Gerard doesn’t even want to think about.

The thought of the men that sit up there and actually pay to watch these girls, makes him want to disown his whole gender. He has nothing against strippers in general, he understands that it’s a job that pays, it’s the fact that men actually walk into these places. Men actually come here, and that disgusts him more than the boobs on that girl over there.

There’s already about six men in here, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon, and Gerard gags at the putridness of all of them.

“I feel ill,” Gerard mumbles, and Frank smirks at him. Gerard doesn’t care anymore, he wants alcohol, like, now.

He walks over to the bar quickly before Frank pulls him away by the sleeve, “we’re on the clock.”

“We don’t have an actual clock. I’m not on duty or anything. I’m not a regular cop,” Gerard says, but he’s pulled away from the alcohol. Frank pulls him over to a scantily clad lady who seems to be a waitress of some sort. Gerard not-so-subtly puts his hand on the side of his face blinding him from whatever is happening on the stage.

“Watch out, if you don’t concentrate enough on pretending they don’t exist, they might not be able to realize you’re afraid of them,” Frank says sarcastically.

Gerard hits him, but follows him to stand in front of the lady who looks at them with a fake smile. Neither of them really blame her, she’s probably used to having men come up to her and treat her like shit, while she just has to sit and take it.

“Hello gentleman,” she says, and her voice is quite nice and soothing. She’s got a bit too much makeup, but it doesn’t look too bad. She’s actually really pretty, but for obvious reasons, neither Gerard nor Frank is interested.

Gerard’s still got a hand on his face and realizes that he’s probably supposed to take the lead since Frank is still new to this.

“Hey, um,” Gerard stutters, and fumbles for the badge in his pocket. He pulls it out along with a shoddy photograph they took of the two men from the window. He almost drops the badge and Frank rolls his eyes at Gerard. The men they’re following aren’t in the room currently, but they can’t let it be known that there are feds in the building to many people.

“I’m special agent Way, and this is my, uh, associate, we were wondering if you’re familiar with these two men? They came in here a few minutes ago. Are they regulars here?”

The woman frowns, losing the plastic expression, and takes the photo from him to look at it more closely.

“Yeah I’ve seen them in here a few times. Why?”

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose any details at the moment,” that’s not exactly true, this is barely an official assignment, but she doesn’t need to know that, “can you tell me anything about them?”

She shrugs, and Gerard stows the badge away cautiously, “Don’t really know much about ‘em. They come here sometimes, and they get a private room in the back.”

“Do they ever meet people here? Do you ever ring up a tab for them?” Gerard asks.

“Sure. I can get the information for you, if you’d like,” she says helpfully, and Gerard nods gladly. She walks over to the bar and circles around to the other side of it. It’s an excuse for Gerard to look anywhere but at the dancers.

She looks at her computer for a few minutes before pressing a few buttons, and a printer behind her starts breathing out, and spits a piece of paper into the tray.

“Here you are,” she says, handing it to them. “Strictly speaking I’m not supposed to do that, but if you two are feds...”

“Yes, thank you, we appreciate it,” Gerard says, and he turns, then remembers why he’d been explicitly avoiding that direction. He does a double take and looks back at the woman who’s now smiling at him like she can smell the gay on him.

“Don’t like the entertainment?” she asks with amusement.

“Not particularly, no,” he says, so he looks down at his paper. Frank has his back to the bar and is actually watching, with a bored expression, but it still confuses Gerard.

The paper doesn’t tell him much, it just says how often they’ve been here in the past few months. The name on it is either fake or they have multiple aliases, because the house that they’re watching is leased under the name “Rogers” where the tab is under the name “Smith.” Both sound like obvious pseudonyms though, so it’s doubtful that either is legitimate.

“So they’re in a private room?” Gerard asks, because Frank isn’t doing anything to help him out.

“Yes,” she says.

“Are they meeting with someone, do you know?”

“It’s possible. If so, I didn’t see them,” she says, “My shift is done in a few minutes, is that all you needed?”

“I, um, I guess so,” Gerard says, and she nods, then goes back to doing whatever she was doing.

“Right, we got what we needed, can we leave now?” Gerard asks.

“I don’t know, I think we can still find out some more information on them,” Frank says.

“You don’t really think that, you just want to make me uncomfortable,” Gerard states.

Frank looks offended but the face is clearly fake and he says, “Why I’m insulted that you’d think I would ever do such a thing.”

“Yeah, whatever we can go.”

“Not just yet,” Frank says, and like that he’s gone to the woman again and he’s asking if it’s possible to go into the back.

Yeah, Gerard is definitely going to kill him later.