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Everyone who knew Gerard Way knew that he had a fear of needles…mostly, because he somehow always found a way to bring it into conversation. When Bert called him out on it one night he told him he just needed to make sure people knew because once he’d been with a group of people and someone decided they would give everyone piercings and got “thisssssssssssss closssssse” (Gerard dragged out ‘s’s when he was drunk) to putting a barbell through his fucking ear before he could get away.
The problem here was Gerard’s horrible fascination with tattoos. When he met The Used for the first time, he went to Jepha before even looking Bert’s way, getting into a discussion about the artistic inspiration for his tattoos (he was working his way down his left arm for his second sleeve with no color yet) which somehow lasted 4 hours and wound up with Gerard huddled into the corner of the couch on The Used’s tour bus with a shitless Jepha carefully examining the detailed lines and shading, looking between Jepha’s arm and Jepha’s face while he unscrewed the ball of his right snakebite to show Gerard. This is how Bert met Gerard.
What happened then was public knowledge. Not everything was public though, of course. The undefined relationship was built on drunken nights, shared lines of coke, a possibly accidental ingestion of E on more than one account (blame that one on Quinn), and a secret tattoo.
The first time they got naked (Bert was naked, Gerard just took his pants off) Gerard spent approximately an hour and a half (this was a guestimation seeing how both men were not entirely sober) tracing the stickman on Bert’s ribs first with his finger very softly, poking between the ridges of the entirely too visibly ribcage of Bert McCracken, then carefully outlining it with his tongue, causing small breathy giggles between Bert’s story behind the huge piece. (This may have possibly maybe been one of the incidents involving the accidental E taking). Needless to say the night ended in a lot of leg humping and an awkwardly wet and sloppy blow job.
As things progressed over time and more clothes were shed each time there was nakedness involved, there was always a discussion about one of Bert’s tattoos with the same ritual of poking and prodding, sometimes tasting. Gerard was never really satisfied with “I thought it would look cool” as an answer (which it was for a lot of Bert’s ink) so Bert would make up elaborate stories of the old man from Somalia who taught him how to ride a bike and saved his dog from a burning school building but ignored all the preschoolers in it and his face looked just like the scribble face on the inside of his right elbow. That usually put an end to the tattoo talk for that night.
The secret tattoo came along when Gerard ran out of tattoos to examine on Bert’s skin. Gerard would still nibble at Bert’s inked up skin and mumble about how it tasted (Bert would snort and tug at Gerard’s hair because “that’s one of my songs you shitface”) but Bert missed Gerard’s questions and the distracted look in his eyes and release of tension in his shoulders when he was listening to Bert talk about the tattoos even if the story was made up. It wasn’t the same the second or third time Gerard’s tongue would map out the lines of ink; nothing was like that first time.
So Bert oh so casually brings up Jepha knowing an artist in the next city they’re going to that offered to tattoo Bert any time he wanted. He scratched at a really knotted part of his head and shrugged and mentioned that Gerard could like maybe if he wanted draw something for him to get done. Gerard didn’t even speak before he ran off of Bert’s bus, onto his, then back to Bert’s with his art shit in that weird fishing bait looking box. He sat at the kitchenette table and drew and drew and tore out pages and drew and drew and got some coffee (which Quinn would be really pissed about) and drew and drew and drew. Bert sat and drank only exactly two beers as slowly as he could and just watched the way Gerard’s hand gripped the pencils and how his weird quadruple jointed pinky bushed away the eraser shavings or pencil dust and the way the top joints of his fingers bet backwards a little bit when he blended colors together. The little crease he got between his eyebrows before tearing a page out and crumpling it up. Gerard’s—god, it sounded so gay when he admitted it to himself—Gerard’s everything was to him what Bert’s tattoos were to Gerard; Intoxicating, beautiful, all-consuming. He only needed two beers and his head was already floating.
When Gerard was done he presented Bert with a sketchbook page with a 2 inch sketch of a purple vampire bat with angry blue eyes and teeth. Bert grinned and said it was “fucking sweet let’s go” and grabbed Gerard’s hand.
It turned out that the next town really meant right here right now and Jepha’s friend was really just a tattoo shop he saw when they went to get coffee a few days ago and looked up to see if it was any good. It was only a short walk away (go figure there’s a tattoo shop by a concert venue) and Bert had to hold the sketch in his fist away from Gerard because he kept looking and it and finding things he wanted to change. Bert told him to fuck right off because it was perfect and it was going in his fucking skin.
The whole time Bert was getting tattooed Gerard had a vice grip on his hand and kept his head between his knees, tapping his heel rapidly on the linoleum floor. It only took 45 minutes for the $60 tattoo to be finished and Bert was grinning by the time it was over. He stood in the full length mirror with his shorts pulled down low on the left side. The dark purple bat stood out on his pale skin right at the junction where his leg meets his torso, under the sharp jut of his hipbone. Gerard stared with him-- he loosened the grip on Bert’s hand but not by much-- with this awestruck loo on his face. Bert knew he wanted to touch it but fuck he wasn’t Jepha and pain like that was not okay with him, so he just squeezed his hand back and pulled his pants up over the plastic wrap covering the new tattoo and walked out of the shop.
--
By the time the tour was finishing up Bert’s tattoo was fully healed. Gerard had held off from touching it for fear of somehow getting Bert infected (Bert simply told him “I am an infection, Gee.”) or ruining the tattoo. Bert casually strolled onto the My Chem bus that day and found Gerard drinking coffee at the little table and plopped down on the couch next to it. “So, it’s healed.” Bert said nonchalantly, picking at a fingernail then biting at it. Gerard cleared his throat and looked around to see if Mikey or Bob were paying any attention to them (Mikey had his headphones in and the volume turned all the way up and Bob didn’t even shift a centimeter) then stood up and pulled Bert back to his bunk.
Bert got naked pretty quickly, watching Gerard watch him. He got on his back on Gerard’s bed and Gerard maneuvered around until he was situated between Bert’s legs, just staring down at the little bat. Bert hadn’t told anyone else about it, it was just between him and Gerard.
“Tell me about this one.” Gerard said quietly, looking up at Bert through his eyelashes. Bert let out a breathy laugh and rolled his eyes. He folded his arms behind his head, too a breath in, and out. “Well,” He started, keeping his voice low. “I’d been needed a new ink and the guy who designed it—“ The corner of Gerard’s lips twitched up a bit. “The guy who designed it is this really dumb dorky guy that I am fucking in love with so it means a lot.” He said, blue eyes searching for a reaction in hazel green. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to drop the L-bomb for the first time. Gerard swallowed, his Adam’s Apple bobbing in his throat, and ran his thumb over the tattoo, tracing around the wings and the teeth. Bert could hear his breath, ragged but trying to be quiet. He closed his eyes as Gerard dipped down to trace his tongue over it, outlining every sketchy line.
Bert just barely caught the breathy words out of Gerard’s mouth against his hip before he softly bit down above the tattoo, “I love you too.”