Archive of Our Own ^omega

It’s a beautiful day out. The sun smiles warmly down at Jawsh. It almost makes him smile, too, but it’s pretty hard when there’s fake skin over his real mouth. He’s just heading back from his makeshift mine under the base and is craving much-needed rest for his aching bones. It’s such a nice day out that Jawsh considers setting up a beach chair near the shore of his island instead of cooping in his room. 

He sorts some of his unneeded items in the storage chests outside and feels lighter without his cluttered inventory. There’s a spring in his step as he moves to the door. Pushing it open, he closes his eyes to soak in the cold air, opens them, and…

There are worms. Everywhere. 

They line, no, infest the walls of the Capitol building to the point Jawsh wants to vomit. They wiggle in their place with a squishy sound that would barely be audible with a single worm, but when there are thousands of them, the noise thunders. He has to hop down the hallway to avoid squishing worms and creating a larger mess. The infestation stretches out to the main foyer, and Jawsh would be reveling in the absurdity of this all if he weren’t so pissed. When he squints, he’s sure he sees some on the cupola.

Through the fog of his anger ridden brain, which wants nothing more than to scream louder over the worms, Jawsh is able to deduce the obvious culprit:

Berd did this. 

He’s the only one on the server to have this many worms. His diet consisted of worms, birdseed, and fish, plus Jawsh was there in the Twilight Forest with Berd when he hauled stacks of moonworms back home. Yet most convincing of all, Berd is the only one this consistent with his pranks. Some of the others would take breaks after Jawsh gave them hell, but not Berd. Never Berd.

Jawsh is about ready to grab a handful of worms, find Berd, and shove the insects down his beak, but it seems he’s already beaten. A loud, high pitched laugh reverberates through the empty building. Jawsh follows the sound and looks up, hands clenching in spite when he spots white feathers. Berd lays on the mezzanine railing of his second floor like the goddamn Cheshire Cat, staring down with smug glory. His head leans atop his hands (wings? Jawsh had no freaking clue) coyly.

“ What the—, Berd! ” Jawsh yells. Berd barely reacts, accustomed to Jawsh’s outbursts, instead casually plucking a nearby moonworm from the railing and munching on it.

“You like the decorating I’ve done?” Berd says between the mouthful of worm.

“Uh. No ?” He patronizes. The ‘decorations’ make him wish bird season was closer. Berd looks around, admiring his work with big beady bird eyes. 

“Really? I think it looks great.”

Yeah, no. I need this guy gone.

Jawsh is disappointed to find nothing in his inventory but dark oak planks and worms . If only he had his bow. An arrow would shut Berd up. He’s reminded that he carefully stashed his weapons in the storage chests on the front lawn and can’t help but deflate slightly.

With nothing except his deep seated annoyance, he cuts straight to the point. “I am not cleaning this up.”

Berd swings his legs around, shifting from lying on his stomach to sitting up, his presence encompassing now that he’s upright. The moonworms on the wall behind Berd frame him to look like some sort of Greek god. The thought of that makes Jawsh’s stomach twist in a horrible, no good way. “It’s not too hard of a task—“ Berd starts.

Jawsh glares defiantly up at Berd, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. The worms squirm and writhe around them, their bodies sliding over each other and adding to the squelching cacophony. Berd's smug expression is infuriating, but Jawsh refuses to back down. "I'm not cleaning up your mess, Berd," Jawsh grumbles through gritted teeth. "You're the one who thought it would be hilarious to dump tons of worms all over the Capitol building. You deal with it." 

Berd cocks his head to the side with a curious expression. There’s a slight tilt to the sides of his beak, which Jawsh assumes is a frown. “It’s your building.”

“And it’s your prank.”

Someone here had to concede soon, and that person was not going to be Jawsh. He stares down the feathered fiend, daring him to disagree. Berd looks back, beady eyes scanning the room, but Jawsh keeps his gaze locked. The worms wiggle and squirm between them, unbothered by the tension. Finally, a sly grin cracks across Berd’s beak.

“Fine, but you’re keeping the worms,” Berd trills, sliding off the railing. He uses the expanse of one wing to scrape worms off the wall into the cradle of his other. 

Keep the worms? “But— it’s— these are your worms and… I don’t want…” Jawsh’s argument dies out on his tongue. Despite how badly he did not want moonworms littering his chests, it would be stupid to dredge up more arguments when Berd agreed to clean up. However, that doesn’t stop Jawsh from irritably grumbling as he watches the avian sweep worms into his wing. Man, this is gonna take freaking forever. Jawsh at least gets to relax a little, but he won’t be without burden until the potential threat of Berd is out of his house. He quickly grabs his beach chair and sets it in the middle of the foyer. 

The view might not be the calming ocean Jawsh planned, but watching Berd face the consequences of his prank is satisfying enough. 

Early mornings are no easy feat to face. Jawsh is rubbing at where his eyes are above the fake skin, which does nothing to ease the irritation. His sore legs drag as he treks to where the unfinished cathedral lays, some dew drops sticking and soaking through his pants. He has to stop at times to groan at the feeling. Jawsh eventually makes it to the church with wet pants and a trashy mood. It remains a skeletal structure with scaffolding in various places and beams jutting out. It’s not the prettiest, not yet, but Jawsh hopes to finish the front today. 

He drops his backpack to the floor with a clunk. Miraculously, the leather can withstand holding so many stacks of stone despite that being nearly impossible. He doesn’t want to think about the logistics of that. He studied history, not physics. Jawsh cracks his knuckles and reaches in to grab some stone brick to begin the front. His arm blindly fumbles within the contents and he pulls out an object at random. In the palm of his hand is a birch boat. Not stone brick, so he tosses it to the side.

Reaching back in procures another boat. Unusual, but nothing to worry about. He must have packed a few for some other reason he couldn’t remember.

The third time is an oak boat. Okay, now it’s starting to get suspicious. No way was he that stupid to pack 3 boats of varying wood instead of stone brick. 

Dark oak boat. Acacia boat. Spruce. By the time Jawsh has emptied his backpack, there’s a large pile of 27 boats next to him. Whaaaaat the hell?

Shaking the backpack upside down does nothing. There’s no stone, and none magically appears out of thin air. Somehow, his backpack was filled with only boats. Did he accidentally grab a different pack, one used as storage? There is no way— no way—

Something falls out of the upturned backpack, fluttering to the ground and contrasting starkly against the green grass. Lodged between the blades is a feather. A delicate, white feather, and Jawsh is fuming.

“ Berd!” Jawsh is practically waving a fist to the sky, cursing the sun. He knows that stupid bird was around, as Berd was driven by his ego to witness the prank unfold on his victim. But a couple of seconds pass and there’s no flutter of wings or jaunty laughter following. Actually, from the looks of it, there is no Berd.

“Berd, I know you’re there!”

The only answer Jawsh receives is the echo of his voice. In a fit of frustration, he slams his boot into a nearby boat. Static pain flies up his toes as he grabs his foot and hops up and down, cursing under his breath.

As Jawsh seethes there, the sound of distant wing beats can be heard approaching in the air overhead.

Berd lands on the scaffolding outside the church, his beak curled into a wry grin as he leans casually against a support beam. Jawsh can already predict the witty response of Berd’s’ about to come out of that beak.

“How’s building going for you?” Berd chirps, low and steady. 

Jawsh lets out a forced, exasperated laugh, almost grinning from how insane he feels. “You know what? It’s going great! I can build so much with 27 freaking boats.” He doesn’t know when he started transitioning his responses from angry outbursts to equally as sarcastic comments matching Berd’s, but he assumes it started around the 15th prank Berd pulled on him. 

“Yeah, man. It seems like you’ve made great progress!” All suave-like, Berd swoops down to get a closer read on Jawsh. The bird cautiously eyes him as if Jawsh is going to strangle him at any second. When he only receives a stone cold glare from Jawsh’s empty face, he takes to admiring the pile of boats. Irritation boils over and Jawsh balls his hands into fists, frustrated tirate bursting out of his mouth.

“This is so annoying. Now I have to go aaaallll the way back home and come aaaallll the way back here and it’s gonna take forever and I have to lug around stone the whole way here and I hate you, Berd. I hate you so much—“

Feathers shove over his mouth to stop his incessant ranting. Berd has that look in his eyes, the familiar glint of I fucking got you .

Jawsh is about to shove Berd’s wings off his face  until the bird nudges something toward his hands. Perplexed, Jawsh looks down, craning his head to peer over the feathers, and sees a backpack. He takes it with hesitant hands, the weight of the pack almost toppling Jawsh over.

Berd steps away to allow Jawsh breathing room. “Relax. I went and got your stone before coming, ‘cause I knew you’d get all worked up like this.”

Jawsh half expects to see more boats inside the pack but is relieved to find only stone brick, just as he packed this morning. A stirring of… a foreign emotion close to gratefulness bubbles in Jawsh’s chest because Berd never fixed the problems his pranks created until Jawsh screamed for him too. 

He doesn’t know whether he should thank Berd or scoff. Something sickly in his heart urges him to at least be gracious.

The ‘thank you’ caught in his throat morphs into a gurgle, and Jawsh runs away to start on the building, face flaming in embarrassment.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Jawsh tolerates only Berd’s inconveniences. Altrive egged the unfinished cathedral a week ago and Jawsh’s voice still hurts from the shit he gave him. Then, yesterday, Altrive had to watch as Berd trailed Jawsh, taking things out of his backpack and putting it back when Jawsh noticed. Jawsh had merely snapped at him with a playful shove. “You only like it when Berd messes with you,” Altrive had said last night when it was just the two of them in the Capitol, “why?”

Jawsh had to think about the question harder than he would’ve liked. Berd was notorious for bothering him more than anyone else on the server and now seemed to latch onto Jawsh during his free time, trailing him and playing harmless pranks. So, why? Jawsh considered the others’ large scale antics with the sole purpose of setting Jawsh off. Their chicken den remained hidden underground, covered by a dirt block.

An easy answer slipped out then. “Because he always fixes everything,” Jawsh mumbled. “And when he messes with me, it’s not to ruin my day for a quick laugh. He always comes back. I don’t know why, really, but— but… yeah.”

He kept replaying what he had said last night, turning his answer over and over in his mind, hoping a deeper meaning would emerge. When he thinks about it too hard, staticky white noise fills his mind, so he quits and turns his focus to furnishing his room. The evening sun bathes the room and all of Jawsh’s fancy new furniture in gold.

He has a brand new bookshelf on the left side of his room, filled top to bottom with copies of classic American history books, and next to it a pristine dark oak desk. There's a blue carpet stored in one of his chests, saved specifically for his room. It's the final piece needed to make the space feel like his. 

Jawsh‘s trek to his chests is uneventful. He thinks he sees feathers in the corner of his eye on the way back, but it’s just The Bron and his white fur. 

The carpet unfurls beautifully against the wood, adding color to his drab room. Frankly, he’s never been one for aesthetics, but he tried his hardest. He proudly nods to himself at how comfortable his room looks. Bonus, nothing went wrong!

…But something feels wrong. 

His eyes dart around the room, searching for anything out of place, while his hands drum on his thighs. Everything seems to be in order the way he likes it.

His fake skin feels tighter than normal, so he pulls at it. The emaciation solves nothing. Now his skin still feels tight and there’s a strange tear in his hand. 

Maybe it was his clothes. He takes his jacket off and lets it drape against the chair of his desk. Cold gusts of wind are blowing through the windows, he realizes and absentmindedly puts it back on. 

Nothing could satiate his intense paranoia that he had forgotten something. Jawsh hums a tune to fill the echoing silence of the room, and that’s when it hits him. The day feels too quiet. Nowadays, he was used to having someone blabbering about mundane movie references, singing out of key, or imitating cartoon characters with scarily accurate precision. And that someone was missing— Berd was missing.

…Ha. Not like Jawsh cares all too much. He could use these rare moments of quiet. Berd was probably doing something stupid, anyway. Like— like going to the Twilight forest or drinking rum while drawing or—

Jawsh’s humming splinters, his pitch higher. Okay, he doesn’t care about Berd or his well being, but it wouldn’t hurt to find him. JUST to make sure he wasn’t committing any shenanigans, Jawsh tells himself, legs carrying him without hesitation. He doesn’t care about Berd, regardless of how considerate he is with the pranks he pulled. Jawsh's concern, as he tries to convince himself, is not out of care for Berd. It's simply self-preservation. He had to know what that bird brain was up to to preempt any pranks that could ruin his creations. There was certainly no room for affection or trust. He definitely hated the guy.

He takes a shortcut to spawn by cutting through the ocean in a boat (one of Berd’s boats, he notices). As per usual, spawn is the lagging cesspool of slop it always is. To avoid making his day worse by running into people, Jawsh walks along the outer banks of the island toward Fish ‘n Shits. It’s been a while since he’s visited Spawn. So much has changed. For one, there are movies playing everywhere . They’re plastered on the sides of buildings, on billboards, and on the floor. Jawsh has to dig the heels of his palms into his ears to alleviate the noise. For two, Berd’s aquarium is… nic— it’s okay. Not the best building Jawsh has seen. The glass sphere is uneven, maybe he’ll have to help Berd fix that later.

When he steps into the doors, black, glittering particles explode around him and dissipate into the air. The aquarium is oddly peaceful, glass and water blocking out the amalgamation of noise from movies outside. A few fish swim around in the glass sphere of the building, the gentle glow of sea lanterns casting a soft, ethereal radiance over the water. The building may not be the most intricate or impressive structure, but there is a certain charm to its simplicity, a quiet, relaxing atmosphere that seems to calm the usual rush of thoughts in Jawsh’s mind. It’s as if he stepped through a pocket of time where nothing could touch him.

As he meanders further into the aquarium, boots softly digging into the blue carpet, Jawsh can’t help but wonder where Berd is. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere around the open room. Approaching the shop counter, Jawsh finds a hastily written paper taped to the glass reading ‘Closed for the day!’. 

“Berd?” Jawsh calls out. His voice doesn’t echo in the aquarium, not like it does back home. 

Jawsh pauses for a moment to listen for any response, but all he can hear is the soft gurgling of the fish and the gentle slosh of water against the glass. He looks around the room once more, taking in all the little details that make it seem so unmistakably Berd. There are books scattered on the floor next to a small table, and self portraits hang on the wall above his bed. Stepping closer, one picture seems to stand out the most. Jawsh’s hand reaches to brush along the corners of the paper in awe. It’s a drawing of Berd standing with Jawsh in front of an ocean shore, drawn in bold, careful strokes. Underneath them is the caption My best friend, Jawsh.

Yeah, no, he’s going to vomit. Puke, even. He immediately jerks back from the portrait, as if its words are scalding hot. The peaceful atmosphere of the aquarium becomes unbearably uncomfortable and Jawsh stands uneasily in the center of it. Being in Berd’s room uninvited despite the sign outside saying anyone was welcome feels too intimate like he stumbled upon something he wasn’t meant to see. He needs to get out of here now . Screw Berd, Jawsh hopes he went off and died.

The nearest exit out is the door to the dock. Jawsh is once more blinded by particles, and then by the glaring sun. He squints out toward the ocean with blurry vision, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. A blur of white emerges from the haze. There, at the edge of the dock, is the one man Jawsh has been avoiding, yet seeking at the same time. Berd’s legs dangle off the dock, feet close enough to graze the waves crashing below. He’s whipping his bamboo fishing pole back and casting it into the water, like the humble fisherman he is.

 Jawsh doubts Berd has noticed his presence, being so focused on his pursuit. It would be so easy to leave without attracting Berd’s attention. Just turn around, turn around, turn around—

“Berd?” Jawsh blurts.

Well, shit.  

Berd startles and jerks his head around, but relaxes after seeing that it’s just Jawsh. One wing extends in greeting. “Hey, man. Wanna sit?” Berd pats the spot next to him.

Jawsh, convinced something is going to happen, stiffens. “There’s… no catch?” He mutters.

Berd has an indiscernible look on his bird face. “Nah, I’ve caught a few flounders so far. Been up here all morning.” 

This idiot. “No! I meant— nothing’s gonna happen if I sit there? No pressure plate’ll activate a hidden tar and feather system?” There’s no way Berd cared to think about an old school humiliation system. Jawsh is glad he has fake skin to hide the embarrassment flooding his cheeks.

“Tar and feather system—- what?” The bird wheezes through his nose at the idea, causing Jawsh’s suspicion to waver. “Don’t be giving me ideas, Jawsh. C’mere.” Jawsh should be bolting the other way like he intended, but his feet aren’t cooperating. Berd sounds irritably enticing, and his legs seem to agree.

Like a dog on a leash, Jawsh warily approaches the dock and settles next to the avian. His gaze fixates on the water, just beside where Berd’s bobber floats. The tides below crash against the wood and recede into the sunset. Suddenly, the line tightens and Jawsh jolts in surprise, Berd reeling his catch in. The caught fish that Jawsh can’t recognize for the life of him dangles midair on the hook.

“Fish!” Berd cheers with a flap of his wings. 

“…fish,” echoes Jawsh. The fish wiggles on the line and mists him with water. Every creature, sentient or not, always hates Jawsh. 

Carefully, Berd detaches the hook from the bottom lip of the fish, placing the rod to the side. Jawsh assumes it’s about to go in a bucket or something, kept safe for shop storage, but Berd holds out the wriggling fish with a secure grip. It irks Jawsh the wrong way watching the fish gaping up at him. He meets Berd’s expectant eyes mainly to avoid the fish.

“Up to tossing him in for me?” Berd nods toward him. 

The thought of touching the slimy fish is revolting, and with Berd holding it so close to Jawsh’s face, warning bells are going off. By now Berd could sense his disgust, and by now something mischievous had to be cooking up. “Uh. No.” 

Jawsh braces himself for Berd to maybe rub the fish on his cheek or throw him in the water, however impish the bird is feeling at the moment, but nothing comes. The sight is of Berd releasing the fish into the ocean when Jawsh opens his eyes. Oh. 

“Relax, man. Seriously.”

Jawsh blinks, first at the water, then up at Berd. “I’m relaxed—“

“Nuh uh. You’re so not relaxed.”

“I’m relaxed and calm and not tense, Berd,” Jawsh says in the most unrelaxed, uncalm, and tense way possible. “Stop accusing me of whatever you think you’re sensing, ‘cause it’s nothing.”

He shifts his gaze to the cloudless sunset because looking at Berd is starting to get difficult. What did he know about Jawsh, anyway? Berd thinks they were best friends without even asking him! People can’t just declare the title nonchalantly, there has to be a mutual agreement between both parties after a steady cultivation of familiarity. Does Berd not understand the political implications of the system—

“You’re scratching your ‘skin’ again.” Berd catches his hand, which was indeed habitually clawing at his cheek, and forces it down to his side. “Seriously. What’s up with you?”

“Why do you care—“

“I care,” Berd says with a finality that shuts Jawsh up, for once.

Jawsh hesitates, swallowing thickly.

“I…” He trails off, searching for the right words. “I just— it’s just been a weird day. I can’t get out of my head today. I guess I’m just worried about a lot of things. Like…” He gestures to nothing in particular.

Berd makes a soft noise in his throat. “What kind of things?” He coaxes. Maybe Berd was an excellent fisherman after all because Jawsh is taking his bait.

“It’s— you weren’t there today. Usually you’re bothering me but today you were gone. Not that I care. I actually liked it.” Jawsh chastises himself for being literarily dense.

There’s a moment of silence between them before Berd laughs in confusion. “You’re upset because you missed me?” He squawks in disbelief. “Really? I would’ve thought you’d be jumping for joy to have one day without me.”

Jawsh whips his head away in the opposite direction of Berd, who is leaning to the side trying to catch his gaze. “I didn’t miss you!”

Despite the obvious embarrassment of the situation, Berd can’t help but let out another laugh. He gently knocks his shoulder against Jawsh, the feathers of his wing grazing his cheek.

“Right, right, of course.” He grins playfully. “You wouldn’t miss me for a second. You hate me.”

Hearing the words Jawsh has been preaching to himself, that he hates Berd, actually coming out of Berd’s beak sounds way harsher. He winces guiltily. “Okay, I don’t hate you. I just think you’re an inconvenience to everything I do.”

Content with the answer, Berd hums in thought. “So, you didn’t miss me. You were worried about me? Is that what I’m getting?” 

He grumbles to himself, resenting Berd’s uncanny knack for discerning what Jawsh refuses to admit. His reaction is telling enough, and Berd seems positively joyous. Jawsh glowers at the setting sun, the horizon line turning a deep orange. He’s sure Berd’s face somehow outshines that vibrant glow. 

“I just…” He mumbles under his breath. “I don’t know. Something felt off without you there today. You always come by and ruin things, and even if it’s annoying, it’s… routine. You’re routine.”

Looking at Berd is a mistake. There’s something inexplicably fond in his expression, a look that makes Jawsh want to shy away and avoid eye contact.

“Well, I can guarantee I’m gonna be back to bothering you tomorrow if that’ll make you feel better. I thought you needed a break today.”

Well, why couldn’t he just ask me? Jawsh bitterly thinks. “Whatever. Take all the breaks you need. I don’t care.”

Berd rolls his eyes, fully extending a wing and stretching it out over Jawsh’s shoulders. There’s a beat of silence while Berd gets comfortable as if testing the waters of how Jawsh would reject the contact. When he doesn’t say anything, both take it as a green light.

“Stop worrying. I’m not getting bored or all that. I just need time to myself, too. Revolving my free time solely to interact with people gets so— so tiring,” Berd confesses.

Jawsh hates how he fully understands that sentiment. Jawsh hates the fact that Berd, despite being one of the most sociable people he's ever encountered, also understands that sentiment. Jawsh hates a lot of things, especially when it comes to Berd, he realizes.

“…yeah. I get that. I’m…” Jawsh chokes a little, “ I’msorry.” He apologizes quickly, ripping the bandaid off before he can feel the burn on his pride. The apology sounds stupid coming from him. Jawsh never apologized for anything. The notion that Berd might think he’s being insincere is gnawing at him.

He’s pulled closer, hip to hip with Berd on the dock, knees knocking against each other. Berd’s wing drapes over Jawsh like a protective shield, and Jawsh, remarkably, doesn’t feel like shoving away. He exhales with a sigh of relief. 

“Forgiven!” Berd chirps, easily, as though forgiveness was ingrained in his very being. “And I’m sorry for worrying you.” For once, Jawsh doesn’t sense any impending pranks Berd might unfurl when his guard is down. This moment feels genuine. 

They dissolve into silence, waves and shoreline creating a conversation in their place. It’s comfortable. The kind of comfort that makes Jawsh lose track of time. The kind where he doesn’t even notice when the sun descends and the sky shadows into a dark blue. 

Jawsh moves his stare to the side of Berd’s face. There’s one last thing nagging him, something that is starting to not worry him as much as it did.

“Your drawing inside, the one above your bed. You wrote that I was your best friend,” Jawsh mentions, voice drifting out. The wing on his shoulders shifts, suddenly unsure. Berd is the one averting his eyes now.

“Yeah. Are you cool with that?” Bets whispers. With being best friends? With mutually agreeing on the title?

Jawsh doesn’t need to mull over an answer, it’s tumbling out before he can catch it. “…I am. We can be best friends.”

Jawsh’s chest twists again, and maybe the feeling isn’t so bad.

Being ‘best friends’ with someone came with obligations Jawsh was not aware of until now. Believe it or not— it’s actually very believable— Jawsh has never had someone he could call a best friend before. There was nobody to share the other half of the BFF necklace with, or to give olives to because he hated olives and his best friend loved them. 

Luckily for him, Berd loves olives and was very happy to receive half of a sandwich that Jawsh couldn’t finish. (Look, Jawsh had limits, and he’s damn well not going to parade a sparkly pink half-heart pendant around his neck for the whole server to see.)

Berd… always has that mischievous air about him. Like he’s ready to pounce at a second’s notice. Jawsh has grown familiar with the pranks being played on him. It’s a normal part of their routine at this point. Now it was time to get used to participating in said pranks. Berd assured him every time that Jawsh was there for moral support, not to commit mischief himself, and all repercussions would fall on Berd. Jawsh has watched Altrive dangle upside down in a net trap, Joko frantically searching the server for promised diamonds, and Schlatt get sucked into a rigged gambling ring, all orchestrated by Berd. And, let him tell you, seeing instead of being on the experiencing end of pranks was awesome .

He’s learned a lot by being an accomplice, like how Berd always has an escape plan and a stash of backup materials, and that Berd had rules for his pranks to keep the ideas from getting abysmal. Rule 1: No mental warfare. Rule 2: No permanent destruction of property. Rule 3: Clean up before the victim starts freaking out on you. Jawsh is pretty sure that the last rule was made specifically because of him.

Jawsh hasn’t let himself think about why exactly he always agreed to participate. It was only for the entertainment value, he convinced himself. And because Berd was now his best friend. 

Sharing a piece of your life with a confidant was pretty cool, he thought. But perhaps one of the best outcomes of this friendship was that there were virtually no grandeur pranks being pulled on him anymore. Berd still liked to mess with him, like taking things from his backpack and moving his door one pixel away when he wasn’t looking, but no more were the worms postered on the walls or boats filling his inventory. He didn’t need to walk on eggshells day in and day out, so if he were to rank the benefits of having a friend, being an exception to the slaughter would be highest.

It’s been maybe a month since he and Berd officially declared themselves best friends. Most of Jawsh’s time is filled with Berd, Berd, Berd— Berd at his house scampering around, Berd at the cathedral drawing smiles into the dirt, and Berd and him at the aquarium watching movies. It’s not just Jawsh and his antisocialism anymore; it’s Jawsh and Berd.

And in that month's time, he’s finished the cathedral. The towering structure is his most ambitious project yet, with intricate patterns in the brick and towers pointing sky high. When inside, the light pours through the stained glass in the center tower and paints the stone in a mosaic of dazzling colors. It’s early afternoon and Berd came to admire the finished project. The room is barren of pews or furniture, just them filling the space. Rainbow tinted light from the glass mural bathes over Berd, and Jawsh stands next to him in shadow. 

“This is incredible, Jawsh,” Berd says. He’s still marveling at the hand-made stained glass Jawsh spent weeks grueling over. A twinge of pride lights in his chest. 

“I know. Getting material for the cathedral might have been worse than getting quartz for the Capitol.” 

Berd snorts. “How have you managed to build this whole thing before furnishing that piece of shit?” 

Jawsh shrugs despondently. Okay, maybe he has been slacking on completing the Capitol, but interior design has never been his forte. He hardly noticed the empty rooms anyway, given how focused he was on the cathedral. Now with that done, he has even more empty rooms to deal with. He steps into the larger expanse of his cathedral, contemplating what to do and just how to do it. Both builds combined were more acres than Jawsh was prepared for. The looming responsibility made the room feel larger, expanding its dimensions in his warbling vision.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna catch up furnishing the Capitol and the cathedral, Berd. It’s too daunting of a task!” Jawsh paces the chamber, his fingers twitching as he contemplates the overwhelming workload. “The courtroom and my room at home are done, but that’s it. What am I going to do here? Do I build pews”—he gazes out at the vacant space—“and an altar? And with what blocks—”

Jawsh spins around, mid-sentence, catching Berd blinking back at him with that familiar curious look, one he'd come to recognize from their countless hours together. His mouth feels very, very dry, and the complaints he had at ready are swallowed down. Berd, finding Jawsh’s gaze effortlessly despite not seeing his real eyes, extends a wing.

“Hey, man. It’ll be easy if we do it together, right? I can help you furnish the cathedral.” Berd smiles in the pouring light and Jawsh thinks about the Greek god comparison he made a while back. With the shards of colorful light surrounding him, he looks otherworldly. He’d make a lovely Angel, Jawsh thinks, or a gorgeous statue. It takes a considerable amount of effort trying to remember what Berd said now… Furnishing assistance. Right.

With the two of them jointly working on the projects, it might take maybe a week to get both the cathedral and capitol done rather than months if he were working alone. That idea is convincing enough. Cotton mouthed, Jawsh accepts Berd’s wing, in turn accepting the offer. Berd pulls him in so that he joins his side under the colorful arrangement of lights. Jawsh’s face is washed in blue, Berd’s in red, and their conjoined hand and wing in purple. Everything feels a little brighter.

Little progress has been made on the Capitol so far. His entire morning was spent stringing up dozens of American flags along the banister because that’s all Jawsh has in terms of decoration. See, he had the mindset to create intricate, elegant buildings, but anything outside that box of mathematical structure was particularly hard to tap into. Finding the correct colors that complement spruce? His nightmare. He’s been holding off on that judgment until Berd was done with his part of the cathedral. Berd is an artist, naturally talented at out-of-the-box creation. Jawsh needs him for this.

He’s sitting on the steps of the patio patiently, humming a song Berd showed him on a movie screen a while back. It’s maybe 2:30 pm in the sweltering hot afternoon and Berd said he’d meet up with Jawsh at 3. But since Jawsh gave up and now had nothing to do, he thinks it wouldn’t hurt if he visited Berd 30 minutes before. He can’t fathom how much work Berd’s probably done to impress him so the least he can do is take a peek. Jawsh pushes himself onto his feet and sets out to keep Berd company.

The cathedral is exactly how he left it, all stony sharp edges. Jawsh shoulders the doors open with a grunt. They creak open like they were centuries old. Man, he needs to oil the hinges. He makes a mental note to handle that later.

It’s… considerably empty. Peering into the tower Berd was supposedly working in, there’s absolutely nothing in it. No decorations or the bird himself. Jawsh, confused, sticks his head back to the main area. The place remains void. Except…

His eyes land on a lone altar in the middle of the cathedral lit with ivory candles. Small and unassuming, it holds what appears to be a strange scroll. Was this the ‘decorating’ Berd’s done in the last two hours? Whatever, whatever. Maybe this needed two hours or something. Jawsh will save any preconceived notions for later. He lands forth among the wooden altar. Up close, he notices the wooden carvings of a caduceus stretched along the sides. Each intricate detail is drawn inward towards the scroll, centered on the console, and rolled. Jawsh grows closer to unfurl it.

“Jawsh!” Berd, frantic, appears from seemingly nowhere. “Jawsh, you need to step— step away! It’s not ready yet—“

Whatever Berd is warning him about, it’s too late. Jawsh is able to get a glimpse of the scroll before everything erupts into a blaze of crimson. The paper is empty.

Those initial groggy moments upon respawning always make the last few instants of his past life feel like a dream. A painful, scream filled dream. He’s died to creepers, zombies, drowning, and pretty much anything harmful Jawsh has stood in the way of, but none of those deaths gripped him the way this one has. The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that his chest hurts. And not in the sword-through-the-chest type. Dying never disturbs his body this bad after respawning. Jawsh rubs his eyes and blinks up at the ceiling of his room. What happened? 

And it all comes back like a car crash. Fire, ringing in his ears, smoke. Jawsh bolts up to check the death logs and, lo and behold, there it is. 

[Its_Jawsh was blown up]

“It’s not ready yet!”

The paper is empty.

He’s out of bed before he can process it, mind swimming with his aching chest.

His lungs burn, torn between running and adrenaline. His mind can hardly make sense of what used to be the cathedral as he gets closer. There’s no stained glass window anymore, no squeaky door to push through, or fortified stone walls to keep mobs out. In its place is a monstrous, gaping hole filled with debris. The remnants of the towers he painstakingly built into the late hours now lie in shattered ruins. It’s all gone.

At the bottom of the cavity is Berd, feathers singed, cradling a pitiful pile of Jawsh’s things in his arms. Jawsh is panting when he reaches the edge. His fists clench into his pants as he kneels over.

“ What the fuck did you do?”

Despite respawning, his throat is dry. Why does everything ache?

Berd's expression is something Jawsh has never seen before—a mix of terror and disbelief on the face of the usual optimist. His eyes are wide, his beak trembling.

“Jawsh, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Berd croaks out, his voice faint in the empty void where stone walls once stood.

“ Didn’t mean to?” Jawsh mocks in disbelief. “Then what—“

“Listen! Listen, the— it wasn’t ready. There were supposed to be dispensers to flood the TNT so it wouldn’t damage anything! Jawsh, I promise, no, I swear. This wasn’t my intended outcome.”

He runs a hand over his jaw, left perplexed, spinning the words around in his mind like a maddening carousel of disbelief. It’s hard to understand what Berd was divulging even when the answer was obvious because… he couldn't have. They were best friends now, this couldn't be some twisted…

“This was a prank?” Jawsh’s voice is breathless, words carried down by the wind. Berd looks down and, for once, has nothing to say. His stomach plummets like a lead weight, an anchor of rage and betrayal sinking deeper with every passing moment. Like a switch, Jawsh snaps upright with heaving shoulders. Berd's lucky to have all of Jawsh's stuff—so damn lucky. If Jawsh had his bow, there would be no Berd to shroud his mind of coherence. “What was supposed to happen then?” Jawsh shrieks, motioning outward to the remains of what was once an impressive cathedral, blazing with fury. “ What was supposed to happen .”

He feels nothing when Berd jolts at his volume. It’s the least he deserves. Berd ducks his head downward in shame. “The alter was a motion detection trap,” he mutters. “Opening the scroll would trigger redstone, igniting the TNT, and then activating a flood of water so it wouldn’t blow. I didn’t expect you to come early, so there was no water in the dispensers.”

It didn’t matter if the contraption wasn’t meant to detonate; what matters is the fact that it did. There was a risk involved that Berd knew yet he willingly chose to continue. 

“You didn’t expect me to come early?” Jawsh spits out. “And why the hell would you even place a TNT trap in there in the first place? That’s not a prank, that’s a death wish!” His eyes land on the damaged remains of his belongings in Berd’s hands. He’s furious. Furious and hurt. “I’m supposed to accept that after all this time we spent together, you just, what? You thought TNT was safe? You thought it was okay to expose us to that?”

Berd nods, and that little motion makes the ache in his chest swallow him whole.

Small, voice ebbing with rue, Berd says one thing that breaks him. “I thought it’d be funny.”

Jawsh is reminded of every stunt, harmful or not, inflicted on him since joining the server. Traps, complicated devices, and mental warfare were all designed to rile him up. From the moment he first stepped into spawn, he was targeted, caged, and mocked as the dancing jester. He was a ticking bomb, ready to explode at the slightest touch. Nobody treated him like a real person capable of experiencing other emotions than reactionary anger. Jawsh was the clown, the punchline. And in the end, he’d just end up exploding, like always. It would’ve been better if he’d never let himself hope at all. He’d never be anything more than a target with a sign reading “Kick me” to anyone. Except for Berd . He’s never had to keep his guard up with his friend. He let himself become comfortable, happy even. For the first time in months, he let his walls down. And for what? This?

Berd was no different than the rest.

He comes to a decision. It hurts. It destroys him on the inside to lose so much in the last half hour, but seeing Berd is a relic of what could’ve been. His hand quivers when he points it behind him. “Leave.”

Berd looks up at the command, pleading, “Jawsh, I—I can help fix this. All of this! I can get stone, I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Just… please, let me–“

“I don’t give a damn what you have to say,” Jawsh snaps, cutting him off. “Leave.” He hates how his voice wavers.

A flash of hurt crosses Berd’s face, a pang striking Jawsh’s heart, but it’s quickly masked by resignation. He looks utterly defeated, wings drooping and head bowed as he sets the few remnants of Jawsh’s belongings on the ground. With a single glance back, Berd turns and takes off into the sky, his feathers blending with the backdrop of darkening clouds.

The wind howls in Jawsh’s ears, joining the roaring in his head. He remains fixed on the spot where Berd just stood. With gritted teeth, he growls and kicks a rock over the edge. It tumbles down in a cloud of smoke before hitting the bottom, coming to rest among the scattered remnants of Jawsh’s belongings. The anger has exhausted him and it’s now dissolved into an empty ache. He can’t think about Berd, or else he’ll want to run after him. Jawsh can’t do that, he can’t chase danger anymore.

He has so much work to do.

Jawsh wishes he could say that was the last he sees of Berd, but it isn’t. As if Jawsh was a gravitational magnet, Berd comes back, harboring more apologies with each denial Jawsh gives him. That bird is conveniently present every time Jawsh is fixing the cathedral, which is the last place Jawsh would want to see him. He followed Jawsh at intervals, sat on top of his chests, and tried to help out, to which Jawsh would snap at him to leave. For all he knew, Berd was setting up more explosive traps to set his progress back by another month.  

And, Jesus, progress is grueling. It’s bad enough that he’s going off his memory to rebuild brick by brick, and he chastises himself for being too lazy to make blueprints. It’s a pain to rebuild, especially when the original material was all scattered across the blast zone, but Jawsh manages. He spends his days hammering away in a haze, pointedly ignoring Berd whenever he visits to penitently ask how he is doing like an exiled lover looking for forgiveness. Jawsh can’t forgive and forget so easily, not after everything that’s happened. A part of his mind says something about him being stubborn and unyielding and stupid, but that part is shoved underneath denial and buried deep into his subconscious. Berd betrayed his trust, and he doesn’t deserve any more of what Jawsh had left of it. 

At some point, Berd takes the hint. It’s been a week since Berd’s last appearance, one where he perched on a tall spruce tree and just watched. It was creepy and unnerving, and all Jawsh can remember was the pissed off anger he felt seeing those white feathers.

Jawsh is breaking his scaffolding down next to the half finished tower when someone manifests behind him. 

“Hey, Jawsh.” 

It’s not Berd. He can tell because there’s no exuberance radiating off of the person, even if that liveliness has been waning with each rejection Jawsh handed over.

He turns and sees Lark. There’s no smile on his face, as one usually has if they’re there to bother Jawsh. But still, one can be careful. Guardedly, he narrows his eyes. “What.”

There’s a strange aura surrounding Lark. The guy shifts his weight from one foot to the next. “Heard you… uh… haven’t been feeling so good, yeah?”

Jawsh collects his scaffolding without looking away from him. “Berd blew up the cathedral.”

The lack of surprise makes it obvious that Lark already knew, probably from Berd himself. He had this amazing superpower of never shutting the hell up, especially when it came to Jawsh. 

“Haha. So it seems.”

Something is being unsaid, an ulterior motive to this visit. Lark is way too nervous to be checking up on him out of the goodness of his heart.  

“Did Berd send you here?” Jawsh says bluntly, perturbed. 

“No. No,” Lark quickly says, too eagerly that it borders on being suspicious. He fidgets with one of the pockets of his jeans before stuffing his hands back inside.  “I mean, I saw him around, and he’s worried, is all. Just thought I’d pop by and, well,” he glances around at the debris and scaffolding, “See how you’re holding up here.”

A long sigh escapes him. Jawsh peels away to work on another area. “Well, it’s not good. Go ahead and deliver the message to Berd that I don’t want him coming by any more or sending goons to do it for him.”

Bristling, Lark deflates. “C’mon, Jawsh. Real talk here, between Lark and Jawsh, not Berd and Jawsh.” He trails after him.

“There’s nothing to talk about with you. I don’t wanna discuss anything with anyone.” He’d rather be left alone to lick his wounds in peace. 

“I just think that, maybe, you two could sort this out,” Lark says. Jawsh skids to a stop, incredulously turning to stare at Lark.

“Lark. He blew up my build. He’s been playing me like everyone back at Spawn has. You expect me to meet up with him over some tea or something?” Jawsh cradles his head in his hands with a mocking voice, “ ‘Oh, Berd! Just because you’re the best person in the whole world who apologized 50 times negates everything you’ve done! I forgive you! Would you like a kiss too?’— Do you see how stupid that sounds.”

With a grimace, Lark understands Jawsh’s stance. But he isn’t done pushing reconciliation. “Yeah, but what about all the— all the good times..?”

“Oh, so you expect me to ignore all the bad stuff just because of a few nice things?”

“I’m just saying that he doesn’t deserve you completely shutting him out.” 

“And why the hell do you care so much?” None of this was Lark’s business, and if he were doing this out of his autonomy and not because Berd asked him to, it made this conversation so much worse.

Lark closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath, mentally restraining himself from whatever he wants to do. When he speaks, he sounds desperately honest. “Berd makes you happy, Jawsh. Everyone at spawn can tell.”

Jawsh is about to refute but Lark puts out a hand to silence him. He doesn’t know why he listens.

“With him, you don’t avoid any of us. And you, god damnit dude, you actually smile. I think. I can’t tell. But I’m pretty sure you do. You’re more obvious than you think even with the fake skin.”

Jawsh hates how that’s so painfully true. Even just remembering all of the good times they had together makes him feel something in his chest that isn’t anger and betrayal. But does it matter, at the end of the day? They were bound to crash and burn with the way things were.

“I just… I don’t know anymore,” Jawsh says. He looks down at his hands, at the scrapes and calluses on his fingers. “I can’t do this. Not with him. Whatever we had is gone now.” 

Despondent, Lark shrugs, diverting his gaze to the side. “Just saying…if I were you, I’d give him another chance.”

Jawsh’s patience wears thin. Lark didn’t know anything about him, and neither did he know Berd. To assume it would be that easy, to invalidate how Jawsh felt? He isn’t going to surrender that easy.

“Well, tell Berd when you see him…”

Lark looks hopeful.

“…that the next time he comes over here, I’m not hesitating to kill him.”

And there Lark goes, all sagging shoulders and hopes shattered.

Jawsh gathers his stone brick and maps out the next tower.

Another week goes by, the build proceeding slower than the first time. It’s funny as this should be a lot quicker after already having built it. Jawsh finds himself moving mechanically without much thought in where he was going and what he was doing. The sun falls over the horizon and comes back up anyhow.

It’s raining today. The shower pours over Jawsh and soaks his coat, but he needs to keep building. He’s done with the skeleton of the main building and the towers. Filling the walls is next. He continues to build through the thick onslaught. 

Jawsh is going out to retrieve stone brick when, of course, there Berd is. He’s huddled on top of a double chest, staring at the forest behind the cathedral. What the hell was he doing here, granting Jawsh reprieve only to come back?

Jawsh would’ve preferred if Berd didn’t look so pitiful, too. He wants to grab the front of his shirt and shake him in frustration. He wants to yell and scream until his voice goes hoarse. He wants to strangle him for being so… so Berd . 

Instead, he grits out, “What are you doing here?” 

Berd turns slowly, revealing his sodden wings and drenched clothes. He makes a miserable sight.

“Sorry,” Berd whispers and Jawsh wonders how he isn’t sick of saying that word yet. 

Water droplets drip from his black hair, coasting across his ‘face’. His eyes catch Berd’s equally soaked wings. Birds can’t fly when their wings are wet, Jawsh remembers. He’s watched many times where Berd playfully tried to, while Jawsh yelled at him to stop, that he’d catch a cold.

“Can you— can you leave.” His voice remains venomless.

“Okay. Can we talk first?”

And this is perhaps the worst part about the whole situation. Jawsh knows that with this look on Berd’s face, the rain making him all sad and pitiful, he’s more likely to give in and agree to do whatever just to get him to stop being sad. It makes him weak and frustrated that he can’t get Berd to go away. He almost wants to grab that stupid bird to keep him here so that he could stop looking like that .

“I’m serious,” Jawsh says. “Leave. Before I do something I’m gonna regret.”

Berd doesn’t listen. Jawsh isn’t surprised that he remains seated. His empty threats have never deterred him away as much as Jawsh wishes they would.

“I’m not going to bother you any more.” Berd looks detached from himself. His eyes hold nothing for Jawsh to dissect. “I’ll let you do your thing. But— if you ever want to… or… if you need fish, stop by.”

“ I don’t even like fish. ” 

The words come out harsher than Jawsh expected. The look on Berd’s face turns even more devastated, and it takes all of Jawsh’s willpower to not apologize for it and take it back. He can’t give in. He can’t.

“That’s okay. Good luck building.”

Finally, Berd gets up, feet sloshing in the mud. There’s some all over his tail, making a mess of his pure feathers. 

Then, Berd stops. Maybe he was going to come running back, get on his knees, and beg for forgiveness again. Maybe he’d take everything back.

“Thank you for giving me a chance to be your friend.”

Berd drifts off to the bridge, form shrinking and shrinking until it disappears. He’s gone for good.

Jawsh doesn’t know what to make of that. His wish is granted; Berd has finally conceded.

It doesn’t feel as good as he hoped. 

A day goes by. Two. Three. A week. Two weeks.

The cathedral remains a skeleton. Most of the days dedicated to building are of him taking down and rebuilding the same area of the towers over and over again, never satisfied with how they looked. No matter how accurate they resembled the original, a nagging voice in Jawsh’s head reminds him that they aren’t the same. It leads him to stand-stills where he takes to cloud watching instead of building, humming to himself and whatever is willing to listen. He lays on cold stone brick with a hand on his chest and another draped lazily to the side, watching clouds drift on until the sun disappears. Then the next day he would do it again.

It took a week for him to be moderately satisfied with the structure. What’s left is the front, as well as that stained glass mural. God, he hated building that last time.

Jawsh is up early this time, hyping himself up to finally make progress on the cathedral. It’s reminiscent of mornings months ago during the first go around of construction. Today is going to be a good day once filled with productivity. Jawsh saddles up to the cathedral. 

He sifts through his chests for stone brick. There’s none in the first chest, or the second. And after all fifteen double chests, Jawsh has managed to find two stone bricks. He’s out. Which is ridiculous, really. How do you manage to be out of building material without noticing until it’s literally all gone? Jawsh mentally berates himself for being so thoughtless, though the circumstances make sense. Jawsh has done zero mining in the weeks of rebuilding, and he really doesn’t want to start now. 

He spends ten minutes staring at the chests, hoping that maybe— magically— there’ll be more stone brick by pure force of will alone. The chests stay empty… In an act of pure desperation, he rummages through all of them a second time, hoping to spot a stack he might have missed.

Instead, his hands graze something soft. A delicate, white feather is pinched between his fingers. Jawsh freezes, breath halting at the sight of the feather. He recognizes it instantly. He’s spent far too much time staring at Berd’s wings not to. Jawsh carefully lifts the feather to eye level, turning it around to examine it. The sunlight passes through it, nearly making it glow. 

And it all makes sense.

Berd was the one supplying him with stone brick after the incident. That’s why he was around so often, regardless of the beration endured. He always kept coming back, didn’t he? A sickly, familiar twist in Jawsh’s chest gives way to something softer than irritation. Despite everything, care is forever etched in Berd’s soul. Care for Jawsh . Nobody else went to the same extent Berd did. 

He hasn’t thought about Berd ever since he agreed to split. When doing his daily cloud observation, there are moments of weakness where he makes out Berd’s face in the shifting patterns of clouds, but besides that he’s maintained abstinent.

The realization hurts as bad as the day of the explosion. He’s torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to scream in frustration. Leave it to Berd to still be as caring and thoughtful even after everything that happened between the two of them— Leave it to Berd to make Jawsh feel weak and pathetic. 

Despite everything, though, there was a part of Jawsh that couldn’t help but miss him. It’s stupid, and he’s aware he shouldn’t be feeling this, but it’s true. He misses having that stupid bird hanging off of him constantly. He misses Berd’s cheerful rambling whenever he’s particularly excited about something. He misses the annoying little chirps and warbles and the way he says ‘Jawsh’. He… he just misses him. 

And maybe he’s missed him ever since he told him to leave. A part of him wants to cry.

Jawsh clutches that feather with a grip so tight his knuckles appear as white as it. Fearing that if he lets go, he’ll forget it all. God, he doesn’t even know where Berd is, or if he’s still in the server. 

Jawsh can’t recall a single time where he’s ever felt this… vulnerable. It shouldn’t even affect him this way. He’s the one who told Berd off with the last remnants of dignity he had left, after all. But a piece of him can’t help but want to run to wherever he was. To scream and berate and apologize for everything. 

Jawsh lets out a shaky breath, clenching the feather tighter. He doesn’t even know if Berd would want to see him after how he acted. His thumb ghosts over the soft barbs of the feather, and that is his undoing.

The feather is tucked securely in his coat pocket where nothing can touch it. His hair whips in the wind as he spurs to spawn, which is no different than the last time he was there with Berd. There are movies, plastered, as always, and people bustle around without worry. He sees Mika and Uwumi animatedly talking to themselves near Nopeify’s house. When they spot him, Mika sends Uwumi a widened look, and Uwumi shamelessly gawks at him.

“Hi,” he quickly says as he passes. They’re too stunned to respond.

Mika and Uwumi are the last thing on his mind as he pushes through spawn without stopping to chat like he normally does. His single-minded focus is to find that idiot bird, so that he could…

Jawsh stops short. What does he intend to do? Scream at him? Demand to know why he kept sneaking the stone brick into his chests? Pull him into an embrace and tell him he missed him and missed him and missed him— no, stop that. He’ll figure that out later.

There it is, the aquarium, practically unchanged. The sphere is perfectly symmetrical, thanks to him. He’s prepared for the particles this time, shielding his eyes from the black as he steps through. His eyes dart around. Where is Berd?

Clothes are strewn about, on the counter, on the bed… nothing is clean. There are still the same pictures over the bed, some that Berd drew and some of the pitiful attempts at art Jawsh made for him. The ‘best friends’ piece that basically initiated Jawsh into this whole mess remains un disturbed. That drawing has never felt more mocking, and Jawsh stares at it with a twisted sense of nostalgia. It was such an innocuous drawing, yet everything that has happened between them stemmed from it; The worst and the best moments. 

He shakes his head, reassuming his focus. So, Berd wasn’t in the aquarium which means he has to be…

Jawsh pushes through the doors to the dock, trailed by sparkling black. It smells of sea salt and sand outside, looks bright with the shimmering sand and lapping waves, but none of that grabs his attention. Rather, a vibrant white kisses his sight.

His breath catches in his chest as he stops in the doorway. Berd is there, sitting on the edge of the dock just as he once did. The sun glints off of his snow-white wings, making them gleam brilliantly. All of the thoughts and worries from before are suddenly replaced by a single thought of there he is. 

Jawsh hesitates a moment before striding out toward the dock, heart in his throat. The sound of his approaching footsteps must’ve tipped off Berd to his presence, if the way his head lifts is of any indication. That doesn’t matter, Jawsh thinks. He wants Berd to notice him here this time.

Berd blinks, disbelieving, almost dropping his fishing rod into the water. Jawsh would laugh if he isn’t so laser focused. He stops right next to Berd, suddenly tentative. He should’ve thought this through, what was he to say?

Jawsh clears his throat. “I… need fish.”

A beat of silence. Man, he really should’ve actually planned out how this would go. 

Berd lets out a shaky breath in a failed attempt at a laugh. His eyes have not left Jawsh once.

“You— don’t like fish,” Berd recalls apprehensively. 

Jawsh curses under his breath. He’s an idiot, he never should’ve came, christ.

If past hasn’t made it clear enough, Jawsh has a terrible reputation for restraining his thoughts. “You, um, you gave me stone brick,” he says. 

Berd freezes. His breath staggers in his chest as his wings flutter a touch. “Huh?” he says, almost breathless.

Jawsh swallows. “You put stone brick in my chests. When I wasn’t looking.” He can feel himself getting more flustered as Berd continues to stare with wide eyes. “You were helping me build.” After a struggle with his pockets, he pulls out the white feather, now a big mangled, presenting it to Berd.

“Yeah. I was. I’m sorry. You told me not to help…” Berd trails off, that stupid remorseful look encapsulating his face. He’s not supposed to look that way, not right now.

Jawsh drops down next to the avian like a dead weight, looking out at the ocean. It glimmers in the daylight. It reminds him of the stained glass window.

“Stop apologizing. I’m sick of that.”

Berd makes an affronted sound but thankfully stops himself mid-way, beak pinching into a pout. He still looks sorry though, a guilty gleam in his eye. There’s another moment of awkward silence as they sit there, side by side at the edge of the dock with feet dangling over the water. Jawsh tries his best to not sneak glances over to the avian. 

Finally, Berd meekly says, “What now?” 

The question is an important one. The loss of his cathedral still shook him, down to the very scraps of where his trust lies. What Berd did wasn’t okay, not by a long shot, and not something to be swept under the rug. But, damnit, Berd was trying so hard. Anyone can see it, even Jawsh, who is usually blind to kindness. To be so persistent on making things right with someone that they even disconnect themselves because that’s what the other person wished for? That’s penitence. That warrants acknowledgement because Jawsh doesn’t think he’d be able to do that if given the chance. 

A few more beats of awkward silence pass as Jawsh struggles to find the right words. This is a lot more difficult than he ever anticipated. The tension is thick in the air, and he can sense that Berd is waiting in bated breath for whatever it is that Jawsh is going to say and do.

Jawsh sighs shakily, finally turning to look at the bird. He looks so small like this, nothing like his usual exuberant self, almost fragile, which is a thought that makes something lurch in his chest. “I’m mad at you,” he settles on saying. Berd bristles, subconsciously tilting away to avoid what he assumes is an outburst.

“Hold on,” Jawsh interjects. “I’m mad at you because I like you so much that I’m willing to come all the way to spawn to see you.”

Berd blinks. Blinks again. Processing those words like they’re the biggest shock in the world. Which, to be fair, they probably are. Jawsh would probably be thinking the same thing if the roles were reversed. 

“H-huh? I— you— you what?” he sputters, eyes growing nearly comically large.

Confidence returns in his voice, sure of his words and what they imply. He is going to do this correctly. “I’m mad at you because of how mad you make me.

I’m mad that… that I missed you so much even when I wanted to kill you.

I’m mad because I thought you were like everyone else. But you kept coming back.

I’m mad that you wormed your way into my life for no reason other than the fact you liked me .

And I’m mad at you because… because we stopped being best friends. And I didn’t know how much that meant until it was gone.”

The words warble at the end, mixing with the strange noises trying not to escape from his throat. 

It’s almost hard to watch the way Berd’s facial expression goes through a dozen different emotions at once. Jawsh didn’t know a person could express that many different thoughts in such a short timeframe. Awe, disbelief, confusion, and happiness are all swirling together in those large beast bird eyes. It looks slightly ridiculous, but that doesn’t matter because it’s proof Jawsh’s words meant something to him.

With the way Berd’s looking at him, it’s hard to hold back the nervous tremors in his own voice. But he swallows it down, and manages a nervous “Did you hear me?”

Berd nods. 

Jawsh wants to say more, wishes he could say more, but he’s not good with his words. They settle back into silence. The ocean sprays water droplets into his pants, but he doesn’t move away. 

If there’s one thing Jawsh knows about Berd, it’s that he hates lingering silence. The bird is always blabbering on when the air grows quiet, trying to fill in the void with mindless chatter and useless words. But now, there’s nothing. The only sounds from him are the occasional warbling noise deep behind his throat, one that Jawsh recognizes as a sign of nervousness. 

Finally, Berd says something, though it’s so quiet he barely catches it. “Are we still… friends?”

The first thing that his body instinctively tells him to do is to scream out rejection in embarrassment and bolt away, but he wills himself to remain. Berd is not going to do anything to him, he tells himself. It’s just Berd.

Thinking, thoughts whirling steadily like the waves below his feet, Jawsh nods toward the aquarium. “Hey, you know that drawing?”

“I have a lot of drawings, Jawsh,” humors Berd.

He refrains from rolling his eyes. “Okay, yeah, shut up. Well, there was a drawing above your bed. It said we were best friends?”

And Berd is so bright. His face is brighter than the sun, or the light that comes through colorful tinted glass, or the horizon when it’s sunset. The bird lightly punches Jawsh’s arm with his wing and, oh no, Jawsh believes he’s smiling, too.

They laugh at nothing, or maybe at each other. Something in his chest thrums with the beat of Berd’s laughter, but he can hardly notice.

Sunlight streaming in fabricated dozens of sparkling spectacles on his face. Under the glass, engulfed in light, Jawsh nods at the newly finished Cathedral 2.0. There are some differences compared to the original, with the towers not being as pointy, or there being intricate details along the sides. Blame Berd for that. Unlike Jawsh, he was big picture oriented and liked to get buildings done quickly.  

Berd’s doing something in one of the towers, god knows what, but Jawsh doesn’t need to check on him. 

He hears his best friend trill back, “coming!” It takes everything in Jawsh not to comment on his words.

Berd scampers into the main hall, tucking stone brick into his backpack. He has the same bright expression that Jawsh has grown so used to seeing. His wings are puffed out and shimmering in the artificial light, making him glow brilliantly against the backdrop of the gray walls. He’s absolutely, completely, unfairly angelic. 

Jawsh swallows that thought and gestures up to the stained glass. The colors are arranged in a different order than last, but Jawsh likes this pattern better. “Do you think it looks bad?”

Berd stops just short of him, assessing the mural. After a second, he gives a feathered thumbs up. “Looks good.” 

“That’s all I get? Just a good? Don’t you know I worked so hard on it,” Jawsh asks, crossing his arms over his chest and fixing Berd with a pointed look. 

The bird starts to makes fake retching noises, pretending to be repulsed. “The stained glass is fucking disgusting , Jawsh. You’re an idiot for even thinking it looked nice.” 

This fucker. Sometimes, Jawsh doesn’t know why he put up with him. He reaches out to snag Berd’s wing, tugging him under the projection of color with him. Soft downy feathers reach up to knock their shoulders together and, dizzily, Jawsh loops an arm around the other. The stained glass paints the two of them in a dazzling purple.