61. Bertram
Bertram
Bertram was falling asleep to the pleasant sound of rain and distant thunder when he was startled by a voice.
At least, he thought it was a voice, but he did have a habit of imagining Helena—in all sorts of ways, at all sorts of inconvenient times—
“KNOCK-KNOCK!” Helena yelled, in a voice that was definitely not imaginary.
Bertram sprung to his feet and unzipped the tent.
Helena and Lovey shivered in the freezing rain and hail fell all around them.
“G-good news and b-b-bad news,” Helena stammered.
“Get inside!” Bertram said.
“Have a b-blanket r-ready,” Helena warned. “For Lovey.”
Bertram turned and got a blanket, somewhat confused as to her urgency about bedding.
“THROW THE B-BLANKET ON LOVEY!” Helena shouted the second they crossed his tent’s threshold.
Bertram did, just in time for Lovey to shake ferociously. It was a valiant effort from her to dispel water from feathers and fur alike, and thankfully the blanket contained most of the droplets.
“Good call,” Bertram said.
“G-good throw,” said Helena. She shivered fiercely as her soaked clothes dripped water. “S-s-s-so—”
“Strip first, talk later,” Bertram said.
Helena’s eyes widened.
“For warmth!” Bertram clarified. “I’ll grab dry clothes. In the meantime—” Bertram turned and grabbed a towel, which he extended to Helena behind his back, in case she had already started undressing. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Helena took the towel from him.
Bertram began gathering clothes he thought might fit her at least a little. He heard her shifting as she removed her wet clothes and dried herself with the towel.
“And here.” Bertram didn’t quite manage to extend the bundle of clothes behind his back effectively. So, he turned and held out the bundle of boxers, sweatpants, long-sleeved shirt, and sweatshirt, keeping his eyes firmly closed. “Where are you?”
Helena snorted as she took the bundle of clothes from him. “You d-don’t have to be so polite, Bertram. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
“Not since college,” said Bertram, eyes still closed.
“Good p-point,” said Helena, and he could hear her pulling on his clothes. “You should keep that image in your mind. It’s all been d-downhill since then.”
“I really, really doubt that.”
Bertram swallowed. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was in a situation where a colleague was being self-deprecating, but you think her body looks as amazing as it did eight years ago, but she’s your colleague, not your girlfriend (and technically was never your girlfriend), so you’re not supposed to have been noticing her body, but you also don’t want her to feel bad about her body, so maybe you should say something about her body being amazing but you also don’t want to be sexist or make her uncomfortable but you also hate hearing her think she’s anything other than stunning—
“Okay, I’m decent now,” Helena said.
Bertram turned to find Helena drowning in his clothing.
“Peak fashion.” Helena smiled and held up her arms, showing off the sleeves drooping far past her hands.
Another shiver ran through Helena. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed.
Bertram watched frigid water drip down her face. He grabbed a dry towel and gestured toward Helena’s sopping hair. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”
Helena nodded, her fingers digging into her upper arms as she shivered.
Bertram came up behind her and began drying her hair with the towel. Helena closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. He didn’t miss the way her face flushed slightly and her lips parted as he massaged her scalp through the towel.
He felt a stirring of pride, among other things.
But if Helena had felt the need to run through a storm with Lovey in the middle of the night, there must have been a good reason for it, so any stirrings would have to un-stir.
Not that there should be those kinds of stirrings, anyway. So there just . . . wouldn’t be. Maybe he imagined the look of bliss on her face, the way her body arched toward his as if it was searching for their past intimacy . . .
“Now,” Bertram said, forcing herself to attend to the current matter, “you mentioned something about good news and bad news. Well. Technically you mention something about ‘g-g-good news’ and ‘b-b-bad news’ but hopefully we’ve warmed you up.”
Helena choked out a laugh. “The good news is Lovey flew! For real!”
Bertram groaned. “Please tell me that you didn’t brave a hailstorm in the middle of the night to tell me that Lovey flew.”
“Oh, please. Even I’m not that enthusiastic about owl-bear behavior.” Helena snorted. “Does that really seem like the kind of thing I would . . .”
Helena trailed off.
Bertram raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine,” Helena conceded, “maybe that is something I would do. But not what happened! That’s the bad news—this is by far the worst storm since Lovey hatched, and you would think that she wouldn’t be scared since this is her natural habitat?
But apparently she’s afraid of thunder. Or maybe it was the hail hitting the tent.
Either way. Lovey decided her first actual flight was going to be directly through the top of our tent, talons-first.”
“Aha. Thus the—” Bertram gestured to Helena’s and Lovey’s very wet forms.
“Yup. So. We’re a little roof-less. If you don’t mind us staying over until the storm passes…”
“No, of course I don’t,” Bertram said.
“Sorry to have woken you,” Helena said. She sighed. “I guess we could’ve run to the lab—”
“Don’t be silly. Would you have taken your pillows and blankets through the storm and slept on soaking wet bedding, or would you have just slept on the lab floor with nothing?”
Helena smiled. “Fair enough. Well. Thank you for your generosity.”
“Of course.” Bertram swallowed. “I—do have extra blankets, other than the one we smothered Lovey in—so—but—obviously I don’t have an extra bed—I’d offer to sleep on the floor—”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“—but the ground is really fucking hard and rocky, and it’s cold so, if you’re okay sleeping in my bed with me, you and Lovey are welcome to do so.”
“That would be really kind,” Helena said. “Thank you.”
“Sure. It’s no problem.” Bertram looked down, suddenly struck by his current state of dress, or lack thereof. He was wearing pajama pants.
Just pajama pants.
“Um,” Bertram said. “Do you—uh—want me to put a shirt on?”
“Oh. Um. Not for my sake.” Helena swallowed. “If it would make you more comfortable, sure. But I don’t—I don’t mind.”
Bertram scrutinized her expression, trying to decipher if she was being polite for his sake or if she was sincere.
“Um. If anything”—Helena blushed and she looked up at the tent ceiling—“uh, you know. We’ve, uh, established that you run hotter than I do. Just, you know, thicker skin and all, and just generally, uh, so in terms of me warming up, it’s probably actually helpful to just, uh . . .”
Rather than watch Helena struggle through the rest of her sentence, Bertram sat on his bed and gestured Helena over. “Come here.”
Helena walked over to the bed and lay down. Bertram sat upright, unsure how best to get comfortable without invading Helena’s personal space.
Helena looked up at Bertram, scrutinizing him as though doing calculus. Then she tapped him on the arm and then tapped the bed, indicating that he should lay beside her.
Bertram breathed a slight sigh of relief and slumped down into his bed.
The second Bertram was horizontal, Helena snuggled over and put her head against Bertram’s chest.
“Fucking hells, you’re cold!” Bertram jerked reflexively as Helena’s freezing little face rested on him.
Helena immediately scrambled to sit up, but Bertram put his hand on her head and kept her there.
“Wasn’t saying it to make you leave,” Bertram said, stroking her hair. “Only saying you’re right—you really do need some warming up.”
“So, this is okay?” Helena asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.
“This is okay,” Bertram said.
Helena snuggled closer, and Bertram kissed the top of her head on pure instinct. Just the sheer muscle memory of having her head on his chest made him want to do it.
Helena’s eyes went even wider.
“I—sorry,” said Bertram.
Helena shook her head. “No, no. Don’t be sorry.”
“Old habits,” Bertram said.
“Of course. Reflex.”
“Right.”
Helena nodded and wrapped her arms around Bertram’s chest. “This okay too?”
“How about you just assume everything’s okay, and if you do anything I’m not comfortable with, I’ll let you know.”
Helena nodded again and closed her eyes.
Bertram brushed a strand of her damp hair off her face. He froze as he felt a heavy weight on his legs and the soft press of talons.
Lovatch had hopped up on the bed and was now crawling up onto him.
“Hel.” Bertram nudged her. “Do we think Lovey’s coming to defend you from me?”
“No.” Helena shook her head without opening her eyes. “She probably would’ve sunk her beak into you if that were the case.”
“Comforting,” Bertram said, dryly.
“Pfft. Nothing you haven’t survived already.”
“Not when she was about the size of an African wild dog.”
“Lycaon pictus.” Helena yawned. “She’s just here to snuggle. She likes to sleep basically under me at night, but if she’s choosing you, that’s a compliment.”
“She’s right on my knees.”
“Yeah,” Helena said. “She usually finds the absolute worst, most uncomfortable spot. If you need me to take her, I can try to coerce her into—”
“No, no.” Bertram sighed. “We worked hard on her trusting me. I guess I should see this as a victory. An uncomfortable victory, but a victory.”
“Mmm.” Helena curled up more tightly against Bertram.
“You falling asleep?”
“Mhm.”
“Wake me if you need anything, okay?” Bertram said. “I mean it. Especially if you’re cold. I can find you more blankets—”
“You’re my blanket,” Helena mumbled.
She was asleep within minutes.
“What am I supposed to do, Lovey?” Bertram whispered.
He leaned forward to see that Lovey was asleep, too, right on his knees.
Not that Bertram had actually expected advice from a baby owl-bear.
But he certainly wasn’t getting good advice from his internal monologue, which was insisting that priority number one for the rest of his life should be keeping Helena safe and warm, and that the best way to keep Helena warm and safe was to never let her leave his bed ever again.
Lovey stretched her toes in her sleep, holding onto Bertram’s pant legs with her talons, just as Helena increased her tight hold around his middle.
Bertram was utterly trapped, in so many ways.