JAWS (Complete)

Chapter 14

*Observant Brother meets the Jaws*

A/N:
Hi everyone 👋

Ok so Bert have so many names like bertoto,butanol,bertell, burrito etc, so I pick the close one haha😝

Enjoy 😘

Vote and comment 🥰

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

Annie comes home early, citing an upset stomach and general exhaustion, and Bertolt ends up making dinner while she naps. He normally makes dinner anyway, but he puts extra care into this meal, choosing all the comfort foods Annie loves but usually denies herself in the name of her physical training. Her needs are changing, though, and now isn't the time to avoid cheese instead of indulging in calcium.

Bertolt makes her a tray once the food-the calorie-rich, nutrient heavy food-is ready, and brings it into the bedroom for her. She's deeply asleep, though, curled in a ball in the center of the bed, and he doesn't have it in himself to wake her. The tray goes back to the kitchen, her meal stored in the refrigerator for later, and then Bertolt goes back into the bedroom to make sure she's comfortable. He gently eases her shoes off her feet and slips the simple, classy jewelry she wears off her wrists and from around her neck-a bracelet with a unicorn charm that he'd bought her for their first Christmas together, a silver necklace with a diamond chip that her father had given her for her high school graduation-and stores them safely in the little dish on her nightstand. Then he tucks a blanket over her and bends down to kiss her temple.

She rousts a little then, turning her head for a real kiss, and Bertolt brushes her hair out of the way so he can give her one. He's reminded of their first kiss, and how he'd miscalculated the angle and sheer combined sizes of their noses, and ended up knocking his snoot off her cheek and completely missing. He'd been mortified, certain that she would look at him with cool disdain, but she'd just blinked, shaken her head, and, with a faint, amused smile, taken his face in both her hands and held him still so she could lean in and deliver a proper kiss. He'd been completely smitten, and now, three years later, nothing has changed.

His aim for kisses has improved a great deal, though. Consistent practice will do that.

Bertolt leaves Annie to her nap and heads into the living room. It's Monday afternoon, which means it's time for his weekly call to Reiner, and Bertolt gets himself set up on the couch. Once he's cocooned in a cozy blanket and has his earphones plugged in, his computer propped against his knees, Bertolt opens FaceTime and selects Reiner's name from his contacts.

He's been low-key worried about Reiner for months now, and that worry has recently kicked up a notch. It's the new guy, the one Reiner is so infatuated with. On the one hand, it's been like seeing the Reiner Bertolt has known for most of his life finally peek out from behind the clouds that had scudded over after Jean left. Reiner would never admit it, Bertolt knows, but he'd fallen into a depression after that whole debacle, and it seems like he's finally starting to emerge on the other side of it. Bertolt is glad for that-there's only been so much he can do, being all the way across the country, and that had hurt more than anything else, knowing Reiner was suffering and not being able to do anything about it-but he doesn't like that it seems so connected to the new guy. To Galliard.

Bertolt knows how Reiner throws himself into things. He's seen it time and time again, and it's one of the things he loves about him: Reiner's sheer, unbridled enthusiasm and devotion and commitment to the things he cares about. It was one of the things that drew Bertolt to him, when they were both dorky middle schoolers, the clear and obvious sixth grade outcasts, but Reiner seemed completely unaware of his place in the pecking order. He'd been so bold and brave, so transcendentally unaware of the kind of social boundaries that made Bertolt break out in a cold sweat, that everyone couldn't help but love him. But for some reason, a reason that Reiner probably couldn't have articulated back then, he'd been drawn to Bertolt too, and Bertolt knows, deep down, that he wouldn't have survived middle and high school and even university if Reiner wasn't his best friend. They're more than best friends at this point; they're brothers.