WEDNESDAY: But, Man, Screw It
When Bertl woke up, the bed was warm, empty, but most importantly, not his.
He jolted up, head still foggy, and blinked around. Not his, but familiar. He fell back against the pillow, the mattress groaning in time with him. Definitely familiar.
He let himself moan about his plight for a good ten minutes, judging from the alarm clock half-hidden by a pair of jeans. Waking up in his roommate/best friend/on-and-off love of his life, naked, and very, very sober didn't rank high on his "Things I Want To Do Ever" list. Yesterday was a jumble, something about a bet for Annie and then Reiner was leaning over his physics notes to stick his tongue in his mouth and? It wasn't… that bad. It was great and terrible, like that last drink at one in the morning that you know is going to make you puke in the morning, but it's so worth it in the moment. And…
He hadn't had a drop of alcohol last night, but he wanted to puke all the same.
But he couldn't hide under Reiner's bedsheets forever. One, he was naked, and he hated being naked out of the shower for more than a few minutes. Two, at some point Reiner would want his bed back.
He rolled over to scout out the room with his eyes from the blanket sanctuary, searching for something like his clothes. He already knew that he and Reiner could only share clothes in extreme circumstances – they just had different builds with different needs. He didn't see his boxers anywhere, but his shirt was thrown over the pile of them on the dresser, and his jeans were buried under the cast-aside quilt just in reach. He leant precariously off the bed to snatch at them with the tips of his fingers, then blindly jerked them on under the covers, inch by wriggling inch. When they were up enough, he slipped out of bed, straightening the sheets behind him, and buttoned his jeans before yanking on his shirt.
When he stepped out of Reiner's bedroom, Reiner was sitting at their kitchen table, staring at him over a bowl of soggy cereal.
"Oh. Uh."
Reiner looked away and pushed the Rice Krispies box towards the empty bowl waiting at his usual seat. Bertl swallowed, but sat down, focusing on the act of pouring a bowl of cereal like it was his physics final. The milk jug was sort of not cold. How long had Reiner been awake?
Reiner pushed a mug at him. Tea, because he hated coffee, with the string of the bag twisted around the handle. Mint. Bertl sighed, and saw that Reiner had only put on boxers.
Bertl's boxers. Even though they didn't fit.
Bertl swallowed and shoveled in cereal. "Why are you naked?"
Reiner grinned, eyebrow lifting. "Why aren't you?"
"Because I like clothes." He bit the inside of his lip and wished he had the stomach to make it bleed. He wasn't really hungry, just swirling his spoon around in his cereal.
"Oh really? That's not what you said las-"
"Stop. Just… stop." Bertl gave up on his cereal entirely and slumped forward, face in his hands. Reiner's chair scraped across the floor.
"B? Big Bird?" A hand touched between his shoulder blades; he shrugged it off. "Babe?"
"No!" Bertl stood up and glared at Reiner, whose eyes were wide under his bedhead. "You don't get to make jokes and call me babe! That's not-"
"Not what?" Reiner said, standing, too, moving a step away from Bertl's toes, the grin gone. "Come on, Bertl, finish a God-damned sentence for once-"
"That's not what I want!" Bertl would have gripped Reiner's shirt, but he didn't have one on, so his hands gripped at shoulders instead, muscles rippling under his palms. "I want…" He closed his eyes; it was easier to talk without blownout blue irises. "I want to – to sleep in your bed, a lot, like all the time, your bed is great, and yell at girls that flirt with you, and hold your stupid hand whenever I want. I'm tired of watching someone else fall for you, watch you treat them like shit, tired of being scared of that happening to me. I just…" When had Reiner stepped closer? "I want you to treat me different."
Fingers at the back of his head, weaving through his hair. He sighed in several stages, eyes still closed.
"Hey."
He cracked a lid. Reiner was beaming like an afternoon sun. "I thought Annie was lying, but… you really do love me, don't ya?"
Bertl couldn't make a noise, couldn't even squeak. But he nodded. Reiner laughed, but it wasn't mean.
"Great. That's awesome." Reiner pressed his smile to Bertl's open frown, and Bertl should stop that but he just melted, hands at Reiner's shoulders coming around to his neck, holding him there with interlaced knuckles. Bertl lifted Reiner off the floor, just a hair, and Reiner grunted into his mouth, then laughed.
He pulled away and mussed up Bertl's hair. "You could've just said so."
Bertl blinked, then his hands started to shake. He lowered Reiner to his feet, arms shaking now, heart jerking around in his chest, breath heaving.
"Hey. Breathe, B. I'm right here. Breathe."
Reiner guided him to the couch, pulled him into his lap like an oversized dog afraid of thunder, whispering into his hair and rubbing whatever of Bertl he could reach – a knee, his arm, his back. Bertl gulped air like water.
When he'd calmed down enough to be aware that he was in Reiner's lap, Reiner chuckled and kept him from crawling away. "All right, I see your point." Reiner cradled him, almost, as the tremors of his panic-quake ruffled through him, and talked into Bertl's temple. "You're gonna have to help me out on this, okay? I don't really know now not to treat someone like shit, and sometimes I'm just an asshole." Bertl choked on his laugh.
"But… my asshole?"
"Any time you want it." A beat. "That's a bad sex joke and a shitty way to ask you out. I'm on fire today."
Bertl laughed again, cried into the top of Reiner's head. Maybe bad sex jokes were really the core of this dumb guy that he adored. Maybe he'd just have to live with them.
Maybe he'd get to live with them.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Bertl nodded, and Reiner's fist clenched in his shirt at his waist. "Kickass."
At some point, they dragged over their cold tea and coffee mugs, not really noticing their temperature as they folded together in different paper patterns, talking in low voices until both of them were late for class.
They forgot about the cereal.
