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“Oh, I neglected to mention, Kris,” Berdly said as they approached the door to his apartment.
It had become a regular occurrence at this point that Kris came over after school on the days Berdly didn’t have his job at the library so the two could play video games and eat cheap snacks, occasionally diverting to watch an anime or talk about manga. It was nice to have someone that Kris could be completely nerdy with, especially since Berdly was always somehow even more of a geek about everything than they were. It was also nice that Berdly almost always had the apartment to himself, since his mom was constantly away for work, and his dad was out of the picture.
OK, that wasn’t nice for Berdly, but the silver lining was the empty apartment where they could be as loud and as crass as they wanted and not worry about someone’s mom popping in on them. Very different from the Dreemurr or Holiday residences.
“My mom is actually home today,” Berdly said, nervously pushing his glasses back up. “I am not technically allowed to have guests inside the apartment while she is away, so I’m afraid I must ask you to pretend that you have not been to our residence before, if you can muster such a theatrical performance.”
“Cool. Got it,” Kris said, keeping their usual nonchalant attitude, though internally they were a little ticked off about losing the teenage paradise they’d gotten so used to.
“Very well then!” Berdly opened the door and held it open, motioning for Kris to enter. He always did this dramatic ‘gentleman-holding-the-door’ routine, whether it was Kris, Noelle, Susie, or some combination of the three of them. Kris would be annoyed that Berdly seemed to think Kris qualified as someone he needed to be gentlemanly towards, if it was anyone other than Berdly.
From Berdly, they didn’t particularly mind that kind of attention. Plus, they knew he wasn’t trying to misgender them. He was always good about that stuff.
“Dearest mother! I have brought home a friend!” Berdly announced. The woman soon appeared from the living room, a taller but similarly blue and feathered monster. She seemed a little tired, like perhaps she’d just woken from a nap, but she greeted Kris with a smile.
“Oh, I don’t think we’ve met,” she said. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Wha—mother—” Berdly sputtered, clearly about to correct her, but Kris cut him off to shake her hand.
“Kris. Nice to meet you,” they said, purposefully keeping their voice lower. They didn’t really feel like explaining their gender to her right now, and they didn’t mind being perceived as a boy on occasion. No need to cause a scene for nothing.
“Likewise,” she said. “Well, you two have fun. I’ll just be in here catching up on my shows!”
Berdly still seemed unsure, stunned to a very rare silence, but Kris just continued towards his bedroom and motioned for him to keep up. He shook his head, then quickly followed.
“Uh. Well, anyways,” Berdly said once they were past the threshold of his room. Oddly, he didn’t close the door all the way, but kept it ajar. “What diversions shall we partake in this afternoon, Kris?”
“We need to finish the new Aboveground game, obviously.” They were surprised he even asked. They’d played the first two chapters together a few months back, and the third and final chapter had come out earlier that week, so they started it a few nights ago. The games take a good ten hours to finish, though, so they’d had to stop three-quarters of the way through so Kris wouldn’t miss their curfew.
“Ah! Yes! Of course, I recalled. I was just testing your memory, Kris!” Berdly fumbled to pull out the disk and boot up his console.
“Sure.” Kris let an endeared grin flash on their lips. Berdly was too preoccupied to notice, turning on the small TV he kept in his room and setting up the game so they could continue where they left off.
It wasn’t their usual kind of game. Super Smashing Fighters was their favorite, though any multiplayer would do for them, something where they could either brawl against each other or collaboratively solve puzzles and beat up bad-guys. Aboveground was a single-player rpg-style game with a bizarre and mysterious storyline, and they’d only played it because Berdly got the first chapter as a confused Christmas gift from his mother last year and kept the disc in his stash, unplayed, for months until Kris was rummaging through looking for something new.
They gave it a try, and found they liked watching Berdly play because he read all the dialogue out loud and he was kind of cute when he was being theatrical and obnoxious like that. Then the story got interesting and the bosses got difficult enough that Kris had to take over just so they could clear them, and the two of them were more than a little obsessed.
They’d scrounged up the funds for the second game immediately after, and had been waiting all month for the final chapter to release once they were done with it. It was lucky they’d only found the game right when the last one was about to come out—apparently there were three years between each of the releases, and Kris couldn’t imagine waiting that long to play it.
“Ahem, here we are. We just entered another puzzle room… no matter! I shall have this solved in no time, I’m sure,” Berdly said. Kris chuckled, nodding in the affirmative, though they knew he’d need their help.
They started to lean towards Berdly on the beanbag, a posture they often took when they weren’t actively gaming, but Berdly stiffened up and cleared his throat. He glanced towards the door, and Kris got the message.
No cuddling with the homies while mom’s home.
Kris sighed petulantly, but leaned the other way, resting their hands behind their head instead. Berdly seemed even more inept than usual, making the same mistake in the puzzle three times in a row before Kris pointed out the solution to him. He made some lame excuse about just wanting to see if Kris could figure out such an easy puzzle, then continued into the next room.
There was a brief cutscene where the characters talked to each other, and Berdly read the lines out loud like usual, but his voice wasn’t as bold as it had been before. Kris thought he was probably just keeping it down to not disturb his mom, but then if he was really so worried about that, wouldn’t he just close the door properly?
They had a quick battle, then solved one last puzzle before making it to a safe area with a shop for buying healing items. They lingered there for a while, reading all the flavor text in search of clues about where the story was going, and just as they were about to continue, the door opened wide as Berdly’s mom stepped inside.
“Having fun, you two?” she asked.
“But of course!” Berdly said.
“Yeah,” Kris nodded.
“Oh, good. I just thought you might be hungry, so I brought a snack.” She passed a plate of apples and peanut butter to Kris, since Berdly’s hands were occupied. “You need anything else? Something to drink? We have water, tea, juice…”
“We’re all set. Thanks, ma’am,” Kris said.
“So polite! I like your new friend.” Berdly’s mom ruffled the shaggy feathers on the top of his head, and he squawked indignantly, brushing her hand away, “Alright, I won’t bother you again, I swear.”
She left, and pulled the door completely shut on her way out.
Berdly looked startled.
“Oh,” he said under his breath.
“Something up with the door thing?” Kris asked with a full mouth, already partaking of the apples and peanut butter. Free snacks were free snacks.
“No. Or, well…” Berdly coughed into his fist. “I was not entirely sure what the etiquette would be in this situation, considering I have not had a non-binary friend before.”
“Oh? And what etiquette are we talking about?”
“You see, my mother has a rule that, when I have female friends over, the door must remain open,” he said.
“Well she clearly doesn’t think I’m a girl,” Kris said. Their first instinct was to joke ‘what female friends?’ but they knew he probably just meant Noelle. She’s the only girl who’d ever willingly hang out alone with him—or at least she was for a long time. Susie was definitely warming up to him now that the four of them all hung out together regularly, but Kris still couldn’t really think of a reason those two would hang out alone here.
Kris knew why they frequently wanted to hang out alone with Berdly, and Susie definitely did not feel that way about him.
“I suppose not, no,” Berdly said. His voice was squeaky, and his glasses slipped down his face again.
“Did you think she would?” Kris asked.
“I… I was not sure,” Berdly croaked. He was avoiding looking at Kris’s face.
They frowned, a familiar itch rising up in their chest, and set aside the snack plate.
“You were the one who left the door open,” they said. “Why’d you do that, anyway?”
“Uh—that’s—well—”
“Do you think of me like a girl?” Kris said, hushed between their clenched teeth.
“No! No, that’s not it at all!” Berdly threw his hands up.
“Ugh, I should have known. I mean the fucking holding the door thing—”
“That’s not why I do that, either!” Berdly said. Kris narrowed their eyes at him.
“Then why the hell do you?”
Berdly looked caught. His eyes flickered around the room and his beak chattered as he tried and failed to speak.
“Look. It’s not… ugh. I know this shit is hard to unlearn, so I’m not, like, mad at you, but I really thought you—”
“I like you!” Berdly suddenly yelped.
Kris blinked a few times, waiting for their brain to catch up with the words that had already been spoken.
“You, what?”
“That’s why I open doors for you, Kris, and that’s why I left the door open.” Berdly gulped thickly. “Not because I thought her rule applied to you, but because… the spirit of the rule applies to you.”
“The spirit of the rule?” Kris couldn’t help laughing a little at how ridiculous that sounded.
“Yes! You see, the reason my mother requires me to leave the door open when I have a woman in my room is because she believes I will fall prey to their feminine seduction and cause a teenage pregnancy.”
“A fucking what?” Kris laughed louder.
“She is preventing pre-marital relations, Kris!” Berdly rephrased, but it only made Kris’s laugh to sputter into a snort. They covered their face, trying to hide the sound, but when they looked back at Berdly, he just looked completely smitten.
What he was saying finally caught up to them.
Berdly liked them. Berdly really, really liked them.
“And, wait. You think there’s a possibility that we’re going to… have pre-marital relations?” they asked.
“N-not really, no.” Berdly looked away, his expression adorably bashful. “But I do… perhaps fantasize about a chaste kiss or two between gamers.”
Kris snorted again, then quickly forced the laughter down. Berdly was being serious. His emotions were completely out there, and Kris needed to take him seriously.
Their heart beat double-time in their chest. The next move was theirs to make.
“Well, I much prefer this to you misgendering me,” they said.
“I would never!” Berdly said.
“I know. That’s one of the reasons why I like you.”
Berdly puffed out his chest feathers, doubtless about to make some dramatic proclamation about affirming Kris’s gender, when his brain finally processed what Kris had said.
“Wiat, what?” he said, looking down at them with wide eyes.
Kris grinned.
“Do you want me to tell you the other reasons?”
“You like—Kris likes me?” Berdly sputtered. “My feelings are returned! How is this possible? Pinch me now, I must be dreaming!”
Kris reached out and pinched Berdly’s cheek. He yelped and covered his face with his hands, which had Kris laughing so hard they nearly fell off the beanbag.
“You are so cute,” they said, a little breathless, and righted themselves with a hand on Berdly’s shoulder.
“You underhanded trickster! This is entirely unfair!” Berdly said, muffled by his wings.
“Unfair?” Kris said.
“The way you are playing with my heart!” Berdly whined.
“I’m not playing, Berdly. I’m being serious.”
“Truly?” Berdly lowered his hands and looked at Kris with big, watery eyes. “This is not another cruel prank of yours?”
“Not this time, no.”
Kris adjusted their hand on his shoulder, wrapping it gently around the base of his neck and stroking the soft feathers there with their fingers. Berdly fidgeted, looking at them over his glasses, which had slipped down again.
“So you really mean it?” he said. “Kris, you would… be my player 2?”
Kris did their best to hold back another laugh, not wanting Berdly to think this was a prank again.
“Why am I the player 2?” they asked. “I think you should be my player 2.”
“W-well obviously because I am the superior gamer, my dearest Kris!” Berdly proudly pronounced. Kris snickered and shook their head.
“OK, forget player 2, how about you be my boyfriend?” they said.
“Your—your—your boyfriend!?” Berdly screeched, completely flustered yet again.
“Is that a yes?” Kris pressed closer to him. They could feel Berdly’s pulse against their palm, beating hard as a drum.
“But I… have not even taken you on a date, Kris! We have not yet held hands nor shared our first kiss! Th-this is all in the wrong order!” he said.
“Order, huh?” Kris let their hand wander up into the longer feathers at the back of Berdly’s head, scratching absentmindedly. “Why am I not surprised you have this all planned out?”
“This is precisely why I kept the door open…” Berdly turned away, but let Kris keep petting his head. “Kris, either you do not realize the power you wield over me, or you are deliberately tempting me to stray from the noble path!”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Kris was grinning ear to ear, now. This was even better than they imagined it’d be. Berdly was just so—Berdly.
“I believe you know exactly what you are doing!” Berdly said.
Kris tightened their grip in his feathers and pulled his head back slightly, leaning close enough that their breath ruffled the tiny, fluffy feathers around the ring of his neck.
“What, exactly, am I tempting you to do?” they asked. “I’m curious.”
“Kris…” Berdly looked almost pained. His wings shivered where he held them still on his lap.
“You don’t have to tell me. You could just… do it.” Kris let his head go.
Berdly opened one eye, then the other, then gulped and shut both eyes again. His beak quivered, his breath unsteady, like he was hyping himself up for something, then all at once he lunged forward and pecked Kris in the side of the head.
“Ow!” Kris leaned away, hand held over the wounded spot.
“Huh? What?” Berdly opened both eyes, then a mortified look dawned on him. “Oh. Oh no. I didn’t realize—my beak—”
“Of course your beak is hard!” Kris said. “You can’t just ram it into me like that!”
“Oh, I’ve ruined everything!” Berdly covered his face again. “Leave me to wallow in my misery, for I have squandered my chances!”
“Wha… Berdly, no.” Kris rubbed their head a few times, then sighed and reached for his wings. Slowly, they pulled them down away from his face, and held onto the feathers like they were holding hands.
“Here. Let’s try that again,” they said. “Gentler, this time.”
“Of course.” Berdly nodded.
He closed his eyes again, slowly leaning forward towards Kris, and Kris let their eyelids droop, meeting him in the middle to plant a soft kiss against the tip of his beak. It was awkward, and a little strange, kissing something hard like that, but because it was Berdly, Kris still felt a fluttering in their stomach at the brief contact.
Berdly gasped, shivering as he pulled away.
“We… we kissed. We really kissed,” he said.
“Need me to pinch you again?” Kris asked.
“No, I know this isn’t a dream, now,” Berdly said. “I couldn’t feel an eclectic tingle like that in the clutches of sleep!”
“Electric tingle?” Kris giggled. “You fucking dork.”
“Excuse you!” Berdly’s voice cracked into a higher pitch. Kris snorted, shifting forward to wrap their arms around his shoulders and slide one leg into his lap.
“Don’t worry. I like that you’re a dork.”
“You—what—huh?” Berdly seemed to short-circuit for a second. His wings hovered around Kris, not embracing them back, and his chest rose and fell rapidly with his breath. His glasses were askew on his nose, so Kris plucked them off and set them down somewhere on the floor behind them.
“Can we make out before you’re my boyfriend or does that happen after?” Kris asked.
“Make out!?” Berdly yelped. “That shouldn’t happen until—”
He paused, gulped, and shook his head.
“Oh, forget it. We’re already so out of order.” He wrapped his wings around Kris and held them close to his chest. His soft plumage felt like a stuffed pillow under his shirt.
“Do your worst, Kris!” he said. Kris laughed into his shoulder, then started to press kisses up his neck, enjoying the shocked, embarrassed noises slipping past Berdly’s beak. They moved over, sitting completely on Berdly’s lap, and Berdly gasped, leaning back into the beanbag so he was practically lying down. Kris grinned into his feathers, pressing more of their weight into him so he could feel the warmth radiating from their chest.
“Kris…” Berdly squeaked pathetically, and they began to attack his face with kisses. Under his eyes, on the side of his beak, up onto his forehead—everywhere. Berdly squawked indignantly at the onslaught, but his wings were creeping up under Kris’s sweater, feathers tickling the bare skin of their lower back.
“Am I still tempting you?” Kris asked with a devilish smile, leaning back so Berdly was looking up at them, now.
Berdly’s wings froze.
“Y-yes…” he sheepishly admitted.
“Lucky for you, I like giving you what you want.” Kris reached for the hem of their sweater and pulled it up over their head, tossing it aside in one smooth motion.
Berdly’s eyes went wide and his beak fell open, staring at Kris, sitting shirtless on his lap. In Kris’s opinion, their simple black sports bra wasn’t anything particularly scandalous to look at, but Berdly seemed in awe, like he was beholding something marvelous and forbidden.
“You’re so easy,” Kris teased, guiding Berdly’s wings to rest higher up on their hips.
Berdly gulped thickly, forcing his shock to harden into resolve.
“Or have you considered that your impressive gamer physique is simply so alluring that no mere mortal, weak or strong, would be able to resist it?” he said.
“Hm. Unlikely,” Kris said, and grabbed Berdly’s cheeks to start kissing his face again.
Berdly sputtered in protest at first, but when Kris started to mouth at the side of his beak while worming a finger into the other side to prop it open, his breath caught and his eyes fell shut, his whole body leaning towards Kris, like he was being magnetically pulled into their touch. Kris felt powerful and desirable, and something else that settled warm and heavy in their gut as they licked the inside of his beak, making Berdly moan and squeeze their hips with his wings.
Kris let out a shuddering breath, then pulled away and chewed at their bottom lip, looking down at Berdly, trembling and desperate beneath them.
“We should… probably stop,” they begrudgingly admitted. “Your mom is still here.”
“Egads! I almost forgot!” Berdly’s eyes shot open wide, and his wings flailed, trying to pull himself back up into a proper seated position. Kris laughed, climbing off of him, and went to retrieve their sweater.
“Guess I should put this back on. Don’t want her realizing we should really be keeping the door open,” Kris said.
“I’d be in much more trouble than that if she caught you in here shirtless, Kris,” Berdly said. He reached up to his beak, grabbing at the air, then hummed in frustration when he realized his glasses were not, in fact, on his nose.
“Oh. Here.” Kris picked them up for him, and he set them back in place, looking relieved to have the world back in focus again.
“So.” Kris flopped back into the beanbag, making Berdly jump a few inches into the air. “Should we pick up where we left off?”
“Wh-what? I thought you said we needed to stop?” Berdly looked at them, bewildered.
Kris grinned and pointed to the TV.
“The game, idiot.”
“Oh! But of course. I knew—I knew that.” Berdly fumbled to pick up the controller from where he’d dropped it on the ground and unpaused the game.
Kris sat back and enjoyed watching him play while they finished the apples and peanut butter, then slowly leaned closer and closer over the course of the next hour until they were laying with their head on his shoulder. Berdly didn’t seem to mind at all. It was nice, being with him like this. Kris hoped things could always be like this between them.
…
“Kris, your mother called.” Berdly’s mom said as she opened the door, and thankfully Kris was no longer canoodling with Berdly, since they’d reached the final boss battle and Kris needed to lock in to get past it.
“U-uh, one second.” They button mashed through the villain’s attack, escaping with only one extra hit thanks to the distraction. Once it was safely back to their turn, they gave her their full attention. “Yes, ma’am?”
“She wants to know when you’ll be home. Your dinner is getting cold.”
“Oh, we’re almost done. I just have to beat this boss,” Kris said.
“Assuming you can beat it. I have a feeling it’s intentionally unbeatable,” Berdly said.
“Just ‘cuz you can’t beat it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“Hey!” Berdly crossed his arms.
“Alright, well, I think you should head home in the next fifteen minutes, Kris. We need to eat dinner here, too.”
“I will, I will,” Kris nodded.
She closed the door again, and Kris let out a small sigh before turning to grin at Berdly.
“She has no fucking clue,” they said.
“Oh quit gloating and finish the game!” Berdly snapped.
“That’s the plan,” Kris said, but their smile lingered. They loved teasing their loser boyfriend. He was just so easy to mess with, and so adorable when he was pretending to be mad.
Plus, Kris couldn’t wait to ask him what, exactly, were these “pre-marital relations” his mom was so afraid of the next time they were alone.