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I.
“The dog’s gonna get confused if we’re both dad, dude,” Dave retorts. “You gotta be mom, otherwise it’ll be like ‘where’s dad’ and she just runs in a goddamn circle forever until there’s a hole where she’s been running since she doesn’t know who dad is.”
“That’s insane. There’s a million words for dad, isn’t there?” Karkat’s holding the dog, a cute little shiba inu they picked up from the shelter, because somehow there’s still dog shelters on Earth C, Dave doesn’t even wanna think about that mess. But, she’s the cutest thing ever.
“Nah man. They all have their own precise meanings, dad is the only neutral one. Like, she can’t be calling one of us ‘father,’ like she’s a prep school student who owns six horses.” Dave shrugs. “Plus, it’ll be like, cute? You as a mom. It’s just a role, like, the dad thing is to run around and play ball and the mom thing is to make dinner and clean the house.”
“Neither of us do the mom thing, then, dumbass,” Karkat snorts.
“Well, you better start. Mom.”
Karkat just shakes his head and throws his arms up in defeat. “Your human parent thing is weird enough as it is, so I guess we can go even weirder this way. Whatever. Just don’t think I’m making any fancy dinners any time soon.”
“Damn it, my master plan.”
II.
“It’s like, this cultural thing. Trust me - guys on Earth went crazy for it. Just try it.” Dave holds out the frilly french maid outfit, overlaying it in his field of view so it looks like Karkat’s already got it on. “You’ll be the hot girl maid and I’ll be the guy. Obviously.”
“How come you’re the guy?” Karkat’s arms are still folded, which is throwing the illusion of the maid outfit off a bit, but even an arm-less Karkat girl is hot.
“Because I’m actually a dude, your species just has gender as a fake weird thing since you all have the same junk, but on Earth it is like totally real, its realness attribute is off the fuckin’ charts, these charts had to have six extra pages added on top, it’s that real.” Even as he says it with as much nonchalance as he can, as he pushes out the thoughts of what Roxy told him when he transitioned, he can feel his ears turning red. Gender’s totally real for most of the species, it’s just hot to see Karkat in a dress. Don’t even stress about it. Who’s stressed? Why would they be stressed?
“I’ll have you know, when we choose which gender to grow up as, it is a very serious and real decision.”
“Yeah, I think the seriousness of genitalia that can’t be easily changed is more serious than a little grub going ‘uh crabdad, I’m gonna be a boy’ and then boom, maleness loaded.” Again, the thoughts he’s not allowing himself to think. He’s already been through this whole bullshit once with even being with Karkat. Not again.
Karkat yanks the dress out of Dave’s outstretched hand. “Yeah fucking, whatever, the things I do for you.”
III.
“What are you doing?”
The voice startles Dave, although his body doesn’t show it, his physical startle response turned off from the childhood he’s convinced himself he’s completely worked through. He doesn’t know what he’s doing in Karkat’s wardrobe at all, let alone the entire new one they had to get to store all his frilly dresses. He’s just…browsing. “Finding a cute outfit for you to wear. Wife.” He tries to play it off, he’s sure he did. At least with Karkat’s obliviousness.
“Well ‘husband,’” he says the phrase with irony (well, his best attempt at it), but with no hostility, “those are my clothes. When was it considered normal for a husband to pick what his ‘wife’ wears?”
Dave considers this. “I think it’s pretty normal. Like, in the grand scheme of things, if we’re doing this whole man-woman thing, the man has like…some level of control over the woman, I think?”
Karkat glares even more than usual.
“But that’s super fucked up. Feminism rocks, right? Ha. Just pulling your leg, Karkat. You just got punk’d like my name is Troll Ashton Kutcher.”
This is weird. Why is he being weird? Be normal, he tells himself. Thanks Dave, hadn’t tried that, gonna get right on it, himself replies. This is dumb, they both agree, and he turns his attention back outward because damn is introspection fucking scary and daunting.
“Anyway, if you want, you’d look really pretty in this one, I don’t know I’ve even seen you wear it yet? Like, you were so mad about wearing that first one, but now you’ve got dresses I’ve never even seen.” He holds up a baby pink number that has the vague silhouette of Jade’s old witch outfit.
“I would never admit to this, Dave fucking Strider, but you may have been right about the whole gender thing. Being a wife rules, when you’re not ruining the vibe by being a huge douchebag of a husband and telling me what to wear.” He grabs the dress out of Dave’s hand, but puts it right back in the wardrobe. Seemingly out of spite, the dress he does end up pulling out is the exact opposite: a sleek off-the-shoulder cocktail dress in pitch black.
That surely takes Dave’s mind off of whatever he had been worrying about, because damn does he already know how hot Karkat looks in that one. And how much hotter he looks with it hiked up.
I.
Dave sits at the kitchen table as Karkat comes home from work. His legs are dangling, just too short to touch the ground, underneath a fluffy petticoat. He’s tied a little apron around his waist, and put on a pair of heels.
Actually. She did that.
Yeah, that…yeah. Hm. Not thinking about that. Just going with it. Okay.
As Karkat gapes at Dave — at her — Dave almost begins to cry. She’s not going to, she just says, “Hi, husband. It’s me. Your wife.”
Karkat’s eyes narrow. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Huh? No, I wanted to…see if you were right. About being a wife. I even made you a shitty cake.” Dave points at the counter where a mess of a Jane Crocker cake stands. She hadn’t known to let it cool off before frosting it, so it’s sitting in a pool of pink cream. “Anyway. Shall I feed you? My hungry man?”
Slowly, Karkat sits down at the table. Dave doesn’t say anything about the look on his face, the stunned silence. Dave doesn’t say anything about the way she finds herself enjoying the click of the heels on kitchen tile as she walks. It’s…just roleplay. Getting into character. That’s all.
After they eat, when they take it to the bedroom, she doesn’t say anything about how much she enjoys being Karkat’s beautiful girl, either. How jealous she was watching him get to have his nook fucked like a girl in all those pornos he watched back on real Earth. How nice it is to have her own pussy fucked.
None of this occurs to Dave, because, after all, he’s just a normal guy. They’re just roleplaying, and the moment the clothes come back on, he’ll be a guy again. That’s all.
Yep.