Catch Me If You Can - Part 6
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
“Foooooooooood,” Bert moaned. “I need fooooooooood.” His stomach growled.
“Even after you ate all the fruit!?” Gerard squawked, momentarily taking his eyes off the road.
“Yes!”
“I. Cannot. Believe you.”
“Why? Jus’ listen to my tummy.”
Gerard almost let his head fall to the steering wheel, but thought better of it.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? It looks like you almost passed out.”
Gerard chuckled. “No, I’m fine.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Bert shrieked suddenly, scaring Gerard half out of his skin and almost into another car. “There’s a McDonald’s! Pull in! Pull in!” They stopped at a red light. Gerard turned and shot Bert the filthiest look he could muster before flicking on the turn indicator.
“What?”
“What did I say about the whole yelling in the ear thing?!” Gerard screeched.
Bert shrunk into the seat, his blue eyes going impossibly wide. “Sowwy.”
“Just....” He turned as the light changed. “I won’t say ‘promise’ ‘cause I know you’ll do it again... but TRY to not yell in my ear while I’m driving again.”
“I can’t say I’ll try, but I’ll try to try.”
“Bert, it’s too early for ‘The Simpsons’.”
“It’s never too early for ‘The Simpsons’.”
Bert’s cocky grin withered at the pre-coffee glare he was shot.
----
“Fuck you, dickhead!” Gerard cursed as he ashed his cigarette out the window.
“What?” Bert squeaked “I think my statement was valid! You were about to kill me!”
“Maybe! But you didn’t have to scare the shit out of the helpless cashier by screaming ‘Quick! Give him coffee before he kills me!’”
“Oh, you’re exaggerating!”
“No! I’m not!”
“Hmm...” Bert paused “You might be right....”
Gerard stared, then sighed and shook his head. He’d been doing that a lot the past couple of days. “Anyway, where are we going?”
“Philadelphia. I wanna go check out the Mutter Museum.”
“Oh wicked!”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like that.” Bert put his hand on Gerard’s leg. The older man jumped, then turned to look at the hand, following the arm up to Bert’s face. “Forgive me?” he asked.
Gerard’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t not forgive you.”
Bert’s smile grew wide and bright.
----
Roughly an hour later, Gerard pulled off the highway at Philadelphia.
“Now, do you know where exactly this museum is?” Gerard asked.
“Err..... no.... not really...” Bert frowned “Oh, wait! Sign!”
It took them a good few minutes longer to actually find the museum, but once they did they were all too excited and practically ran inside, barely remembering to lock the car.
----
“That was so totally awesome!” Bert exclaimed as he bounced slightly on the Burger King booth’s seat.
“I know! Wasn’t it just?!”
They continued to squeak and squawk about the ‘Mutter Museum’ around their lunch until they finished and were all but kicked out of the restaurant.
-----Day 4-----
Gerard awoke the next morning in the hotel room they’d hired with Bert laying on top of him, a leg between his own. All he could think that it was going to get awkward if Bert woke up before he could move himself out from under the younger man. They both currently had morning issues of the male sort and he really needed to go....
‘Oh no,’ he thought as Bert began to stir. He turned red.
Bert squirmed, then stopped, his blue eyes flying open.
They stared at each other for several stunned seconds before they each turned even redder.
“Oh my god,” Bert squeaked in a cracked voice.
“Oh god...” Gerard croaked. “I, um... I think you should move....”
Bert nodded. “Yeah.”
Gerard grabbed, Bert pushed and they both rolled away from each other and sat up on opposite sides of the bed.
“Fuck me,” Gerard cursed.
“Well, that’s still a possibility....” Bert murmured sardonically.
“Beerrrrrtt...”
“Sorry. So, um... who’s gonna take what bathroom?” Bert asked, referencing the fact that they were in a hotel room that had multiple rooms and bathrooms.
“You can have the one in here, I’ll, um... go to the... other.. one,” he cleared his throat.
“Yeah, um, okay.”
Without another word or without looking at each other, they darted past and around each other and to their self-assigned bathrooms.
----
Bert had been driving for an hour and a half when he noticed that gas light come on.
“Oh, fuck me!” he yelled.
Gerard looked at him wide-eyed. It was the most emotive piece of speech that either of them had made in all the time driving. Things were still very awkward after the morning’s rude awakening. They hadn’t talked much except when it was necessary, i.e. where to head while looking through brochures, radio station, who was going to drive, etc.
“What’s wrong?” Gerard asked tentatively.
“We’re almost outta gas,” Bert huffed.
“Again?”
“Yeah. Well, we do do a lot of long driving with the air conditioning turned up. So...” the younger boy shrugged.
Gerard sighed. “I suppose so.”
“If we were in my car, I’d know for certain that we could keep going for at least another 2 hours, but we’re not and I don’t, so we’re going to...” he squinted at the approaching sign “Baltimore.”
Gerard opened his mouth.
“And I swear to go if you start singing ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, I will kill you.”
----
Bert pulled the car off the highway a little over an hour later as he flicked his cigarette butt out the window. A little while later he parked next to Lafayette Square on Pennsylvania Avenue. He stretched his arms up above his head, thanking god that he’d put the top down just after they left the gas station back in Baltimore. He then turned his attention to his passenger.
Gerard was sound asleep and had been for a little longer than they’d been driving since filling up the tank. He’d put the fuel in and then gone to get the wallet from Gerard only to find him fast asleep with it clutched in his hand. He’d carefully prised it from his fingers and payed for the gas.
Bert looked him over.
His long black hair was a mess, fanned out across his face from the wind. His dark eyelashes were stark next to his pale, olive skin where they were almost flush against his round cheeks. He had the tiniest smudge of days-old eyeliner below his right eye.
He looked so beautiful and vulnerable.
Bert carefully reached over him to the glove box and pulled out one of the four disposable cameras. He checked that it was one of the three new ones before closing the compartment and sitting back in the driver’s seat. He carefully set up the shot as best he could on a non-digital camera and snapped a photo. He glanced around the camera.
He looked so sweet and serene and innocent....
He snapped another photo.
...like he wouldn’t wake up any second and kick Bert’s ass if he caught him taking photos.
He took a couple more before setting the camera on the dashboard. He looked at Gerard one more time, sighed, then started trying to nudge him awake.
“Gerard,” he called softly, “Gerard, wake up.” He frowned at the seeming lack of progress. “Gee?” He stirred, then rolled over as much as was possible in a fully upright seat while still buckled in. Bert’s shoulders drooped. “Gerard!” He punched him in the arm and almost got slapped in the face in retaliation. He thought that meant he’d woken up but after he didn’t move again for a few moments, he frowned and figured it must’ve been a ‘brother-get-lost’ reflex. After a few seconds of thought, he decided it was time to play alarm clock. He leaned in close to Gerard’s ear. “Gerard? If you don’t wake up, I’m gonna scream.”
Gerard twitched. “Fuck... I’m up,” he cursed groggily.
“Knew that’d get ‘cha!” Bert chirped.
“Of course...” Gerard murmured, unbuckling his seatbelt and stretching “You’ve actually screamed in my ears that many times that all I have to have is warning and it gets me. God...”
Bert grinned smugly. Gerard shook his head with a soft chuckle.
“Hey, guess what? Look behind you!” the boy pointed at something behind Gerard’s head.
Gerard turned around. “Oh my god, is that the White House?”
“The one and only. But you already knew that,” he giggled. He quickly snatched up the camera again and snapped a photo of Gerard as he turned around, awe on his features.
“Hey!”
Giggle.
“Gimme that!”
“Noooo!”
“It’s my turn!”
“Noooo!”
Gerard grabbed the camera away and quickly took a photo of Bert laughing and trying to steal the small device back.
“Give me back my camera!” Bert squealed. With that, he practically dove into Gerard’s lap as they both wrestled for possession of said camera. Gerard took as many photos as he possibly could in the short space of time before Bert managed to get the camera back.
Bert pulled back and hopped back over into his own seat, quickly taking a photo of Gerard who was almost bent double in hysterics. A second later, Bert cracked up.
After a few minutes of hysterical laughter, gasping for air and tears, they managed to calm down.
“Okay, okay...”Gerard said breathlessly “Let’s go get some photos in front of the house before we can’t move again.”
Bert nodded.
They both moved slowly, each clutching their now sore ribs.
-----Day 5-----
Gerard awoke the next morning to find Bert sitting cross-legged on his half of their shared bed, staring at him with his wide, too-awake-yet-very-tired bright blue eyes. He blinked at him for a moment before closing his eyes, then cracking one green orb open once more to peer up at the boy. He closed his eye, sighed and looked up at Bert again.
“Why’re you staring at me?”
“Hmm....?” Bert’s eyes focused “Oh, um.. I’m not really. I was kinda thinking while I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“Okay, you got me,” Gerard sat up. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Well,” he started in a child-like voice “I’ve been wearing the same clothes for just over a week, and you’ve been wearing the same clothes for just under a week.” Gerard raised an eyebrow, not entirely certain where Bert was going with this particular train of thought. “And, um....” he grimaced “We’re kinda, really starting to stink.....”
Gerard cocked his head for a second, then grabbed one of his t-shirt’s sleeves and brought it to his nose. “Whoa...” he blinked for a second “I guess no deodorant will do that.”
“Yeah... that’s not my hugest concern....’cause we can shower and people can just fucking deal with the smell... it’s more that we’re still wearing the same underwear we’ve been wearing since we took off...”
Realization dawned on Gerard. “Oh...”
“Yah.”
“That’s kinda....”
“Yah.”
“Shopping?”
Part Seven
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
“Foooooooooood,” Bert moaned. “I need fooooooooood.” His stomach growled.
“Even after you ate all the fruit!?” Gerard squawked, momentarily taking his eyes off the road.
“Yes!”
“I. Cannot. Believe you.”
“Why? Jus’ listen to my tummy.”
Gerard almost let his head fall to the steering wheel, but thought better of it.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? It looks like you almost passed out.”
Gerard chuckled. “No, I’m fine.”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Bert shrieked suddenly, scaring Gerard half out of his skin and almost into another car. “There’s a McDonald’s! Pull in! Pull in!” They stopped at a red light. Gerard turned and shot Bert the filthiest look he could muster before flicking on the turn indicator.
“What?”
“What did I say about the whole yelling in the ear thing?!” Gerard screeched.
Bert shrunk into the seat, his blue eyes going impossibly wide. “Sowwy.”
“Just....” He turned as the light changed. “I won’t say ‘promise’ ‘cause I know you’ll do it again... but TRY to not yell in my ear while I’m driving again.”
“I can’t say I’ll try, but I’ll try to try.”
“Bert, it’s too early for ‘The Simpsons’.”
“It’s never too early for ‘The Simpsons’.”
Bert’s cocky grin withered at the pre-coffee glare he was shot.
----
“Fuck you, dickhead!” Gerard cursed as he ashed his cigarette out the window.
“What?” Bert squeaked “I think my statement was valid! You were about to kill me!”
“Maybe! But you didn’t have to scare the shit out of the helpless cashier by screaming ‘Quick! Give him coffee before he kills me!’”
“Oh, you’re exaggerating!”
“No! I’m not!”
“Hmm...” Bert paused “You might be right....”
Gerard stared, then sighed and shook his head. He’d been doing that a lot the past couple of days. “Anyway, where are we going?”
“Philadelphia. I wanna go check out the Mutter Museum.”
“Oh wicked!”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like that.” Bert put his hand on Gerard’s leg. The older man jumped, then turned to look at the hand, following the arm up to Bert’s face. “Forgive me?” he asked.
Gerard’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t not forgive you.”
Bert’s smile grew wide and bright.
----
Roughly an hour later, Gerard pulled off the highway at Philadelphia.
“Now, do you know where exactly this museum is?” Gerard asked.
“Err..... no.... not really...” Bert frowned “Oh, wait! Sign!”
It took them a good few minutes longer to actually find the museum, but once they did they were all too excited and practically ran inside, barely remembering to lock the car.
----
“That was so totally awesome!” Bert exclaimed as he bounced slightly on the Burger King booth’s seat.
“I know! Wasn’t it just?!”
They continued to squeak and squawk about the ‘Mutter Museum’ around their lunch until they finished and were all but kicked out of the restaurant.
-----Day 4-----
Gerard awoke the next morning in the hotel room they’d hired with Bert laying on top of him, a leg between his own. All he could think that it was going to get awkward if Bert woke up before he could move himself out from under the younger man. They both currently had morning issues of the male sort and he really needed to go....
‘Oh no,’ he thought as Bert began to stir. He turned red.
Bert squirmed, then stopped, his blue eyes flying open.
They stared at each other for several stunned seconds before they each turned even redder.
“Oh my god,” Bert squeaked in a cracked voice.
“Oh god...” Gerard croaked. “I, um... I think you should move....”
Bert nodded. “Yeah.”
Gerard grabbed, Bert pushed and they both rolled away from each other and sat up on opposite sides of the bed.
“Fuck me,” Gerard cursed.
“Well, that’s still a possibility....” Bert murmured sardonically.
“Beerrrrrtt...”
“Sorry. So, um... who’s gonna take what bathroom?” Bert asked, referencing the fact that they were in a hotel room that had multiple rooms and bathrooms.
“You can have the one in here, I’ll, um... go to the... other.. one,” he cleared his throat.
“Yeah, um, okay.”
Without another word or without looking at each other, they darted past and around each other and to their self-assigned bathrooms.
----
Bert had been driving for an hour and a half when he noticed that gas light come on.
“Oh, fuck me!” he yelled.
Gerard looked at him wide-eyed. It was the most emotive piece of speech that either of them had made in all the time driving. Things were still very awkward after the morning’s rude awakening. They hadn’t talked much except when it was necessary, i.e. where to head while looking through brochures, radio station, who was going to drive, etc.
“What’s wrong?” Gerard asked tentatively.
“We’re almost outta gas,” Bert huffed.
“Again?”
“Yeah. Well, we do do a lot of long driving with the air conditioning turned up. So...” the younger boy shrugged.
Gerard sighed. “I suppose so.”
“If we were in my car, I’d know for certain that we could keep going for at least another 2 hours, but we’re not and I don’t, so we’re going to...” he squinted at the approaching sign “Baltimore.”
Gerard opened his mouth.
“And I swear to go if you start singing ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, I will kill you.”
----
Bert pulled the car off the highway a little over an hour later as he flicked his cigarette butt out the window. A little while later he parked next to Lafayette Square on Pennsylvania Avenue. He stretched his arms up above his head, thanking god that he’d put the top down just after they left the gas station back in Baltimore. He then turned his attention to his passenger.
Gerard was sound asleep and had been for a little longer than they’d been driving since filling up the tank. He’d put the fuel in and then gone to get the wallet from Gerard only to find him fast asleep with it clutched in his hand. He’d carefully prised it from his fingers and payed for the gas.
Bert looked him over.
His long black hair was a mess, fanned out across his face from the wind. His dark eyelashes were stark next to his pale, olive skin where they were almost flush against his round cheeks. He had the tiniest smudge of days-old eyeliner below his right eye.
He looked so beautiful and vulnerable.
Bert carefully reached over him to the glove box and pulled out one of the four disposable cameras. He checked that it was one of the three new ones before closing the compartment and sitting back in the driver’s seat. He carefully set up the shot as best he could on a non-digital camera and snapped a photo. He glanced around the camera.
He looked so sweet and serene and innocent....
He snapped another photo.
...like he wouldn’t wake up any second and kick Bert’s ass if he caught him taking photos.
He took a couple more before setting the camera on the dashboard. He looked at Gerard one more time, sighed, then started trying to nudge him awake.
“Gerard,” he called softly, “Gerard, wake up.” He frowned at the seeming lack of progress. “Gee?” He stirred, then rolled over as much as was possible in a fully upright seat while still buckled in. Bert’s shoulders drooped. “Gerard!” He punched him in the arm and almost got slapped in the face in retaliation. He thought that meant he’d woken up but after he didn’t move again for a few moments, he frowned and figured it must’ve been a ‘brother-get-lost’ reflex. After a few seconds of thought, he decided it was time to play alarm clock. He leaned in close to Gerard’s ear. “Gerard? If you don’t wake up, I’m gonna scream.”
Gerard twitched. “Fuck... I’m up,” he cursed groggily.
“Knew that’d get ‘cha!” Bert chirped.
“Of course...” Gerard murmured, unbuckling his seatbelt and stretching “You’ve actually screamed in my ears that many times that all I have to have is warning and it gets me. God...”
Bert grinned smugly. Gerard shook his head with a soft chuckle.
“Hey, guess what? Look behind you!” the boy pointed at something behind Gerard’s head.
Gerard turned around. “Oh my god, is that the White House?”
“The one and only. But you already knew that,” he giggled. He quickly snatched up the camera again and snapped a photo of Gerard as he turned around, awe on his features.
“Hey!”
Giggle.
“Gimme that!”
“Noooo!”
“It’s my turn!”
“Noooo!”
Gerard grabbed the camera away and quickly took a photo of Bert laughing and trying to steal the small device back.
“Give me back my camera!” Bert squealed. With that, he practically dove into Gerard’s lap as they both wrestled for possession of said camera. Gerard took as many photos as he possibly could in the short space of time before Bert managed to get the camera back.
Bert pulled back and hopped back over into his own seat, quickly taking a photo of Gerard who was almost bent double in hysterics. A second later, Bert cracked up.
After a few minutes of hysterical laughter, gasping for air and tears, they managed to calm down.
“Okay, okay...”Gerard said breathlessly “Let’s go get some photos in front of the house before we can’t move again.”
Bert nodded.
They both moved slowly, each clutching their now sore ribs.
-----Day 5-----
Gerard awoke the next morning to find Bert sitting cross-legged on his half of their shared bed, staring at him with his wide, too-awake-yet-very-tired bright blue eyes. He blinked at him for a moment before closing his eyes, then cracking one green orb open once more to peer up at the boy. He closed his eye, sighed and looked up at Bert again.
“Why’re you staring at me?”
“Hmm....?” Bert’s eyes focused “Oh, um.. I’m not really. I was kinda thinking while I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“Okay, you got me,” Gerard sat up. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Well,” he started in a child-like voice “I’ve been wearing the same clothes for just over a week, and you’ve been wearing the same clothes for just under a week.” Gerard raised an eyebrow, not entirely certain where Bert was going with this particular train of thought. “And, um....” he grimaced “We’re kinda, really starting to stink.....”
Gerard cocked his head for a second, then grabbed one of his t-shirt’s sleeves and brought it to his nose. “Whoa...” he blinked for a second “I guess no deodorant will do that.”
“Yeah... that’s not my hugest concern....’cause we can shower and people can just fucking deal with the smell... it’s more that we’re still wearing the same underwear we’ve been wearing since we took off...”
Realization dawned on Gerard. “Oh...”
“Yah.”
“That’s kinda....”
“Yah.”
“Shopping?”
Part Seven