big science [1/4]

Big Science
Bands: MCR, FOB.
Pairings: Bob/Mikey, Frank/Gerard
Word Count: 33500
Rating/Warnings: pg-13 (language)
Author Notes: Huge, amazing thanks to ofkitchensinks for putting up with a bajillion emails over the past three months or so. This probably wouldn't have done anything without her.
Summary: Mikey's a crime scientist, solving crimes and sneaking down to the morgue for coffee breaks. His brother's living in his spare room, his partner thinks Mikey's trying to get the promotion he deserves, and Mikey's just looking for answers.


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Bonus Features:
fanart by lisaroquin
your voice cracks like a piano by sinuous_curve



Frank figures, after everything, when he’s got a hospital gown that reaches down past his knees and someone he doesn’t know picking the traces of mud out from underneath his fingernails, it probably looked fucking sweet. Like something out of a monster movie, the wind whipping the tree branches around, rain coming like thunder before dying away to nothing, leaves scattered on the ground and then, suddenly, a muddy hand out of nowhere.

It was his hand, though, his fingers curled into a claw and ink crawling down his wrist, the dirt and the silence and the cold making it fucking scary. The entire thing making him breathe unevenly, kind of fast because hello, he was underneath the ground, in the mud and the rain soaking the leaves piled on top of his grave.

It was cold and wet and the weeds in the grass tear the shit out of his shins when he stumbles through, right through his pants, soaked through from the rain.

He swallowed a surprising amount of dust for the amount of rain pouring down, from being buried underneath dirt and shit like that.

The hospital turned down the offer to have him throw it up to log as evidence or whatever, and it sits in the bottom of his stomach kind of hard and uncomfortable. It’s enough to make him wish he was maybe four again, when eating sand and mud pies and grass and bees and shit didn’t bother him at all.

“You sure you don’t want it?” He asks the top of the cop’s head, the one that’s pretty intent on scooping as much of the clay shit out and into a tiny envelope. Frank’s talking about the stuff in his stomach, because when the cop goes he’s going to throw it up anyway and try poking some of the green jello down his throat, like a trade-in.

“I’m sure,” the cop says, hiding a smile as he looks up a little, enough to see Frank watching him intently. “Don’t need to put yourself out or anything.”

“So you’re going to catch the asshole who did this?” Frank asks, like it doesn’t bother him that someone tried to bury him alive, and all Frank can remember is that they also stole his shoes.

“Hope so,” he says, tapping the edge of the tweezers on the mouth of the envelope and sealing it shut with a piece of tape and his signature.

“Me too,” Frank says, pauses like he wants to add more, purses his lips when he realizes he can’t remember the guy’s name. He knows that there were introductions, remembers that at least, but details kind of fell out of the back of his head from underneath the bandage.

“It’s kind of my job,” the guy says, setting the tweezers aside on Frank’s table, the one that they set his food tray on and can roll away when he’s done. Frank figures he could probably get it up to a good speed down one of the hallways, kind of lying on top like a bird or some shit like that.

He blinks and looks away, to the cop’s earnest looking face as he signs off on the contents of the envelope.

“Are you okay?” The cop asks, hesitating as he peels the tape and sticks it over the flap.

“Yeah.” Frank frowns, rubs at his forehead with one hand. The tips of his fingers feel raw against his skin, and he examines them while the cop watches him. “I think. I think the guy, I remember digging.”

“Digging,” the guy repeats, tilting his head in a way that looks unconscious but earnest.

“He made me dig,” Frank says slowly, because he’s just figuring it out for himself like right now. “Shit like that doesn’t just happen in real life.”

“I’ll make sure to let my supervisor know,” the cop says, giving Frank a look that could almost be a smile, if it wasn’t already a combination of awkward and uncomfortable.

“Thanks and stuff,” Frank says around a yawn, so of course that’s when the nurse steps in, with a well-placed scowl that apparently the cop recognizes because he gets to his feet right away.

“We’ll have someone by tomorrow to get more of what you remember,” the cop says, setting all of his envelopes carefully into his bag and strapping in his tweezers.

Frank frowns, because he could do it now and save them the trip, but the cop shakes his head once before Frank can open his mouth to voice his protests.

“To make it easier on you,” he adds, when he finishes zipping up his bag. He nods once at the nurse and turns to go.

“It’s not traumatic,” Frank protests to his back, but the nurse sets his tray down anyway, with two cups of jello and one cup of pills. She nudges the rollaway table closer to the bed and he kind of thinks that he could think about the rest of it tomorrow.

He digs his spoon into the blue jello and doesn’t try to remember steady pressure on the back of his neck, but the jello still tastes sour in his mouth.



Rubbing his fingers against the side of the camera, Mikey’s not sure where he left the extra rolls of film or the memory cards. The filled ones are in the side pocket of his kit, zippered in safely and about five feet to his left.

This one isn’t getting close to full or anything, so it’s nothing to worry about yet. Taking pictures of the same patch of fallen leaves and mud doesn’t take up too much of attention, maybe like as much as he gives the grocery list, probably more but maybe equal.

He can check preliminary photography, overalls and close-ups of tiny details that won’t be recognizable from the amount of zoom, won’t even make it to court but he has to take them anyway.

The scene’s covered; for all that the radius extends ten feet in all directions from the shallow grave in the middle that’s the center of the attention. He’s got enough photos to prove it. He doesn’t really think about it, takes shots that focus mainly on measurements and scope of scale and makes him think about if the light portrays the depth accurately and doesn’t think about the depravity. It doesn’t keep him up at night.

Mikey squints into the viewfinder on his camera, expression blank as he focuses on the leaves reflected on the display screen on the back. Right beside the numbered marker, an obnoxious yellow that shows up even on the darkest of takes, there’s some blood on the leaves. Everything seems to go along with the bits and pieces of a story they’ve gotten from the victim, waiting around in his hospital bed.

He’s not surprised. Those kinds of realizations he’s used to, like the way there’s always someone else waiting around, hovering maybe fifteen feet behind him with a plastic bag and tweezers waiting to pick up the leaves after Mikey’s through with the photographs. It’s the way things always go; only the places and people change a little.

Raising a hand to brush at the hair sticking to his forehead, he rolls his shoulders back to a position that feels maybe a little less tense, a little less like he’s holding himself back and waiting for something to drop.

He’s been photographing the scene for nearly four hours, documenting each roll of film and change of camera on the crime scene diagrams. He’s avoided looking directly at the makeshift grave, but there’s nearly four rolls just of the way blood fell onto scattered leaves and he’s hoping he’s gotten enough of the grave without focusing directly on it.

It’s shallow, a foot deep, maybe two, without any indication of what it was like to be in it, buried under leaves and mud and shit. Mikey changes cameras again, zooming in on a disturbance in the mud beside another marker. It looks like maybe a footprint or whatever, half-familiar when he takes a step closer to take a better look.

Frowning, Mikey could name the print, maybe, and it’s like at least two sizes bigger than his own department-issued work boot. All this means is that when they get an idea, they can help narrow it down with freakishly-sized feet. And all right, so, that doesn’t always stand up in court, but Mikey’s pretty good at looking appropriately serious and intense when he needs to.

He uses the edge of the sleeve on his long-sleeved shirt to wipe the back display screen free of dust. Today it’s not cold enough to need a coat, and Mikey prefers to work without his department label on his back or his name on his chest, because he fades better into the background.

Nobody asks him stupid questions either, ones he doesn’t answer and pretends he doesn’t hear, but whatever. That’s why they work as a team, and Mikey doesn’t even care that he’s never going to get a promotion because he doesn’t volunteer for things and doesn’t have enough lead hours on cases.

Mikey turns the camera to the yellow number eighteen by the head of the grave, near the spit they’d swabbed from a leaf. He shivers despite the sun beating down onto the top of his head, not thinking about what the victim must have felt like, being trapped underneath eighteen to thirty inches of mud and leaves and pressure.

He adjusts the focus on the camera, raising it up to the sunlight cutting through the treetops and looks at the display screen to see absolutely nothing related to the case. It’s a tree trunk, its browning leaves still on branches and he’s trying to keep himself busy.

“What are you humming?” Pete says, coming up too quietly and Mikey jumps, fumbles with the camera as he’s caught with the threads of an original cast recording that doesn’t disappear as quickly as he wants.

“Nothing,” Mikey says, resettling the camera back into his hands and waiting for Pete to get bored and wander in the other direction, or for him to say why he came over. It’s never a long wait with Pete either way.

“Hey,” Pete says after a minute, maybe less, balancing his coffee cup in one hand and a plastic evidence bag in the other. “Find anything interesting over here?”

He makes a point of looking around, like he can tell the difference between the leaves on the ground in front of them and the ones fifteen inches to the right. Mikey can’t even, and he’s been looking at leaves since they divided up the assignments.

“No,” Mikey says immediately, without even thinking about it. It’s mostly mud and footprints half-covered in leaves, nothing that’s going to make the case, unless the question was whether someone was walking through this part of the park. The answer would be yes.

“Liar,” Pete gripes pleasantly, shoving the evidence bag into the pocket of his official department issued windbreaker, with his last name stitched over his heart. “I tried your cell, but you weren’t picking up.”

“Sorry, yeah,” Mikey says, and doesn’t offer an excuse. The best he’d come up with is he’s too into what he’s been working on here, but documenting a scene like this isn’t exactly riveting, not even if he had this weird, like, leaf fetish and went to leaf festivals on his weekends off.

Pete knows it, too, smirking as he looks at the sketch Mikey’s worked on, taped to his clipboard. The only marks other than the notes on the distance between the trees are numbered spots where he’d found drops of blood or clumps of mud.

“You left your phone at home again, didn’t you?” Pete asks, taking a sip from his coffee and holding a hand out for the clipboard.

Mikey hands it over, keeping the pencil he’d used to mark down his measurements on the sketch. He’s not an artist, but the scribbles marked as trees make the diagram clear enough. “No, I didn’t.”

“It’s in the truck, isn’t it?” Pete says next, and pokes Mikey hard in the arm with the edge of the clipboard. “You should probably stop doing that.”

“It’s in my pocket,” Mikey tells him, but doesn’t point out which pocket. After all, he has an official special investigation unit windbreaker too, with pockets full of Werther’s Originals and his county issued cell phone with a ring tone he can’t change.

Pete’s smirking, because he’s obviously gotten the idea that Mikey left it behind on purpose. He doesn’t say anything else about it, but he uses the edge of the clipboard to dig into Mikey’s arm, just hard enough to make a point. “Got to ask you a favour, though, man.”

“What?” Mikey asks, taking the clipboard back before it does serious damage. He squints upwards to the sun, wondering if the blurriness he sees is from the dirty lenses of his glasses or from exhaustion.

“I want this case,” Pete says, lowering his voice but his words are as blunt as always. “Like, I appreciate you for doing all this boring stuff, but I really, really want to be lead on interviews and shit.”

“Really,” Mikey says, and raises his camera to focus on the way the light comes down dappled on the ground. It’s almost artistic, except for the way it brings out the bright copper-brown of dried blood on the leaves.

“Shut up,” Pete says, and nods towards the Denali. “I won’t tell the boss that you left your cell phone behind again. I won’t even, fuck, I don’t know. What do you want? I won’t even do that.”

Mikey purses his lips but doesn’t answer, because he’s used to not getting what he wants by now. He’s also used to not letting it bother him, not anymore, because work is work and that’s about all he thinks about.

“Come on, there has to be something,” Pete says. “I’ll put your names on the reports, right? You can go home early, if I can swing it. I’ll do the overtime.”

“Not exactly an even trade,” Mikey tells him, because it’s not. Overtime hours have to be logged larger than eight hours before they get paid time and a half, and he’s only got five and a half hours on this week’s timesheet.

“I’ll let you drive back,” Pete offers, almost like he’s serious.

Mikey snorts. It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, not with Pete cringing and gasping dramatically whenever traffic lights turn yellow or when someone opens a car door from a parallel park. It’s worse with evidence in the back of the SUV, and he doesn’t even let Mikey choose the radio station. It’d be worse if Pete was into, like, country or shit like that, but it’s the principle.

“Come on, man,” Pete says, and the note of honest want in his voice is almost enough to make Mikey agree. Almost, but not quite, because Pete tries to do this practically every case they work together.

“You really want primary that bad?” Mikey asks, raising his eyebrows as he lowers his camera, giving Pete a sceptical look over the tops of his glasses. “It’s not the case, is it?”

“I fucking love zombies,” Pete says, but his heart isn’t really in it.

“Whatever,” Mikey says, and while it’s not agreement, it’s close enough judging by the way Pete woops and even offers to take Mikey’s kit back to the Denali for him.

Okay, so he doesn’t actually do it, because Pete has to go and get his own stuff first and Mikey’s done sliding the camera back into his case before Pete’s even getting started.



“Way,” his supervisor says, still sitting at his desk. He’s buried in paperwork. Mikey’s surprised that he can tear himself away long enough to refill his coffee mug, let alone catch Mikey on his furtive escape for the day. The file folders pile high enough to hide whatever it is that he’s currently working on, but his hair’s still recognizable enough above it, quivering with the same energy that keeps Ray Toro here and sane.

“Um, yes?” Mikey says, stopping just outside the doorway, one hand on the frame and the other turning the volume on his cell phone right down. It’s not like he’s unwilling to have this conversation, it’s just that his experience suggests that politics are best kept outside of Toro’s office, maybe ten or fifteen feet away.

“You still have that brother of yours?” Ray doesn’t look up from his work, except, wait, then he does, a barely noticeable flicker, but Mikey’s past recognizing his boss’s quirks, landing somewhere between expecting and predicting.

“I have a brother,” Mikey says slowly, trying to make sense of the question. “He’s always been my brother.”

Ray waves a hand, dismissing it as he flips through another folder that doesn’t change the height of the stack at all. “No, does he still do the art thing?”

“I guess,” Mikey says, because he’s not exactly sure. See, Gerard’s been gardening in the shitty backyard for the past three days, but by now he could have moved on to writing romance novels, for all Mikey knows.

“The victim, he might have seen his assailant, we could get a sketch to the public. So, I need someone to go over and get a preliminary done.” This time, he does look up, long enough to register that Mikey’s wearing his street clothes and obviously not still on the clock. Ray frowns, like he’s wondering what time it is, and whether it’s something he can call Mikey on.

“I could ask him,” Mikey says, even though he won’t, not unless he’s ordered to. One of the house rules, since Gerard moved out of their mom’s basement and into Mikey’s spare bedroom, one rule is that Mikey doesn’t share how his day goes, beyond generic adjectives.

“Please do,” Ray says. “I want to get the son of a bitch who did this.”

“Yeah,” Mikey says, and doesn’t think about being buried alive or how he can ask Gerard to do this without actually coming out and asking him. He grimaces and turns to go, but a beeping noise at the desk behind him makes him slow, hesitating before taking off.

“Here,” Ray says, offering a yellow post-it with an address and room number scrawled on it. “Do it as soon as possible.”

Mikey nods, once, just the polite side of indifferent, and tucks the post-it into the pocket of his hoodie. He’s already clocked half an hour of overtime today and anything like this is really a priority, he should probably take care of it right away.

“As soon as it’s not considered overtime,” Ray says, like he can read minds. “You can just head here after you take care of that. First thing tomorrow, they’ll be expecting you.”

“Right,” Mikey says, and crumples the paper in his pocket as he turns to go. This time, Ray doesn’t try to stop him.

Mikey nearly escapes to the staff parking lot, but not before Pete gets one hand on the worn sleeve of his sweater. When it’s like that, Mikey can’t exactly say he doesn’t see him, not with a body between him and the door.

“Pete,” Mikey says flatly, with as much disinterest in his tone as he can find. “Are you done for the day?”

“Aw, sugar,” Pete says, but it’s the tone of his voice that Mikey pays attention to, knows that one of the guys from the lab is like maybe five feet behind him, and Pete’s doing this for that guy’s benefit.

“Pete,” Mikey repeats. “I want to go home.”

“Who got it?” Pete asks, lowering his voice and turning his shoulders towards Mikey’s, closing the distance between them without actually moving his feet. He’s still wearing his windbreaker with crime scene printed on the back, so Mikey figures he’s talking about work.

“I have no idea, man,” Mikey tells him, too tired to figure it out, what exactly is Pete’s problem this time. He’s tired of it, of Pete, but he’ll never say that. “Maybe you should ask Ray about it.”

“He’s obviously pissed at me,” Pete says, huffing a breath and pressing his forehead against Mikey’s arm for just a second. “If he gave it primary to someone else, I just, fuck, I really wanted this one.”

“Right,” Mikey says, and pushes his way past Pete to find the door. Pete always wants to be lead, loves the spotlight and the pressure of the position, and Mikey always tells himself he just wants to solve the case, and it doesn’t matter who’s in charge.

He has the sinking feeling that he’s in charge on this one, and he has a few free hours until Pete finds out.

Pete watches Mikey go, because he’s turned that way when Mikey brushes past him. Mikey isn’t the worst guy to work with, even if his quietness turns kind of creepy about fifteen minutes in.

Pete reaches a hand back to adjust the collar of his windbreaker, looking up just in time to see the back of a navy lab coat disappear around the corner in front of him.

Really, honestly, perfect ending to his day. Pete can’t even stick around for overtime since he’s already tossed the bags evidence in the proper channels and Ray is going to kill him if he maxes out the overtime budget again this month.

He takes his time walking back to the lockers, though, trying to figure out who would’ve got primary. Mikey’s his only real competition, the only one with as many hours logged at this grade.

There’s a cluster of lab rats around one of the evidence tables, a sea of blue coats and glasses. He steps through the glass plate doors and watches just for a second, because yeah, there, his favourite lab rat’s right in the middle of all of it.

“Lab rats,” Pete says, too loudly, with a wide grin that hides the fact he just wants to go home and fucking kill something, like the lucky bamboo in his windowsill.

They turn their heads like they’re part of the same body, and there’s a minute where Pete fears for his life, at least until they scurry like the rats they are, leaving one lonely rat still leaning on the counter.

“That better not be my cigarette, Stump,” Pete barks out, crossing the floor quickly enough to catch Patrick with his hands still on the evidence seal.

“It’s the state’s cigarette,” Patrick says, sliding the evidence bag to the other side of him, away from Pete. “And you’re not the only man in my life.”

“Excuse me?” Pete says, startled enough to stand there and let Patrick escape.

“I’m working on something from downstairs,” Patrick says, when he looks back over. He’s an asshole, Pete decides, because Patrick always has time for fucking Mikey’s evidence, even stupid shit like leaves and brambles.

“Mine’s priority,” Pete reminds him, trying to keep the tired whine out of his voice and not sure if he succeeds.

“According to you,” Patrick says, turning back around and focusing on the micrometer in front of him.

“According to the state that pays your salary,” Pete tells Patrick’s back, eyes narrowed. He misses Andy’s approach until he’s nearly knocked to the side from a hard clap to the shoulder.

“Hey man, got the DNA from your butt running through the specs now,” Andy says, easily breaking the staring contest Pete’s having with the seam of Patrick’s lab coat.

“Thanks, Andy,” Pete says, tone turning a little sharp when he notices Patrick’s listening in. “You always take care of my butt.”

“Always,” Andy agrees, nodding to the other side of the lab. “Should be done by tomorrow, I’ll text you?”

“Better text primary,” Pete mutters, and shrugs it off. “Thanks for that. I appreciate you, Andy, and think that you’re worth the time of day.”

Andy shrugs and moves back towards his work station. Pete glances over at Patrick’s tense shoulders, turning on his heel and resisting the urge to turn back around and asking Patrick what the hell his problem is.

He figures he probably won’t like the answer.



His brother has the Misfits on the stereo, turned up way too loud when Mikey finally gets through the rush hour traffic to his own driveway. It’s nearly six but Gerard is nowhere to be found, the sound escaping into the neighbourhood through the open patio door.

Mikey’s house isn’t in a really great part of town, and there are days when he’s not sure what he’s more concerned about, leaving the house alone all day or leaving Gerard in it. Yesterday it was some musical soundtrack, and if Mikey left the house this morning humming show tunes, he’ll deny it until they give him evidence. He’ll also deny repeating one particularly catchy refrain while he photographed the same 48 square feet for nearly two hours.

There’s no sign of his brother, the backyard empty except for a brand new wheelbarrow and a plot of dirt maybe eight feet long that Gerard’s been struggling to turn over.

Gardening is the flavour of the past three days. Mikey’s all for Gerard reinventing himself, trying to stay busy while he slowly introduces himself to the world outside of their mom’s basement, but seriously. He’s got to draw the line somewhere.

The alarm on the stove is set to go off in sixteen minutes. Mikey can’t resist opening the oven door to see what’s inside, but he’s not entirely surprised to find it empty.

He adds a watch to the list of things Gerard probably needs but would also probably never ask for and definitely needs, along with toothpaste and a haircut. Mikey’s checking on the dials to make sure they’re turned to off when Gerard stumbles in, gardening tools in hands covered in a fine layer of dust and dirt under his fingernails.

“Oh hey,” Gerard says, sounding genuinely surprised to see Mikey in his own house. Mikey’s starting to regret adding Gerard’s name to the answering machine. “When did you get here?”

“Few minutes,” Mikey says, and decides not to ask about the oven.

“Okay, hi.” Gerard brushes his hair away from his face. It’s a total mess, windblown and tangled from being outside. A few stray pieces stay pushed up and away from his forehead with a combination of willpower and sweat, his cheeks pink and a streak of dirt over his nose from gardening.

“I’m home,” Mikey says unnecessarily, nodding towards the fridge. “Have you eaten?”

“No,” Gerard says, setting his bucket down on the table. It’s bright green plastic, maybe a leftover from some kid’s trip to the beach, although how it ended up in Mikey’s shed, he has no idea. It’s not a mystery on his list to solve.

Gerard wipes his hands on his pants—which are actually Mikey’s pyjamas, Mikey ignores this—and brings a hand up to wipe at his mouth. “Orange cat came back today.”

“Okay,” Mikey says, hesitating before dismissing what Gerard’s telling him. It’s hard to tell, sometimes it’s more of ‘this is what I did today, I wasn’t doing things I wasn’t supposed to, like get back into the hole I crawled from’ and less of ‘this awesome thing happened today, I need to tell you and you need to be appropriately enthusiastic.’

“Yeah. Can you buy cat food on the next grocery day?” Gerard crosses the room and beats Mikey to the fridge, taking out a carton of orange juice with his dirty hands.

Mikey doesn’t think about the mess it’s going to make when the dust mixes with the condensation on the outside of the carton.

“We can’t have a cat,” Mikey says, more out of habit than anything.

“But we could,” Gerard counters. “Maybe two. They could stay outside for a while, right, or I could train it in the shed and then it’ll be a housecat, right?”

“Why?” Mikey asks before he can censor himself. He hates to watch the way Gerard’s face falls, the rare glimpse of happiness soon replaced by the usual discomfort.

“I thought,” Gerard winces, cuts himself off and turns away like Mikey might forget he’s there.

It’s easier if Mikey does, so he just takes the orange juice Gerard’s abandoned and pours some into a glass.

“Orange cat,” Mikey says, trying to apologize without letting Gerard figure it out. “What happened to the other ones?”

“Oh!” Gerard says, covering his mouth with a dirty hand and ignoring the way it smears mud over his face. “Turns out the gray one lives next door, and it’s just visiting, but I’m nearly positive orange cat and brown tabby are like, in love or something.”

“In love,” Mikey says, leaving the lid off the carton in case Gerard remembers he wanted some. “How do you figure?”

“It’s not like I watch,” Gerard says, wrinkling his face. “It’s just, they’re always hanging out, watching shit or whatever. So anyway, can we keep them?”

“Are you collecting cats now?” Mikey asks, but Gerard takes it the right way and smiles.

“Maybe, yeah, I think so.” Gerard raises a hand and makes his hair even worse, clumpy and weird and seems completely unaware of it. Mikey isn’t sure if that makes it more or less embarrassing.

“What about your allergies?” Mikey doesn’t want to be responsible for putting cats outside again after they’ve gotten used to being inside.

“Whatever, it’s not like I’m going to rub them on my face or whatever,” Gerard makes a face and shrugs. “Maybe they’re collecting me.”

He doesn’t look bothered, whatever the case, and Mikey figures cats are easier to get rid of than the 1969 Pontiac Gerard had asked him to bid for on eBay. Mikey’s still not sure what he would’ve done if they’d won the auction.

Mikey tilts his head to the side, giving Gerard that one, and kind of figures that maybe cat food is one of those things that needs to be added to the list of things Gerard says he needs and might actually mean it.

“Oh hey,” Mikey says, before he forgets. He drains his glass of orange juice and sets it in the sink, running a bit of water in it to buy himself the time to word his question.

“How do you feel about sketching?” Mikey winces as he says it, because hello, that’s not exactly the best lead in or the least stupid question.

“Uh, trick question?” Gerard asks, finally making it closer to the orange juice, kind of sneaking up on it and pulling it closer on the counter.

Mikey shakes his head, taking another glass down and pushing it over the counter to his brother. “No, I mean. We have this victim, he maybe saw his attacker. We—I want to know if you’d be willing to do a preliminary sketch for the news.”

“Like, a crime scene thing? I could help catch someone?” Gerard looks uncertain, first of all, but Mikey almost recognizes the look flickering underneath the hesitation.

“Yeah. You could be an integral part of this investigation.” Mikey shrugs. Those were the kinds of words that he liked hearing in the beginning, before the monotony of photographs and never having enough proof got to him for the first time.

“Saving people,” Gerard repeats, picking up the cap for the orange juice and rolling it between his fingers as he thinks.

“Could help us catch this guy,” Mikey says, and doesn’t think about the shallow grave but he tries to relax his shoulders anyway.

“Yeah!” Gerard brightens, pushes all of his dirty, sweaty hair away from his face and gives Mikey a thumbs-up.

Mikey returns it weakly, wondering what he’s gotten into and watches Gerard disappear up the stairs. He spends a minute trying to remember how long to put the leftover stir fry in the microwave for, and whether the white or brown rice cooks up faster. It’s minute rice, yeah, but there’s a slight difference that he never figures out until it ends up crunchy or soggy, whatever one it wasn’t.

Gerard comes back looking excited, with his pens and pencils and a sketchpad. The sketchpad is the only thing that doesn’t look familiar, even if Gerard’s been avoiding traditional methods of art for things like gardening and making patterns on the patio door using Windex and fingerprints.

Mikey appreciates it, right, on some level that isn’t weird over personal space and the fact it’s his patio door with Gerard’s fingerprints all over it, he just wishes that Gerard would go back to creating instead of destroying.

His backyard’s never going to look the same, even when the grass inevitably grows back, which it will, because Gerard’s longest new hobby has lasted exactly six days. That was his religious kick, which died soon after Gerard realized it meant he’d be going once a week, every week, until he died.

Gerard has this little metal box with a lock, with only one set of keys for it anymore. The other was lost somewhere between the abandoned project of stripping the wallpaper in the spare room and rearranging the living room furniture.

In it, Mikey figures, since he hasn’t actually seen any proof to confirm or deny his theory, Gerard keeps his favourite fine-tip markers and two pairs of scissors, for unknown reasons.

He sets the brand-new sketchbook down on the counter, narrowly avoiding the smear of mud from the orange juice, the metal box centered exactly length-wise and width-wise. Gerard’s hands are clean, surprisingly, with just a sliver of dirt still underneath the few fingernails not bitten down to the quick.

“Gee,” Mikey says, chewing on the corner of his lip when he finally decides on the brown rice. “We won’t go until tomorrow.”

There’s a moment where Gerard looks stricken, like he’s hearing about the needle story all over again, and Mikey feels a little bad because it wasn’t like he did it on purpose, but that look gets him every time.

“Right, yeah, I knew that,” Gerard says, shrugging it off and leaving his sketchbook on the counter, but his cheeks are tinged pink, like he’s still embarrassed. “I’ll, I dunno. Are you making dinner?”

“Yeah,” Mikey says. “We’ll go early tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Gerard looks lost for a minute, hesitating with his fingertips still on the cover of the sketchbook and biting his lip. “I’m gonna, you know.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mikey says. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Gerard drifts off in the direction of the still-open patio door, making vague cat-calling noises under his breath, and Mikey underlines cat food on his mental list.



So this is the box that Gerard takes with him to visit the guy in the hospital, with the brand-new sketchbook stacked neatly underneath the box on his knees. His knuckles are a little white and tense around the coil of the book.

“You don’t have to,” Mikey tells him, for the first time since he’s gotten behind the wheel.

Gerard was fine until they passed the first blue sign for the hospital, and his face gets paler with each block they pass.

He doesn’t try to raise the point again until they’re inside, waiting for the elevator to come and Gerard’s looking at anything but the little lights above the stainless steel doors of the elevator.

“Gerard,” Mikey tries, adding a sigh when Gerard completely ignores him. The elevator dings and Gerard flinches back from the nurse in scrubs that exits. She doesn’t even look back but Gerard’s making sure she doesn’t come back.

Mikey sighs again and Gerard totally misses it. He’s looking at his knuckles, the tops of Mikey’s shoes, anything but the hospital things, the fake plants at the end of the hallways and the cheerful patterns of nurses’ scrubs. The neutral and safe colours on the walls are making Mikey queasy, he can only image what it’s like for his brother.

“Seriously,” Mikey says, trailing behind Gerard a few steps. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”

“I need to,” Gerard says, tightening his grip on his sketchbook. The little lunchbox with his pencils is held just as carefully in his other hand. “It’s important.”

“Okay.” Mikey eyes the back of Gerard’s head, the way his hair kind of strings itself together because it’s been a few days since he’s showered. After they go home from here, Gerard’s going to be taking this epic bath, Mikey knows it.

It’s almost worth it, because Mikey’s had a couple of years to stop being used to Gerard’s stink, and now that he showers regularly himself it’s even worse. For work, he has to take showers before he puts on his street clothes, because of the chemicals that he forgets he was using and he doesn’t want to accidentally contaminate his brother or something.

All this means is that it’s way more noticeable when his brother smells worse than inside Pete’s locker, which is to say, kind of like something in the middle of decomp, maybe even on the side of smelling that much worse than it looks. Gerard would probably like that comparison, though, so Mikey just keeps it in his head.

“It’s probably good for me, right?” Gerard offers, into the quiet inside the elevator and over the sound of cables and rising. “Doing this.”

“Karma,” Mikey says, even though it’s weak. He doesn’t know how to tell Gerard this isn’t exactly the best way to get over the fear of needles and emergencies in general, but whatever.

Gerard still hasn’t really forgiven Mikey for telling him about the one case, the one with the sadist and the way he’d sew parts of his victims to each other, just to gauge pain tolerance. Mikey forgot, really, and now they have the rule about sharing details. It’s, well, don’t.

“Okay, okay,” Gerard says, stopping before they step out of the elevator. Mikey holds the door with one hand, the other in his pocket with his id, ready to pull it out if anyone asks them any questions.

“You can do this,” Mikey says. Gerard obviously needs to hear it, because he squares his shoulders and steps out of the elevator, repeating Mikey’s words under his breath.

“I can do this,” Gerard says, and almost sounds like he believes it.

Mikey stays a few steps ahead, searching for the room number on his post-it and finding a uniform standing outside the closed door. Mikey doesn’t recognize him, but he nods politely and flashes his id before grabbing Gerard’s elbow to drag him inside.

Gerard stumbles a bit, overbalancing with the box of pens and sketchbook still held tight, and Mikey looks up to find the victim sitting up in bed, watching them curiously and looking surprisingly okay for a guy who was buried alive.

“How are you feeling?” Mikey asks, letting go of Gerard’s shirt and letting him stand up.

“Uh, fine,” the guy says, eyes bright and alert. “Are you two candy stripers? If so, awesome.”

“We’re with the investigation,” Gerard says, smiling in his easy and earnest way, and doesn’t the victim return his smile.

Mikey kind of hates that, and gives Gerard a less than subtle nudge and takes a step closer to the guy in the bed. “I’m here to ask you about what you remember. He’s here to sketch.”

“Awesome,” the guy says. “Should I take my clothes off or something?”

“Sketch the assailant,” Mikey says, overtop of Gerard’s startled laughter.

“Maybe you can do something for fun later, then,” the guy says, grinning at Gerard and winking at Mikey when he scowls.

“What about last night?” Mikey prompts, to get him started. The immediate notes from yesterday don’t have much beyond repeated offers to throw up the mud the guy had eaten.

The victim makes a reluctant face, looking down to his knees under the hospital sheets and his eyes kind of close off when he remembers why they’re there. He sighs once, and okay, so he’s Frank Iero and he was buried alive two nights ago, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Mikey to stand there and wait.



“Just, whatever you remember,” the tall, skinny scientist or whatever says, taking a second to shoot a warning look at the other guy and then back to Frank.

“Okay,” Frank says, and ignores the persistent headache for the details of the night before, and that’s a kicker, he feels like it was weeks or years or at least a day ago, maybe two.

It was like this horror flick, right, only maybe he didn’t get the script and he stumbled along in the dark, with mud ground into the fabric of his jeans and rain dripping down the back of his neck. The rain, though, it was warm.

He thought then, that maybe it’s not rain but it’s blood, maybe from the pounding at the back of his head, the base of his skull. With the crap on his hands, the kind of crap that never really wipes off, made his skin feel greasy and cold and his fingers clumsy, with that crap, he didn’t dare touch it in case it was an open wound.

But that comes after he crawled out from the hole in the ground, buried maybe a foot down, like whoever did it was in a hurry. He got one hand out, then his arm, gaining enough leverage to force his shoulders up and pull his face out of the heavy shit pressing down.

He coughed up some shit from the back of his throat and wiped the hair away from where it’s stuck to his face with mud and rain. Coughing hurt, maybe from eating the shit in the first place, or having the weight of the mud cracking down on his ribs. (He does throw that shit up later, actually, and it was almost sad to flush it away because it was like this collection in the toilet bowl.) The mud, though, the weight.

It was like being buried in the fucking sand at like the beach or something, or like tunnelling in a snow drift that collapsed on him or whatever, and that was enough to force him up and out, because he didn’t think gravity hated him that much. He figured, uh, yeah, hello, someone must have dug the fucking hole in the first place so sitting around trying to figure it out with his ass still in the hole wasn’t the greatest idea.

He got to his feet and stepped on a sharp rock or a stupid branch, almost lost his balance, and that was how he figured out that he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Where’s his good fucking Samaritan, Frank would like to know, and when he tells that to the detectives in his hospital ward he finds the one pale under his dark hair, but his tongue’s held in between his teeth and he’s sketching.

Right, he’s the sketch artist, Frank remembers, thinks he remembers the introductions and hesitates before continuing, long enough for them both to look at him and wait.

“We didn’t find your shoes at the scene,” the scientist says, pushing up his glasses with the knuckle of one finger and writing something in his notebook.

“Oh. I don’t think I liked them much anyway,” Frank says, and the sketch artist smiles a bit, tongue still caught between his teeth. It’s kind of ridiculous and Frank tries to remember what he was talking about.

Shit, shit, he remembered saying with every step, when his bare foot invariably stepped on twigs and stones and shit like that. He lost only one of his socks but both shoes, and they were these kind of shitty no name kicks made to look like something way more expensive, but they were just getting to the right side of comfortable. The soles still don’t bend easily, though, or at least they didn’t, and Frank could feel every single fucking root or whatever that he stepped on.

Anyway, being shoeless wasn’t really the problem, and the rain was more annoying than anything, even if it plastered his hair to his forehead and his shirt to his back. That’s another thing, his favourite hoodie was missing, and he remembered taking it off in a hurry, in a car maybe, like a station wagon. It was pretty memorable with the silkscreen of the humping My Little Ponies on the left side next to the zipper. It’s more of a joke than anything.

“My Little Pony?” The sketch artist asks, getting a glare from the other guy for his trouble. He winces but still looks interested, so Frank ends up answering.

Frank smiles. “Yeah, you know. Someone got it for me as this joke, and I wear it when I go out, just in case of, stuff. No one ever wants to steal a sweater with the fucking ponies on it.”

The skinny guy scowls as he writes that down, and Frank guesses they probably didn’t find the hoodie either. That kind of sucks.

“They’re pink and purple,” Frank prompts, because the skinny guy’s staring at him expectantly. “I think one might be a unicorn.”

He makes a non-committal noise, clicking his pen a few times while he waits for Frank to continue. Frank doesn’t, because there’s only so much he can say about little ponies that may or may not also be unicorns.

“So then what?” he prods, clicking his pen a few times as he stares Frank down.

“So I eventually found the road,” Frank says. “And then this car slowed down and they called the cops for me, or maybe on me. Then some guy’s picking dirt out from under my toenails and I want to let you know that’s about the craziest shit ever.”

The scientist doesn’t even crack a smile at that, but the sketch artist chokes back a snicker when Frank looks his way, and his face isn’t the same weird little pale shade it was when Frank was talking about blood and pain and shit like that.

Frank gives him a smile in return, and it could be a pretty awesome moment except the other guy clears his throat pointedly and looks at both of them with disapproval or whatever. This kind of sucks, right, but Frank figures, fuck it, he nearly died and he doesn’t even care how many people look at him like he’s a tiny little asshole. It’s hard to trump the sympathy card, seriously.

“By the way,” Frank says, because he’s tired and feels sorry for talking so long about blood and being buried alive and shit, even if they wanted him to. It’s the kind of shit nightmares are made of. The artist looks kind of pale, but then he looks up with this kind of weird light in his eyes and it’s like, okay. Frank doesn’t even feel sorry anymore.

“By the way,” he repeats. “My name’s Frank, and I kind of can’t remember you if I don’t even know your name.”

“Names,” he corrects, after the two cops share a look.

“I’m Gerard,” the artist says. “He’s Mikey.”

“That’s nice,” Frank says, and he’s not even sarcastic when he meets Gerard’s eyes, because he doesn’t have a reason to be, not with a guy who looks at him like that.

They both smile soft, just for a second until Mikey interrupts it.

“What, you want me to leave you two alone?” Mikey asks, snorting as Gerard’s pale face takes on a blush of colour.

It's pretty funny actually, because that's when Mikey’s cell phone rings, the generic ring tone startling everyone who isn’t supposed to answer it. That’s everyone who isn’t Mikey, and he’s the only one who cringes when he reads the call display.

“I have to take this,” he explains to the floor, and gives Gerard a warning look that Frank can't interpret, and when Gerard looks at him, it's obvious he can't either.

They at least wait until after Mikey leaves before laughing, okay, it's like this weird little giggle combination that turns embarrassed when they look at each other.

“So,” Gerard says, and chews at the corner of his lip.

“Right, yeah,” Frank says, and swings his legs over the side of the bed. The hospital gown ricks up so he's naked to the knees, then past them, and Frank only feels slightly guilty when Gerard’s eyes follow the rising hem. “Can I see?”

“What?” Gerard quickly covers his sketchbook with one hand, even though Frank can't see it at all from the hospital bed. “No, I. Well, it's not. It's not.”

“Not what?” Frank asks, sliding a little closer to the edge of the bed. The papery sheet crinkles more with the closer he gets, but his feet don't even brush the ground.

He tilts his head to the side, waiting for Gerard to look at him before continuing. “How am I supposed to say that it’s the guy who buried me if I can't even see it?”

“This isn't, it's not.” Gerard screeches his chair back across the floor, even though Frank’s stopped moving. “You haven't even said what he looks like.”

“Huh, yeah,” Frank says, frowning as he remembers this is true. “Okay. Then this. He's tall, taller than me.”

He magnanimously ignores the snort Gerard hides behind his hand as he flips noisily to a blank page.

Frank raises his own hand to gesture some description. “With like, crazy hair, it stands up all on its own. It's rough as anything, like it was in this ponytail forever and it's out now, but still holding the shape.

Gerard watches Frank’s hands, frowning a bit in concentration as he sets his pen to the paper.

Frank waits for Gerard to look at him again before continuing. “I couldn't see much of his face, he had this beard, right, and with this one blond patch right under his lip. It was reddish, but not really?”

“Didn't see much, hey?” Gerard asks, smirking as he looks up from his sketchpad.

Frank folds one of his hands into a rude gesture and resists the urge to laugh along with Gerard.

“This is, hey, this is before,” Frank says, like he’s only just realizing it. “Before I got hit. He drove this tiny car, like a Civic or something. He’s big, too, this big guy you’re kind of afraid of.”

“Were you afraid of him?” Gerard asks, keeping his pen to the paper.

Frank winces, tightening his jaw for a flash and tries to remember. He shrugs. “Probably. Just before I got smoked over the head. Something like that.”

“You know, I don’t do this very often, but I’m pretty sure something like that won’t stand up in a court of law.” Gerard offers this like he’s pointing out the weather.

Frank scowls, dropping his hands to the bottom of his hospital gown and trying to pull it down. It’s made of rough fabric, not unlike the crinkly sheets of the mattress underneath him.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Gerard says softly, and Frank looks up, the nasty response dying on his tongue.

“Yeah, okay,” Frank says. “Can I see what you’ve got?”

Gerard smiles hesitantly, and goes to turn the sketchbook around.

“No, man, like come here,” Frank says, and pats the edge of the bed. “I could have chronic eye damage from this concussion they say I have.”

“Chronic would mean you’d had it for a while,” Gerard points out, but gets up from his chair anyway.

Frank moves over to make room for Gerard, tugging a little more sincerely on the edge of his gown and tries to get it to brush the tops of his knees. Gerard hops up with more grace than Frank would have expected, balancing the sketchbook on top of his knees and smiling almost nervously at Frank when he finally settles.

Returning the smile automatically, Frank realizes it when he starts to feel the warmth from Gerard’s leg through the rough sheets, realizes that on purpose or not, they’re breathing in and out together.

“See, now we’re working together,” Frank says, and shuts up to let Gerard draw.

Actually, it’s more like they’re both sharing the edge of the crinkly sheets on the hospital bed, and Frank’s feet still don’t brush the floor but he’s watching intently. Gerard’s sketching thick lines, the things that Frank’s been dreaming about, being buried underneath the ground.

He leans over Gerard’s arm to point out something that should be like something else, and of course that’s when Mikey comes back in. Frank doesn’t see it, but he can feel the way Gerard stiffens when the soft squeak of Mikey’s shoes overlaps the way they’re still breathing in sync.

“Hey, I have to get back to the lab,” Mikey says, looking up from his phone and not really finding anything weird about the way Gerard and Frank are sitting. “Did you get something?”

“Yeah, here,” Gerard says, ripping the sheet out of his sketchbook and handing it over. It’s a rough approximation of what Frank remembers, and Frank can’t look at it very long without remembering that they took his fucking shoes. That kind of pisses him off more than anything.

Mikey nods, taking the page gingerly and being careful not to smudge any lines or fold it.

Gerard’s eyes narrow when Mikey hesitates with the oversized sheet, but lets up when Mikey just holds it out like it’s something from underneath Frank’s fingernails.

Mikey grimaces a bit, shoving his phone into the pocket of his coat. “Okay. I’ll take it back when I go in, but I’ll drop you off at home first.”

Frank frowns for a minute, until he realizes Mikey’s talking to Gerard.

“No, actually,” Gerard says, looking over at Frank, just a little. “I’ll hang out here for a while.”

“Seriously,” Mikey says flatly, and it’s obvious he doesn’t get it. Frank doesn’t really get it either, because what the hell. He shifts on the bed next to Gerard, and then he can’t stop fidgeting, rubbing at an e tattooed on the back of a finger.

“Yeah. Come on,” Gerard says. “Frank’s lonely.”

Frank nods his agreement, and Mikey still looks suspicious.

“Okay, whatever.” Mikey closes his phone and shoves it into his pocket. “Call me whenever you’ve…whatever. When you get back? I’ll see you at home?”

“Yeah,” Gerard says, and he and Frank sit very carefully on the edge of the hospital bed until Mikey leaves, and then after that for a bit.


part two