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The air felt less like a gas and more like a liquid around the bodies of the two men. Bert wrapped his arms around his own body, cursing himself for not taking a jacket when he left the house.
Gerard quickly turned his head to look at him with apprehension. “Do you want my jacket?”
“Nah, I’m fine” Bert tried to say, forgetting that he was a terrible liar when it came to Gerard. “I don’t want you to freeze and, like, lose your fingers to hypothermia. How will I paint your nails then?”
Gerard giggled and Bert smiled at the sound of his voice. It was awkward and almost obnoxious, but God, did he love his laugh.
“Seriously, I’m wearing two sweaters and a scarf. I’m not gonna die” Gerard insisted.
Bert’s lips curled as he considered the offer, but a blow of wind interrupted his train of thoughts. “Okay.”
Gerard quickly handed him his jacket and Bert slipped into it with a sigh of relief, only realizing in that moment how cold he had been feeling earlier.
“Doesn’t that feel better?” Gerard asked, looking proud of himself.
“Yeah, thank you.”
They walked in a content silence until Gerard tilted his chin up and, by chance, the light from a pole hit his eyes in the most perfect way Bert had seen in ages.
“Your eyes are hazel!” he said.
“What?”
“They’re hazel! They’re so hazel!”
Gerard looked down at him, with an expression that sat right between amused and confused. “Of course, they have always been. Didn’t you notice that in the last, uh, two years?”
He giggled to avoid sounding accusatory.
“Yes, of course I knew it. But now they look so, so hazel. Holy shit!” Bert ran his hands over his jaw. “Your eyes are pretty. You shouldn’t wear sunglasses all the time.”
“I’m not wearing sunglasses now.”
“No, like, in the daytime . And you should wear that black and white tie more often, you look so good in it.” He paused to look up at Gerard. “I mean, if you want. I can’t tell you what to do. Who am I, my dad?”
He laughed loudly at his own joke.
Gerard chuckled in a forced way.
“Oh, fuck, did I make you uncomfortable with that one? It’s cool, we get along now. I’m not sixteen anymore. It’s okay. Was that too much?”
Bert held his breath, his eyebrows furrowed, waiting for Gerard’s answer.
Gerard bit his bottom lip. “No, no, don’t worry. It’s your dad after all. I don’t.. I was just thinking about.. what you told me about how you guys used to fight all the time and…” he exhaled frustratedly. “I’m sorry it was like that for you earlier.”
“Well, I’m okay now” Bert said, pulling Gerard closer by his arm. “I couldn’t be happier than I am now.”
Gerard tried to conceal his skeptical expression.
“Okay, I could be happier, if you really think about it, but right now nah. I’m.. I feel good.”
“That’s good.”
Bert moved Gerard’s arm over his own shoulders, without meeting any resistance from the taller man.
“I’ve never not wanted to be high so much as now” he said, enjoying the warmth of Gerard’s body even through the various layers of clothes.
“What?” Gerard took a few seconds to be sure he understood what Bert had just said. “Oh” he exhaled after a few seconds. “That’s good. I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah, it just feels so real. Like when you’re super stoned. But if I got fucked up now I could ruin it. I don’t want to ruin it. It’s just so perfect. It feels like a movie, I’m just..” he made a frustrated noise as he clapped his hands together. The sound was muffled by his gloves, given to him months earlier by Gerard’s mom.
Bert took a deep breath as he looked up.
“I just wish this could never end. I’m getting cold again though, so we might have to move it to your house.”
“We’re almost there” Gerard said, speeding up his pace.
“Aren’t you cold? I really hope you’re not. I could give you your jacket back if you are.”
“Nah, I’m fine. It’s right around the corner.”
Bert felt Gerard’s hand sliding down his back towards his waist and his head got lighter and fuzzier, but a moment later he realized that he was just looking for the keys in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing.
They stayed silent throughout the whole walk across the hallways to get to Gerard’s apartment, but as soon as they got inside and flipped the light switch Bert jumped on the couch without even taking his - Gerard’s - jacket off and sighed, satisfied.
“Smells like you.”
“Smells like sweat.”
“If you put it that way, yeah, but I’ve smelled worse sweats.”
Gerard chuckled. “Frank would disagree with you.”
“Who gives a shit. Come over here.”
Gerard rolled his eyes with a smirk and lay down on the couch, turning his back to Bert and letting him wrap his arms around him.
Bert nuzzled his face in Gerard’s hair, not particularly worried about any suffocation hazard. Both of them hadn’t showered in days, but neither seemed to be particularly fussy about it, at least when it came to each other.
Gerard didn’t enjoy being covered in sweat from days earlier, but he was very forgetful, so Bert had figured he’d better remind him to have a quick rinse every day and to wash his hair at least three times a week.
Bert pulled himself up to get a better look at Gerard’s face.
“What?” the older man asked.
Bert didn’t answer, he just placed a kiss on his cheek with a loud “mwah”.
Gerard giggled as he closed his eyes and met Bert’s lips with his own.
Bert focused on the soft sensation of Gerard’s lips, on the weight of his neck on his arm, on his hair through which he had just started running his fingers.
Even though it didn’t make any logical sense, he felt like everything in the world began and ended right there, right in that moment.
When you manage to hold happiness in your hands for so long, you don’t want to let it go. So that’s what Bert did. He held onto that happiness, not letting it turn into anything else. He pushed away anything that wasn’t how he felt, and, most importantly, how Gerard felt.
It was like a snow globe, a diorama, a moment captured in time that could’ve lasted forever, in which everything, for once in their life, was okay like it had never been before.