Stuck in the Middle

It's around six o'clock the next evening when Gerard finally wakes up, and the first thing he notices is how strongly his sheets smell of Frank. It's a little startling, like, maybe he's not even sleeping in his own bed. He blinks a little and looks around, but yeah, this is his place. That kinda sucks, he thinks slowly. I thought home was supposed to be where I could escape from him.

Then he realizes a dull ache in his head and stomach and he squints, trying to remember the previous day. Or, rather, whenever he was last awake. Gerard can't remember much, except for vomiting at some point, and getting yelled at by Frank by the elevator. Eventually he realizes that he must've had a breakdown. That's not good. He tries to remember how long it took him to realize that he needed to be at home and away from the world. Nothing really registers though, so he ends up just covering his face with his hands.

He's still in all his clothes, even his shoes. That's really not good. Gerard just sighs again and pushes the covers aside, kicking off his shoes, pants, and shirt so that he's just in his boxers, and curls onto his side back under the covers. He falls asleep again almost instantly.

At nine o’clock PM is when Gerard wakes up to the phone ringing.

“H’llo…?” the dark-haired man mumbles, still curled under the covers and not entirely awake. The aching is a lot less apparent now, he realizes groggily. Maybe he's getting better.

“Gerard.”

“Mmmmh, Mikey,” Gerard says stuffily, uncurling and stretching himself out under the covers. Slowly, the gears in Gerard’s brain start turning again, and his eyes flick to the time.

“I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

By the time Gerard figures out that he should answer back to Mikey, he’s already concluded that he should probably go back into the office.

“Sorry, Mikes, was sleepin’,” He exhales dramatically through his nose. “What’s up?”

“…Just checking in. You doing okay?” Gerard sighs and lies to Mikey, who still seems skeptical, but lets it go. They talk lightly for a while, and Gerard sits up after a little bit. Mikey is really comforting to Gerard, whose mind still isn’t perfectly intact.

“Hey Mikes, I should probably be heading out,” Gerard says.

“What? It’s after nine at night!”

“Crime never sleeps, and I’m going to have a backload,” he groans, “I’ve been asleep for way too long.”

“That an excuse to get rid of me?” Mikey asks.

“Hey, I love you a lot, dearest brother, but I do actually have a job that I have literally been away from for like way too long. I don’t want to think about how long it’s been. Man, Frank’s gonna chew me out.”

“You’re his boss though?” Mikey says.

“You don’t know Frank the way I do. He’s a bastard.”

“Who you’re attracted to.”

“I’m also attracted to Denzel Washington but I don’t root for him in Training Day.”

“Okay, you’ve really got to stop comparing your life to movies.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, Gerard, in case you didn’t know, movies are not real life. That’s why you never see spaceships flying around the world and why the human population has not been wiped out by some mysterious virus,” Mikey says.

“Yes, ugh. Okay, I’m going to go, alright? You can stop worrying about me or whatever.”

“I never stop worrying, Gerard. You’re job literally entails being around people who want to kill you, why on earth should I be okay with that?” Mikey questions.

“Whatever,” Gerard says, “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Fine, I guess. Just take it easy for now, okay? We don’t need a repeat of what happened last time.”

Gerard’s eyes bug out a little, not needing reminding. He supposes that he must sound worse than he’d thought because he thought that he was fooling Mikey into believing he was okay. Mikey’s not that easy to fool though, especially when he’s got a built in lie detector like that.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Gerard says before he hurriedly ends the call, and closes his eyes to try to reassemble his scattered thoughts. He’s painfully afraid that his whole life is going to come crashing down around him at any minute, and he’s got this unbelievable dread that stretches from his toes to his ears that Frank’s going to make his life worse. He’s horrified that Frank’s going to dig up some things from Gerard’s past that he’d ideally have buried in the deepest catacombs of the earth for all eternity.

He looks around at his room, dark because he never turns the lights on. Gerard sighs, and then looks around at the floor where he threw off his clothes earlier. He doesn’t want to go into work. He wants to stay home and watch old movies for a little while, but he can’t, and he knows that which is something he can’t stand. Sometimes he wants a monopoly get out of jail free card except it’s applicable to his entire life. He just wants to take a break from his life for a couple of days to let out some of his stress.

Except the thing about this job is that it’s almost more stressful to be away from it than it is to be in the office, which is something he still doesn’t get. Maybe it’s because Gerard knows about all the gruesomeness of all the horrifying people out there. It’s almost like he sees a new serial killer or potential psychopath whenever he closes his eyelids, and that’s something that he’s tried to keep away from getting to him, but it hasn’t helped. He still sees those horrifying things and he can’t stop it. He just wants to make everything he’s seen go away, because the number of things he’s seen is enough to make the most terrifying horror film ever seen, and it’s his life. Gerard’s life is a series of one murderer after the next. The worst people in the world, the scummiest of all the humans, that’s what Gerard’s life revolves around. It’s not hard to imagine that getting to you, especially after letting it all accumulate for a few years.

Instead of doing what he’d like, face planting back into the sheets around him, Gerard makes his way through what would typically be his morning routine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so late.

He groggily picks out a shirt and pants and the works. He decides that he doesn’t need a shower because he hasn’t got the time nor will, so he’s out the door a little less than fifteen minutes later after downing a cup of instant coffee and inhaling a few slices of bread. He knows he’s going to need a proper meal really soon, especially since he hasn’t eaten in a while, but he’s also annoyed with the fact that everything’s got to be closed soon.

Gerard’s fairly surprised that he doesn’t’ have any missed calls, because he thinks that surely, someone would have called him when he didn’t show up this morning. He thinks that there should be an entire screen full of missed call notifications, but instead there’s nothing. In a way that makes him even more depressed and displeased with having to go into work, because it makes him worry that the team don’t need him.

He can’t stand the idea that his own team doesn’t need him. He likes to think that he’s the glue, he makes everything run smoothly, but they don’t even need him enough to give him a call. He feels pointless, and this makes his slow slump to his car even more dreadful.

Every nerve inside of him is screaming to stay away or to get out while he still can, but his conscious is on the other end, trying to remind him of all the people who are depending on him. Dead people are depending on him, their families, the families of murderers, potential next targets, people who haven’t died yet but will soon, they’re all depending on him. And as cheesy as it sounds, he can’t let them down.

Gerard finds his car, climbs into it, and he makes his way to the office without thought. He’s gotten so used to this drive by now that it has become a second nature. He doesn’t even need to think, his body already knows what to do.

It’s because of this that makes him almost surprised when he pulls into his parking garage and finds himself in his usual parking spot. He looks around him, trying to remember how he got there. It feels like some sort of jump cut in his life, but that can’t be it, because his life hasn’t been edited. He just shrugs it off, crediting it to how supremely sick he feels, and he gets out of the car.

Gerard spots Brendon’s car a little while down in the same row. That must mean that he’s in. He wonders if Frank is too. He hopes not. He would hate to have to face Frank after this. He’s only been awake for a little while, he’s not prepared to deal with Frank, or anyone’s intrusive questions really.

Gerard steps through the parking garage, wishing it were smaller or that the door was closer to where he parks. It’s almost deserted, which doesn’t surprise him as it’s late. There’s still a bunch of people here, especially when you compare it to a regular office building, but relative to how this garage usually looks, it’s pretty vacant.

Gerard can hear his footsteps echoing off the walls and it helps ground him to reality. If not for the relief of the warm air that the inside brings, Gerard would almost rather be outside than in the building. Yet, it’s cold out and the warmth provides a little comfort, filling the place of what his echoing footsteps had provided.

Gerard stays still for a moment in the lobby of the building, listening to the sound of his slightly labored breathing. He shivers from the temperature change twice, and then glances around the marble room and thanks his lucky star for the vacancy. The last thing he needs is some crabby secretary judging him and his disheveled appearance. Good thing it's so late.

A few moments later, Gerard's feet are carrying him off the elevator and he wishes he didn't have another black-out moment so that he would have had a little more time to wallow alone. But, there's a ding, and he has no choice but to exit. So, he does, and he drags himself sulkily through the dimly lit office. Not many people are in, he realizes. Maybe nobody called him because everyone left. But that doesn't explain Brendon's car in its designated spot…

"Gerard?" He blinks and turns to see Brendon approaching him from the office's kitchen area. "Hey, you're back. Good. How're you feeling?"

Instead of answering, Gerard eyes the steaming mug in Brendon's hand. "When did you get in?"

Brendon gives Gerard a slightly suspicious look, but says. "'Bout three hours ago. I'm the only one in right now, Patrick just left about an hour ago. He did not look good. Don't even wanna know how long he's been up. But what about you--?"

Just then, the elevator dings behind Gerard and they both turn to look. Out steps Hayley, a little blue bundle of energy. She brushes off her pants, which, they couldn't help but notice are flannels, and bounces briskly past them.

"Hey, boys! Miss me?"

Brendon is the first to light up; Gerard is still too busy blinking and trying to process his surroundings through his muffled brain. Brendon gets this big grin and he jogs after Hayley, who is now dumping a briefcase and a large stack of papers on her desk, which was vacant for far too long.

“You are a ray of sunshine,” Brendon says, walking over to her until he stops right next to her cubicle.

“How’d it go?” Gerard asks, walking over, still finding himself somewhat hypnotized by Brendon’s coffee.

“Well, I put a couple guys in prison, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hayley replies, and she starts to reorganize her desk.

“Considering you’re a fed, that would be a good thing,” Brendon says with a nod.

“I think so. Patrick faxed me the files for the case you’re working on, and I caught up on my plane,” Hayley says, bringing out a thick folder about the same size as War and Peace, or at least it feels that way. “First of all, I didn’t know that fax machines still existed, but secondly, this one looks like a doozy.”

“Yeah, we’ve all been working pretty hard, following every lead we’ve got, and we haven’t got much to go on still.”

“Well, I’m here now so it’ll go a lot smoother, I’d imagine,” Hayley shrugs, and Gerard grins at her, rolling his eyes. “Everyone’s left then? You two heading out soon?”

“Nah, I just got here,” Gerard says, “and Brendon’s only been in for a couple of hours, but everyone else is gone. You’ve probably got jet lag, you can go home, take a little time off until you’re rested.”

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head, “I’m here now, and there’s nothing I love more than a serial killer. That came out wrong, but you know what I mean.”

Gerard just shrugs, shakes his head and says, “If you insist, I’m going to get some coffee.”