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gerbert where theyre not fucking but everyone thinks they are. gerbert where they kissed for the first time in chicago, giggly-drunk and high, the kind of kiss where they just keep bumping faces, laughing, and then doing it again. floating on a fucking cloud. it's not love it's just fun and it feels good, only a little tongue, only g's hand sliding down bert's chest, solid hot and not enough. they pull away and laugh. they fall asleep entwined and bert wakes up first, stares at the ceiling, feels gerard on top of him, snoring and drooling onto his chest. starts to wonder.

it becomes a regular thing to sit with their ankles crossed while watching movies, to hold hands while waiting for their stageslots on warped, and everyone starts to notice because it'd be pretty fucking hard not to. g finds some harder shit and they spend a few nights seriously tripping, all over each other, but they're still not fucking. what theyre doing still can't even be called 'messing around,' not really, the furthest theyve gotten was g's hand cupping berts dick over his cargo shorts, kind of holding his balls, and that. was still kind of nothing. but bert's started to catalogue their touches, what they do and don't do, the lines they have and haven't crossed. hes becoming obsessed with the point in the high where g's face just sort of melts, his eyes sparkling and pupils blown so wide he looks like a cat in the dark, and he only really looks like that when he's looking at bert.

everyone starts to notice because there's not a hint of privacy on warped. privacy is a far off ideal, a concept as speculative and metaphysical as god. bert's not getting laid, but everyone seems to think he is. it's getting hard to play both sides of this- the sexdrunk fool with gerard's hand in his, the friend who's there just to get high, everything is blurry and bert's vision is often tilting from the drugs and the desire thrumming through him. more. more.

on warped, there's not so much a thing as sober, and g's alcohol-warm body coils around his nearly every night, breathing beer breath into his neck with a surprise hug and lift from behind, a stage-whispered "did you get the shit, berty?" and bert's well-rehersed reply of "yes sweetheart, the good shit, only the best for you" and it's impossible to know how much gerard's joking, even how much bert is. but that night, when they're alone on the bus, g kisses him and bert slides a hand up his back, yes, yes, closer, but g pulls away with a giggle and pushes bert's hand off to hold it instead, press a little kiss onto his thumb. he won't let him do anything more.

but bert wants. it's driving him mad. the drugs lose their high when all bert's wanting is g's dick, his tight ass, his body sprawled and wanting underneath him, soft skin giving, sweatslick and sighing. he wants to catapult over the lines they've drawn in the sand. he wants gerard, pliant, face-down, ass-up, his world has narrowed down to needing g, needing to fuck him, needing it so bad that the slightest brush of g's hand against his arm is enough to hurl him into wetdream fantasies (body sprawled and wanting underneath him), the sound of g's distant giggle enough to make bert hard as a rock in his pants (sweatslick and sighing). fantasy's not enough. the kisses and the playground love, it's not enough. bert's a grown ass man. gerard is sometimes a playful little waif, sometimes a fiend from hell, tormenting him with teasing touches and knowing looks and flirting that never fucking goes anywhere.

bert can't take it anymore. he'd never thought it'd come to this, one night with the cicadaes screaming in the bushes, the night like a humid curtain, and the two of them as alone as they'll get. bert got harder shit, got borderline illegal shit, and he didn't read the doses before dumping it into the beer he gave to g with his regular, devious little smile. and g kissed his cheek as he took it, so fucking clueless, laughing about something into bert's hair.