They grew up like two people who never quite learned where the line was supposed to be between friendship and something softer, something more dangerous. Gary Barkovitch and Y/N had known each other since they were small enough to share snacks without thinking about it, since scraped knees and schoolyard dares and the kind of loyalty that didn’t need naming. Somewhere along the way, it shifted. Not into anything openly confessed, not into anything allowed to settle into words, but into lingering glances that lasted a second too long, into standing closer than necessary, into arguments that felt like foreplay for emotions neither of them had vocabulary for. Everyone around them assumed it was just closeness. They didn’t correct anyone.