Gerard had known it would happen eventually, but he was still a little miffed when he received a call two days later from Patrick Stump, telling him he had an assignment.

Frank was asleep in the bed as usual, facing away from Gerard. Still, he moved to the next room to prevent the other from hearing any of their conversation. He already knew too much.

Closing the door and pressing the phone to his ear again, Gerard said shortly, "Stump. What is it now?"

"Brian Schechter."

"What about him?"

"He was one of the officials involved in your brother's custody."

"They're still holding him?" Gerard was surprised, and more than a little angry. Hell, they probably thought he knew something about all this. But fuck, Mikey didn't. He was of no use to them, and yet he was still being held against his will.

"Yes. But we don't know where."

Everything was beginning to make sense. "And Schechter does."

"Yes."

"You want me to interrogate him? Where do I find him?"

"We took the liberty of capturing him already. We don't want you to be...incarcerated again. Very inconvenient, you know."

"Right," Gerard said through gritted teeth. "My death sentence was terribly inconvenient."

Stump ignored his snarky remark and continued to say, "We're at the Third."

"The one with the big basement?"

"Yes."

"Any particular time I should come?"

"Now would be best. You know what to bring."

"Fine."

The line went dead and Gerard pocketed his cell heavily, cracking open the door and looking back at Frank. He still appeared to be passed out. Gerard rolled his eyes and walked to the bed, shaking him awake. Frank stirred and blinked, narrowing his eyes at Gerard when he saw him. "What? I'm trying to sleep over here."

"I'm going out on...business." Frank's eyes widened.

"I want to come with you."

"No, Frank. It doesn't concern you."

"But-"

"I said no. I'll be back soon enough. If anyone knocks or comes in, I want you to hide and don't answer it."

"You sound like an overprotective mom."

Gerard glared at him. "That was an order, Frank. I'm serious. Unless you have a death wish-"

"Okay, I got it," Frank hissed, crossing his arms. "Just go if it's so important."

Gerard stalked away, pausing in front of the closet and then taking down a very specific knife. It was a knife Frank surely recognized. He tucked it into the folds of his jacket, along with a holstered handgun, and ignoring Frank's wondering gaze, left the room, and then the apartment.

xoxoxo

Gerard drove there because, okay, he was a little paranoid to be on a public bus with two concealed weapons and anyone on that bus could be dangerous. He'd learned not to trust, well, anyone, and so preferred to travel and do almost everything by himself.

The Third was a headquarters, and there were plenty other like it, though, as Gerard had said, this one had a big basement. That, he was almost entirely sure, was where little Schechter was.

He pulled into the shabby parking lot and towards the nondescript brick building. He could see people in the windows, though, dark silhouettes who were armed, watching for trespassers. But he was one of them, and he got in without incident.

In the main room, a woman sat behind a desk, a sort of twisted receptionist-like system. Her nametag read "Anna," which Gerard was sure was a fake name.

"Ah," she said, looking up at him with large, unnerving blue eyes, "Mr. Way. You have an...appointment in the basement, it seems?"

"Yes."

"You have everything you need?"

"Yes."

"Well then, just sign in here and-"

"Oh, they know I'm here. I'm sure that won't be necessary." He turned and disregarded her protests, striding confidently to the door. It led to a hall. He turned right after a time, and sure enough, there was a stairwell behind the unmarked door, leading down into a dimly lit room. There were several entrances to the basement, but this was the one Gerard always used.

He wasn't surprised to find the place abandoned when he reached the floor - they all were well aware that he liked to work alone.

Or, well, almost abandoned. In the middle of the huge basement, tied oh-so-clichely to a chair, was Brian Schechter. He didn't have his government attire on, just a ratty band T-shirt and even holier jeans, which alerted Gerard to the fact that they'd probably taken him from his house. His head was down against his chest, and his wrists and ankles looked raw from where he'd tried to free himself from where he was cuffed to the chair's arms and legs.

"Hello," Gerard said, pulling up another chair in front of the man so that the back of it was facing him.

The man's head jerked up and his eyes went wide when he saw Gerard. "You," he breathed.

"Yes, Brian Schechter," Gerard said, lips curling, "me. You sound so surprised."

"You're dead."

"I," Gerard said in an affronted tone, "am very offended by that. Do I look dead to you?" When he didn't answer, Gerard frowned, took out the knife, and pressed it against his cheek. "I said, do I look dead to you?"

"N-no," Brian whispered. "But I don't understand, you were killed by the electric chair."

"Silly old me?" Gerard scoffed. "Ah, no. It takes a lot more than that to get rid of me."

"What about the other convict, Ier-" Gerard cut him off by tipping his chin up with the blade, eyes dark and dangerous.

"This isn't about him. This isn't even about me. No, this," Gerard dug in a little harder, "this is about you."

"Me?" Brian swallowed, and a bead of blood ran down his skin.

Gerard nodded, smiling condescendingly. "You see, you know something that I want to know, too."

"What?"

"Does the name 'Michael Way' ring a bell?"

"No."

Gerard hissed and then he fell silent as a truly despicable idea came upon him. "Listen, Brian. This can be easy, or this can be very hard. I'll ask you again: Does the name Michael Way ring a bell?"

"No! I don't know what you're talking about." But he wouldn't meet Gerard's eyes. He knew when people were lying. He knew.

"Well, then, the hard way it is," Gerard sighed, and before Brian knew what was happening, the knife was slicing through the fabric of his shirt, making it hang in tatters against his now almost entirely bare chest.

"What are you doing?"

Gerard asked the question one more time, and Brian didn't answer. Gerard wasn't concerned. The little government brats were the easiest to break. He glided the knife against his skin, on his pec, the exact place where he'd cut Frank.

Brian cried out and struggled against his bonds again. "What the hell?"

"Are you ready to talk?"

"No, what the fuck, I don't-"

Gerard sighed and slashed him twice more, between his collarbones, over his ribs, and he cursed loudly, still fighting to get free. Scarlet poured down over his skin. It was tattooed, like Frank's, and Gerard was satisfied when he broke the flawless lines of colored ink with the tip of the knife. Brian was shouting at him, but he knew nobody would come to his aid. In this building, they were all on the same team, except for this little prisoner.

"Are you ready now?"

Brian was breathing hard, looking at him venomously. He was bigger and stronger than Frank, and his arms were more heavily inked, the muscles in them thrown into high relief when he all but threw himself against his bonds. "No," he hissed, and Gerard brought the blade down into his bicep, twisting it. Brian cried out again, and when Gerard tugged the blade free, a new fountain of blood was created.

"You're just going to kill me anyway," he growled, "so why should I tell you anything?"

"Oh, Brian," Gerard cooed, pursing his lips, "you shouldn't be worrying about dying - you should be worried about howyou're going to die."

"I said no!"

Gerard shook his head and this time, he stabbed him right where he had stabbed Frank, digging the knife a little deeper, hearing Brian scream for real this time. He could feel how much damage this was causing, the squishy squelch of what was probably an organ and the spurt of crimson which followed, accompanied by a wet sound from Brian.

"You seem a little more willing now," Gerard said mildly, tilting his head at him in an almost curious way. "Or I could continue, cut out your intestines, maybe? Or your kidneys, hm, I haven't done that in a while. It'd be awfully painful for you, though...kidneys are all the way back near your spine. That'd be such a lot of cutting to get there..." He wiggled the knife in warning and Brian's back arched.

"Okay! I know him! I-I'll talk!"

Gerard smiled, but kept the knife in. It would be less painful than pulling it out. "Go ahead."

"H-he's under house arrest. In California."

Gerard cursed under his breath. All the way in California? Fuck.

"Where?"

"In Los Angeles. I-I don't know the address."

"Liar." Gerard smacked his face, hard, and he spat out blood, shaking.

"I don't-" Gerard punched him this time, and his head snapped back with a sick crunch. His eye looked swollen already when he looked back at him, and if the fear hadn't been there before, it certainly was now.

"Fuck," he gasped, "alright, alright. 5023 West Magnolia Drive."

"Wait," Gerard said, holding up a finger, "I need to write that down." He took the knife out then, and Brian keeled forward in agony, but Gerard sat him right back up, just before plunging his finger into the wound, coating it with blood. Brian was calling him terrible things, cursing his mother, his father, his brother, and he could have cared less.

With his other hand, he pushed up his sleeve, and put the red finger against his skin. "What was the address again?"

"You sick bastard."

"Excuse me? That wasn't what you said the first time."

"5023," Brian snarled, "West Magnolia Drive." Gerard nodded thoughtfully and scrawled it down in Brian's blood, which was drying and turning rusty-colored on his pale arm.

"Thank you," Gerard said sincerely, dipping his head to him. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"You gonna let me go now?" Brian asked hopefully, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Gerard pretended to consider it, reaching for his handgun. After a moment, he sighed and said, "Oh, I think not," and raised the gun, aimed, pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed around the basement, magnified a thousandfold in the huge space. It didn't matter. Brian couldn't hear it anymore, and it didn't bother Gerard in the slightest.

He did not spare a glance for the cadaver. It wasn't a human to him, not anymore. Maybe it had ceased to be human the minute it was tied to the chair. Just another object, Gerard thought determinedly, just another chess-piece in the giant game of life.

He climbed the stairs, tucking the weapons away, looking at the writing on his arm in the blood of the chess-piece. He exited the unmarked door, and walked down the long hallway, back to the receptionist named Anna. She looked at his arm with comically wide eyes, but he was not so easily fooled. She could act as innocent as she wanted, but she, like everyone else here, had heard that gunshot and knew that he'd caused it.

"Are you hurt, sir?" was all that she asked.

"Oh, no," Gerard said dismissively, "not my blood. But, if you don't mind, it would be very nice if you could give me a piece of paper and a pen?"

"O-of course, Mr. Way." She fumbled for a small note from a pad of paper, and handed him a fountain pen along with it. He gave her a thin smile in response and copied the address on his arm onto the paper, because ink on paper was much more reliable than blood on skin.

"Much obliged, Anna," he said to her, pocketing the paper and handing her the pen. He held her gaze for a few long seconds.

"The pleasure is mine," she replied, ducking her head and turning back to her paperwork.

Gerard left the building without looking back, hand in his pocket, feeling the piece of paper there just to make sure it was real, just as real as the dead man in the basement, tied to a chair.

nt-y0y8