Fic: Secret Cave. Used/MCR, Bert/Gerard sexswap, NC-17.
I swore I would never write this kind of story, and then pearl_o asked for always-a-girl!Bert/Gerard, and I realized I had an idea stored up. I won't put any caveats on the story, even though I really, really want to. Concrit and feedback are both appreciated; if you don't want to put it in public, my email is sinsense at yahoo dot com.
Secret CaveUsed/MCR, Bert/Gerard (Bert has always been a girl), NC-17 for het sex. 3375 words.
Edit: There is now a ridiculous romcom Bert/Quinn PG-13 sequel, Secret Cave 2: Return to LoveMonkey Mountain.
The first time Gerard sees Bert, he sees her tits first.
She's with a bunch of guys who are all laughing and jostling each other, and Gerard glances over at the noise just when she yanks up her shirt. She isn't wearing a bra. She's got little breasts, kind of dark brownish-pink nipples, and her pits are hairy. Gerard registers all this and then looks away, flushing red.
Apparently he gets caught, though. "Like the show?" someone yells, "Take a picture!" Gerard ignores them, takes one last drag on his cigarette and ditches it, heading back to his bus.
He tells Mikey about it, later, and Mikey frowns. "Her name's Bert," he says. "I've heard she's a--" He breaks off. "I've heard she's kind of a slut," he finishes, and then makes a face.
Gerard makes the same face. "I hate that word."
"Me too," Mikey says unhappily. "But that's what I heard."
--
The second time he sees her, Gerard actually gets to talk to her.
She's pissing in the middle of a field. She's got her jeans bagged around her ass, and she's making conversation with this guy Gerard sort of recognizes, a tall bottle-blonde. Gerard blinks, and then says, "Wait, how do you do that?"
"What?" she says blandly, and the blonde giggles.
"Pee standing up," Gerard says.
"You want to learn how?" she sneers, and Gerard shakes his head, frustrated.
"I know how I do it," he says, "Never mind, forget it." He turns around and starts to head off, hunching his shoulders a little bit against whatever the two of them are going to yell.
"Wait!" he hears, and then someone jogging behind him, "Hey, kid, wait up."
"I'm not a kid." Gerard shakes out a cigarette and lights it, contemplates whether he should go have coffee or another beer. Bert catches up with him, holding up her open pants with one hand.
"You want me to show you?" she says.
Gerard stops, blinks at her. "Like--"
"I mean--"
"Sure," he says, finally, because whatever, it's Warped, he's supposed to be having new experiences. Frank said so.
She glances around, like she wasn't just pissing out in the open, and then shoves her hand in her pants. She's pretty hairy, Gerard thinks, and then holy shit, that's her pussy. She pulls the lips of her cunt apart with two fingers, and then pulls up, resting the heel of her hand on top of her pubic bone. It makes her cunt look all stretched out and weird. Gerard starts giggling. "I know, right?" she says. "You think it would be harder, for all you guys brag about it."
"That is awesome," he says, "Like, you don't drip?"
"I have to do kegels at the end," she says, "Like, a little muscle squeeze. I don't get all the pee out, but it keeps it neat."
"Makes sense," Gerard says, because it does. "Cigarette?"
"Mmm, yeah. Beer?"
"Sure."
--
They end up spending a lot of time together after that. Bert keeps showing up at Gerard's bus, or bumping into him in between sets. It's not like Gerard is complaining. She's pretty awesome: she likes comic books, and screamo music, and she likes to draw. She listens to him, too, argues with him, which is nice.
"She's kind of gross," Ray tells him.
"That's true," Gerard says honestly. Ray shrugs and leaves it alone.
Bob asks him not to talk about his sex life. "We're not having sex," Gerard insists, and Bob adds, "Or lack thereof," in his scary bouncer voice. "You're not that big," Gerard says, but even he can hear how scared he sounds. Bob is kind of intimidating.
Mikey repeats what he heard, but he also adds that she's hot. She is, too. She might be hairy as fuck, but she's little and dark, and she doesn't wear a bra half the time. She's got a vibe about her that's kind of sexy, too, the kind of thing that won't translate into hit records but at least keeps them on the touring circuit.
Frank high fives him, of course. "I've wanted her since, like, day one," he says, "But Bob more, so."
"Don't tell me about your gayness," Gerard says, and Mikey nods solemnly in agreement. They even have a Rule about Frank's gayness. No one should have to know that much about his ass. Not even Jamia.
"Fine," Frank says, and flounces off.
"I think I'm going to ask her out," Gerard says, and pops open another can of beer.
"Cute," Mikey says, and shambles off.
--
When he asks her, Bert cracks up laughing.
"I'm serious!" Gerard insists. "Asshole!"
"You!" she says, and doubles over. "You!"
"What?" Gerard kicks the tire of the bus. It makes his foot hurt, but he does it again. He's really annoyed. "You're such a fucking jerk. Forget I asked."
He gets about five feet before Bert slams into him, making him stumble and fall face first into the ground. "Wait," Bert says, unnecessarily. "Wait, are you serious?"
"Ow," Gerard says meaningfully, and rolls over, holding his nose. "Jesus." He looks up at Bert, who is hovering over him, looking unsure. "Yeah? What the fuck, of course I'm serious."
"Oh," she says. "Is your nose okay?"
"Yeah," he says, after testing it cautiously. "Hurts, though."
Bert leans over and touches her lips to the bridge of his nose, soft enough that Gerard can barely feel it. She breathes out, a gust of warm air over his cheek, and then shifts her mouth to his. Gerard kisses her back, close-mouthed. His heart is beating wildly.
"Where do you want to go?" she says. Her face is still incredibly close, her lips an inch from his.
"I don't know," he says, "I figure it'll be Taco Bell or something."
"I like the gorditas," she says, and kisses him again.
--
They end up going to Bob's Big Boy. It has sit-down service, which Bert argues is classier. They bring their own coffee from the Starbucks in the same rest stop, and Bert smuggles in cans of Pabst in her hoodie pocket. Gerard only eats half of his lunch, because it's really fucking gross, but Bert polishes the whole thing off, chattering nonstop about movies and comics and bones she's broken. Gerard's not so sure it went well.
Bert holds his hand all the way back to the bus, though, tucking her hair behind her ear like she's nervous, and she kisses him with tongue before she gets back on her bus. "I liked the hamburger," she says, and then adds, "and I like you," before she disappears up the stairs, screeching something to her blonde bandmate, Tim or whatever his name is. Gerard stands there, blinking.
"You too," he says, finally, turns around, and heads back to his own bus.
--
Everyone tells him she's a slut, is the thing. Absolutely everyone says something to the effect that they heard Bert is trash, that she'll spread her legs for anyone, that she's fucked half the crew on tour, that she's way too easy. They all say it like it's their duty to tell him. Even Frank says, "well, I mean, I did hear that she's gotten around," though he follows that up with, "although let's talk fucking sexist bullshit, right?"
Even with Frank telling him that it's all about the heteropatriarchy -- and it kind of is, Gerard agrees -- Gerard starts to feel like everyone's laughing at him. It's one thing to date the tour slut, he doesn't give a shit about that. But he and Bert have just held hands and kissed and maybe groped a little, which means Gerard's the guy who can't even get with the tour slut. Gerard's got himself convinced it's just because he's special, or that she's got a case of VD, when she actually brings it up.
"Quinn told me I should tell you that I'm not really a big whore," she says. They're lying in his bunk, curled up fully clothed in the sheets together. She's got her cheek pressed against his chest, so he can't see her expression. "Like, he said maybe you thought that what people say is true, and that I was going to give you the herp or something. And you should know that I'm not." She lifts her head like she's going to look at him, but then she puts it back down. "I've been tested and stuff. The label makes me."
"Okay," Gerard says, after a beat.
"Like, I've dated some guys," she says, "I dated a guy and, like, I got pregnant, I mean. I didn't have it, obviously." She flushes a dark red, all the way across the bridge of her nose. Gerard cups her cheek carefully. "I've had sex, I'm saying. A lot of it, kind of. It isn't not true. What they say." She stops, and presses her face against his chest, just breathing. After a beat, Gerard pulls at the covers, gets them up over the both of them, covering their heads.
"Mikey and I used to call this the Secret Cave," he tells her, when she looks up. Her eyes are a little wet, and Gerard realizes with a sinking feeling that he probably loves her. "You can say anything in the Secret Cave," he says.
"Okay," she says, in a whisper. "I've had sex, okay?"
"Me too," he says.
"And I had to blow some guys to get them to let me crash at their houses. When I was younger, a couple years ago. I mean, I didn't have to, not really, but--"
"I never had to do that," Gerard says, interrupting her. She laughs and rests her chin back down on his chest. Her eyes are still wet, and Gerard says, "Hey."
"It's okay," she says, "I just wish. I know I'd have different problems, if I were a boy, but that doesn't mean-- sometimes I wish-- never mind."
"Me too," Gerard says again. "I wish I were a girl sometimes. I used to, I dressed up as a girl every once in a while, in art school, and sometimes I would just do it around the house."
"Why?" she says, like Gerard's crazy.
"Girls are so pretty. They can be artistic," he says, "And they can cry."
"It's not that much fun," Bert says. "And you didn't have to ask me why I'd rather be a guy." She's right. Gerard feels really shitty, for all of it, for even thinking about her like he did.
"Sorry," he says softly.
Bert presses up against him and puts her face against his neck. "Not your fault," she says. "But thanks."
--
The first time they fuck is in a hotel. Gerard manages to get the single room by dint of everyone else's girlfriends not being in town that weekend. He tells Bert -- not that he's expecting anything, he just tells her like he tells her everything -- and she shows up three minutes after he's gotten into the room.
"Hi," she says. She's carrying a shower caddy. "Can I use your bathroom?"
"Okay," he says, and opens the door. She bustles into the bathroom, says something about only being a minute, and shuts the door. "What?" Gerard says, but he's not sure who he's asking. He goes back to the bed. This hotel gets Animal Planet, and he's planning to watch it until his eyes bleed.
When Bert finally emerges, she's followed by a cloud of steam. She's wrapped in a towel, and her hair is tangled and wet on her shoulders. Gerard swallows and turns off Houston Animal Cops mid-bust. "Hi," he says.
"Hi," she says back, and giggles. "Um, I forgot a change of clothes."
"Do you want me to go get you some?"
"Nah," she says, and drops the towel.
Gerard just looks at her for a long moment. She didn't dry off all the way, and there's moisture still clinging to the underside of her breasts. After a second, a drop of water runs from her hair down the slope of one breast, over the nipple. Gerard sucks in a breath. "Come here?" he asks. She gets up on the bed, her smile playful and, he realizes, shy. "You look amazing," he tells her, like he's supposed to. She laughs.
"Shut up," she says. "Nerd."
"Dork," he shoots back, a little stung.
"Aw, don't be mad, Geeface." She crawls over him, her breasts hanging down, her wet hair falling in her face. "Don't be mad." Gerard cups her breasts, tentatively, and Bert's eyes actually fucking sparkle. "Yeah," she says, "Yeah, do that."
She keeps trying to take his clothes off, but she's really easy to distract. Her nipples are sensitive, and the underside of her breasts, and the skin over her hipbones. She likes it when he runs his fingers through the hair over her cunt, and when he slides one finger between her lips she squirms and moans and closes her eyes. "Oh," she says, like she does when Gerard makes a really good point in an argument, "okay, yeah, okay."
"You okay with fingers?" he says quietly, and she nods and draws her knees up. He slides one finger in, slowly, and she stretches her legs out impossibly wide. "Whoa," Gerard says, "Bendy."
"Used to be a gymnast."
"Oh." Gerard slides another finger in, and presses his thumb delicately up against her clit. She twitches, frowns and says, "Go up and down, not circles." She gasps and pants when he obeys, her cunt flexing tight around his fingers in a steady pulse. Gerard doesn't try anything fancy, just keeps rocking his fingers, rubbing his thumb up and down over the hood of her clit. He licks over his thumb when she's getting a little dry, and Bert keens high in her throat and comes. Her knees stutter open and shut, and Gerard has to pull back so he won't get clocked in the eye.
When she's done twitching, Gerard starts to pull his hand back, but Bert puts her hand on his wrist. "Don't," she says, and Gerard obeys. He shifts up the bed to lie next to her, his fingers tucked inside of her. "Fuck," she says, and Gerard echoes her just to hear her giggle. "God, that. That felt really good."
"I'm glad," Gerard says, and then, awkwardly, "It felt good for me. Too, I mean." She laughs, looking up at the ceiling, her hair spread around her head on the pillow.
"Can you," she says, and stops. Gerard makes a questioning noise, and she says, "Wait, don't move." She slides carefully over him, keeping his fingers inside her, and says, "Is it okay if I just jerk you off?"
"Yeah, of course," Gerard says, "I just jerked you off, why--"
"Stop being perfect," she says, sharply. Gerard shuts his mouth with a snap. "Shut up." She pulls open his jeans and wiggles them and his underwear down around the top of his thighs, then reaches down and tugs at his wrist. His fingers pull free of her body with a wet sound, and she laughs, loud and rude. She puts his own wet hand on his cock, makes him stroke himself, then wraps her hand over his and takes over. "How do you like it?" she says, leaning forward and shoving up his shirt. Gerard makes an abortive attempt at shoving it back down, and she hisses at him and swats at his hand.
"Like that," he says, his hips hitching underneath her. It's more than he expected, even though he maybe had ulterior motives when he told her about the hotel room; her hand is tight on his cock, moving in easy, twisting strokes, and she looks sated, even happy. He cups her chin and drags her down. It throws her rhythm off, but Gerard gets her mouth warm and wet on his, her happy hum against his tongue.
Gerard makes a really stupid face when he comes, and he nearly throws Bert off of him with the way he thrashes around. She mocks him the rest of the afternoon, imitating his orgasm face, until Gerard finally threatens to take her cigarettes. They watch Animal Planet after that, though, sacked out on the bed together, and she doesn't tease him when he cries at the end of Emergency Vets.
"The kitten died," he says defensively.
"I know," she says back, and kisses his chest. "It isn't fair."
--
Gerard's really fucking drunk.
"I'm really fucking drunk."
"Dude," Bert says, "I'm high as a fucking-- not a kite, that's bullshit. A dirigible," she says, pronouncing every syllable with relish. Gerard has no idea what a dirigible is.
"I have no clue what the fuck you are talking about," he says. "But you are really hot."
"You too," she says, but she looks kind of bummed about it.
"Why are you sad? Don't be sad," he says, petting her clumsily. "Being hot isn't sad, it's happy. You should be happy."
"I'm happy," she says, "Don't let me be a buzzkill. I'm, fuck, it's the oxy."
"What? I can't, what?"
"Just--" She stops and looks at him, and for a moment, a split second, she is the saddest, most beautiful person Gerard has ever seen. Gerard thinks of Michelangelo's Pieta, blown up big on the screen in his freshman art history class, how mournful she looked. "This is going to hurt so bad," Bert says, interrupting his thoughts. "When it happens, it's gonna hurt so bad, and I don't think I can take it."
"What is?"
But then Quinn comes over and raspberries Bert's stomach, and she's back to shrieking and giggling and dancing around. Gerard flops onto his back, staring blearily at the stars while they tiltawhirl overhead.
--
Gerard remembers the conversation, weirdly enough. Normally he forgets a lot of the conversations they have when he's drunk, but this one sticks around, bothering him.
Gerard is ignoring the come drying sticky in his boxers. They're lying side by side, and Bert's hair is spread out on the pillow, underneath his cheek. She's get her crotch pressed to one of his thighs, and she's hitching herself against him in a steady, languid rhythm. Gerard kind of wants to take her clothes off, but it's not worth the effort. He just kisses her, pushes his fingers in her tangled hair, and licks the corner of her smile. When she comes, Gerard realizes with a start that he can tell, that he recognizes the way her legs open and shut around his leg.
"Good?" he asks, and she hums and rocks against him again, unsnapping her jeans and shoving his hand down into her open fly. "Fingers, yeah," he says. She nods, and he pushes one up into her, then another. Her pubic hair presses up against his palm in wet, wiry spirals. "You're so fucking hot," he says, and she bucks against his hand.
She comes again, and he leaves his hand there, feeling the contractions ebb around his fingers. Bert's got a sleepy look on her face, and Gerard knows she's going to pass out soon. "Hey," Gerard whispers, and she loops an arm around his neck, tugs him closer to kiss. "What did you mean, yesterday? When you said this was going to be painful?"
"Oh," she says, and shifts. Gerard pulls his hand free, slowly, and wipes it on his t-shirt. "Us, I meant. You."
Gerard suddenly feels too sober to be having this conversation. Bert is always doing that to him, making him feel like he's two beers shy of prepared. "Who says it has to be painful?"
She looks at him and smiles. It's almost sadder than how she looked the day before. "Sometimes it makes me so happy," she says, "How different we are. I'm so glad--" She breaks off, breathes out, and continues, "I'm so glad you didn't live my life." Gerard makes a frustrated noise, and she unwinds her arm from around him to pull up the blankets, up over their heads. "It'll be okay, no matter what I say, after," she says. "Come here, kiss me." So he does.
Secret CaveUsed/MCR, Bert/Gerard (Bert has always been a girl), NC-17 for het sex. 3375 words.
Edit: There is now a ridiculous romcom Bert/Quinn PG-13 sequel, Secret Cave 2: Return to LoveMonkey Mountain.
The first time Gerard sees Bert, he sees her tits first.
She's with a bunch of guys who are all laughing and jostling each other, and Gerard glances over at the noise just when she yanks up her shirt. She isn't wearing a bra. She's got little breasts, kind of dark brownish-pink nipples, and her pits are hairy. Gerard registers all this and then looks away, flushing red.
Apparently he gets caught, though. "Like the show?" someone yells, "Take a picture!" Gerard ignores them, takes one last drag on his cigarette and ditches it, heading back to his bus.
He tells Mikey about it, later, and Mikey frowns. "Her name's Bert," he says. "I've heard she's a--" He breaks off. "I've heard she's kind of a slut," he finishes, and then makes a face.
Gerard makes the same face. "I hate that word."
"Me too," Mikey says unhappily. "But that's what I heard."
--
The second time he sees her, Gerard actually gets to talk to her.
She's pissing in the middle of a field. She's got her jeans bagged around her ass, and she's making conversation with this guy Gerard sort of recognizes, a tall bottle-blonde. Gerard blinks, and then says, "Wait, how do you do that?"
"What?" she says blandly, and the blonde giggles.
"Pee standing up," Gerard says.
"You want to learn how?" she sneers, and Gerard shakes his head, frustrated.
"I know how I do it," he says, "Never mind, forget it." He turns around and starts to head off, hunching his shoulders a little bit against whatever the two of them are going to yell.
"Wait!" he hears, and then someone jogging behind him, "Hey, kid, wait up."
"I'm not a kid." Gerard shakes out a cigarette and lights it, contemplates whether he should go have coffee or another beer. Bert catches up with him, holding up her open pants with one hand.
"You want me to show you?" she says.
Gerard stops, blinks at her. "Like--"
"I mean--"
"Sure," he says, finally, because whatever, it's Warped, he's supposed to be having new experiences. Frank said so.
She glances around, like she wasn't just pissing out in the open, and then shoves her hand in her pants. She's pretty hairy, Gerard thinks, and then holy shit, that's her pussy. She pulls the lips of her cunt apart with two fingers, and then pulls up, resting the heel of her hand on top of her pubic bone. It makes her cunt look all stretched out and weird. Gerard starts giggling. "I know, right?" she says. "You think it would be harder, for all you guys brag about it."
"That is awesome," he says, "Like, you don't drip?"
"I have to do kegels at the end," she says, "Like, a little muscle squeeze. I don't get all the pee out, but it keeps it neat."
"Makes sense," Gerard says, because it does. "Cigarette?"
"Mmm, yeah. Beer?"
"Sure."
--
They end up spending a lot of time together after that. Bert keeps showing up at Gerard's bus, or bumping into him in between sets. It's not like Gerard is complaining. She's pretty awesome: she likes comic books, and screamo music, and she likes to draw. She listens to him, too, argues with him, which is nice.
"She's kind of gross," Ray tells him.
"That's true," Gerard says honestly. Ray shrugs and leaves it alone.
Bob asks him not to talk about his sex life. "We're not having sex," Gerard insists, and Bob adds, "Or lack thereof," in his scary bouncer voice. "You're not that big," Gerard says, but even he can hear how scared he sounds. Bob is kind of intimidating.
Mikey repeats what he heard, but he also adds that she's hot. She is, too. She might be hairy as fuck, but she's little and dark, and she doesn't wear a bra half the time. She's got a vibe about her that's kind of sexy, too, the kind of thing that won't translate into hit records but at least keeps them on the touring circuit.
Frank high fives him, of course. "I've wanted her since, like, day one," he says, "But Bob more, so."
"Don't tell me about your gayness," Gerard says, and Mikey nods solemnly in agreement. They even have a Rule about Frank's gayness. No one should have to know that much about his ass. Not even Jamia.
"Fine," Frank says, and flounces off.
"I think I'm going to ask her out," Gerard says, and pops open another can of beer.
"Cute," Mikey says, and shambles off.
--
When he asks her, Bert cracks up laughing.
"I'm serious!" Gerard insists. "Asshole!"
"You!" she says, and doubles over. "You!"
"What?" Gerard kicks the tire of the bus. It makes his foot hurt, but he does it again. He's really annoyed. "You're such a fucking jerk. Forget I asked."
He gets about five feet before Bert slams into him, making him stumble and fall face first into the ground. "Wait," Bert says, unnecessarily. "Wait, are you serious?"
"Ow," Gerard says meaningfully, and rolls over, holding his nose. "Jesus." He looks up at Bert, who is hovering over him, looking unsure. "Yeah? What the fuck, of course I'm serious."
"Oh," she says. "Is your nose okay?"
"Yeah," he says, after testing it cautiously. "Hurts, though."
Bert leans over and touches her lips to the bridge of his nose, soft enough that Gerard can barely feel it. She breathes out, a gust of warm air over his cheek, and then shifts her mouth to his. Gerard kisses her back, close-mouthed. His heart is beating wildly.
"Where do you want to go?" she says. Her face is still incredibly close, her lips an inch from his.
"I don't know," he says, "I figure it'll be Taco Bell or something."
"I like the gorditas," she says, and kisses him again.
--
They end up going to Bob's Big Boy. It has sit-down service, which Bert argues is classier. They bring their own coffee from the Starbucks in the same rest stop, and Bert smuggles in cans of Pabst in her hoodie pocket. Gerard only eats half of his lunch, because it's really fucking gross, but Bert polishes the whole thing off, chattering nonstop about movies and comics and bones she's broken. Gerard's not so sure it went well.
Bert holds his hand all the way back to the bus, though, tucking her hair behind her ear like she's nervous, and she kisses him with tongue before she gets back on her bus. "I liked the hamburger," she says, and then adds, "and I like you," before she disappears up the stairs, screeching something to her blonde bandmate, Tim or whatever his name is. Gerard stands there, blinking.
"You too," he says, finally, turns around, and heads back to his own bus.
--
Everyone tells him she's a slut, is the thing. Absolutely everyone says something to the effect that they heard Bert is trash, that she'll spread her legs for anyone, that she's fucked half the crew on tour, that she's way too easy. They all say it like it's their duty to tell him. Even Frank says, "well, I mean, I did hear that she's gotten around," though he follows that up with, "although let's talk fucking sexist bullshit, right?"
Even with Frank telling him that it's all about the heteropatriarchy -- and it kind of is, Gerard agrees -- Gerard starts to feel like everyone's laughing at him. It's one thing to date the tour slut, he doesn't give a shit about that. But he and Bert have just held hands and kissed and maybe groped a little, which means Gerard's the guy who can't even get with the tour slut. Gerard's got himself convinced it's just because he's special, or that she's got a case of VD, when she actually brings it up.
"Quinn told me I should tell you that I'm not really a big whore," she says. They're lying in his bunk, curled up fully clothed in the sheets together. She's got her cheek pressed against his chest, so he can't see her expression. "Like, he said maybe you thought that what people say is true, and that I was going to give you the herp or something. And you should know that I'm not." She lifts her head like she's going to look at him, but then she puts it back down. "I've been tested and stuff. The label makes me."
"Okay," Gerard says, after a beat.
"Like, I've dated some guys," she says, "I dated a guy and, like, I got pregnant, I mean. I didn't have it, obviously." She flushes a dark red, all the way across the bridge of her nose. Gerard cups her cheek carefully. "I've had sex, I'm saying. A lot of it, kind of. It isn't not true. What they say." She stops, and presses her face against his chest, just breathing. After a beat, Gerard pulls at the covers, gets them up over the both of them, covering their heads.
"Mikey and I used to call this the Secret Cave," he tells her, when she looks up. Her eyes are a little wet, and Gerard realizes with a sinking feeling that he probably loves her. "You can say anything in the Secret Cave," he says.
"Okay," she says, in a whisper. "I've had sex, okay?"
"Me too," he says.
"And I had to blow some guys to get them to let me crash at their houses. When I was younger, a couple years ago. I mean, I didn't have to, not really, but--"
"I never had to do that," Gerard says, interrupting her. She laughs and rests her chin back down on his chest. Her eyes are still wet, and Gerard says, "Hey."
"It's okay," she says, "I just wish. I know I'd have different problems, if I were a boy, but that doesn't mean-- sometimes I wish-- never mind."
"Me too," Gerard says again. "I wish I were a girl sometimes. I used to, I dressed up as a girl every once in a while, in art school, and sometimes I would just do it around the house."
"Why?" she says, like Gerard's crazy.
"Girls are so pretty. They can be artistic," he says, "And they can cry."
"It's not that much fun," Bert says. "And you didn't have to ask me why I'd rather be a guy." She's right. Gerard feels really shitty, for all of it, for even thinking about her like he did.
"Sorry," he says softly.
Bert presses up against him and puts her face against his neck. "Not your fault," she says. "But thanks."
--
The first time they fuck is in a hotel. Gerard manages to get the single room by dint of everyone else's girlfriends not being in town that weekend. He tells Bert -- not that he's expecting anything, he just tells her like he tells her everything -- and she shows up three minutes after he's gotten into the room.
"Hi," she says. She's carrying a shower caddy. "Can I use your bathroom?"
"Okay," he says, and opens the door. She bustles into the bathroom, says something about only being a minute, and shuts the door. "What?" Gerard says, but he's not sure who he's asking. He goes back to the bed. This hotel gets Animal Planet, and he's planning to watch it until his eyes bleed.
When Bert finally emerges, she's followed by a cloud of steam. She's wrapped in a towel, and her hair is tangled and wet on her shoulders. Gerard swallows and turns off Houston Animal Cops mid-bust. "Hi," he says.
"Hi," she says back, and giggles. "Um, I forgot a change of clothes."
"Do you want me to go get you some?"
"Nah," she says, and drops the towel.
Gerard just looks at her for a long moment. She didn't dry off all the way, and there's moisture still clinging to the underside of her breasts. After a second, a drop of water runs from her hair down the slope of one breast, over the nipple. Gerard sucks in a breath. "Come here?" he asks. She gets up on the bed, her smile playful and, he realizes, shy. "You look amazing," he tells her, like he's supposed to. She laughs.
"Shut up," she says. "Nerd."
"Dork," he shoots back, a little stung.
"Aw, don't be mad, Geeface." She crawls over him, her breasts hanging down, her wet hair falling in her face. "Don't be mad." Gerard cups her breasts, tentatively, and Bert's eyes actually fucking sparkle. "Yeah," she says, "Yeah, do that."
She keeps trying to take his clothes off, but she's really easy to distract. Her nipples are sensitive, and the underside of her breasts, and the skin over her hipbones. She likes it when he runs his fingers through the hair over her cunt, and when he slides one finger between her lips she squirms and moans and closes her eyes. "Oh," she says, like she does when Gerard makes a really good point in an argument, "okay, yeah, okay."
"You okay with fingers?" he says quietly, and she nods and draws her knees up. He slides one finger in, slowly, and she stretches her legs out impossibly wide. "Whoa," Gerard says, "Bendy."
"Used to be a gymnast."
"Oh." Gerard slides another finger in, and presses his thumb delicately up against her clit. She twitches, frowns and says, "Go up and down, not circles." She gasps and pants when he obeys, her cunt flexing tight around his fingers in a steady pulse. Gerard doesn't try anything fancy, just keeps rocking his fingers, rubbing his thumb up and down over the hood of her clit. He licks over his thumb when she's getting a little dry, and Bert keens high in her throat and comes. Her knees stutter open and shut, and Gerard has to pull back so he won't get clocked in the eye.
When she's done twitching, Gerard starts to pull his hand back, but Bert puts her hand on his wrist. "Don't," she says, and Gerard obeys. He shifts up the bed to lie next to her, his fingers tucked inside of her. "Fuck," she says, and Gerard echoes her just to hear her giggle. "God, that. That felt really good."
"I'm glad," Gerard says, and then, awkwardly, "It felt good for me. Too, I mean." She laughs, looking up at the ceiling, her hair spread around her head on the pillow.
"Can you," she says, and stops. Gerard makes a questioning noise, and she says, "Wait, don't move." She slides carefully over him, keeping his fingers inside her, and says, "Is it okay if I just jerk you off?"
"Yeah, of course," Gerard says, "I just jerked you off, why--"
"Stop being perfect," she says, sharply. Gerard shuts his mouth with a snap. "Shut up." She pulls open his jeans and wiggles them and his underwear down around the top of his thighs, then reaches down and tugs at his wrist. His fingers pull free of her body with a wet sound, and she laughs, loud and rude. She puts his own wet hand on his cock, makes him stroke himself, then wraps her hand over his and takes over. "How do you like it?" she says, leaning forward and shoving up his shirt. Gerard makes an abortive attempt at shoving it back down, and she hisses at him and swats at his hand.
"Like that," he says, his hips hitching underneath her. It's more than he expected, even though he maybe had ulterior motives when he told her about the hotel room; her hand is tight on his cock, moving in easy, twisting strokes, and she looks sated, even happy. He cups her chin and drags her down. It throws her rhythm off, but Gerard gets her mouth warm and wet on his, her happy hum against his tongue.
Gerard makes a really stupid face when he comes, and he nearly throws Bert off of him with the way he thrashes around. She mocks him the rest of the afternoon, imitating his orgasm face, until Gerard finally threatens to take her cigarettes. They watch Animal Planet after that, though, sacked out on the bed together, and she doesn't tease him when he cries at the end of Emergency Vets.
"The kitten died," he says defensively.
"I know," she says back, and kisses his chest. "It isn't fair."
--
Gerard's really fucking drunk.
"I'm really fucking drunk."
"Dude," Bert says, "I'm high as a fucking-- not a kite, that's bullshit. A dirigible," she says, pronouncing every syllable with relish. Gerard has no idea what a dirigible is.
"I have no clue what the fuck you are talking about," he says. "But you are really hot."
"You too," she says, but she looks kind of bummed about it.
"Why are you sad? Don't be sad," he says, petting her clumsily. "Being hot isn't sad, it's happy. You should be happy."
"I'm happy," she says, "Don't let me be a buzzkill. I'm, fuck, it's the oxy."
"What? I can't, what?"
"Just--" She stops and looks at him, and for a moment, a split second, she is the saddest, most beautiful person Gerard has ever seen. Gerard thinks of Michelangelo's Pieta, blown up big on the screen in his freshman art history class, how mournful she looked. "This is going to hurt so bad," Bert says, interrupting his thoughts. "When it happens, it's gonna hurt so bad, and I don't think I can take it."
"What is?"
But then Quinn comes over and raspberries Bert's stomach, and she's back to shrieking and giggling and dancing around. Gerard flops onto his back, staring blearily at the stars while they tiltawhirl overhead.
--
Gerard remembers the conversation, weirdly enough. Normally he forgets a lot of the conversations they have when he's drunk, but this one sticks around, bothering him.
Gerard is ignoring the come drying sticky in his boxers. They're lying side by side, and Bert's hair is spread out on the pillow, underneath his cheek. She's get her crotch pressed to one of his thighs, and she's hitching herself against him in a steady, languid rhythm. Gerard kind of wants to take her clothes off, but it's not worth the effort. He just kisses her, pushes his fingers in her tangled hair, and licks the corner of her smile. When she comes, Gerard realizes with a start that he can tell, that he recognizes the way her legs open and shut around his leg.
"Good?" he asks, and she hums and rocks against him again, unsnapping her jeans and shoving his hand down into her open fly. "Fingers, yeah," he says. She nods, and he pushes one up into her, then another. Her pubic hair presses up against his palm in wet, wiry spirals. "You're so fucking hot," he says, and she bucks against his hand.
She comes again, and he leaves his hand there, feeling the contractions ebb around his fingers. Bert's got a sleepy look on her face, and Gerard knows she's going to pass out soon. "Hey," Gerard whispers, and she loops an arm around his neck, tugs him closer to kiss. "What did you mean, yesterday? When you said this was going to be painful?"
"Oh," she says, and shifts. Gerard pulls his hand free, slowly, and wipes it on his t-shirt. "Us, I meant. You."
Gerard suddenly feels too sober to be having this conversation. Bert is always doing that to him, making him feel like he's two beers shy of prepared. "Who says it has to be painful?"
She looks at him and smiles. It's almost sadder than how she looked the day before. "Sometimes it makes me so happy," she says, "How different we are. I'm so glad--" She breaks off, breathes out, and continues, "I'm so glad you didn't live my life." Gerard makes a frustrated noise, and she unwinds her arm from around him to pull up the blankets, up over their heads. "It'll be okay, no matter what I say, after," she says. "Come here, kiss me." So he does.