Stuck in the Middle

“Have you ever seen a real, honest to god, actual dead body before, Frank?” Brendon asks, looking over at Frank. In all honesty, he does look really uneasy like he’s going to puke any second. Really though, that’s not a very surprising reaction to seeing someone dead in the middle of a restaurant.

“Uh, no,” Frank says. Gerard snickers at him and Frank sends him a death glare.

“What are you laughing at?” Frank spits at him.

“The little boy afraid of a little corpse,” Gerard replies.

“You can’t tell me that you’re not honestly a little freaked out by the woman lying dead right there,” Frank says.

“Not really,” Gerard shakes his head.

“You Brendon?” Frank asks.

“Me? No, I’ve seen a plethora of corpses. Not a big deal,” Brendon shrugs. He gets down to his knees to look a little closer at the dead lady.

“Well yeah, but that’s because you spend so much time in the morgue,” Gerard teases, “You’ve got a crush on the coroner.”

“I do not have a crush on the coroner,” Brendon replies, looking up at Gerard angrily.

“You so do have a crush on the coroner,” Gerard replies, stepping nearer to Brendon to look at him. Admittedly, over a dead body is a really strange place to be mocking your friend about who they like.

“So who’s the coroner?” Frank asks.

“Don’t even dare, Gerard,” Brendon warns him.

“You think I’d let Frank in on the intimate details of the girl you’re in love with?” Gerard asks, “Because I so will.”

“I thought you two hated each other!” Brendon groans, pulling himself back up to full height.

“We do, but it’s fun to see you so defensive,” Gerard smirks. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Frank that you’re in love with Sarah. Oh, whoops.”

“I fucking hate you,” Brendon sighs.

“Are we not going to talk about the dead lady right there?” Frank asks exasperatedly.

“What? Oh yeah right. Well, I’d say she’s like, what mid-twenties? Looks like she took a 9mm to the skull. Probably dead on impact. I’m no Sarah the coroner though,” Gerard says.

“Fuck off,” Brendon shakes his head, “We don’t have an ID, because the robbers took everyone’s wallets. I can tell you that she’s got implants though, so we can check medical history.”

“Why were you checking out a dead woman’s boobs? Brendon you’re a pervert,” Gerard shakes his head, “and besides, what do you want to check for? Twenty something with breast implants. That’s like a bazillion people in New York alone, and you don’t know where she’s from. Maybe she just flew in from Cleveland.”

“Why Cleveland?”

“First city that popped into my head. She could be from anywhere though. Boobs ain’t gonna get us anywhere. Besides, you need a warrant and a name for medical records. No, we’re just going to have to do this the old fashion way,” Gerard says.

“And what’s the old fashioned way?” Frank asks.

“We’ll see if face recognition picks up anything. Check her prints. From there we’ll just try to figure out who she was meeting,” Gerard says.

“What makes you say she was meeting someone?” Brendon asks, “Witnesses say that there was no one else at the table with her.”

“Well look at the way she’s dressed. Fancy dress, shoes that match her bag, report said she had a pearl necklace that was taken off her by the robbers,” Gerard says, “makes sense. I’d say she was on a date, and her date hadn’t gotten there yet.”

“Hey guys,” A voice says from behind them, and Patrick walks up behind him, “ew, gory.”

“See Patrick doesn’t like the dead body!” Frank says.

“Who likes dead bodies?” Patrick asks, “Well anyway, what happened? I just got the call a few minutes ago.”

“Sorry to wake you,” Gerard says, looking down at his watch to see that it’s pushing eleven at night. “Looks like we’ve got a serial killer. Or a serial robber ring, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah,” Patrick nods, “I read about that. Two restaurants, and now three?”

“Yep,” Gerard nods, “one dead at each, no correlation between the two as of yet, but we have a third variable now, so maybe she’ll bring something up. The deaths look random to me though. I’m treating these as robberies foremost, and murders second.”

“So was it the same MO?” Patrick asks, “Four guys in ski masks? Go for cell phones first, then jewelry and wallets, then the cash register?”

“Yep, same deal. We’ve got a little more on the robbers this time. Several witnesses swear that there was a girl in the ranks. No more on accents though. They all said the same thing, American accent, no specific affiliation, once again.”

“So that’s it?” Frank asks. “Three robberies, one fatality at each, seemingly random victim, all restaurants?”

“Yep, so far,” Brendon nods, “no connection to the restaurants yet either, other than they’re all pricey. Mind you, if I was going to rob a joint, I’d have picked fancy restaurants too.”

“Well that’s good to know if you ever go rogue,” Gerard says.

“Have the other two been identified yet?” Patrick asks, “There were no names released in the news reports.”

“Vic one is still a John Doe,” Gerard shakes his head, “but we got a name on the second one. Real estate agent from Maryland who had a few citations for reckless driving, so his prints were in the system.”

“Dandy. A John Doe, a Jane Doe, and a Real estate agent,” Patrick says dejectedly. He’s the one who has to look for the correlation though, that’s what he does best. He’s the guy who looks at security footage, and sorts through thousands of faces to find a match if the computer can’t do it.

“Well if it helps, she got a boob job,” Gerard says, and Brendon scoffs at him.

“It doesn’t,” Patrick says.

“I told you so, Brendon.”

“What are you? Like six?” Brendon asks, and then he turns and makes his way over to talk to one of the officers on the scene.

“Grumpy,” Gerard states.

“You would know,” Frank murmurs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Frank says, turning as well to go talk to someone else who isn’t Gerard.

“So not much has changed there,” Patrick says.

Gerard snorts and nods. Patrick’s fairly right about that one. Now granted, they are a little closer now in a physical sense. Gerard likes to think that it hasn’t affected anything about their hateful relationship though. Except that when Frank bends down to tie his shoe, Gerard spends a little more time ogling his ass than he used to, but it’s not a huge difference.

“So… is there something suspicious about Frank’s ass?” Patrick questions, looking completely amused at Gerard’s drooling. Gerard makes sure to send him the coldest glare he has, that he’s pretty sure Patrick feels when it stings on his face. Patrick seems to get the hint and leaves to go do something other than annoy the crap out of Gerard.

Gerard shakes his head and ends up walking outside of the building, desperately in need of fresh air that isn’t contaminated by Frank’s stupidly nice face. Frank looks at him on his way out and winks at him, causing Gerard to stumble and flush angrily in embarrassment. Brendon sees this take place with an evil smile on his face and follows Gerard out.

Gerard fumbles a little before managing to take a breath of air, because his head is so focused on Frank. He inhales so much that he nearly gives himself a head spin. He’s slowly trying to calm his own heart rate when Brendon shows up out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of him.

“You slept with Frank again, didn’t you?” He says, causing Gerard to choke.

“What… th-e fuck?” Gerard coughs out, thumping on his chest to relieve some of the pressure. Brendon, at the face of his clearly dying best friend, looks disturbingly unconcerned. Someone propped open the door to the restaurant to allow easier access to the onset of feds and other people who are making their way in. Voices don’t carry very far through the doorway though.

“You. slept. with. Frank. again,” Brendon says slowly, like Gerard’s a child.

“I heard you the first fucking time,” Gerard snaps, avoiding the question Brendon already knows the answer to. Brendon grins, and oh fuck, he then starts to laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, Brendon,” He says when Brendon doesn’t look like he’s going to stop.

“My guess is that it just happened too,” Brendon says, “you reek of sex.”

“I-” Gerard starts and then sighs exasperatedly, “could you not?”

“You like Frank,” Brendon points, still riddled with laughter. Gerard’s eyes widen when he hears how loud Brendon is basically shouting.

“Will you shut up! I hate Frank more than I hate people who don’t close the door after they open it! That’s how much I hate him,” Gerard says defensively, wishing Brendon would just close his stupid mouth.

“No, I think you like Frank. I think you like him and that’s why you hate him,” Brendon states. Gerard just stares at him, then he blinks.

“What?”

But before either of them can answer, they’re interrupted by Frank’s high pitched pot laugh. He’s hanging out with a guy that has way too much hair, who looks familiar. He’s a cop, which means Gerard’s probably talked with him a few times, but he doesn’t remember his name. What was his name? Regan? Randy? Roy?

“Hey guys, this is Ray,” Frank introduces, “That’s Brendon, and the one with the soul sucking eyes is Gerard. He’s the one responsible for the case.”

Brendon shakes hands with him, but he doesn’t look overly ecstatic to meet him, and neither does Gerard. Gerard is too busy glaring at Frank to realize that Ray is glaring at him.

“So, you’re the one responsible for kicking me and my team off of my case,” Ray says, accusation in his tone. Gerard looks at him unimpressed. Seriously? Like this guy could ever intimidate anybody. Does he know who Gerard is?

“Yup,” He says, popping the ‘p’, even though, technically, it’s not true. He doesn’t really have a choice about it, the third murder reclassifies the case as a serial killer, which means that the FBI now has jurisdiction over it. Maybe it’s the fact that he made Frank laugh his stupidly high laugh that Gerard’s only heard a few times. Whoever makes his enemy laugh is immediately his enemy.

Gerard is fairly sure he’s seen the guy around before, because they are both law enforcement, even though there happens to be a rivalry between the FBI and the NYPD. Mostly because the FBI has a habit of pulling the rug out from under their inferiors.

Frank looks confused when neither Brendon nor Gerard look overly happy to see Ray. Brendon is usually more level headed than Gerard, but the rivalry between the two classes runs deep. Frank hasn’t gotten used to it yet, because he’s new.

“Maybe you would consider a partnership on this one, as I have been working this case for the last two weeks and-”

“No,” Gerard says interrupting Ray, “Sorry, I don’t work with cops unless it’s the end of the world.”

“What?” Frank asks, looking even more surprised by Gerard’s rude behavior than usual. Really though, Gerard just met the guy and he already hates Ray.

“Frank you’re new,” Brendon says.

“That explains it,” Ray says.

“What?” Frank asks.

“Feds and cops don’t get along very well,” Brendon explains.

“I’m a detective! And anyway it’s probably because you guys all think you’re better than us, and are always stealing our cases that some of us have been working on for weeks and know a ton more about,” Ray says.

“That’s stupid,” Frank states.

Gerard rolls his eyes, “yeah, whatever. I want the NYPD away from my crime scene now. I am ever so sorry that you failed to apprehend the robbers before they became serial, but maybe you can take this as a lesson and work harder next time.”

Gerard’s rather slimy towards uniforms, detectives, and the like, because they are just so infuriating. They’re all babies, complaining about having their cases taken away.

“Whatever,” Ray says, and he walks away, barely even looking back at Frank as he collects the rest of his team. Gerard can’t help but feel a little like a high school bully when he takes a case away, but it’s still a rush of energy that’s oddly fulfilling.

“Shit,” Brendon says, looking somewhere behind them. Gerard turns around just in time to see a news vehicle pulling up into the parking lot.

“No no,” Gerard shakes his head, “I do not want reporters at my crime scene either!”

Brendon nods in agreement, and makes his way back into the restaurant. Frank stays behind to watch Gerard.

“Frank, I will warn you of this one time and one time only, if you talk about an ongoing case with any reporters I will have you suspended with no pay for three weeks,” Gerard says, “those are not even my rules. Got that?”

“Yeah whatever,” Frank says, as Gerard begins to usher people away.