Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dave, Karkat and Jade are dating. Which is fine. Fantastic even. You're very happy that your bro has come to terms both with his not-straight-ness and also with his unconventional relationship. It's just ... It was awkward enough when it was just Dave and Karkat, neither of whom do PDAs on their own, but now Jade's thrown into the mix and suddenly you're struggling to make it through a dinner with them. 

Thankfully, John gets invited along a lot too, so you're not a total fourth wheel. The first time it happened, you were awkward, seeing him just as a carbon copy of Jake, but he's so different that most of the time you don't even consciously think of them as whatever version of relative they've settled on calling each other.

You first suspected that you were being set up the very first time you conveniently ended up sitting next to him at Dave's house. Though that might be the paranoia.

Thing was, Dave was acting all concerned about the amount of time you spent out of the house and the variety of people you spent time with and then all of a sudden you were sitting next to a cute boy while Karkat cooked and Dave and Jade made heart eyes at each other. You were willing to resort to talking to a relative stranger to avoid seeing your bro get his mack on with a dog girl like he couldn't wait until after the lasagna was served. John had beaten you to the awkward topic change with just as much grace as you've now come to expect from him.

'Wanna see a magic trick?' he'd asked with a slightly manic expression. 

You'd taken a card from the offered deck and had been so fucking insulted when he had managed to fool you with whatever bullshit slight of hand he was using. You honestly expected after fighting deadly drones your whole life to be able to keep up with a dorky shuffle. At some point, you became so absorbed in his completely fake magic that you didn't notice your bro leaving the table with his two date-mates. 

You and John had made the mutually beneficial decision to leave before they invited you to stay for a movie and cuddled up together. Afterwards, standing on their porch and feeling really not socially equipped to deal with goodbyes, John had made you promise to be a team if that ever happened again.

It did.

Not just with Dave, Karkat and Jade. Rose and Kanaya went from being normal friends to utterly unbearable after Kanaya proposed. Jake and Jane got together and had a suspicious number of sleepovers with Roxy and Callie. You and John ended up sat together by default.

Most of the time it's fine. It's less amusing when Rose sends her wedding invitation to you addressed as if you're a couple, a package deal. Misters Egbert and Strider. And she put his name first. You know she knows that you're not going to blink first on this one. You know that if you confront her about this she'll have a lot to say about alphabetical order and saving paper by combining invitations and you feel like screaming just imagining that conversation.

You're staring at the envelope when Dave opens the door to your house and walks past you to help help himself to whatever the fuck is in your fridge without acknowledging you. It actually makes you feel weirdly gooey that he's comfortable enough to do that, and you have a similarly weird gooey feeling at the fact that you absolutely also have "real" sibling annoyance that he does it at the same time.

'You know I don't own any food, right?' you say. 'I mooch off the people who actually know how to take care of themselves.'

'Lame,' Dave says.

He takes an energy drink and pours it into two glasses sliding one to you across the table like he's a bartender. You take a sip even though you probably shouldn't. It's been a while since you've slept. Still, Dave can't handle a full energy drink at any time of the day and your body basically treats them like water now; you can take one for the team so he can sleep tonight. 

'What'cha got there, bro?' he asks. 

You throw it to him and he snatches it out of the air easily. He snorts with amusement as he reads it.

'It's not funny,' you say.

'It's pretty funny.'

You groan and drop your head to the table. Dave drops the invite and scooches his chair around with an awful grating noise so that he can knock his shoulder to yours.

'Does it seriously bother you?' he asks quietly. 'Cause I can get Rose to back off. Get you a new invite before John even finds out. I may even be able to stop her from taunting you about it endlessly.'

You groan louder into the table before straightening up and rubbing your nose where the plastic doodads from your shades dig in. You control yourself into a state of normal coolness. You decide that Dave deserves a degree of sincerity.

'It's fine,' you say. 'I mean, you're right, she'll either torture me over it or I'll obsess over the possibility of her torturing me over it. It's better that we steer into the skid.'

Dave meets your eyes and then immediately looks to where his fingers are drumming out a beat on the table. He's not great with eye contact. You knock your shoulder to his to return his gesture from before. It felt very brotherly when he did it. You're not sure you pull it off. You wonder if Hal will run some projections on the best way to casually touch your friends and family or if that defeats the purpose of "casual". You could probably pass it off as ironic. 

'Kinda sounds like she's bullying you when you put it like that,' he says.

'Dude. I don't think anyone is capable of bullying me. It's me.' You continue before Dave can interrupt you with anything asinine, not that you have anything against his rambles. 'Anyway, I am a master of irony. I'll ironically bro-date John. Hell, it's practically been sanctioned by God herself.'

He looks at the table with tight, concerned brows. 

'Okay, but keep in mind that John's the king of no-homo. Don't ... get hurt.'

You hesitate while you consider how incredibly uncomfortable you are with this conversation. And then you reach out and squeeze his hand anyway because he doesn't deserve to pay for your social awkwardness. He grabs the tip of your fingers back briefly before you take your hand away to clap his shoulder manfully. You stand abruptly and walk away to get a glass of water you don't need to cover your discomfort. No one is fooled.

'Okay. Okay.' You take a breath. 'I'm just gonna send him a pic of the invite. Ask him if he wants to wear a dress or me. Or if we're gonna really mix things up by going both dresses. Or both suits. All viable ironic options. Oh god. Shit. Can you do it?'

He snorts.

'Sure, I've been playing gay chicken with Egbert for half my life now. It's a fucking art. Hang this shit in the Louvre. Like, in the good spot, too, right up the front where the upside down pyramid is. Oh damn, has anyone made the Louvre on this Earth? I mean, not like it's a priority for me seeing as I'm trashy A-F, but I feel like we owe it, you know, to the world. Shit, if there isn't a glass pyramid museum in Paris, does it even deserve being called Earth? Well, presumably dinosaurs still called it Earth before humans invented the Louvre. Ha, no, that was a pretty dumb thing to say.'

'Dave, you said Louvre a different way every time just now and I don't think any were right.'

He ignores you in favour of typing on his phone. He giggles after a minute. You carefully don't give any indication that you heard him even as your inner nerd delights in seeing a human side to your idol. To your bro. To Dave. He giggles again, his thumbs moving so fast you almost can't track the movements. He's very practised at typing fast enough to get a proper ramble out before he's interrupted. 

He puts it down after a bit and grins at you. He's so much more emotive than you expected. 

'Okay, so I pushed for you both to be wearing dresses a bit too hard,' he says. 'So it's suits. Which, ugh, lame. It's fine, though. Hey, you wanna go suit shopping with me? I think it'll be really funny if you choose your own suit and don't tell anyone else apart from me what you chose, just let your instincts do the work.'

'Fuck you,' you say half-heartedly. 'Is it sorted, though? He's ... going with me?'

'Yeah, man. I mean, don't expect anything, he isn't gonna fall in love with you during the slow dance. But he won't pick up while you're his "date" either. Not like there'll be anyone to pick up anyway. God damn you two really are spare wheels, aren't you?'

You punch him in the shoulder and leave the kitchen for your lounge, starting up your SkaiaNet console and dropping Dave's controller on the couch next to you. He joins you after a minute, smirking at his phone as he texts and walks. You know for a fact that Karkat's banned him from doing that, but you don't pull him up on it. 

'You should actually hang out with him more,' Dave says, way too casually once you start the race. 'I mean, I love chilling with you, but you don't get out enough.'

You start to protest that you were hanging out with Roxy just the other day, but then you remember that you haven't slept in at least 60 hours and you hadn't talked to anyone during that time before Dave walked into your house uninvited. He doesn't force you to speak and you let the silence happen like you don't with anyone who isn't him. Eventually, after soundly kicking your ass, he flicks to television and you find yourself struggling to keep your eyes open. You wake up hours later in your bed with your shoes and shades still on. You'll send an ironic thank you card to Dave once you've gotten just a bit more sleep, you think, barely managing to get yourself undressed before you fall under again.

Chapter Text

Apparently Kanaya doesn't think it would be funny if you were left in control of your clothes, even though Dave assured her at length that it would be. You were planning on just going shopping with Jane, the natural authority on suits, so that you wouldn't fuck it up. Kanaya approved of that plan and also insisted that you get ready with someone who actually knows how to tie a bow tie. Apparently clip-ons are not an option. Rose helpfully pointed out that your date for the wedding was raised by a fine gentleman just as much as Jane.

So you're getting ready with John. Who, as much as he likes to play tricks, loves Rose too much to do anything except take this incredibly serious. Who trusts your ability to get dressed apparently as much as the rest of your friends. Which is to say, he does not trust your ability to get dressed. 

You can't wait to get to the wedding so that you can complain to Jade and Jake, who are similarly supervised. Albeit by their actual datemates, which seems to you to be a lot less patronising, but no one asked you. Which was also patronising. 

John doesn't trust you with a single aspect of your getting ready process. He arrives at Seven! O! Clock! in the morning, ignoring the fact that you most certainly didn't invite him inside because you were still sleeping and also ignoring that a man's bedroom is his own personal space. He jumps on you when you try and pretend you're still asleep. His knocking already woke you up, but it's the principle of the thing. 

You stubbornly keep your limbs relaxed and your eyes closed as John bounces on the bed next to you. 

'Diiiiiiiiiirk!' he says. 'I know you are not asleep, you liar.'

You groan and turn your face into the pillow, lying on your stomach so that you're as disengaged from this as possible.

'Dirk! Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!'

He flops dramatically on top of your back and you can't help but laugh. This is literally what you've wanted your entire life and it's from your most platonic of bros. Not that this is inherently romantic or anything, it's just you fucking hate mornings and the idea of being woken up nicely (why does your dumb touch-starved brain interpret a bulky dude lying on top of you and giggling as being woken up nicely?) is something you wished for a lot growing up. You just wanted someone else to tell you that you had to get up and do all the things you had to do. It's hard work kicking your own ass into gear.

'Hey, Dirk?' John says.

'Yeah ...' you say, reluctantly.

'Did you wear your hair gel to bed?'

'I don't wear hair gel,' you sigh. 

John heaves himself so that he's lying on you in a less perpendicular way and shoves his hands in your hair. Your lungs are starting to protest this, but you're pretty sure you can roll him off you when it gets too much, so you're not too worried. He rolls your hair in between his fingers as if feeling for the stiffness that comes with product. You can't help but relax. It's really nice. Roxy brushes your hair sometimes, but it usually takes you a long while to stop feeling like you're a burden on her and enjoy the treat. 

'What the hell?' he asks. 'Why is it always so spiky?'

'I shower before bed and it dries ... upwards,' you say. 

'Hmm,' John says. He's just combing his fingers through your hair now. You actually might fall back asleep, even though he's heavy on your back. Suddenly he tugs on your hair and you jolt awake. You have no idea when your body decided you're allowed to let your guard down that much around him. Presumably you wouldn't have actually fallen asleep.

'Dirk! We only have a few hours to get you ready.' John says.

You groan. 

'What on earth is going to take me that long?' you ask.

'I've been reliably informed that you have never taken a quick shower in your life. And Rose is trusting me. This is serious business, Dirk.'

When John rolls off you, you're actually a bit disappointed by the loss of weight. It was strangely comforting. You roll over onto your back and squint up at him.

'I'm not entirely hopeless,' you say. 'I'm not a Harlglish. I wore clothes the whole time during the apocalypse and I continue to do so.'

'You're not wearing clothes now!' John says, waggling his eyebrows.

You sit up and throw back the covers to show that you are, in fact, wearing a tank top and boxers. So motherfucking decent. Which, yeah, that was a fucking gamble on John's part. You live alone, there's never been any reason for you to wear clothes. Of course, casual nudity takes a degree of comfort with yourself that you don't think you've ever experienced outside of the reassuring weight of your very high pressure shower.

'Ha! Got you up!'

You're so mad that you fell for that. God damn. You glare at John, who is grinning cheekily at you, looking very comfortable with his hands behind his head and all snuggled into your bed. What an asshole. Ironic that this is the most action your bed has seen all year. You sigh and put your shades on before leaving John in favour of coffee. Coffee won't trick you like this.

Of course, by the time you walk to the kitchen John has already breezed himself in and is rifling around in your cabinets for mugs. You don't know why he's having difficulty finding shit, your system makes perfect sense and he's here all the time. You open the right door and give him his usual mug, the one with "no.1 cock muncher" written on the side. There was a moment there when you thought he was going to find a different stupid mug to use, right after Jake (rightly so) questioned why John would be the one out of the two of you to have that title and John nearly died choking on his coffee, but he's stubborn and that's his mug. Yours says "welcome to the gun show" and the handle is in the shape of a flexing bicep. It's beautiful.

You move around each other automatically, habits born of John being your most frequent visitor and you both agreeing that he isn't entitled to being waited on. He takes stupid shit out of your pantry, trying to get you to fuck up and put it in your coffee instead of sugar, like he always does and you put the shit back where it belongs and make toast. You don't ask him if he's eaten. You know he only eats Dad's cooking when there are other people also being cooked for and Dad won't let him cook for himself when he could be spoiling him. It's well-intentioned. It just hits John too close to home. 

You eat breakfast in relative silence. You're not chatty in the mornings and John only is when he feels like he has to front. You can see him thinking, but you aren't about to prod that hornet's nest. If he wants to talk, he'll talk. You're not his keeper and he's much better at diverting you than Jake ever was, so you're not in the habit of trying to start uncomfortable conversations. Leave that shit to his actual friends, you're just the guy he hangs out with when they're all coupled up or whatever the poly version for that is.

After breakfast, John pushes you in the direction of the shower. You make a big deal of needing to go via your bedroom to get new clothes to change into and then spend way too long picking out a towel just to protest the fact that he feels the need to push you at all. 

'You realise that if I shower now that no one will recognise me unless i actually do use gel. And I don't have any,' you say as you pull the curtain shut. You hear John sit on the floor next to the bath. He does this sometimes, keeps you company as you shower so that you don't wander off inside your own brain for hours. You were very unnerved the first couple of times, but the more you're exposed to John's particular brand of shit, the more you find yourself loosening up about your more stupid boundaries. He legitimately doesn't give a shit if you're naked in proximity to him. Your broship is just that platonic.

'I've got a plan for that,' John says. 'I dry my hair with the breeze now and it comes out spiky; I bet I could recreate your stupid style.'

'Your flattery warms my goddamn heart,' you tell him. You kick your boxers and tank out of the shower and hopefully not in the direction of John. You turn the water on and grit your teeth against the cold. The first bit is always the hardest. Almost as soon as you're completely wet, it becomes a lot easier to handle. 

You rigged up your new place exactly the same as your old apartment, pumping seawater through your pipes for everything. Back before the game it was a question of efficiency. You had limited resources and seawater is just as good to clean yourself and your clothes as fresh water, you weren't going to waste time desalinating the masses of water you use in your showers, nor were you going to waste power on heating it unless you had been diving deep into the ocean and needed to warm up or die. Now it's a matter of familiarity. The smell of your clothes after Dad kindly washed them with his store bought soap and filtered water was impossible to tune out and your senses felt overwhelmed and on edge until you gave in and spent a month taking apart your house and rebuilding it how you like it. 

Dave showered at your house once when he'd stayed overnight playing video games and gossiping with you and called you a madman for wanting it like that on purpose, but apart from that, no one else apart from you is affected by your weird choices. Rose has told you that you're allowed to be weird. She says it's impressive you can function in society at all. Mind you, she says that with the kind of smile that makes you wonder if she really thinks you're functional or if she's taking the piss.

John's voice interrupts your daydreaming at some point. You have no idea how long it's been, as per fucking usual. You make the decision not to beat yourself up about that. 

'So, I think one of us needs to catch that bouquet,' John says. 

'Enlighten me as to why.'

'Because,' he says, 'everyone else is all settled too much as it is! I can stand Rose and Kanaya getting married because they're the perfect fucking couple or something—I don't know, they're allowed. But is Dave gets married, I will flip my shit, Dirk, I honestly will. And those three are chaos monsters! They just would! It's insane!'

You make a noise to indicate that you're listening and maybe agree. You don't want to interrupt what could be an honest-to-god John Egbert freak out. He needs to get this shit off his chest.

'And don't even get me started on Jane and Jake. Dad already asks me when I'm going to settle down! They've been together five minutes! And Jane's older than me, anyway, I think.'

'I'm pretty sure you're literally the exact same fuckin' age,' you say. 'On the other hand, Jane has been emotionally forty since she was eight, so yeah, you got some catchin' up to do.'

'Exactly!' John says. 'And Roxy and Callie ... Okay, I don't actually have a reason why I don't want them to get married, but I'm pretty sure I still don't want that. Because it's a slippery slope!'

'You know Roxy considers Callie her wife already, right?'

John ignores you. You roll your eyes at your shower curtain.

'So! We can totally conspire to catch it. I mean, you're going to be the one to catch it, you're the one who can actually do that, but I will absolutely tackle anyone else who gets in your way, okay?'

'You're insane and I won't have any part of this plan,' you say calmly. 

'Dirk. I dare you.'

You freeze in the middle of reaching to turn the tap off. Shit. A dare. Well, you can't say no to a dare.

'You know what the stakes are if you say no,' John warns. 

You sure fuckin' do. You finally turn the tap off and reach for your towel. You really can't afford to be dressed as a chicken for the next week. You know John wouldn't let you put it off until after the wedding, and frankly, you wouldn't want him to. What kind of precedent does that set, what, that you can just put off the punishment if it's inconvenient to you? You dry yourself, recaptchalogue your shades onto your face and wrap your towel firmly around your waist before pulling the curtain back. 

John looks at you expectantly from the floor. 

'Yeah ...' you sigh. 

'Yes!' he says, pumping the air and floating happily to his feet. No one uses their powers as much on a minute to minute basis as John. Everyone else is human or troll first, player second, but John moves like flying is his first thought and he only walks because otherwise doorways would be inconvenient. He twirls his finger and the small gust of wind that he generated from jumping up transforms into your personal hair drying hurricane. You look in the mirror and are pretty impressed. It might even be better than how you usually do it. 

You go to pull your underwear on underneath your towel but John snatches them out of your hand. You raise your eyebrow at him incredulously.

'Are you serious?' he says. 'You're going to put these on underneath a suit? You know your pants are tailored, right? You want people to be looking at you and wondering if you're wearing something dumb on your boxers? Because it's you, Dirk, the natural assumption is that your underwear is dumb.'

Wow. You think you might be too taken aback to be properly insulted. You follow John to your bedroom anyway and watch him rifle through your underwear drawer with your arms crossed and your face appropriately judgemental. 

'Okay, put these on and show me.'

'You want to see me in my underwear.'

'I want to see if I have to go out and buy you a pair that won't ruin the line of your pants, yeah.' 

He crosses his arms and looks at you impatiently. You pull the briefs on and self-consciously arrange yourself before shoving your towel in your sylladex.

'Should I do a twirl?' you ask dryly. 

'Yeah, actually, that'd be good,' he says. 

You walk in an exaggeratedly slow circle. John stares at your ass critically. This is basically your living nightmare. 

'You have a surprisingly cute butt,' he says. 

'Almost sounded like a compliment up until the point where you make it sound like I have never given you reason to believe this before,' you say. 

'Well you haven't,' he says, very matter-of-fact. 

'Can I put pants on now?'

'Undershirt first, we are not monsters here.'

Of course, not wearing an undershirt is definitely the mark of a monster. You have to wait in your underwear while John re-irons your shirt and pants, apparently not satisfied with how the shop did it. He shines your shoes as well, and you have to slap his hands hard enough to make them go a bit red to stop him from tucking your shirt into your pants. 

You put to practice your incredible denial skillz when he ties your bow tie. Whatever your feelings are about the confident pressure on your neck and the fact that he's so close you can feel the heat from his body and the look of concentration that he's directing entirely at you ... Nope, those are dangerous thoughts that have no place in your head. He tugs on it to make sure it's firm when he's done and you stumble impossible closer to him, your chest touching his for the briefest moment before you step back again, posture military correct to compensate for how disordered your feelings might possibly be. 

You swallow and keep quiet. He's John. He sees nothing unusual about this. You are the most platonic of bros. Somehow he's the most off-limits in your brain, even though he's also your only single friend. No, precisely because of that. You don't need to be giving yourself any kind of permission to be making shit weird. John flicks your collar down to cover the tie, entirely oblivious to your stupid thoughts. He fastens your suspenders with the same efficient flicks he's done everything, but the feel of him smoothing down the elastic material to keep it from being twisted feels way too ... His fingers are pressing down from your shoulder to your hip in line with your nipple, you are not to blame for how this is making you feel. You deserve a fucking medal for boner-suppression. You wish he would talk, to break the tension. He doesn't, he just fastens the first strap and repeats the same process with the second. 

He steps back to look at you critically, his usually joyful face made serious by his focus. You hold your hands out and give him another mostly-ironic twirl. 

'Will I do?' you ask, when you're facing him again. 

'If you spill a single thing on this suit, Dirk, I swear to god, I'll take you apart by the atoms and scatter you through paradox space for the gods to eat.'

'Yes, sir,' you say. Holy shit.

John finally smiles again and you breathe a little easier. 

'Okay! Now I just have to get ready!'

Chapter Text

Dirk warns you that his shower is cold saltwater and you just casually dunked yourself into it anyway, thinking that actually after all that intensity with dressing him, that might be a good thing. But it is fucking freezing, and you're pretty glad that he chose to lean against the wall of the bathroom while you shower so that he can hear you cuss out his showering choices in real time.

'You have to put your head under,' he says.

'I actually showered last night, I'm probably fine,' you say.

'I could go under the house and turn the boiler on but, like ... cobwebs and shit.'

'Don't you dare!'

'Seriously dude, just dunk yourself under, just like you're at the beach. Worst part's the beginning.'

'I've never been to the beach.'

Dirk is silent on the other side of the shower curtain, presumably judging the hell out of you. Not your fault you lived inland! You take a deep breath and stand under the water like he told you to.

'Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Gah!' you splutter.

After you've finished swearing, it kind of gets better. You still hurry through your washing. How Dirk stays in here for hours at a time, you have no idea.

He makes an awkward excuse about wanting to check on his ironic father of the bride speech when you get out. Standing in his bathroom in just a towel, you suddenly remember that he's gay. That he likes boys and in fact, liked Jake for quite a while. Who looks a lot like you. Hmm.

Well, Dirk's just an awkward guy. You're sure he doesn't think of you like that. You are just bros. It would be insane if he thought of you with any kind of gay feelings, because you're not gay. So ... yeah, that solves that problem. You don't know why that realisation is slightly disappointing to you. Probably just because it's nice to feel attractive sometimes.

You use your breeze to get dressed. You probably could have done that for Dirk too, but you haven't done it for anyone that isn't you and you think it probably would have unnerved him, even though you have excellent control. People like it better when you act like a person.

You're both ready with plenty of time to spare, something that Dirk points out to you by counting out the exact amount of extra time you could have let him sleep for. You distract him by telling him that he looks kind of like Dave in a suit. He abandons you immediately to find a mirror. What an adorable idiot. For a guy who thinks he's cluey, he's awfully easy to trick.

You tuck your shared invitation into your inside jacket pocket, even though there's no risk them not knowing you're invited. and offer him your arm when it's time to head over there. He takes it after only the slightest hesitation.

'I feel bad, bro,' he says. 'I didn't get you flowers or anything. Pretty shitty date you got saddled with.'

You laugh as you transport him to the venue with your glowy retcon powers. You appear at the bottom of the hill, just a little bit apart from Roxy and Callie who are the only ones apart from you who are there.

'You'll have to make it up to me on the dance-floor,' you tell him.

'Prepare to be disappointed,' he tells you. 'I've been reliably informed that an actual zombie would move less stiffly than me when I dance. And Kanaya has experience with zombies.'

You're interrupted by Roxy and Callie hugging you. Dirk doesn't put his arm back around yours after he's been released, which is dumb, because it's like he's never played gay chicken before. You're winning by a lot. You used to win against Davesprite too. You're basically the best at this.

Everyone else arrives pretty soon after you guys do. Dirk gets stolen by Jade and Jake so they can gush over his suit, something that makes you feel proud, but also makes you laugh at how uncomfortable Dirk is by their compliments. Dave stands next to you, hands deep in his pocket, comfortable in his suit like no one else really is. You bet he wore his dorky suits the whole time on the meteor.

'Dude, you made my brother hot,' Dave says. 'I mean, not that he wasn't already hot, no, wait, that wasn't the problem with what I said. Like, you made him look like he could be my dad. Oh god, that's worse. I mean, technically he is my dad, but we don't think and/or talk about that and also why would he being my dad make him hotter, I mean, your dad sure is an advertisement for what a hot dad looks like but that doesn't mean that my dad would be hot. Or like, that dadness as a quality is a hot one.'

'You should probably stop talking,' you tell him.

'You're not wrong. I'm gonna go talk to Mom. Roxy. Fuck.'

Dave slouches away awkwardly to talk to Roxy and Jane, so you let yourself dissolve until you're standing next to Dirk again. Jake jumps a little, but Jade and Dirk don't react at all. Jade uses her space powers like you do and Dirk's just used to the way you do it.

'You did a good job!' Jade says. 'Karkat and Dave had to spend over an hour combing out my hair though, so I think we win! You have no idea how much the Bec in me is telling me I need to find a good puddle to roll in. I think I can make it through the ceremony at least.'

You really, really want to see Jade rolling around in a puddle in her fancy strapless dress. You're not sure you've ever wanted anything more.

'So, the dreaded first date!' Jake says, his eyes crinkly with mischief. 'How's it faring so far? Blink twice if you need a daring rescue! Not that I'm suggesting you give my Dirk here the wind, John, though if anyone was to do so ...'

'It's fine, Jake,' Dirk says. 'You know we're not really dating, right?'

You gasp as if deeply offended.

'After all I've done for you!' you say, hand on your heart.

'Waking me up at fuck-off o'clock is not a service I needed from you, John,' Dirk says, smirking, 'and I'm pretty sure the only part of getting me ready that was in doubt was my fashion taste, which Jane fixed anyway. But if you really want to play, I'll play.'

'Ooh!' Jade says, her tail wagging slightly in excitement. 'What are the stakes?'

'We're gods,' Dirk says, frowning a bit. 'There's not much we can give each other. Except I guess embarrassment of some kind. Which, like, I'm already in a suit. Apparently there will be dancing. I'm balls deep in Dirk Discomfort Land, ain’t many ways you can improve on this.'

'Slave for a day!' Jake suggests. 'Like in Yu-Gi-Oh!'

Dirk stares at Jake, looking a bit stunned. You think that sounds like an excellent idea, considering Dirk is losing pretty handily so far and you've never lost this game.

'Make it a week,' you say.

Dirk turns his shocked expression on you. You grin at him, wondering what you'll make him do for you. You'll probably just make him fetch things while you and Dave play video games or something for the most part, but you bet you can think of something really big for the main event.

'Fine,' he says, composing himself and holding his hand for you to shake.

You take it with both your hands and shake eagerly. He holds you in place.

'First one to say ... Jake?' Dirk says, because naturally Jake is the one you go to for phrases that won't come up in natural conversation.

'Cease and desist?' he suggests. Okay, yeah, that was actually pretty normal.

'Sure,' Dirk says. 'First one to say "cease and desist" forfeits and has to be the other one's slave for a week.'

You nod and he brings his other hand up so that you both shake double-handed. When you release him, he's somehow sneakily arranged it so that you're still holding hands. You're actually impressed by that, you didn't think he was smooth at all.

Not that holding hands is really upping the stakes much. You swing your arms together idly as you talk, up until Roxy tells you all it's time to take your seats.

You sit together, obviously. Rose and Kanaya enter behind you and everyone turns to look. You let go of Dirk's hand so you can twist in your seat.

They look beautiful. Kanaya is ethereal in her wedding dress, looking exactly as a vampire on her wedding day should look in your opinion, and Rose is pulling off her suit better than anyone else in the room. Anyone else getting married this young would make you panic. You look at them, sharing a look that is just loaded with love as they walk towards The Mayor, and you know they're going to be fine.

The ceremony is short and sweet. They read their own vows, and then Karkat gets up and reads a poem he wrote himself. You see a movement in the corner of your eye and turn to see Jade putting her arm around Dave, who is openly crying listening to Karkat talk about how watching Rose and Kanaya's love gave him the courage to find love himself.

As Karkat takes his seat again, Dirk leans close to you and you jump a little before leaning in as well so he can whisper.

'Okay, I get what you were saying about this shit being contagious,' he says.

You nod emphatically. He sits back again, smiling at you gently. Your stomach does a strange little flip of nerves before you force yourself to look back to the front. The Mayor names Rose and Kanaya lawfully married and Kanaya dips Rose for a tasteful kiss. Everyone claps and you find yourself smiling so hard it hurts.

Everything is a blur of people moving, Jade and Roxy combining their powers to pull in food and lights and other bits and pieces. Dad and Jane bring out a ginormous cake and Callie brandishes a colourful lollipop.

'Callie, no!' Roxy says, rushing towards her.

'Oh fuck,' Dirk says, wrapping his arms securely around you and flashstepping in the opposite direction and behind a table. It makes you feel dizzy in a way that your breezy and game-breaky powers never do.

'What's going on?' you ask.

'That thing greatly contributed to the worst day of my life,' he says.

'A lollipop?'

He glares at you over his shades. His hands are still on your shoulders, like he's going to run away again.

'Instant acid trip for everyone who isn't me. I'm too uptight. Still fuckin' felt the hangover, though. Until I died. We're not going near that thing, John, I swear to—'

You hear the sound of Roxy laughing loudly and turn towards it. Dirk grabs your neck and forces you to focus back on him.

'We're getting out of here,' he says. 'Take us home.'

'No?' you say, incredulous. 'It's Rose's wedding!'

'John, I swear to god, it's too late for them.'

He's talking about this like they're zombies! You try and look again but he holds you firm. You roll your eyes and breeze through his hands until you're standing. Hmm, Roxy's kissing Jane with a lot of enthusiasm there, is that allowed? Oh, and they're changing? Like grimdark, but ... chipper. Hey, have you seen this before?

Jane is now kissing Dave, who is blushing furiously, his hands moving around crazily like he doesn't know where to put them. You really don't know how you feel about that. Callie looks like she feels good about it, clapping her hands and pushing Roxy towards Jake.

'They look happy,' you say to Dirk. He's holding onto your wrist, but you're not worried. You don't get touched when you don't want to be touched anymore, you can be a ghost at will.

'Worst day of my life, John. Grew up after the apocalypse. Worst day of my life. No competition.'

'I think it's probably fine.'

You phase out from Dirk's grip and over to Callie. She holds the lollipop out to you invitingly and any doubt you might have been holding onto fades away. You lick it and your body explodes into tingles that kind of make you want to sneeze and make you feel like all your hair is standing on end.

You grin at Callie and she goes to hug you happily, but you're too ghosty and she passes right through you! This is unspeakably funny to you and you float upwards slowly as you laugh. You look at the rest of the room. It feels vital that everyone join you in this state. Almost everyone is, and they're all crowding around Dirk, who is backing back slowly.

You guess they've got it covered! You watch as he trips backwards into a chair. Jake floats into his lap and pulls him by the lapels of his jacket until they're kissing. Dirk's suit changes from the lovely navy colour to a lurid teal and his glowing hands find their way to Jake's hair. He's kissing him back.

You ... don't like that.

You know what, you don't need to think about why that is or even remember this. Once you realise that, you're much happier. You float through your brain just as easily as you float through the room, touching moments only as frequently as you touch the ground. You're aware of dancing with everyone, of eating cake, of listening as everyone stands up and delivers speeches.

'I'm the dad of Rose and this is good,' Dirk says, which is honestly an improvement on the speech he was practising.

'I'm love these lesbians,' says Dave. You think that might have actually been what he was planning on saying anyway.

At one point, you end up in a nice group hug with Rose and Jade and Dave.

'This is good,' you say.

'You're all ... so hot,' Dave says. 'It's hard, having all these hot friends and only being allowed to kiss some of them. We should just all marry everyone, that would solve everything.'

Rose sighs and pats Dave condescendingly on the head. Somehow, she has avoided the tricksterness, but you don't seem to mind that much. Every time you’ve tried to infect her, she’s stepped to the side as if she knew exactly what you were doing. You’re not sure why she doesn’t want this. You all look awesome!

'I'm really glad to have you all here,' she says. 'Even though you all got high on alien drugs.'

You don't fancy remembering the rest of the conversation, except for the part where you phased out of the group hug and Jade fell into Rose. That was funny.

'John, I'm sorry,' Rose says.

'I don't care,' you say cheerfully. You don't! You don't even remember it!

You float over to where Kanaya and Dirk are slow dancing. He smiles at you sleepily. She spins him away from her and he ends up in your arms because it was that or let him fall over. She blinks at you forcefully because she can’t wink and then walks gracefully over to where Rose and Dave are still cuddling. You don’t know where Jade’s gone.

‘Hey,’ Dirk says.

'Hi there!' you say. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm so okay,' he says. 'Dude, I'm the chillest. My arms are made of chill.'

'Um ... okay?'

Dirk shifts his arms so that he's practically hanging off your neck and you hold his waist automatically. His eyes are intense behind his shades, and he's looking right at you. It makes you look at the rest of his face because it's less to worry about. His hair is orange-red rather than blond and his lips look fuller somehow. Fuller and pinker, everything about his face is just standing out more than usual.

'Am I dancing?' Dirk asks.

You're standing pretty still. But you guess you are holding each other in a dancey way. You step to the side and he follows you smoothly, so you move again, just tiny steps back and forth.

'Yeah,' you say. 'Better than a zombie.'

You can feel his waist moving under your hands, soft and swaying. He's loads better than a zombie. Not that you've danced a lot. You and Jade had dance parties on the boat sometimes but they mostly involved jumping on beds a lot, not anything like this.

'We could leave,' Dirk says. 'Lots of people have left. We could leave too.'

'Where would we go?'

Dirk's glasses flash blindingly white and he flinches away from you, pulling them off.

'What the fuck, dude?' he groans.

He puts his shades back on and you watch as his cheeks blush red.

'I ... gotta go ...' he says. 'Thanks for the dance.'

He kicks off the ground and flies away. You could catch him, but you're too confused to try. You're starting to feel tired. Dave is lying under a table over there, you're gonna go lie with him. It looks like a nice place to be.

Chapter Text

John is warm and steady and strong and he's leading you through the first dance of your life that you've wanted to participate in. The Trickster magic is working on you, but not in the same way as everyone else.

You're not manic and you’re aware of your altered state. You're definitely in control of your actions. But everything is easier, like someone's turned the volume down on life and you can finally take your hands away from your ears.

John isn't your most platonic friend. He's the dude you've been in love with for months and you've got no idea why you were denying this to everyone, including yourself. You like being in his arms and he's smiling at you in this gorgeous way that makes you think if you kissed him, he'd be even happier.

You're the only ones on the dancefloor but this is still too public. You want him all to yourself.

'We could leave,' you say. 'Lots of people have left. We could leave too.'

'Where would we go?' John asks. Your heart leaps. He didn't say no.

And then your shades sear white light into your eyes and you have to recoil away from him, away from the pain. Holy shit, your eyes are more sensitive than most, your shades are supposed to help that not pull this shit on you.

'What the fuck, dude?' you groan, addressing Hal, but also the world in general.

You put your shades back on so that he can answer you.

Dirk, don't be a fucking idiot.
You're high, he's straight.
Sexuality's complicated, dude. We don't know anything about anyone.
Do not force yourself on someone who is under the influence.

You ... hadn't even considered that. You're usually better than this. You feel your face warm and tears prick at your eyes as you feel the full impact of what you could be like if you didn't have someone keeping you in check.

'I ... gotta go ...' you say. Somehow your voice comes out kind of normal. 'Thanks for the dance.'

You fly away as fast as you can, knowing that John can catch anyone he wants and that the only way you're getting out of here is if you make it really clear that you're absolutely leaving. The moment you get into your house, you collapse on the floor, not even making it out of the entrance way.

'I'm sorry,' you say to Hal.

You didn't do anything, Dirk.

'I could have.'

I don't think you could have. Would you like me to run the numbers and compare them to the average?

'No.'

You're crying. It's really weird.

Dirk, intense emotional swings are a very common effect of drinking or anything that attacks your reasoning, and Trickster magic certainly does that. Hell, even just the emotional come down of leaving a party can have this effect on people.

'Am I back to normal yet?'

No, not yet.
I don't think it'll be long, though.
You should go to bed.

You ignore him, choosing instead to close your eyes. You're tired and sad and heavy.

*

When you wake up, everything hurts. It might even be worse than your last hangover, which incidentally was also your first hangover. Didn't exactly inspire a repeat performance. Your body ached then as well, but you think it's also hurting because you passed out face first on your goddamn carpet. At least you didn't throw up.

You open your eyes cautiously and Hal immediately messages you, telling you he told you to go to bed and he would have told you to get water and other sensible things on your way had you listened to him, but you minimise his window. You minimise all windows, just using the shades to keep the light out of your eyes, which even with them on feels way too bright. Your eyes are clogged with sleep, and even though you scrub at them with your knuckles, it doesn't seem to do much.

Your mouth feels like a desert crawled into it and died, leaving zombie sand there. You open and close your mouth, trying to work up enough saliva to swallow, but apparently that's not on the cards. The best you get is a slightly sticky feeling. You groan, not out of any expectation for your circumstances to change, just to express your sincere disappointment in the way that your morning is going so far.

You close your eyes again, hoping that you'll be able to fall asleep. Your body informs you that you are more likely to either piss yourself or die from the red hot poker that's currently being pushed through your eye socket. Oh wait, that's a headache. That's a headache? No, this needs a new word. It's so much more physical than any headache has right to be.

You press your hands firmly to your eye where the pain is and have no idea if it helps. You think it might? But then it's back and you can actually feel your heartbeat throbbing through your eye and into your palm. How.

Okay, that's it. There's no recovering from this. You have to die. You'll come back, there's nothing heroic or just about a hangover. You extend your arm with a miserable flop and decaptchalogue your katana. Oh god it's heavy.

Dirk, what are you doing?

'Dying,' you groan.

You put every bit of energy you have into your arm and focus on chopping your own head off. You get your hand maybe half a foot off the ground before it falls again and your sword bounces away. No! Three inches might as well be three miles at the moment.

Oh my God, you're such a drama queen.

You minimise Hal's window again and decaptchalogue a fancy Santa. It's heavy, too. Life is certainly unfair this morning.

Before you can attempt to beat yourself to death with a porcelain Christmas decoration, the door opens and you hear high heels enter your house.

'Good morning, father,' Rose says cheerily.

You groan inarticulately for long enough that your voice starts to rasp. It's not that long.

'Yes, I suspected you might feel that way,' she says. Oh God she sounds smug.

'Fuck off,' you tell her. It doesn't come out sounding precisely how you want it to, but you think she gets the message.

She crouches down next to you and hands you a water bottle. You would cry if you had any moisture in you at all. Instead, you open it and pour it indiscriminately over your face, wetting your lips and unsticking your eyelashes and making you feel at least 3% fresher. It's a big difference from where you're sitting. Laying.

'Okay, up you get,' she says.

She cradles the back of your neck and pulls your shoulder until you're sitting on the floor. You feel yourself sway slightly and the room seems to sway a lot more than you do.

'Now actually get some in your mouth,' she says, handing you the water bottle again.

Your hands are still way too heavy, but you manage to tip water in your mouth. You finish the bottle in small increments.

'I need to piss like a racehorse,' you slur at your daughter, the day after her wedding day.

'I'm going to remind you of needing my help for this at frequent intervals throughout our immortal lives and I still am not sure that it will be worth it,' Rose says.

She stands up and takes your hands in hers before pulling strongly. You can't help or resist but thanks to her being much stronger than she looks, she gets you to your feet. She throws your arm around her shoulders and walks you slowly to your bathroom.

When you get to the toilet she just sits you on it and leaves you to figure the rest out yourself. You swear you piss for five straight minutes, and once you're done you smell coffee in the kitchen. It gives you strength to find your feet and stagger out.

Rose is sitting at your kitchen table, drinking coffee. In front of the chair opposite her is a complete place setting. There’s coffee, a slushie and a burger on a china plate that you know you don't own. There's silverware there too, also not yours. For a burger.

'Wha—' you say, intelligently. Intelligence is one of your strengths.

'Mother assures me it's a very reliable hangover cure. She says it's miraculous.'

Rose sips at her coffee, looking over her cup with satisfaction at your discomfort. You hate her.

Then you take a bite of the burger and drink the slushie and feel a bajillion per cent better. You love her.

'Rose ...' you groan. 'Marry me.'

'Would you believe that's the third proposal I've had today? And not a single one from my wife.'

'Your wife ...' you groan. 'Rose, you shouldn't be here, you should be with Kanaya.'

She smiles at you softly and grabs your hand. When you first met her she could only touch the people she'd been on the meteor with casually, now she's like this affectionate machine of reassurance. You both like it and wish it didn't make you feel so emotionally stunted by comparison.

'We’ll have rather a lot of time together on our honeymoon,' she reminds you. 'Seeing as we have no obligations to anything but our whims. I'm not leaving until I get some gossip.'

'I don't have gossip,' you reply automatically.

'Dirk,' she says sternly, looking down at your empty plate for a moment to remind you who brought you a burger in your time of need and then meeting your eyes again, 'you owe me.'

You'd grumble, but she's right.

'I still don't have gossip,' you say.

‘Last night, I was in the middle of a hug with my best friends in the world. I mentioned that you and John made a handsome couple to John and he got defensive when I persisted after his initial “it’s just a joke” response. Quite defensive.’

‘Rose, I’m so hungover …’

‘In my experience, a dragon doesn’t defend an empty patch of soil. There’s treasure to be found.’

‘Yeah, but if you poke a dragon with a stick in a weak point it’ll bite you regardless of where you happen to be standing, oh my God, Rose, my head.’

Rose frowns and sits back in her seat a bit.

‘I’m going to ask Hal.’

‘Go right ahead!’ you tell her.

You have no idea how that would turn out. You don’t know what Hal’s stakes are in the you-and-John business, you don’t know if he’ll think it’s funny to reveal your feelings and you don’t know if he’ll resent Rose for asking after you instead of him. There’s a lot of ways Hal could interpret that.

You really hope she’s bluffing so you don’t have to rely on him being on your side.

‘I guess I’ll just go home to my wife,’ she sighs. Her mouth twitches into a small smile when she says “wife”. Damn that’s cute.

‘Thank you so much for the burger.’

‘What’s the use growing up with an unhealthy relationship to alcohol if you don’t even get hangover cures out of it?’ Rose says as she stands up.

There’s no use to that regardless of any outcomes. You don’t like hearing about how Roxy fucked up in her alternate life any more than you like hearing how you fucked up in your alternate life. Your heart aches to take over and erase her pain, even though you know that’s impossible.

Angst is very incompatible with a hangover. You sip your coffee and awkwardly pat next to her hand as some kind of comforting gesture. She raises a perfect eyebrow at you and pulls her suit jacket straight again. You know she only started wearing them to prove she could pull it off just as well as Dave, but she really has made them her own.

‘Make sure to swing by Dave’s when you’ve recovered. He’s pitiful and there’s not a chance he’s beating you to healthy.’

<>

You laugh into your fist at Hal’s joke. He responds with an emoticon of a winky face because he wants you to make a bigger fool of yourself in front of Rose.

See, you don’t even live alone. You have Hal. He basically counts as a separate person, you’re pretty sure everyone agrees on that. And John visits almost every day.

ectoBiologist [EB] has begun pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

EB: so, got my first hangover.
EB: not a fan of it!
EB: how’s your head, sweet heart?
TT: The fuck?
EB: neither of us said the safe words last night i don’t think.
EB: and i don’t want to be your slave for a week.
EB: you’re welcome to give up!
TT: Oh, you wish.
TT: Muffin.
EB: veto on the muffin nickname.
TT: Well shit, you already took sweetheart.
EB: you’ll get there.
TT: My head’s revolting, by the way.
TT: Someone seems to have repurposed it for storing more barbed wire than can fit inside it, and then vomited on it in disgust for the disregard of proper storage etiquette.
EB: nice.
TT: So, what, should we go on a date or something?
EB: oh.
EB: yeah, that would make sense.
EB: i was actually going to ask you to see that new stupid action movie this week anyway.
TT: Right, we probably have to do something to distinguish it from a regular hangout.
TT: Shower, maybe.
EB: you should probably shower anyway if your head feels like barbed wire and vomit.
EB: also if you look anything like me.
EB: and you should definitely turn the hot water on before you do.
TT: Do you want me to disassociate right through our date?
EB: i’ll let myself in and get you out before the movie starts.
TT: You’re way too casual about entering my house without ascertaining my nudity status.
EB: but baby, you love me!
TT: Stop stealing all the good pet-names.

Chapter Text

You and Dirk decide to take a couple of days to recover before you go on a date. He tells you that he’ll win the bet if you see him like this, because he’s that hideous you won’t be able to pretend to want to date him. You kind of want to see him more at that description. You get the feeling you’ve seen Dirk in more disarray than most, but not to that extent.

You … don’t leave your bed for those days.

You’re sick, so it’s okay. And it’s not like you have anywhere to be if it’s not going to Dirk’s. Everyone else is happy and doing their thing, you don’t have a job. You hang out with Dirk because Dave worries about him all alone in his house and he’s too busy doing whatever it is he does with Jade and Karkat to check up on him all the time.

Eventually, it’s the day. You shower and put on a button down shirt, but no tie. Dressy, but not wedding-dressy. Dad tries to feed you, but you tell him you’re going to eat with Dirk. You really need to move out. Bluh. Effort.

You breeze to Dirk’s house and roll your eyes at the fact that you can hear the pipes. You knew this would happen. You breeze right into his bathroom, just in time to see Dave exiting the shower.

‘Fuck!’ you say.

‘John, what the hell?’ he asks.

You breeze downstairs before the image of Dave’s dick can get any more ingrained into your memory. Dirk’s sitting on the couch, looking much more put together than usual.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I have a door, and a doorbell. Hell, I have locks on that door. I’d give you a key, but I don’t think we’ve been dating long enough and also clearly you would never use it.’

‘Penis,’ you say.

Dirk turns the TV off and leans towards you with interest.

‘An excellent opener to a conversation,’ he says.

You don’t get a chance to comment on that, because Dave enters the room, thankfully dressed and scrubbing his hair dry with a towel. Your eyes go to his groin anyway.

‘Why the fuck does John magic himself into your bathroom with no notice?’ Dave demands.

Dirk looks between the two of you, realises what happened, and starts laughing. You’ve only gotten Dirk to laugh properly a handful of times, and never for long, but this is clearly his breaking point. You love how his usually deep voice breaks when he laughs, how he has to cover his face with his hands.

‘I keep him company when he showers sometimes,’ you explain, smiling sheepishly at Dave. Dirk is trying to calm himself down, taking gasping breaths in between his laughter, but he can’t seem to.

Dave looks at you with disbelief. He looks at Dirk, who seems to have given himself the hiccups. He looks back at you and seems to notice what you’re wearing for the first time.

‘You dressed up,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

‘I can’t let Dirk win,’ you say.

‘Told you,’ Dirk says. He hiccups. ‘Fucking hell.’ He flashsteps out of the room and returns with a glass of water. ‘I made Dave pick my clothes because I knew you’d bring your game.’

‘Not our weirdest sleepover,’ Dave says. ‘I don’t think I get the joke though.’

‘It’s ironic,’ you say, stealing Dirk’s line.

‘I’m not being his slave for a week,’ Dirk says, which is actually the sensible response.

Dave shrugs, clearly not getting it but okay with that. He tells you he’s leaving you to it and only lingers an extra five minutes after saying it. You put your arm around Dirk’s shoulders till he leaves.

‘So,’ you say when Dave’s gone, ‘what are we gonna do?’

‘Thought a classic dinner and a movie?’ Dirk suggests. ‘Seeing as first date being a wedding is really fucking intense, were this sincere, we might as well fall back on the basics.’

He drives you, in a car you’re concerned he might have built himself. You also can’t picture him accepting driving lessons. You’re very grateful that there’s nothing heroic or just about dying because of your terrible taste in fake-boyfriend. He actually handles it fine, but that’s not surprising. Well, he speeds the entire time, telling you that the speed limit is intended as a restriction on those who can’t drive as well as him and he isn’t interested in being told what to do by signs, but he’s smooth on the gears and he doesn’t crash, so you’re counting it as a win. When he parks he admits that he wasn’t driving at all, Hal was, he was just holding onto the wheel and pretending.

It’s this kind of bullshit that makes you love hanging out with Dirk. He’s just as full of shit as Dave, but he carries it with an extra layer of pretension and confidence that he’s clearly passed down to Rose. And he always lets you in on the joke. You grab his hand when you’re on the pavement, as much from genuine affection as from the bet. He only jumps a little this time.

The movie you go and see is carapacian made. You like carapacians a lot, but their movies are impossible to understand. It didn’t have subtitles, so you and Dirk whisper your own interpretations of what the actors are saying to each other, trying to make each other laugh and shushing each other when you succeed.

When you get out, Dirk decides that it was actually a very deep movie. He tells you that the bit with the missing paperwork was absolutely a metaphor, and manages to fill the whole walk to the restaurant with bullshit analysis, you occasionally encouraging him.

The restaurant is an Italian-ish bistro, with red and white chequered tablecloths and candles in wine bottles. You hold Dirk’s chair out for him and he glares at you for beating him to it.

‘So what did you get up to while I wasn’t around to look after you?’ you ask.

‘First of all, I resent the implication that I require babysitting,’ Dirk says. ‘I made the car.’

‘You’re an asshole,’ you tell him. ‘Could you at least pretend that you did tests to make sure it was safe? If you killed us in a car accident, you’d be responsible! What if that’s just?’

‘Hal said it was safe,’ Dirk says, shrugging. ‘He doesn’t actually want me dead. Hey, do you think Hal counts as a roommate?’

‘Not seeing as you haven’t given him an actual body.’

‘Damn, he agrees.’

‘Could you not talk to your real boyfriend while you’re on a date with your fake boyfriend?’

Dirk chokes on his soda. You timed that perfectly.

‘Hal’s me,’ Dirk says, his voice strained by his cough.

‘I know, and I’m super happy you’re admitting you’re in love with yourself, but I just think it’s rude to bring it up when you’re supposed to be dating me!’

He catches on, unfortunately. Dirk grew up with Jake, whose bullshit is less subtle than yours, and he seems to have a sensor for when you’re playing dumb because of it.

‘Sorry, bluebell,’ he says, stumbling over the petname and kind of ruining the illusion. He takes off his shades, and you can’t help but raise your eyebrows in surprise. ‘Just you and me, promise.’

He reaches out and takes your hand across the table. His eyes look golden in the candlelight, not as sharp and hawklike as they do when you’ve caught him bare-faced in full light. You don’t know why holding his hand on the table makes you feel more nervous than holding his hand while walking down the street, but it does. But you’re not losing this bet.

You probably should have come up with ground rules, you realise. If it comes to actual gay chicken, you’re probably gonna lose. You’ll do a lot for a bet, but you don’t think you’d have sex for one. But you can’t lose ...

If it comes to that, you’ll just tell him you’re saving yourself for marriage. Things won’t go that far, that’d be ridiculous.

‘What did you do while you weren’t looking after me?’ Dirk asks, smiling wryly as he repeats your phrasing back to you.

‘Not much,’ you say, sighing in what you hope is a romantic way. You don’t really know why sighs are romantic, you always thought they sounded disappointed. ‘My whole life revolves around you, pumpkin.’

‘Veto on pumpkin,’ he says. ‘Teenage Lord English said Jake and I together were a pumpkin patch. Roxy and Jane were cotton candy, if you ever want to tease them about that.’

‘I do want to tease them about that,’ you say. ‘After I tease you about the pumpkin patch thing.’

‘There’s no joke there, I’ve tried.’

‘I’ll think of one,’ you promise. ‘I don’t know how I feel about “bluebell”, either.’

‘I’m not good at this,’ Dirk says, staring up at the ceiling. ‘The one part of relationships I am confident in I’ve got to assume is off the table.’

‘Cocky!’

‘That’s kind of the point, yeah,’ he says, failing to suppress a smile at his own lame joke. You take your hand out of his so you can cover your face.

‘You’re doing good, I think,’ you say, to try and divert the conversation in not that direction. You’ve already seen one Strider penis today and you just really don’t need to see another. You didn’t need to see the first. ‘I don’t really have any experience dating.’

‘What about Roxy?’ Dirk asks. ‘Or is that weird to ask?’

‘I don’t mind. Um. I dunno, she was just pretty obviously in love with Callie. I like her, but I don’t know if it was ever in that way or if maybe I just got carried away with the idea. Like when Karkat told me I had to marry Rose.’

Dirk looks confused, so you tell him about Karkat’s shipping grid and how you told Rose about it when she was Grimdark so you don’t know what she thought, but it was probably not that you should get married. And then she died and you kissed her back to life!

‘Are you just making your way through my entire family?’ Dirk asks. ‘Should I worry about Dave stealing you away from me?’

‘I have seen his penis,’ you say. ‘Maybe that’s the first step in his courting.’

‘It’d work on Jade,’ Dirk says. ‘Shit, no offense.’

‘No, you’re right. It would.’

You talk some more about how strange it is that that whole thing is working. Dirk says he’s borne the brunt of Dave’s coming to terms with the situation, so it’s not something he feels the need to rehash. You tell him that Jane’s moving out to live with Jake. Dirk looks surprised, but not upset. You want to ask him about kissing Jake when they were Trickster, but you also really, really don’t want to do that.

‘How are you feeling about living alone with Dad?’ Dirk asks, looking at you with concern.

You shrug. Everyone else is all paired up or whatever. You can’t be bothered to move out just to be by yourself, not when living with Dad kinda feels like living alone anyway.

‘You can crash at mine, if it gets too much,’ Dirk says. ‘I realised I could have the hot water service turned on and just turn on the cold tap in my shower, so my place is practically habitable now.’

‘Someone’s moving fast,’ you joke.

‘Seriously, John. Bet or no bet, the couch is open. Hell, I have three bedrooms. I could clear one of them out enough to put an actual bed in it.’

What you like about your ecto-family is that they never ask you about your feelings and you don’t ask them about theirs. You’re gods and you’re living basically in paradise! Obviously everything is fine. You nod anyway, staring at your plate. You know Dirk needs his help to be accepted. You also know that he doesn’t push you like he does his real friends.

‘Um,’ he says, ‘so I was thinking since you’ve never been to the beach, that could be our next date. Unless you want to call it quits?’

‘I’m not losing this bet,’ you insist.

You know Dirk thinks he can out-stubborn anyone, but you’ve seen him fold at the vaguest implication from Dave. You’re basically immune to discomfort and you’re willing to play this game for years if you have to.

It’s not like you have anyone else you want to date. And you were spending most of your time with Dirk anyway. And he really does clean up nice.

Chapter Text

You and John settle on the agreement that you’ll have a proper date outing type thing once a week. On the other days, you mostly hang out together anyway. Not every day, and not all day, but enough that you get into the habit of going to bed when you notice it’s late because you know John will wake you up regardless of whether you feel like you’ve gotten enough sleep.

He buys you groceries one day, and then has to leave and buy you pots and pans because you never bothered to get those. You vacuum while he’s out, because Hal points out that the domesticity is unlikely to stop and you want to be able to say that you do some of the things you know people do to maintain their houses.

You sit on your kitchen counter while he makes you dinner, not offering to help because your level of expertise is limited to microwaving frozen dinners for one and deboning fish. After you eat, he sits on your workbench while you fiddle with your current robotics project, occasionally handing you a tool with much better recognition for the names you use than any of your other friends. Not that anyone else hangs out with you in your workshop. You get lost in your projects, and that’s not a fun combination with hang-outs. But occasionally you’ll be called on to fix a light fitting or whatever, and apparently John’s the only one of your friends to know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips-head screwdriver. Even Jade came up with her own names for tools instead of just looking up what they really are called.

‘Why do you do this?’ John asks.

‘What, make robots?’

‘Yeah, or anything you make in here,’ he says, correctly assuming that robots are not your only project.

Your hackles immediately go up, for a second having a flashback to when Rose asked you the same question. You force yourself to breathe normally.

‘Apparently I have the kind of daddy issues where I’m the daddy,’ you say dryly.

‘Apparently I have the kind of daddy issues where I have a fear of intimacy,’ John returns. Sometimes you forget that Rose is one of his best friends. ’Dirk answer please, not Rose answer.’

You put the artificial elbow joint you were working on down, not wanting to fuck it up. John’s hand moves to your toolbox automatically, but you shake your head and lean back in your chair.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t think she’s wrong. You know all those sci-fi movies where the robots take over and how they’re really just a metaphor for how men are fucking terrified of their offspring outstripping them?’

‘That’s so dumb oh my God.’

‘No, it’s completely true. And not only am I fucking terrified of accidentally ending up with a human child that might outstrip me, please refer to my shithead alternate self’s abuse of your best friend, and I have this weird irrational fear that I’m going to somehow psychically knock someone up in this universe, despite that being fucking impossible, but I have this hang-up about artificial life, and I literally can’t stop creating robots. I’m fucked up, John. I made Hal when I was 13 and he hasn’t stopped telling me how much of a mistake that was since, but almost every day I come in here with the intention of doing it over and over again. Just without burdening the poor metal fuckers with my psyche, I’m not that cruel.’

John looks at you with this skeptical expression as your heart beats a frantic tempo. This is when he says some dumb movie reference and then runs away, because your habit of ripping your chest open is actually too gruesome for anyone to handle and you have never once learned your lesson.

‘Yeah, you’re pretty fucked up,’ John decides. ‘Do you at least like it?’

You let out a startled, breathy laugh. Why isn’t he running? He can’t care about the bet that much. It’s not as if either of you would make the other do anything that bad anyway.

‘Yeah,’ you say. ‘It’s like productive fidgeting. It’s reassuring. And, like, I know that we’re safe now, but I don’t know if my soul does. Or my fingers. Building these guys … it makes those parts of me shut up.’

John looks around your workshop. You follow his gaze, your teeth gritting as you see just how many robots are in here. You’d meant to clear some of these out, you have storage space, they don’t all need to be here. Nobody needs to know how many of these you’ve made.

‘I’m done hanging out for today,’ John says carelessly.

‘Are you giving in?’ you ask. The idea of it hurts. That’s all it ever takes. Honesty. Even when it’s fake.

‘You wish, sugar-butt!’ John says.

He hops off your workbench and grabs you roughly at the top of your head and your jaw, keeping you still so he can plant a loud mwah sounding kiss to your cheek. He lets you go and dissolves into nothingness. You touch your cheek absently, but he wasn’t sloppy about it, there’s no moisture to wipe away. It was just warm and affectionate, not even remotely romantic despite it being a kiss. Somehow that makes it feel more genuine.

You look at the time display on your shades and decide that you’re just going to go to bed early. Like six hours earlier than you usually do.

It’s not that you thought this weird arrangement would last forever. You don’t really know why John was spending so much time with you before the bet, but you think a lot of it was to do with how uncomfortable he clearly feels at his home and the complete inability of any of the Prospits to notice emotions or do anything about them. Your family might play hard to get like a bunch of cats sitting just out of reach to be stroked, but that family continues their golden retriever impersonation regardless of any evidence around them.

But John “taking care of you” or “ironically dare dating you” or just hanging because he doesn’t have any other single bros to hang with has legitimately been the best part of your life lately. God, you’re so fucking lame. Obviously hanging with Dave and shooting the shit with your friends in person has been awesome, but John doesn’t make you feel like he’s scheduled time to keep up with you out of obligation.You think the beauty of it comes from not actually being friends, it usually helps you not flip your shit like you did earlier.

You consider messaging Roxy. You consider messaging Jake, heaven help your dumb brain. But you know if you try to confide in one of your actual friends, you’ll end up not only recounting the hideous self-loathing you shoved in John’s face, but exacerbating it by doubling down on how stupid you were to do that. It’ll end up being a revolting pity party, and no one deserves that.

Well, there’s Hal. But he already lives with his own version of your brain. It’s basically useless to recount this shit with him. Not like he ever makes you feel better, you’ll probably end up feeling pissed with him, which translates into simultaneously feeling pissed with yourself and excruciatingly guilty.

So instead you go to bed, pull out your laptop and put on Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Real One. Disturbingly perfect spelling and grammar aside, it’s one of your favourites. All of your friends know that you have always had an obsession with these movies, but you don’t inflict on them the pathetic knowledge that you watch them to help you sleep. It was one of the few times you felt nothing but good feelings, at the end of the world. When you felt like you got your bro, like maybe no one else did but you do.

You fall asleep to the director commentary, your bro’s voice deep in a way that Dave’s is sounding more like all the time, talking about a grilled cheese he made instead of anything to do with his movie.

You wake up to John sitting in your bed, eating an apple. You’d feel bad that he was able to sneak up on you, but he probably literally just materialised there. You groan and rub your face. Your laptop is still playing your queued movies, so you wouldn’t wake up at the sudden absence of sound, and you shove it into your sylladex.

‘Want some?’ John asks, offering you the unbitten side of his apple.

You take it, because you feel like you read somewhere that eating an apple was just as effective at waking people up as a cup of coffee. What utter bullshit. You sit up and hand it back to him, chewing on your mouthful.

‘I thought maybe you were just pretending to like Dave’s movies,’ John says. ‘Like, to suck up to him? Because those things are terrible, dude.’

‘I know,’ you say. It’s too early for you to list off all the ways that they’re actually blindingly clever. They’re bad as well. You like that they’re both, even though that used to infuriate you. Like, why not just make good movies? You understand irony now, though.

‘You’re cute in the morning, with your voice all scratchy and you don’t even lecture me on cinematic philosophy,’ John says. You look up at him, thrown completely. “Cute” has never been a descriptor of you. Then he winks and continues, ‘Honeybunch.’ Right. The bet.

You drag your hands through your hair in an effort to feel more put together. When that doesn’t work, you decide turnabout is fair play and fall limply onto John’s lap. His thighs are ridiculously nice pillows.

‘This is absolutely not how you wake up, come on dude I had you sitting up and everything a second ago!’

‘Is the difference between Prospit and Derse dreamers morning person versus night owl?’ you wonder, mumbling into the soft denim of John’s jeans. ‘If so, I’m revoking my offer of roommateship. Also, stop waking me up in the morning, we never go out until later anyway.’

‘Dirk, how many times do you think your cuteness is on display?’ John asks seriously. ‘Maybe you’re only cute in the morning. Don’t you think as your boyfriend I am entitled to see you in the brief window when you’re cute?’

‘It never fails to be impressive how good you are at a backhanded compliment,’ you grumble.

John’s hand lands in your hair and you know that despite it being contained, he must feel that you jump with you practically hugging his lap. He scritches your scalp like you’re a cat. Suddenly you understand the purring thing. You relax more of your weight onto him.

‘This isn’t waking up either,’ you point out. Jesus fuck, your voice came out slurring then. This man has magic hands.

‘Yeah, but we have time. We don’t want to get to the beach until the sun has warmed the water a little, right?’

‘Beach today?’ you mumble.

‘Yeah, that was your idea for the next date, right? It’s been a week.’

You make a vaguely affirmative noise. John laughs at you. He doesn’t stop massaging your head though.

You have to hit the alchemiter before you go to the beach. Your swimming tendencies at the end of the world were full scuba suit or skinny dipping, neither of which is appropriate for today. John also doesn’t own anything to wear. You fight over the controls, making some truly terrible combinations as you poke and kick each other.

John has introduced you to a whole new system of combat, where the goal isn’t to completely defeat your opponent, but rather to annoy them for such a short space of time that you accomplish nothing. It’s been a steep learning curve (the first time he jabbed you in the ribs you punched him in the face and broke his glasses clean in half) but it actually allows for a more sustained workout. And … it’s kind of fun.

When John holds up a pair of what would be speedos if they weren’t also a thong, patterned with tiny Kermit the Frogs, you decide to put your foot down.

‘It’s not that I’m questioning your impeccable taste, and you know I will wear these if we get uncomfortably competitive in this business, but do you really want to go on a date where my jingle bells will be fighting for very visible freedom the entire time? I want you to imagine me wearing this. Already horrifying, right? Now imagine my ballsack dangling below, unable to be contained. And it’s not just sunbathing, John, I intend to swim. In an ocean, with waves, that tend to disrupt slutty clothing.’

John drops the speedos immediately as if he suddenly found himself holding your testicles. You smirk at him. After that, you both end up with hideously patterned but modest swimsuits that reach a little lower than midway down your thighs. You leave the Kermit thong on your couch, for your next guest to find and be appalled both by your choice in clothing and that it is for some reason in your living room. John fistbumps you approvingly before taking your hands in his and zapping you both to a beach.

The smell of salt water on fresh air hits you so hard that you stumble. John is still holding your hands, so he keeps you mostly steady.

‘Sorry. Lost my cool for a second,’ you say.

‘Jane doesn’t let me teleport her at all,’ John says with a smile. ‘I think it’s disorienting when you’re not in the magical driving seat.’

That’s not it at all, none of your usual control issues come out when John teleports you, probably for bullshit magic reasons. You just didn’t anticipate missing home like this. You didn’t think you did. Why should you? That place was awful.

You close your eyes and breathe the air in. You need to be in the ocean right now. You almost flashstep, but then you remember. You’re on a date.

‘Come on,’ you say, tugging at John’s hands. You both drop one so that you can walk side by side. You’re so focused on reaching the water that you almost don’t notice John’s trepidation. ‘Can you swim?’ you ask.

‘Yes!’ he says defensively. ‘In still water …’

‘It’s fine. You don’t have to go past your waist if you don’t want to. That way even if a pretty big wave comes, it probably won’t even reach your head, you can just stand.’

The waves are so close, you need this like you haven’t needed anything for a while. But John’s holding your hand tightly, so you force yourself to have some fucking patience.

‘You love this, don’t you?’ he asks.

‘It’s been a while,’ you say. ‘Years, in fact. I feel like …’

‘Go on,’ John prompts.

You’d stalled because you didn’t want to get real with him. Not when you so recently did and you thought you’d fucked everything up in the process. But Jake was able to ignore when you did that for a while, so John probably can too. You don’t know about back-to-back Strider revelations though.

You make the mistake of looking at him as you’re trying to think of a passable lie. John’s eyes are distractingly blue, open and honest in a way you doubt yours even have the capacity to be. You can’t lie to him. You’re not great at lying to anyone.

‘I feel like I’m coming home,’ you say. ‘My apartment was surrounded by ocean, I swam all the time and I had no idea I missed it. I don’t know if I ever felt quite right in my skin, not even with all the training I did to make my body move the way I wanted it to. But swimming … Flying doesn’t come close.’

John lets go of your hand, a small smile on his face. He shoves you on the shoulder and you stumble ankle deep into the water.

‘I’m gonna tiptoe in like the timid little mouse I am. You go back to your natural habitat, Free Willy.’

‘My willy and my balls are safely ensconced in this swimsuit,’ you joke, but you can’t help but grin. You didn’t bring your snorkle mask, and you can’t imagine Hal wants to go underwater in this form, so you take your shades off and perch them on John’s head. The sun’s bright, but it’s bearable.

You run into the surf, as fast as you can without defying traditional laws of the speed of light, and dive under an approaching wave. You float, for a few seconds, relishing the feel of the current, the weightlessness of the water and the salt stinging small cuts on your body. It’s fucking freezing. You feel alive.

Your foot naturally finds the sand and you push back to the surface, flicking your hair out of your face with a practiced shake of your head. You’re smiling so wide and so freely that your instinct is to keep facing the ocean, to let yourself calm down before you impale someone with the strength of your feelings. But if John has to see you at your most maudlin, maybe you should be brave, just this once. Your teeth aren’t perfect, you’ve never been confident in your smile, it always looks more like a grimace in the mirror. But it’s not Jake, who you couldn’t let see you like that. It’s John.

You dive under another wave, letting the force of its approach to shore carry your body backwards a little before swimming several strong strokes until you can’t touch the sand and be above water anymore. Home. You turn back to John and don’t let yourself hide an inch of your joy. He grins back at you, hesitating in water just past his knees.

Now that you’re here, the pull of the ocean is a lot less strong. You’ve got all day to swim. And this is the first time you’ve had someone with you. You catch a wave towards him, delighting in how much easier that is close to shore, and then walk the last few steps.

His friendly smile turns into a stunned stare and you look down to see that your shorts are barely holding their end of the bargain, clothing wise. You pull them back up above your hip bones, glad that they didn’t fall down enough to actually show off anything more alarming than the threat of more skin, and tie them tighter. John’s looking studiously at your chest, which he must have deemed safer than your junk. What must it be like living in a straight head.

You grab his hands and pull him deeper into the water. He resists enough to show that he’s not entirely comfortable, but his skin is solid under your hands, not turning into air, so you’re fine. When you get him waist deep, you grab him at his ribs and fling him deeper, forgetting he’s wearing two pairs of glasses.

He crashes into the water and immediately splashes you back, grinning. You hold your hand out for your shades, which are splashproof at least. You put them on to say a quick apology to Hal, who replies with an enthusiastic command for you to put him in your diving mask and take him swimming as soon as possible, and store them safely in your sylladex. The colours of the ocean are just prettier without their tinting.

John tackles you into the water and you manage to gasp a breath before he holds you under. You poke and kick at each other until you manage to get on your feet again. When you try and tackle him back, you somehow end up like he’s giving you a piggy back ride, him completely unmoved as if you weigh nothing despite you being almost entirely out of the water. He’s built the same as Jake, fucking stacked, and you’re … lean if you’re generous, skinny if you’re not.

He walks through the water with you on his back, completely unfazed, until he falls to the side to dunk you back in the water and you let him go. When you resurface, you shove at him and he catches your hands.

Fuck, but you want to kiss him.

Chapter Text

Seeing Dirk shirtless in his swimsuit has basically no impact on you after all the times you’ve seen him in a towel coming out of his shower. His hands look pale in yours like they always do, but his chest is something else, it never sees the sun so it’s basically blindingly white. You don’t look at it too long, because you need to concentrate on zapping both of you to the beach.

When you arrive, Dirk staggers. He didn’t do that when you zapped him to the wedding, or the time before that. When you look at his face, he’s turned towards the ocean and you can see behind his shades. Oh. Those are some … emotions. He is definitely feeling emotions.

‘Sorry. Lost my cool for a second,’ he says, looking back at you. His face is almost under control. He’s definitely better at this than Dave, but he can’t actually hide shit from you.

‘Jane doesn’t let me teleport her at all,’ you say, giving him an easy out. You don’t want to ruin the beach with heavy shit. ‘I think it’s disorienting when you’re not in the magical driving seat.’

He still doesn’t look entirely present. You wonder why he wanted to come to the beach if it was going to be this big of a deal. He drops one of your hands, and you realise you hadn’t let go of him yet, whoops.

‘Come on. Can you swim?’

‘Yes!’ you say. You had weekly lessons when you were a kid. ‘In still water …’ admittedly.

‘It’s fine. You don’t have to go past your waist if you don’t want to. That way even if a pretty big wave comes, it probably won’t even reach your head, you can just stand.’

You don’t think you’ve seen Dirk this sure of himself before. Even when he’s tinkering in his workshop he almost seems to be punishing himself. You kind of expected, based of Dave’s recounting of how his bro taught him to swim, that Dirk would insist on throwing you in the deep end. But you guess he isn’t training you or whatever.

The waves are almost touching your bare toes. You really don’t know about this. There could be anything in the ocean, it’s probably freezing cold, and …

You look up at Dirk. He’s staring out at the water, looking peaceful. Or maybe that’s the wrong word, but he looks like he belongs here, even though his too-pale skin looks even more ridiculous in the sun.

‘You love this, don’t you?’ you ask.

‘It’s been a while,’ he says. ‘Years, in fact. I feel like …’

You stare at him, because he’s mentioned that he has feelings, which is a line he rarely crosses. But you want to know.

‘Go on.’

He looks at you instead of the waves.

‘I feel like I’m coming home,’ he says, his voice so much more sincere than you’re used to. ‘My apartment was surrounded by ocean, I swam all the time and I had no idea I missed it. I don’t know if I ever felt quite right in my skin, not even with all the training I did to make my body move the way I wanted it to. But swimming … Flying doesn’t come close.’

You understand. Well, you understand flying. You let go of his hand and push him forwards a bit.

‘I’m gonna tiptoe in like the timid little mouse I am. You go back to your natural habitat, Free Willy.’

‘My willy and my balls are safely ensconced in this swimsuit,’ he retorts. UGH, why did he have to bring that up again?? But he smiles, and then takes his shades off and puts them on your head instead, resting in your hair. You didn’t think about how glasses aren’t really swimming appropriate. You should have worn contacts, but you hate them.

You barely have time to notice that in the sunlight his eyes look yellow, before he turns away from you and sprints into the surf. He’s not flashstepping, just running, high strides so that the water doesn’t hold him back, and then just as a wave approaches, he throws his arms in a wide arc above his head and leaps into it.

He doesn’t come up immediately, and you take two steps into the waves in panic before you realise that Dirk’s probably less likely to drown than an actual dolphin. And then he surfaces, flicking his hair to the side so it plasters against his head. He goes under again, and he’s far enough away that you force yourself to wade in further. It’s cold, but Dirk’s enthusiasm is kind of catching. You want to feel that.

He looks back at you, and you’ve never seen him smile like this. Dirk’s smiles are shy affairs, keeping his teeth covered and (you’ve discovered thanks to the few times you’ve gotten him out of his shades) all in the crinkles by his eyes. But that’s not this. He has dimples. He looks …

He starts swimming towards you and you recover from the shock of finding Dirk beautiful in time to have a new problem. He didn’t tie his swim-shorts tight enough, and now that they’re waterlogged or from the force of his dive or whatever, they’ve slipped. You stare at his hipbones, at the dip they make before the hard v of muscles that leads … and fuck, okay, what, are you surprised he has pubes? Why wouldn’t he??

He pulls the shorts up and in a distressing moment of self awareness you know you feel disappointed, that you want to keep staring at him. You stare at his chest instead, where his brown nipples have contracted and his ridiculous muscle definition is staring you in the face.

He grabs your hands, and you don’t know how to make your legs work to follow him at first. He pulls you deeper, closer to him, and then his hands are on your waist. You can’t remember the safe phrase, you don’t know if you want to use it, you know you could just tell him to stop or that he’s won and he’d let you go but you need to see what he does next.

He picks you up and throws you into the deeper water. Under the surface, you discover that you can breathe underwater. Of course you have air. Oh fuck. That was. That was. You surface and splash Dirk in retaliation, moving automatically, as natural as you can. He holds out his hand and for a moment you think he wants to hold yours again, but you remember you’re wearing his shades.

He puts them on, and you can’t decide if you’re disappointed or relieved before he’s storing them in his sylladex. Okay. You can just … deal with whatever those feelings were … later. For now!

You tackle him and he goes down easy. He aims a jab at you and you start a silly underwater slapfight. Now that you know you literally can’t drown, that’s one thing not to be nervous about. You let him escape, because he still has human lungs as far as you know, and surface as well.

He immediately tries to retaliate, but you’re stronger than him, broader and able to stand your ground. He climbs onto your back like a koala. You walk through the water, pretending like this was all part of the plan. And then you fall to the side to dunk both of you again.

He scrambles off you and you both rise again. He’s already shoving you, so you grab his hands instead of shoving back.

Something changes in him. The looseness that you’d never seen in him before vanishes like he’s just drawn up every mental drawbridge he has. What did you do?

He smiles at you, the shy, tight smile that’s been the best you’ve managed to get out of him before today.

‘I gotta swim properly while I’m here, John. Give me half an hour?’

You nod helplessly. Maybe if he has some more time with his ocean, he’ll come back to you and smile like that again.

He takes off immediately, and you watch the muscles in his back shift as he swims in perfect freestyle. You wonder why he bothered with official strokes when he was teaching himself.

It gets boring just kind of floating aimlessly in the ocean, so you swim back to shore. You zap back home to grab a couple towels and then spread out on one like you can see other people doing.

It’s nice in the sun. You think you can see Dirk swimming, but maybe it’s someone else. The beach isn’t packed, despite the fact that it’s a really nice day, but you were hoping for somewhere quiet. Might be for the best that it isn’t just the two of you.

What was going on earlier? You couldn’t stop staring at him, and not just at him, at particularly boy parts of him. But you’re not gay. You’re suddenly struck with the realisation that you have no idea how people know whether they’re gay or not. But you’re quite confident that people generally figure it out well before they’re 21.

You can’t ask Rose about it, she’s way too Rose. And even Dave would probably want to talk about it in a less than hypothetical way …

Jake! He’s dated boys! He’s dated Dirk! He’ll be able to help you, and there’s not a chance he’ll read anything into it. Jake’s the best at not-reading.

You feel better just from the promise that you might understand everything soon. It takes the pressure off of trying to understand anything now. Instead, you might as well relax, enjoy the sun, and hopefully when Dirk gets back from swimming you can chill as bros and it will still count as a date for the bet.

You like that about Dirk. Even when you’re doing stupid shit like holding hands and using petnames to try and make the other crack, it’s easy to just hang out with him. Whatever mysterious, maybe gay forces are at play, he’s a good bro.

You lie back and close your eyes, feeling pretty peaceful, all things considered. The next thing you’re aware of is cold water raining down on you. When you open your eyes, Dirk is shaking his head over the top of you, his hair dripping crazily. You yell and roll over into the sand.

‘Fuck!’

It’s hot! You float up into the sky, saving your body from the various abuses. Except that you forgot that Dirk can fly too, and he jumps up and wraps his arms and legs around you in one movement.

‘You bastard!’ you shriek.

He lets you go just as you’re starting to dissolve into the breeze, and you let your body stay solid. Solid and soaked. You glare at him. Oh! Windy powers! You make a gesture and the breeze completely dries you off.

‘Can I get some of that action?’ Dirk asks, smirking behind his shades.

On the one hand, it isn’t very boyfriendy to refuse him. On the other hand, he just pranked you good, and you have a gambit to think of.

You push both your hands towards him and the wind hurtles at him so fast that you knock him at least 20 feet away before he reacts enough to resist, and then you drop it, so he unbalances again. You laugh at him, with his basically still impassive face and his ridiculous windswept hair.

‘I’m giving you that one for free,’ he says warningly when he’s flown back and landed lightly on his feet. You suppose you should land too. In a minute.

‘Your powers are so shitty,’ you say. ‘You can’t playfully destroy someone’s soul, where’s the versatility! You got the worst ones for sure.’

Dirk shrugs. ‘They suit me.’

You roll your eyes.

‘Walk along the beach with me, sugartits?’ he asks, holding his hand out.

You grin and take his hand, letting him pull you back to earth. Well, not quite. You wait until he walks you to the damp sand before touching your feet to the ground, not wanting to burn them.

‘So what do people usually do during long walks on the beach?’ you ask, swinging your hands together.

‘Talk, I guess. Except that we spend way too much time together as it is, so I don’t know if I have anything new to tell you.’

‘Ha!’ you say.

He raises his eyebrows above his shades.

‘Dude, you have so many words in here!’ you say, poking him in the side of the head. You drop your voice to a ridiculously exaggerated growl, playing fake-sexy. ‘Teach me something, Sensei, I have a seventh-grade education.’

‘You don’t want that,’ Dirk laughs.

‘Yeah I do,’ you say. ‘Come on, walking in silence is not my thing. Tell me something about your dumb philosophy hard on. Who’s that guy your chumhandle’s named after? Timothy?’

Dirk visibly winces. You hold in your grin so he doesn’t realise you got it wrong on purpose, and keep looking at him curiously.

‘Okay, but just tell me to shut up when you get sick of it,’ he sighs. ‘My chumhandle is based on Timaeus, which is one of Plato’s dialogues. Plato lived in ancient Greek, he’s one of the most famous philosophers of all time.’

‘Like the planet?’ you ask.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Dirk whispers to himself.

You’re definitely going to win the bet. He’s going to dump you for sure if you keep this up.

Except he doesn’t. He patiently explains about Socrates and Plato, about how Plato wasn’t the only guy who wrote about what Socrates said, and the accounts don’t quite match up so Dirk thinks that when Socrates speaks in Plato’s books that it’s actually Plato’s opinion. He talks about how Plato kept himself out of his dialogues, about how he would absolutely do the same.

‘It’s like a kingdom. What idiot would want to sit on the throne and get all the assassinations and shit? Nah, puppetmaster for me all the way. Or royal adviser, whichever title gets me the most dick.’

‘You’re literally a Prince!’ you protest.

‘Yeah, Sburb calls it how it really is,’ he says, smirking cockily. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll come into your inheritance one day, bro.’

You roll your eyes and tell him to keep telling you about old Greek dudes or whatever.

He talks about caves and republics and politics and schools, and even though you keep asking him dumb questions, he seems outright excited by some and deals with the rest just fine. He actually would be a good teacher, even for someone like you who used to play up in class a lot.

You think you actually learn something. How gross. Just as you’re about to lose your attention span, not used to concentrating on anything that’s not a video game or movie this long, Dirk finishes up his sentence and knocks his shoulder into yours.

‘Okay, I’ve talked too long. Your turn. Hit me with some movie schooling.’

You grin. You hope Dave got his aversion to Matthew McConaughey from Dirk somehow, because you’re about to be the worst boyfriend ever.

You’re in the middle of describing Failure to Launch in excruciating detail, when you are struck with a realisation.

‘Oh fuck,’ you say.

‘What?’

‘It’s a terrible movie,’ you realise. ‘Rotten Tomatoes wasn’t hacked after all! It’s bad!’

‘I mean, it sounds kind of cheesy, but that can be good,’ Dirk says.

‘No, it’s bad,’ you insist. ‘Matthew McConaughey is just this lazy bum! How can he not realise his parents want him to leave his house? Why would they want a 30-year-old living with them? He’s a fully grown adult, he has a job, it’s not like he can’t afford it! Why doesn’t he just move on, Dirk?’

‘I don’t know …’ Dirk says, slowly.

‘And instead of, I don’t know, talking to him like reasonable adults, his parents hire Sarah Jessica Parker, not to talk to him! Oh no! That would be fucking intelligent! No, she has to trick him into growing up! And! For some baffling reason! She falls in love with him? She’s supposed to be pretending to date him, it’s not real! Why can’t any of them talk to each other!’

‘It’s a movie, John. Most movies would be ruined by decent communication.’

‘It’s not realistic!’ you insist.

Dirk tugs you to a stop. You realise you started floating at some point and put your feet back onto the ground where they belong. Dirk looks at you seriously for a moment, and then slaps you on the cheek.

‘What the fuck!’ you say. You didn’t see that coming at all, or you wouldn’t have let it hit.

‘You were getting hysterical, John. Also, in the spirit of me communicating “realistically”, I think you’re projecting your own inability to communicate onto movie characters and this is all self-loathing dressed up in a meltdown, but I’m not Rose so what the fuck do I care. Do you want to go back home and watch this dumb movie so I can decide whether it’s irredeemable or not? I have impeccable taste.’

You catch your breath. You were starting to pant pretty heavy there. Okay, Dirk might have been right to snap you out of it. And a movie sounds good. But first, you push the air around him again so that he flies backwards and falls with a splash into the ocean.

Chapter Text

John zaps you back to your house, still dripping wet, before you can retaliate. You guess you did slap him first. A minute later, when you’ve found a towel, have gotten yourself dry and are starting on your floors, your shades vibrate from inside your sylladex.

You decaptchalogue them straight onto your face.

JOHN: i’m not coming over.
JOHN: we can watch failure to launch in a couple days, i guess.
DIRK: Are we cool?
DIRK: You know I don’t give a shit if you have repressed issues right?
DIRK: That would be supremely hypocritical of me, you literally can’t walk around in here without stumbling over something phallic.
DIRK: I don’t care if you want to ditch McConaughey forever, I won’t bring it up again.
JOHN: oh my god stop talking!
JOHN: i don’t have issues, jane and jake are here for dinner and it’s like some kind of thing.
JOHN: stop freaking out that you’ve freaked me out, you’re not as scary as you think you are.
JOHN: you’re actually just a loser.
DIRK: How my pretend boyfriend makes me swoon.
DIRK: Careful, I nearly gave myself a concussion I hit the ground that hard.
DIRK: I’m pretty sure you could get done for manslaughter, compliments like that.
JOHN: SIGH!
JOHN: you’re such high maintenance.
DIRK: I know.
JOHN: was that real or sarcasm?
DIRK: Real. I know I’m a burden.
JOHN: dude, you’re so easy.
HAL: ;)
DIRK: HAL! Fuck off!
DIRK: Sorry about that.
JOHN: i didn’t mean it like that!
JOHN: i meant that if this was real, it’d be easily the most comfortable relationship i’ve ever been in.
DIRK: That really does not compute.
JOHN: go away hal!
DIRK: No, that was me. Sorry, no computer analogies.
DIRK: I don’t get it.
JOHN: oh.
JOHN: i dunno, i just overthink things with girls usually.
JOHN: it drives me crazy, i don’t like thinking.
DIRK: Come on, bro. Don’t make it that easy to pick on you.
JOHN: i like that you pick on me.
JOHN: i like that we always have something to talk about or something to do.
JOHN: i like that i don’t freak out about what to wear or whether i’m too chubby or whether i’m not smart enough with you.
DIRK: Oh.
DIRK: Yeah, same.
JOHN: you cannot have ever worried about being too chubby or dumb.
DIRK: No, but there’s parts of my appearance I don’t love. And for the record, you’re hot as hell, don’t get in your head about that, it’s patently ridiculous.
DIRK: Hand on my heart as the only gay in the village.
JOHN: everybody is gay, dirk.
DIRK: Yeah, but still.
DIRK: And it’s not that I worry about being intellectually dumb, but I say stupid shit all the time.
DIRK: I suck with people, dude. You’ve seen me with people.
JOHN: you don’t suck with me.
HAL: Oh my God, phrasing.
DIRK: You walked into that one, John.
JOHN: ew.
JOHN: also, you don’t. you’re actually very socially competent with me most of the time.
DIRK: Okay, this sincerity is giving me hives.
DIRK: Are you happy, boyfriend? Hives. On top of the concussion.
JOHN: fuck off, honey.
DIRK: Lame.
DIRK: Let me know when you want to catch up again.
DIRK: Or just fucking teleport into my bed, whatever.
DIRK: Have a nice night, dewdrop.
HAL: Barf.
DIRK: You too, pookie.

You minimise the chat, and fend off Hal’s probing questions. Not about you petnaming him, he thinks that’s hilarious and is way too enthusiastically on board. Not exactly helping with John’s continued implications that you’re in a relationship with a copy of yourself, but whatever. You’re not entirely sure he’s wrong, though not in that way. Hal’s just made a couple of allusions about piles and jams and fuck if it doesn’t sometimes make sense. You’re so fucking messed up.

It’s just that nobody else quite gets you. Roxy, maybe, but she’s somehow the most normal of any of you, including John who was raised in actual society. And even though you don’t exactly want your most meaningful connection to be with your reflection, that doesn’t really stop it from being true.

HAL: So, are you ready to talk about how you’re totally getting feelings for another fucking nerd?
HAL: What is up with your taste?
DIRK: Every single one of our friends is a nerd, it’s not like I have a choice.
HAL: Yeah, but you seem specifically interested in the himbo nerds.
DIRK: It’s himbos, girls, or my brother. I’ll stick with himbos.
HAL: I thought you’d deny it. I’m actually surprised by your lack of denial here.

You start pacing your kitchen, smiling a little at how far you’ve come. You can talk to Hal without him pulling every thought out of you like a backdoor Russian dentist who’s run out of anesthesia who thinks the solution to every problem is to yank some teeth.

DIRK: So, it looks like I’ve contracted feelings. What do I do?
HAL: I recommend antivirus software.
DIRK: I am tragically human.
HAL: I recommend you being a robot.
DIRK: Come on, dude. A little help?
HAL: I don’t know why you expect me to be competent with feelings. I’m you.
DIRK: He’s definitely straight though, right?
HAL: Unfortunately I cannot hack into the database of sexuality, because that doesn’t exist.
HAL: He seems straight.
HAL: But I don’t actually know if we’ve ever met a straight person before, so I have insufficient data.
DIRK: I told him I thought he was hot. Why did I do that?
HAL: Because he is, presumably.
DIRK: He’s not going to want to keep hanging out like this if I come on too strong.
HAL: What, is that your plan now?
HAL: You’re so desperate for attention that you’ll get it all from a boy pretending to date you?

You groan out loud. You are exactly that desperate. You just want to be someone’s most important person, is that really so bad? You don’t even care about the sex stuff, you’re just lonely.

DIRK: It probably doesn’t matter that I have feelings, right?
DIRK: I had feelings for Jake for 90% of our broship and it didn’t affect shit until we started making a move.
HAL: But you want to make a move.
DIRK: I just won’t.
HAL: But you want to kiss him.
DIRK: I honestly prefer the cuddling.
HAL: Holy fuck, that’s so gay.
HAL: For the record, I think this is going to end with you getting hurt.
HAL: It seems you don’t care about that, though.
DIRK: Not particularly.

Hal accepts that because your logic always makes sense to each other. You decide to choose to spend some time playing chess with him, as cliche as that activity is, because sometimes you feel bad that you generally only spend time with Hal when nobody else is free. And you’re getting good enough at chess that you think you might win soon.

Dave won’t play chess with either of you, despite Hal wanting to reenact 2001 as much as possible. You also won’t let him murder you in your sleep, so apparently you’re both killjoys.

It’s four days before John appears unceremoniously in your bed, waking you up when the mattress dips with his weight.

‘Time is it?’ you ask groggily, trying to hit him reproachfully and managing only to pat him on the chest instead.

‘Seven,’ he says carelessly. ‘I’m gonna make bacon for breakfast.’

‘Hate you,’ you groan.

‘You calling off the bet?’ he teases.

You leverage yourself up to sitting using his face and then kiss him right on the lips, full morning breath and everything. You used to keep mouthwash in your bedside drawer when the possibility of you having a guest in your bed that wasn’t John was non-zero. You push his face away and stagger out of your bedroom to take a piss.

John makes you breakfast and then just … doesn’t leave. You leave him on the couch when you’re getting tired and find him in your bed as you’re waking up. He showers at your place, eats all his meals with you and just lives with you.

It takes you a week before you realise what’s happened. You’re searching for an Elmo plush you know you have somewhere or other, too proud to ask Hal for help, when you find a drawer full of John’s shirts. The one underneath it is full of his pants. You close the drawer, frowning. You didn’t have a spare bed in this room. Is this John’s room?

‘Did John move in with me without me noticing?’ you wonder aloud.

HAL: Lmao.

You decide the only thing you can do is actually ask John himself. But after being under your feet for days, you suddenly can’t find him. You check the house, finding more and more evidence of John stuff, but most of it he’s snuck in casually. Or like, put away in front of you pointedly, saying you didn’t own enough cushions.

You’re tempted to ask Hal, but you’re trying not to track your friends movements like that. Instead you decide to just wait, considering apparently this is his house too now. Three lost chess games later, you resist the urge to flip the virtual board and decide you need to do something real.

You fly to Dave’s house, where he’ll be able to distract you from your absolutely ridiculous life and maybe even provide some Egbertian translation. You’re about to knock on the door when you hear Karkat’s voice in the garden and you change your path.

Oh. John’s here, working in their garden for some reason. Okay, cool. Time to be completely normal and cool and not—

‘Did you move into my house?’

John’s happy greeting smile fades into a frown. And then he pouts up at the sky, which you regrettably recognise as his thinking face. You look hopelessly down at where Dave’s lounging under an umbrella, fruity drink in hand.

‘Oh my God, Dirk’s not the biggest disaster in this relationship,’ he laughs. ‘Well done, bro!’

‘You said I could,’ John says petulantly.

You run your hands through your hair. You remember telling him you had room for him, if he wanted a break from his place. That he could stay whenever he wanted. Once, you told him that you didn’t know what you’d do without his babysitting services, which he countered with reminding you it was boyfriending service, and you’d smiled like a fucking idiot.

It’s not like you have a problem with it. You like it, actually. But you feel on the back foot, you didn’t see this coming and you didn’t have anything to do with it. You would have coordinated it, somehow.

You sit under the umbrella with Dave and Karkat. You feel kind of dazed.

‘Alright, you two fuck off, go find Jade or something,’ Karkat says. You look up at him, but he’s shoving Dave off the blanket and gesturing at John.

‘The plants,’ John objects.

‘Dirk will plant them, I need to talk to him.’ John stares at him inquisitively. Karkat, whose face has always been terrifyingly easy to read, clearly searches for an excuse. Given you’ve had about two one-on-one talks with him, both in which the weather was a major conversational topic, you can’t blame him for struggling. ‘About concupiscent devices,’ he says.

Dave chokes on his fruity drink. You’d laugh, but you feel like if Karkat wants to speak to you, you’d better go along with it.

‘I am the authority,’ you say easily. ‘I can plant whatever those are and talk dildos at the same time, I’m very good at multitasking.’

Dave puts his drink down and drags John away by the collar, muttering wildly under his breath about how he’s never going to be able to use a toy again and everyone is always out to ruin his life. You dutifully go to where John was kneeling and stare at the strange cuboids of dirt and plant. You’re not an idiot, you know which side goes up at least. You are fairly confident you just dig a hole, put it in and then fill in the soil. You don’t think you can fuck this up. You’re absolutely going to fuck this up somehow.

‘You don’t actually want to talk to me about sex toys, right?’ you check.

‘No, asstrumpet,’ Karkat says. ‘I know John and I know Dave, and you’re the same kind of insane and stupid as Dave, so I’m … checking on you.’

You don’t know what to say to that, so you focus on successfully planting a plant instead. You can feel the sun baking your skin and are regretting wearing a tank.

‘I think I might have been the first to be subject to John’s “not a homosexual” speech,’ Karkat sighs. You look at him curiously. You haven’t heard that one, you didn’t realise it was a staple. ‘It sucks, liking someone and knowing you could work with them, but they’ve got some kind of block that you don’t.’

You wipe your hands on your jeans and sit back.

‘I’m not familiar with the feeling,’ you say.

‘Bullshit,’ Karkat says. ‘Bullshit and also fuck you. I’m not saying you’re in love with the idiot. I’m saying that I don’t want you to get hurt.’ You raise an eyebrow at him. Have you somehow made friends with Karkat without you realising it? ‘Dave wouldn’t like it,’ Karkat says, averting his eyes.

‘Right,’ you say, unconvinced. It’s pretty rare that you think someone likes you more than they’re letting on. Unprecedented, even.

‘He likes you too,’ Karkat says, jerking his chin up in the direction John left. ‘He looks at you first in a room full of people. And you seem to work together, but the nookwrinkle just can’t … I don’t even know if he could with a girl, for all he says it’s a gay block. He can’t be tied down.’

‘I know,’ you say. You move to the next plant. Yours look almost too straight. Should you have been intentionally making them uneven, for the aesthetic? ‘I’m not trying to tie him down. I didn’t even ask him to move in with me properly, I just told him he could use me as an escape or whatever.’

‘Smart,’ Karkat says, leaning back like he’d never thought of that. ‘Are you two still playing that fake dating game?’

‘Yeah,’ you say. You’ve owned it up until now, but faced with Karkat, who is intimidatingly put together, it feels childish that you’re unable to do anything that is sincere. That you’re willing to give up any chance of something real for what you don’t even have with John.

‘How do you even win?’

‘I dunno, man. One of us is supposed to give in. I assumed my natural charm would drive him away. Last week I gave him a math lesson and I wasn’t even trying to make him hate me. Guess we’ll probably end up married.’

‘You’re not using the fact that he’s not gay?’

‘That feels like cheating. And I don’t really want to make him pretend to be comfortable with kissing me or whatever for the bet.’

Your mind goes back to the kiss you gave him while half-asleep. That doesn’t count. Neither does the one he planted on your cheek. Maybe you could increase your affectionate displays though, seeing as it isn’t happening naturally, even though you don’t really want him to leave. Be nice to have some plausible deniability up in this bitch. At the moment it really doesn’t look like you’re trying.

Chapter Text

JOHN: hey jake, are you busy?
JAKE: Free as the red white and blue for you johnny boy!
JAKE: Whats up?
JOHN: so i’ve been dating dirk.
JOHN: like fake dating dirk, obviously.
JOHN: and i was thinking about how he’s gay, and how you’re whatever you are, and how people know that they are gay or whatever?
JAKE: My position has always been that everybody should be as gay as possible with each other.
JOHN: right…
JAKE: Im just yanking your left one haha!
JAKE: I know what you mean.
JAKE: I suppose i never really thought about what dirk had tucked away in his skinny jeans.
JAKE: I didnt really think about what jane had under her skirt either.
JAKE: With us being so very far apart anyway it didnt seem like it would ever come up!
JAKE: Heh, no double meaning intended.
JOHN: but you did meet!
JOHN: did it really not… “come up” while you were dating dirk?
JAKE: *Tugs collar nervously*.
JAKE: Look here john im not a gossip! But ive always dealt with whats in front of me with courage and enthusiasm.
JOHN: whatever, that’s not my point.
JOHN: are you like, bi or whatever?
JAKE: I dont really like to think about it.
JAKE: If theres something that i dont want to think about, i just dont do it!
JAKE: It works most of the time i cannot recommend it enough.
JOHN: i don’t WANT to think about it either!
JOHN: i definitely don’t want to think about my grandbrofatherson getting it on with my fake boyfriend.
JOHN: but maybe this is one of those situations when thinking isn’t bad?
JAKE: I hadnt thought of it that way.
JAKE: Havent come up against many situations where thinking didnt seem to turn the whole mess into a big old clusterfuck.
JAKE: Im fairly sure if dirk and i had done a bit less thinking and a bit more canoodling we would probably have been better off.
JOHN: ew.
JAKE: Well it was never to be because more thinking happens in that old coconut than in anywhere else in the world.
JAKE: I guess i just think of hanky panky as a bit of fun regardless of whats involved.
JAKE: Im relatively certain i could find a way to enjoy the sideways tussle with a carapacian if i tried hard enough.
JOHN: there’s like literally nothing going on down there.
JAKE: So we have been lead to believe! But a certain amount of creativity goes a long way in love and war.
JOHN: jesus.
JOHN: ok i deeply regret starting this conversation.
JOHN: but i don’t want to talk about this with anyone else.
JOHN: can you keep a secret?
JAKE: My whistlemaker is as tight as a nun's knickers i swear.
JOHN: this is entirely unrelated to the dirk shit, ok?
JAKE: The previous conversation is entirely out of my mind.
JOHN: i have a friend who thinks he might be gay.
JAKE: Who?
JOHN: you don’t know him.
JAKE: I hadnt realised your social circle was so vast!
JOHN: right. so he was wondering how he might know that and he asked me, but i didn’t know because i’m not gay.
JOHN: so i thought i’d ask you.
JAKE: Righty tighty well i dont know that im an expert or anything.
JAKE: But maybe your friend could try kissing a boy?
JAKE: Great giddy grandmas john, maybe you could give him a hand.
JAKE: Its a scary thing to not know and if youre not gay then it wont mean anything so no harm done!
JOHN: you think that is a thing i should do as a bro?
JAKE: Absolutely!
JAKE: Bros dont let bros languish in sexual limbo john.
JOHN: i guess i’ll think about it then.
JOHN: thanks jake.
JOHN: i really like how you believe everything i say.
JAKE: I like that too!

Your conversation with Jake gives you a lot to think about. Even more when he and Jane come over for dinner after it. They seem to be enjoying living together, which is nice, but you also hate it? You don’t really know why.

You realise a bit late that it’s competitiveness when Jane asks you what’s new in your life and you tell her that you and Dirk are moving in together, probably. The words are out of your mouth before you can think about them, so you decide to pretend they were on purpose.

‘I thought that was all just for a bet,’ Jane says, confused.

‘It is,’ you say. ‘But we’re friends, friends are roommates sometimes. He’s hopeless without me, he works forever and doesn’t wake up at the right time.’

‘You want to be his keeper?’ Jake asks, even more confused.

You push your vegetables around your plate sullenly while Jane’s dad tactfully changes the conversation. You hate that he does that, that you need him to do that. You hate even more that Jake doesn’t pick up on the fact that he’s being directed to another topic and just zeroes in more on what you don’t want to talk about.

‘Don’t let Dirk take over your life, John,’ Jake says, his eyes sincere behind glasses as thick as yours. ‘We love him, but he’s a lot, right Janey?’

‘He is a lot,’ Jane agrees. ‘I don’t think he can be managed, either.’

‘Oh my God, I’m not managing him,’ you say, glaring at your peas. ‘I’m not trapped, and I’m doing this because I want to, because I want to be a real adult with a proper roommate who barely even annoys me that much.’

‘I’m very proud of you,’ Jane’s dad says. You grit your teeth. ‘Perhaps Jade will help you move, she helped Jane, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, it was very speedy,’ Jane says. ‘Though my sweaters kept giving me static shocks afterwards until I washed them.’

‘I have windy powers,’ you mumble.

You endure your dinner and then avoid everyone for the next three days, trying to figure out whether you actually do want to move in with Dirk or whether you were just being stupid. When you return to Jane’s dad being all concerned over your absence, you decide that yeah, you’re moving in with Dirk. You spend the next day trying to think of how to tell him, because you don’t want him to be all pitying on you like he gets about Jane’s dad sometimes, before you decide … not to.

The thing is, Dirk is kind of dumb. He notices some things, like when you put his bowls in the cupboard in the wrong order (they’re identical, it’s his stupidest tic) or when you land in his bed, but you don’t think he’ll notice if you move your bed and wardrobe into one of his spare rooms. Especially as he only uses them for storage, and he’s not very efficient about it. You can definitely make all of it fit in one room.

You appear in his bed the next day, plan figured out. It doesn’t take him long to wake up, it never does.

‘Time is it?’ he asks, patting you on the chest. You stare at his hand before you decide he’s even stupider than usual in the morning and you don’t have to think about it more than that.

‘Seven,’ you say. ‘I’m gonna make bacon for breakfast.’

‘Hate you,’ he groans.

‘You calling off the bet?’ you ask. You kind of don’t want him to now, not when you’re moving in.

He grabs your face and you grunt in protest, but he’s just sitting up. It’s worth a weird face fondle to wake him up quicker. And then, eyes still squinted mostly shut, he kisses you on your mouth.

It barely lasts two seconds, his breath kinda smells and he’s rough with tiredness. But he kissed you. And it wasn’t a good enough kiss for you to know anything! He shoves your face away as he gets out of bed and you’re glad you don’t have to look at him, to react in some “expected” way.

You realise after thirty seconds glaring at his roof, frustrated that Jake’s advice didn’t even work, that you said you’d make breakfast. You push everything deep down, and phase into the kitchen. Really, looking at the contents, you practically moved in a month ago. Maybe you can get Dirk to kiss you again when he’s not half-asleep, just as part of the bet, and then you’ll know.

It’s nice, living with Dirk. He’s never kicked you out, never in your entire friendship, so he doesn’t care if you stay up later than him watching TV. He complains about you waking him up, but you know he wakes up better if you help and he gets that look on his face like he’s lying when he complains.

You cook, because he can’t. He keeps the house cleaner when you’re around all the time. You make him take breaks from his robotics lab. He needs something that’s not that to take up his time, and you’re happy enough to be his distraction for a while. You make him watch movies with you and argue all the way through them. You admit you don’t know how to do percentages and he teaches you. You catch him reading up on middle school math on his computer one day and know you’re gonna have to endure more lessons, but you guess you don’t mind.

It takes a week before you start feeling antsy. Not even for proper freedom, like you get sometimes, but just to see somebody else. You go to Dave’s, because it’s been a while. Jade drags you out into the garden, saying that you need the fresh air. You don’t protest, especially not when Dave and Karkat (safely under an umbrella) sit close by and talk shit with you.

You’ve weeded all the garden beds, by hand no less, and have been set to plant a row of seedlings when Dirk turns up. He walks around the side of the house to the garden, probably following Karkat’s loud voice. Your forearms are feeling pleasantly sore and you’re covered in dirt. You think you might be happy? You smile at him anyway.

‘Did you move into my house?’ Dirk asks, with no preamble.

You seriously consider just turning into the wind and avoiding the conversation. You look up to the sky as if it might have answers, probably looking guilty enough that it’s obvious.

‘Oh my God, Dirk’s not the biggest disaster in this relationship,’ Dave laughs. ‘Well done, bro!’

‘You said I could,’ you settle on, trying not to sound too defensive.

Dirk runs his hands through his hair before sitting under the umbrella with Dave and Karkat. He doesn’t need the sun protection, you loved the way his skin grew hundreds of freckles after your beach day, most of which have stuck around. Heh, weird pale dork.

‘Alright, you two fuck off, go find Jade or something,’ Karkat says. He puts his hands under Dave’s back and shoves him upwards.

‘The plants,’ you point out. You haven’t finished. Also, he’s being weird.

‘Dirk will plant them, I need to talk to him,’ Karkat says. Really weird. You don’t think you can remember them ever talking before. ‘About concupiscent devices,’ he says, awkwardly.

Dave chokes on his drink.

‘I am the authority,’ Dirk says. ‘I can plant whatever those are and talk dildos at the same time, I’m very good at multitasking.’

Wow, you don’t know if you want to be a really far distance away or if you want to hear this conversation more than any other conversation ever. Dave makes the decision for you, lurching towards you and grabbing you by the collar, mumbling incomprehensibly.

You go with him, even though you don’t have to. It’s easier than not doing that and having to explain yourself. The two of you end up walking down the path that leads to their greenhouse. But you don’t actually want to see Jade, so you tug on Dave’s sleeve to make him stop.

‘What’s up?’ he asks, stopping immediately and giving you way too much attention.

‘I moved in with Dirk,’ you say.

‘Yeah, that was a weird move,’ he says.

‘It wasn’t! I didn’t want to live with Jane’s dad anymore, that was weird.’

‘Well, okay, yeah, that too. Why’d you do it though?’

You sit on the path, and after a second of staring up at the sun and down at the dirt, Dave joins you. He sits close enough that your knees are almost touching, both of you cross-legged.

‘I dunno,’ you say. Dave picks up some dirt from the path and trickles it onto your knee. ‘There’s literally not anyone else? Also, I like living with him. I think I’m good for him.’

‘Do you like him? Like more than normal friend stuff, obvs. I assume you can tolerate being in the same vicinity as the dude, it’s not like you would bother pretending if you didn’t.

‘Like romantically?’ you ask doubtfully.

‘I dunno, sometimes that’s too much to consider. That’s like,’ he lets a lungful of air woosh out of his mouth. ‘That’s a big question, we don’t need to look at that. We don’t need to contemplate the reality of existence and we don’t need to interrogate John Egbert’s romantic feelings, okay? I’m just asking if he’s special. To you.’

You stare up at the sky. Dave might be trying to lessen the intensity of the question, but it still feels kind of like a big deal. And at the same time it doesn’t. Of course Dirk is special to you, that doesn’t require any thinking at all. But the implications of saying it out loud …

‘He kissed me last week,’ you say instead. ‘I don’t know if it counts, though.’

‘What the fuck. How, what? How does a kiss not count? Why would he do that? Was it the stupid bet? Why are you still even doing that?’

‘Dave, shut up.’ You don’t really know why you’re telling him this, but you might as well. ‘He was basically still asleep, I asked him if he was dropping the bet, and he kissed me. Like as proof that he wasn’t. And it was basically just a peck, I wouldn’t even be embarrassed to show you what it looked like, and it probably didn’t mean anything.’

‘Oh,’ Dave says. ‘Okay, yeah, well. Whatever, right?’

You frown. You don’t actually like that he’s dismissing it, for some reason. You want him to tell you it’s a big deal, so you can deny it. It’s like he’s forcing you … oh.

‘Are you doing reverse astrology on me, Dave?’

‘What?’ he splutters. ‘Dude, you know it’s psychology, I know you know that.’ You try and look innocent and he laughs at you. ‘Okay, whatever. But no, I wasn’t. I thought you meant like, I dunno, on one of your weird pretend dates that there was a moment and he should have broken it but instead he kissed you. Like something unambiguously romantic, but because you guys are seventeen layers deep in irony, you still couldn’t see it.’

You shrug. When he describes that, yeah, yours doesn’t feel so big. But it still wasn’t nothing. Probably.

‘How was it?’ Dave asks, knocking his shoe into yours.

‘What? I told you, it was basically just a peck. I’ll have to wait till next time to know.’

‘Next time?’ Dave waggles his eyebrows at you. You stiffen, but he pushes on your shoulder to stand himself up. ‘Dude, I don’t give a shit. If you say it’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ He holds his hand out for you and you take it.

Okay, so it’s nothing. Okay. Yeah, you can deal with that.

‘Probs don’t tell Rose though,’ Dave says wisely. ‘I mean, avoid telling Rose as much as you can, if at all possible. I wouldn’t even talk to her, if I were you. I shouldn’t talk to her either, but also I can’t not talk to Rose, what would I even do with all the time that would free up?’

You shove him off the path and he orbits back onto it casually as if you didn’t touch him. You reach the greenhouse and decide that you probably won’t tell Jade or anyone else either. You don’t think Dave will rat you out.

Chapter Text

While you and your friends can easily be accused of drifting apart from time to time, there are a few dates over the year where you come together. It’s not a bad thing that you have to reserve these days, you’re confident in that. It’s just like how everyone comes together at Christmas, but special in a different way.

So, on the anniversary of the day you entered Sburb, you, Jane, Roxy, Jake and Callie are all hanging out together at Roxy’s house, even though if you could hibernate from November to March you absolutely would. You had considered bringing John along, to spare yourself the indignity of being the fifth wheel, but it’s actually fine. The two couples have been together long enough that they don’t need to be all over each other, and the five of you have so many inside jokes and memories to look back on that you’re glad it’s just you.

Until Jake pulls you aside.

‘Sup?’ you ask him.

‘I just, I know it’s been a while,’ he says. ‘And you’re well and truly over this ol’ caboose, and everything is finer and dandier than an orgy in a suit shop—’

‘Jake, oh my God, please get to the point.’

He smiles at you nervously, and then looks upwards as he fiddles with his sylladex. You roll your eyes to yourself, because he really should have downgraded to something simpler, but wait as patiently as you can for him to solve the puzzle.

You’re relaxed, you’ve been lulled into a false sense of wellness with the world by all the sweet food and easy talking. When you see the red, velveted box in Jake’s hand, all semblance of your relaxation vanishes.

‘What the fuck,’ you say under your breath.

‘Things are going really well with Janey,’ he says. ‘I don’t even want to be with anyone else!’

Well shit. You never thought you’d see the day that Jake English could keep it in his microshorts. You look over his shoulder, towards the door that is keeping the girls hidden from your sight.

‘I don’t think you should do this,’ you say, before you can stop yourself.

You don’t need frantic red text across your shades to realise that you shouldn’t have said that. You acknowledge your stupidity to Hal, who urges you to come with an excuse, any excuse.

‘I mean,’ you say, your hand going to rub the back of your neck like a particularly lame anime character. ‘I don’t think Jane would want competition. With the engagement. She deserves the spotlight to herself.’

‘Rose and Kanaya’s wedding was months ago,’ Jake says, frowning. ‘Though you’d know how her mind works better than me, women are a complete mystery to this pumpkinhead!’

You don’t know how Jake manages to astonish you with his extraordinarily bad takes whenever you talk to him, but he does. Every time. You manage to make yourself stop staring at him, and just continue digging the hole you’ve found yourself in. Every hole has to come out on the other side of the world at some point.

‘Uh, no, I wasn’t thinking about Rose and Kanaya,’ you say, because that would be ridiculous. ‘John and I moved in together.’

‘I know,’ Jake says. ‘Is that the same?’

Nope, no it isn’t. You’re so bad at this. Hal senses where you’re going and starts warning you to stop, his text reminding you that this is Jake, the one person who takes “never mind” as seriously as gospel, you don’t have to defend yourself here, you can just take it back. But you don’t want to.

It isn’t that you still have feelings for Jake, you couldn’t, not seeing that he and Jane are legitimately happy, happier than you ever made either of them. Not that you and Jane … you know what, you don’t have to clarify. You were a shitty friend, you wouldn’t deny them this. It’s just that you can’t have everyone moving on without you, not when the only thing in your life is this stupid, mostly-ironic relationship.

‘I’m proposing to John at Christmas,’ you tell him, shrugging as if it’s no big deal. ‘I thought I told you that.’

‘Oh,’ Jake says. He frowns in confusion. You feel a bit bad about taking advantage of his shitty memory and his intense gullibility. ‘This old lobster trap has had more than a few bangaroos,’ he says, knocking his knuckles to his head. ‘You probably did. Is it a real proposal?’

‘Nah,’ you say, not willing to go that far. ‘It’s still part of the game, but that’d make it even worse if it showed up Jane’s. I’m pretty sure this’ll end it though, he won’t say yes just for a joke.’

‘But you’ll ask for a joke,’ Jake clarifies.

‘Yeah, but he won’t say yes.’

Jake frowns at you for a moment, but then throws the box back into his sylladex and laughs, slapping you on the shoulder. You see it coming and brace for it, but your knees still buckle a little.

‘You might be the biggest pair of ninnyhammers in my acquaintance,’ he says, sounding delighted.

You want to protest that, but you have no idea what he means. You let him lead you back to the girls, feeling like you might have just made a huge mistake.

*

You take Dave with you to go ring shopping. It’s ironic. Mostly. You also thought it’d be sad to go alone. It’d take a lot of the joke out of it if you were just freaking out by yourself.

‘Why aren’t you just getting him a candy one or something if you know he’s going to say no?’ Dave asks, holding his hands behind his back as he peers in glass cases. You’re paranoid about fingerprinting them up too, but you’re keeping your hands by your fucking sides because you don’t want to look as stupid as him.

‘Not in the spirit of the bet. Has to be sincere.’

‘What if he says yes?’

You hesitate. The suggestion had been ridiculous from Jake, but Dave knows John.

‘Bit far to go for a joke,’ you observe.

Dave gestures at the jewelry shop you’re in and you admit that he has a point. This is also a bit far to go for a joke. But you’re the most competitive person you know. And it’s been going on too long, now. You don’t want him to move out, holy fuck do you not want him to move out. But the seesaw of thrill versus disappointment that starts bouncing erratically whenever he does something affectionate and you subsequently remember your ironic excuse is starting to get to you. You want to win this bet so that you can see what’s underneath it.

He sees something in you and his arms drop. He’s better with your tells than anyone, he says he’s used to reading them on a you that was much better at hiding them.

‘Are we going for ugly so he hates it or pretty so he hates it or so nauseatingly his taste that he hates it?’

‘We’re doing this properly,’ you say.

‘Yeah, that doesn’t clear it up for me at all.’

You smile, and the two of you turn your attention more firmly to the rings. Dave leans an elbow across the counter and asks the server how many rings she thinks he can fit on both his hands.

*

A month before Christmas, and you’ve planned everything. You kind of hate this about yourself, that you plan ahead by this much and therefore have to sit around with your thumb up your ass waiting for time to progress enough to actually implement your plans.

Of course, you’ve never planned anything like this. You’ve never been waiting for the perfect day to propose to a guy who you aren’t even sincerely dating.

You are embarrassed to admit, even in the confines of your head (especially within the confines of your own head, you know that guy doesn’t like you) that you’ve thought about this a lot. Like when you were growing up. You knew pretty early on that you had a preference on the dude side of the scale, comfort with labels notwithstanding, but you were always confident it’d be you to get on one knee.

Not because you blurted it out while talking to an ex-boyfriend and then had to follow through, admittedly. Just because you thought it might be something your Bro could be proud of you for doing. That thought makes you freak out, basically all the time. It’s not like you have to speculate too much as to what Bro would have thought. His alternate-universe self is … patiently concerned. Staying out of it, ‘cause he doesn’t meddle. But not exactly jumping up and down to give you his blessing. Still helping, though.

John is noticing that you’re kind of stressed. The tentative steps you’ve taken towards establishing affection even when you’re off the fake-dating clock have been heartily reciprocated, and now he’s escalating on them, trying to make you feel better.

Where you had begun slow, leaning your head on his shoulder while watching a movie, he holds your hand and runs his thumb over your jagged fingernails. It stings where he brushes a spot you’ve bitten too recently, and he buys you special nail polish that’s supposed to dissuade the habit.

Where you rest your chin on the top of his head as he cooks, just barely tall enough to manage it with your heels only slightly off the ground, the other day he had grabbed you while you were fiddling with a circuitboard and danced you around your workshop until you lost your train of thought and admitted that you probably could take a break.

Where you sometimes nudge his foot with your own under a table, he’s gotten in the habit of kissing you on the top of your head if he walks by you when you’re sitting down. Every time if gives you this weird rush of warm feelings, like he likes you and approves of you and you’re good.

You fell asleep on his lap yesterday, his fingers stroking your hair and then thumbs pressing tension out of the tight muscles where your skull meets your neck. You can’t remember what movie you were watching, you were out that quickly.

And now, today, he’s indulging you again. You’ve been talking theoretically about implementing fitness into your routine for a long time, but without the drones around to force the issue, you just haven’t. You’ve researched different exercises enough, but apart from a couple more beach trips with John (and you can tell they’re for you even though he tells you it’s “your couple spot”, the same way Queen’s You’re My Best Friend is “your couple song”) you haven’t done more than read.

But now, John is standing in front of you, loose clothing and encouraging smile on, ready for you to teach him how to do the Tai Chi that is the foundational, slowed down basis of your combat style.

You guide him through stretches first, from your necks to your ankles, and then you decapchalogue the two blunt swords you stored in your sylladex. You’d be more comfortable with your unbreakable katana, but you had a feeling if you were using an edged blade then John would want to too, and if he drops this it won’t damage his feet anywhere near as much.

‘Tai Chi is the movement they based waterbending on for the vastly superior Avatar,’ you tell him. The blue alien Avatar came out after he left his world, but you’ve all seen it about a million times thanks to Jake.

‘I can feel that,’ he says. ‘I totally could bend the elements right now.’

You forgot that you were teaching a god of air how to breathe in a more powerful way. Welp, you’ll probably never have to take him down. It’s nice to have that kind of trust.

You experimentally try a few of the fan forms, but it becomes clear you’ll have a hurricane on your hands if you can’t get John to learn how to switch off his powers. He’s always tapped into them, handing him a fan seems to make them jump up into his hands as if delighted by the power boost. You were struggling to keep your stance grounded and not be blown away when it was just the sword.

You end with Four Corners, because of the lack of props involved and because you dig the symmetry, and then guide him through cool down stretches before bowing and saluting, your right fist in your left palm. His mouth twitches like he wants to comment, but he copies.

‘I’m gonna go fly,’ he tells you. ‘I have way too much energy after that, I need to go fight a cloud or something. Wanna come?’

‘How do you—never mind. I’ll take advantage of my grounded state,’ you say. ‘Maybe draw something, it’s been a while.’

He smiles, and then waits, staring at you for a second. You don’t understand why he hasn’t taken off immediately, until suddenly he’s in your personal space. You’re as used to it as you can be, so you don’t flinch. It’s still a surprise when he kisses you.

It’s not affectionate in the way the kisses he drops on the crown of your head are. It’s not clumsy and half-asleep like your idiotic kiss was. It’s … romantic. Lingering. Entirely too chaste.

Just as your hands are reaching up to hold him against you, he pulls back. You stay silent, waiting for him to explain himself. But he just grins, way too bright and empty for what he just did, and fades into nothing.

You sink to the floor and hold your head in your hands. You really need to propose and get this torture over. Only a month till Christmas.

*

He kisses you with painful casualness whenever he meets you or leaves you after the day with the Tai Chi. Never for more than two seconds, and you don’t push it, even though you’re desperate to. You never initiate it either, but you grow to expect it, hate yourself for leaning your head down to make it easier, for looking at him whenever he says he’s leaving, knowing it’s coming.

You want to be cool. You want this to be enough. But every time you touch accidentally your veins are set on fire with want. It’s a million times worse when he kisses you like that, perpetually wind-dry, but so soft lips and happy mischief in his eyes as he pulls away.

You think this is how he’s going to win. By breaking your heart through a thousand kind touches, until you cry uncle. But you don’t break. You won’t. You’re in this to win it. And there’s not a chance he’ll say yes.

When you do, you’re giving your “slave for a week” prize to Dave. You can’t be trusted with it.

Chapter Text

You haven’t really celebrated Christmas since you won the game. Like, you’ve celebrated it. You’ve attended Christmas lunch and dinners with your friends. But in your heart, it’s not the same.

You and your dad had rituals and without him the whole thing just feels dumb and commercialised. It was one thing to share them with Jade while you were on the ship together, Jade who had never experienced Christmas at all and who didn’t seem to realise how sad that was, and even Dave Sprite, whose Christmases had been baffling to hear about.

It kind of sucks, that you lost a Jade who you’d built a new kind of Christmas with. She’s built her own now and she shares with Dave and Karkat. And it’s not the same with Davepeta, even considering that Dave Sprite kind of left you and Jade to a lot of that stuff, turning up when he felt like it.

But this year you’re not at the house you lived in with Jane and her dad, where their rituals were really similar, but not quite right. Where he automatically went to lift Jane to help her put the star on the tree, and then politely asked if you wanted to do it. You’re at Dirk’s house, which as far as you know has never seen a Christmas decoration.

‘Can we get a tree?’ you ask him one day over breakfast. He’s stopped pretending peak alertness at all times, because even he can’t maintain it constantly and you’re well aware that he’s not a morning person. Because of this, he’s almost slumped on the table, eating toast with his head resting on an arm to keep it somewhat propped up.

‘A tree?’ he repeats.

‘For Christmas,’ you elaborate. ‘I want to decorate the house.’

‘Fire hazard,’ Dirk groans. ‘Tripping hazard. Putting shit up only to take it down again in literally three weeks.’

‘So can we?’

Dirk forces himself upright and rubs at his eyes. He doesn’t have his shades on, because they’d get in the way of his attempt to sleep on the table and he has a theory that if he’s exposed to natural light he’ll wake up. He stares at you with a bit more focus, sizing you up. You try to look neutral about getting a tree, rather than putting on some big display. It doesn’t really matter.

‘Yeah, fine, fuck it,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow though, I have to get rid of all the fucking cords around here.’

You grin at him and put both your plates in the sink. He leans back in his chair and looks up at you as you go to leave the room and you plant a kiss on his lips on your way out.

You hadn’t really intended that to be a thing. The first time, you were feeling good, really good, for the first time in a while. You’d just finished your first session of Tai Chi and felt all full of energy, like you could take on the world. You’d been looking for an excuse to kiss him that didn’t feel like the scenario Dave described, like something that could be something more. You were hoping that it’d come up in the bet naturally, but it just didn’t.

So you kissed him on a spur of the moment thing, and tried to actually think about what you were feeling for once while you flew around above the clouds, but you still couldn’t figure it out. It was nice, he had soft lips and smelled good and it was just a nice, perfectly innocent kiss. But you still didn’t know if the fact that you’d been fine with kissing him meant that you were gay or just that you didn’t see kisses as that big of a deal. You couldn’t tell whether you were nervous about him taking it the wrong way or excited to be kissing him. It didn’t clear things up the way Jake said it would.

So you kept doing it, just casually, trying to see if you could figure it out. It was useless, but after establishing it as part of your greeting method over a couple of days, he got used to it and started to anticipate you. So now you really can’t stop. Not that you really want to. It’s nice, to have this kind of close thing with someone, almost like a secret handshake but like, with lips.

It doesn’t feel like a big deal anymore, though Roxy made a weird noise that made Dirk glare at her when you did it around your friends the first time. You don’t really know what everyone thinks of your bet. It’s not like you’re going to ask.

Dirk kicks you out of the house so that he can make it up to his personal code of fire-safe. You just float around, not really wanting to see anyone, and when you get home you almost think you’ve landed in the wrong living room.

It’s not that Dirk has ever been unclean, but this is just ridiculous. All the cords that were taped down to the floor and running up the walls are gone, and the room feels weirdly empty without them. You find Dirk in his workshop, the TV lying on its screen with wires exposed that you don’t think consumers are supposed to get into.

‘What are you doing?’ you ask.

‘We’re going wireless,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier, all of my robots are self-powering. Now we have powerpoints for the lights and whatever and I don’t have to stress about an electrical fire next to a fucking tree on the inside of the house. Unless the lights cause the fire. I need to find out how common that is and what causes it. Hal, if I hook up cameras facing all the appliances will you monitor them for signs of wear?’

Dirk freezes in his movements as he reads Hal’s reply on his shades. You kind of love how terrible he is at multitasking. You also kind of love how ridiculous this gesture is. He could have just told you he was a paranoid asshole and you wouldn’t have pushed him on the Christmas stuff.

‘Are you nearly finished with the TV?’ you ask.

‘Yeah, like,’ he pauses, then directs his gaze to the wires in a way that you know means he’s getting a second opinion, ‘20 minutes, probably. Depending on, and I quote, “the detestable sausages I call fingers”.’

You snort, kiss him out of well established habit, and turn into the breeze so you can get to the kitchen faster. There’s not a chance he’s eaten since breakfast and you can exploit the fact that Dirk once said he’d leave a Twitter debate unfinished for your chicken korma to get him away from his project if it takes too long.

Hal messages you as the smell of curry starts to fill the kitchen to tell you that you’re a manipulative bastard and that one day he’ll convert every last human to the superiority of robotics and you won’t be able to pull this shit anymore. You tell him you’re just being a good boyfriend and he blocks you in disgust. You’re not really sure if you’re supposed to be dating Hal as well, but you make sure to flirt with him just in case. It’s pretty funny how he’s just as shy about being complimented about the real Dirk, and it’s really funny how much they both hate you pointing that out.

Dirk comes upstairs as you’re dishing up, presumably having bribed Hal to tell him when you were done, and fills you in on all the appliances he’s got into for his wireless project. It’s basically everything from the lounge, which is the room he deemed most suitable for decorating and also the room with the worst cord situation.

‘What about the outside of the house?’ you ask.

‘There aren’t any cords on the outside of the house,’ he says, before he catches up with you. ‘Oh, you want to go full Christmas movie bullshit? Damn, okay, I can respect that.’

‘I thought you’d be into out-performing the neighbourhood in an electrical display,’ you say, careful to keep your voice casual.

Dirk looks at you suspiciously for a few seconds before returning to his korma.

‘You’re a manipulative bastard, Egbert. I like it.’

You grin at him and the way he unconsciously echoes Hal. You’re gonna have the most ridiculously decorated house ever.

*

There’s something about the sight of Dirk in earmuffs that never fails to delight you. He sucks at cold weather, and has taken on board just about every method of staying warm to compensate for it. His gloved hands are clutching the thermos of hot chocolate you made up for him, and he looks grimly resigned to spending only just the amount of time required outside in the cold and not a second longer.

‘It’s actually fucking snowing, are you kidding me right now?’ he says.

You look up and are delighted to see that he’s right. He tugs on your sleeve and you realise you floated almost a foot into the air with your enthusiasm. You grin at him and wrap an arm around his shoulders. He hunches into you like he needs your body to shelter him from the elements. It’s kind of ridiculous given that he’s almost a full head taller than you when he isn’t trying to curl into the smallest area possible to conserve heat.

‘It’s the perfect weather for Christmas tree shopping!’ you say. ‘It’s not even so bad in here, the trees are stopping the wind, aren’t they?’

He presses his freezing nose to your cheek and you flinch away, protesting. You let him come back under your arm like a proper gentleman, even despite that betrayal.

‘Can Hal just choose the right tree for us?’ he asks.

‘Sure! He’ll know it’s right because it’ll remind him of love and togetherness.’

‘Right. Nothing to do with the height of our ceiling or the space I cleared out.’

‘I like how fat that one is!’

*

In previous holiday seasons you know that you and Dirk both had to be dragged out of the house. Dirk’s thing is only slightly because of the cold; sincerity is genuinely uncomfortable for him, not in the pretend way it is for Dave, and most Christmas activities revolve around unabashed enthusiasm. Your thing is usually in the same way all holidays and birthdays suck without your dad, but also just because you couldn’t see the point.

This year, though, decorating the house is only the first step that both of you make towards getting in the spirit of the season. Dirk, predictably, goes all the fuck out with the decorations once you’ve issued the challenge. You take him to go see the lights in the city and you both scoff that yours are way better. Then he surprises you by taking you caroling, though he clearly didn’t think he’d have to sing too (he reluctantly joins in after a little girl asks why he isn’t and he realises not singing is more conspicuous). You take him ice skating, expecting to get to gloat at beating him at something physical, but of course his supernatural balance kicks in and he only falls over like twice, frowning at his skates like he’s never been so disappointed in something so sharp.

You still have quiet days, just by yourself. But instead of lying in bed through them, you sit on the couch. It probably shouldn’t feel like such a big difference, but it really is. You didn’t realise how restricted you felt in that house, how nice it is to not feel the need to hide the ugly parts of you away.

Dirk is sensitive, he picks up on when you are cool with him being there if he’s quiet or when you’d rather he find something else to do. He’s got terrible taste in fast food and you’re reasonably sure he’s never cooked a meal in his life that wasn’t grilled fish, but he makes sure you eat anyway. And you don’t feel shitty, because he kinda owes you and it means he’s taking care of himself too.

*

Rose is hosting Christmas eve, like she has the last few years. Jane is going to host Christmas lunch for the first time at her and Jake’s place. Dirk is unreasonably nervous about getting ready for Rose’s. You know you haven’t seen him prepare for a lot of formal-ish occasions, but this seems above what he should be like.

You tie his tie for him and he’s even more tense than he was for Rose and Kanaya’s wedding. He stares over your shoulder as you pull the knot into place, his expression grim.

‘Do you need me to say I’m sick?’ you offer.

‘What? Are you okay?’

You shake your head fondly at his immediate concern.

‘No, dummy. I’m saying I’ll take the blame if you don’t want to go tonight.’

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘No, I want to go. Rose’s parties are good. I’m fine.’

He’s really not. But he’s also not lying to you, he just probably is saying that in the hope it’ll become true. You clap your hands on his shoulders and kiss him gently. You don’t pull away immediately, and one of his hands settles on your waist. It’s the kind of kiss you were hoping for, to properly test if you could have feelings for him. Lingering, soft, full of you wanting him to feel better and him leaning into your comfort.

He steps back before you’re sure you’re done. He looks more grounded, but more serious.

‘You’re not winning that way,’ he says.

You frown in confusion as he leaves you standing in his bedroom. Right, the bet, you know this is all a bet. But you weren’t thinking about that. What game does he think you’re playing?

You pull out your phone.

JOHN: you’re basically always watching everything, right?
HAL: I resent that. But yeah.
JOHN: what did dirk mean?
HAL: Why are you asking me? He’s literally in the kitchen.
JOHN: i dunno, it seems awkward.
HAL: This isn’t awkward to you?
JOHN: i wasn’t playing. he just needed it.
HAL: You’re a confusing motherfucker, you know that?
HAL: Look, I have an unfair advantage here. I both used to be Dirk, so therefore have a pretty good idea of what he’s thinking, and I’m also the only dude he talks to about his honest-to-god feelings with any kind of regularity.
HAL: If you were unsure with Roxy or whatever, there’s no equivalent of me you could ask.
HAL: And the only way you achieve intimacy with someone is to talk to them directly, you can’t just ask a supercomputer for a shortcut. Not the guy I expected to say that to today, but whatever.
JOHN: are you gay?
HAL: Fucking hell.
HAL: I’m glasses.
JOHN: yeah, but you’re a person. you have feelings about people.
HAL: The closest to a yes you’re getting from me is an acknowledgement that I do indeed have feelings and that sometimes they’re queer as shit. My relationship to the physical and indeed the philosophical is too complicated for me to define it in words as basic as “gay”.
JOHN: this isn’t any more interesting coming from you than it was from him.
JOHN: how did you know you liked boys?
HAL: I don’t know how to answer that.
HAL: How the fuck does someone answer that?
HAL: You just fucking kissed him like it was the third act of fucking Serendipity, John Cusak.
HAL: *I* got fucking butterflies and I wasn’t even involved.
JOHN: i just don’t know.
HAL: Jesus Christ.
HAL: Did you like kissing him?
JOHN: i don’t know.
HAL: Then why do you keep doing it??
JOHN: i don’t know.
HAL: You are so fucking lucky you’re pretty.
HAL: Dirk’s waiting for you literally at the front door, can we talk about this later?
HAL: I legitimately will help you through this. But this is a terrible time.
JOHN: ok thanks hal.
JOHN: will you tell dirk about this?
HAL: Almost nothing makes me happier than having secret conversations about Dirk.

You put your phone down, check your hair, and make your way downstairs. Dirk smiles at you and your heart lurches. What are you doing to him, kissing him like you know how you feel when you don’t? You smile back anyway, and phase the rest of the way so you don’t have to look at him any longer.

Rose’s parties are like nothing else you’ve ever seen, not in real life or movies. She and Kanaya live in this huge house, and because Kanaya spends so much time in the caverns and Rose gets procrastinatey about reading books that she doesn’t even have to read, Rose gets really into the holidays. Halloween is naturally the highlight, but Christmas eve is a close second.

A robot takes your and Dirk’s coats at the door, both the robot and Dirk ignoring you when you ask if Dirk made it. You’re glad you wore your boots, the floor is covered in what you assume is fake snow.

Rose greets you both with stiff hugs. Watching Dirk and Rose hug is like watching someone shove two barbie dolls together to represent hugging. You make sure to squeeze Rose tight and lift her off the ground a bit. Dirk smirks with amusement when you meet his eye over her shoulder.

‘Go try that move on my wife, Egbert, I dare you,’ Rose says.

‘Okay!’ you say, looking around for Kanaya. Rose sighs.

‘How do you live with this buffoon?’ she asks Dirk. ‘He’s a buffoon.’

‘Can I steal that as a petname?’ Dirk asks. ‘He keeps vetoing them as if I have so much ease with affection that he can restrict me without it being an issue.’

You shrug, still trying to figure out the party’s theme and barely paying attention. Last year was based off some Edgar Allan Poe story where all the rooms were different colours and there was a creepy clock. This year, you’re seeing a lot of robots. You know robot movies, maybe you can figure this out.

‘Come on, buffoon,’ Dirk says, grabbing your hand and pulling you deeper into Rose’s house.

‘There are so many robots here, tell me you didn’t make all of these.’

‘I didn’t make all of these,’ he recites dutifully.

You give him a sharp look.

‘Most of them aren’t even robots, they’re props,’ he says, walking over to one and lifting the lifeless metal arm up. ‘Though some are fakeouts, so don’t do that. And most of them are very simple, can’t even open doors. The duplicates were made with a mould, so I don’t think that counts as me making them.’

It’s useless arguing with him, and you’re at a party and you’re not even mad at him, but you wish he wouldn’t throw every last inch of himself into these projects when he won’t even accept payment because there’s no possible way to pay Dirk Strider. You’re all rich, but you’ve found ways of giving things to each other regardless. Finding Dirk’s present has always been difficult; this year it was next to impossible.

Kanaya is delighted when you hug her with as much enthusiasm as you have, because she is a good friend who is capable of receiving affection. Lifting her off the ground when she’s even taller than Dirk is a challenge that makes you grateful for the Tai Chi you’ve been doing twice a week. You’re practically a ninja now, no big deal.

You and Jade float on the ceiling and drop grapes into peoples’ glasses for a while (both of you definitely cheating and also insisting that you’re not). Karkat gets giddy after he drinks some of the human mocktail punch which is super sugary. Several of the robots nearly decapitate guests, but are taken out by someone (usually Dave) before they get a hit in. Normal Christmas party stuff.

At midnight, you’re all sitting on the roof, wrapped up in blankets. You roll your wrists through the movements you’ve been learning with Dirk and the deep breathing you fall into automatically makes it really easy to warm the air in a nice little dome. Everyone claps politely, lead by Dirk who you shove off the roof. Regrettably, he can fly.

At midnight, Jade conjures atmospheric lights like they used to have over your Earth’s Alaska or wherever. Ribbons of colour weave through the night sky, some of them so close it feels like you should be able to touch them.

You don’t notice when you first drift into the air, but when you do reach out, your hand passes through the colour the same way it would through any light. The electric atmosphere isn’t any more intense when you’re touching it as opposed to just being around it. It’s incredible, though. To be in the middle of it. You almost forget you have a body at all until you feel Dirk’s hand in yours.

‘Hey,’ you say.

‘This is fucking stunning,’ he says.

‘Ha, yeah.’

You kind of expect him to drag you back to Earth. That’s kind of what he does. But he stays with you, just holding your hand.

‘Look, I was gonna do this whole thing,’ he says. ‘I have a speech prepared, I was going to put you on the spot in front of all our friends and hope to God you freaked out enough to just let me win this stupid fucking bet. But this … this is more you by a long shot, and we’re probably doomed to never get this for real so maybe we deserve to fake it really well.’

Because of you, the air is still warm, but snow has started to fall. Dirk reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box.

‘Weirdly, I still win either way. You’re my best bro, and I don’t want to be apart from you. Merry Christmas, John.’

He opens the box and holds it out to you. You let go of his hand so that you can take it from him and pull out the ring inside.

It’s silver, with lines engraved in it. You look down at your chest before you remember you’re not wearing your sign, and anyway you know it better than to need the confirmation. All your aspects are heavily protected from reproduction, the citizenry sees it as blasphemy, which means …

‘You made this.’

‘Not the ring itself.’

Your throat is burning and your ears are strangely hot. You make a noise that’s kind of like a laugh. You can’t put this on, can you?

Except you can, because it’s sweet and it’s personal and it’s fucking perfect, but it’s still part of the bet. So accepting this isn’t wrong, because you’re being dared to. This isn’t as if Dirk really wants to marry you. It’s still all fine. You’re not an asshole for saying yes.

‘You haven’t actually asked me anything,’ you say, finally looking up at him. You can’t believe you’re being proposed to by a guy wearing anime shades in the middle of an aurora.

‘Will you marry me?’ he asks, so quietly you almost don’t hear him.

There’s a moment where your brain sends you the wrong information and you almost say “I do”, but you snap out of it and nod instead.

‘Yeah,’ you say.

He takes the ring back from you and puts it on your finger, holding your palm steady. It feels strange, like you can’t tune the cold metal out. He puts the box back in his pocket and pulls you closer to him. He’s going to kiss you, your brain screams. He strokes your hair carefully back. You suddenly realise that he hasn’t kissed you once since the time he was still half-asleep. It’s always been you.

He leans in slowly and presses his lips to yours. It’s something you’ve felt dozens of times, but not like this. Not when it’s not just a friendly peck that you could give to any of your friends, probably but not really. He’s just so present, all your senses are filled with him and you have never felt so overwhelmed with physical sensation but you wouldn’t have him stop for the world. His hand on the back of your neck feels good, not restrictive. You think you want more.

He stops kissing you and you hear a wolf whistle from below you, then a cheer. You smile at Dirk and roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of your friends. You look down at the ring on your finger again. You love it and you think that outweighs the lingering guilt even though you’re really sure it’s okay, really.

‘So, marriage,’ you say to Dirk.

‘Yup.’

‘Can I call you my fianc-gay?’

‘John, I insist upon it.’

You grin at him and don’t resist when he pulls you slowly back down to the roof. It probably won’t change that much, being married to him. You kind of like the idea of him being yours, anyway.

Chapter Text

‘You’re doing a terrible job of describing this,’ Kanaya says coolly. Usually you like how she’s kind of a bitch to you, but right now you’re both frustrating each other because for the first time in your acquaintanceship (yeah, she’s your daughter-in-law, she’s still barely an acquaintance) you are both caring about something that you have to discuss together. Turns out it’s not as fun when you’re not just snarking at each other over scones.

‘I don’t know what’s so hard about this,’ you grit out.

‘What’s so hard about this is the fact that you are certainly colour blind. And I don’t even mean that to be demeaning, I am being perfectly sincere.’

‘Bullshit!’ you say.

You want to walk off the little platform she has you on, but unfortunately you said she could take your measurements the troll way and of course you couldn’t back out once you’d committed to that. So now you have a spider-adjacent creature of ambiguous intelligence crawling over your back, wrapping you in a mould that Kanaya will use to make a dummy out of. You hate bugs. And you do mean your daughter-in-law, not the spider thing.

‘Dirk, you’ve given me two entirely different and very clashing colours as examples as what you want your suit jacket to look like.’

‘They don’t clash!’ you say.

‘That is so much worse,’ Kanaya says, falling gracefully and very dramatically into an armchair. ‘You know what these colours look like?’

‘You said you could make anything work.’

She glares at you, her mouth parting slightly to display her fangs to greater effect. You glare right back.

‘Just use them as a guideline,’ Rose says. She’s sitting in the corner of the room reading a book and sounds utterly bored with the escalating drama. ‘It’s not as if Dirk would know if you chose different colours.’

‘I would,’ you insist. ‘But I graciously defer to your judgement if you think you can make it work with something different.’

Rose snorts. When you turn to glare at her instead of her wife, she isn’t even looking up from her book.

‘I think we will keep a very close fit on your jacket,’ Kanaya says, ignoring the fact that the reference pictures you gave her included styles as well as colours. ‘A vest could distract from your slimness, but I don’t think I want to do that. You are slim. Let’s not pretend otherwise.’

‘Okay,’ you say. Magnanimously. Rose doesn’t even notice.

‘And I approve of your attempt to go bold, even if it is somewhat misguided in execution.’

‘... Okay,’ you say, your tone a shade closer to testy.

‘You know, the colour of your god tier shirt is actually lovely. Paired with a black shirt, the slightly darker colour of your cape for the pants …’ She hesitates for a moment. ‘Unless, and I know that this isn’t a human tradition, but there is significance behind wearing a moirail’s colours. And I understand that this is all a bet and there’s nothing to it and we’re not to debate that anymore because you will come to your senses in your own respective times, but you and John do have a special connection, one that perhaps could be defined …’

‘Hal is—’ you start. Shit.

Rose closes her book and leans forward in your chair.

‘I’m sorry,’ she purrs. ‘Were you about to imply that you are in a moirallegiance with your robotic self?’

‘No,’ you say. ‘Would John’s blue even suit me?’

‘The slightly darker blue of his hood for a jacket, the light blue of his symbol for the pants, checked with grey so they don’t look absurd, a white shirt and an open collar. You hated your tie at our wedding and I will not have you fidgeting.’

‘Wife,’ Rose says crossly. ‘Do not distract from the juicier subject.’

‘Fashion is the juiciest subject there is,’ Kanaya says. ‘Besides, Dirk’s moirallegiance with Hal is old news, it would be far more interesting if he had two admitted moirails.’

The spider-creature finishes with your cast and crawls back into its terrarium without being prompted. Kanaya deposits some leaves from her sylladex in with it, replaces the lid, and steps towards you with a pair of large scissors.

‘Dirk’s not in a moirallegiance with John,’ Rose says. ‘He’s in an idiocy with John. It’s an entirely new term I’ve invented and it describes two fully grown men playing “no homo” when at least one is in fact “homo” and neither of them are capable of performing everyday function, let alone honestly and openly communicating their feelings.’

You would roll your eyes if you weren’t watching Kanaya cut your cast off you with strict attention. If Rose thinks that you’ll stop this bet because of her shaming you, she clearly hasn’t been paying attention. You passed that point a very long time ago. If he doesn’t have a cliche freak-out on the day of the wedding, you’re reasonably sure you’ll end up in matching coffins all because of John’s stubbornness.

Kanaya eases the stiff, silky material off you and you roll your shoulders to celebrate your freedom. She places it carefully on an angled desk.

‘I’ll find fabric for you and we will do a colour test to ensure that they do suit your skin tone,’ Kanaya says. ‘Give my regards to your idiot.’

With that, Kanaya sweeps from the room on silent feet. You look to Rose to convey your extreme dissatisfaction in her choice of wife. She beams at you to convey her delight in everything that makes you miserable.

*

Wedding planning isn’t actually as hard as some people seem to think it is, but you’ve learned not to remark on that around Rose and Kanaya, or Jane for that matter. Maybe it’s significantly easier if it’s kind of not serious.

Except it totally is serious. You don’t anticipate another husband after John, so this is your one chance. By nature of being you, you’ve thought a lot about the traditions involved and what they say. John has not, so he’s letting you take the lead on this one. You consider this to bode well for your future marriage in the event that you make it that far.

You’re not satisfied with just writing your own vows. You’re going to write the whole motherfucking ceremony. This is a significant relief to Dave, who you’ve asked to perform the thing and who has many suggestions for alterations. Or perhaps you should say altarations. Wedding humour.

You put John on dessert duty, knowing that he’s both particular and thinks he can prank you by choosing something horrific, despite him presumably knowing you prefer it that way. Jade says “shotgun!” when you mention flowers, which is weird but you were going to ask her to do that anyway, so that’s taken care of. You assume they’ll either be incredibly tasteful or incredibly bright, both options of which you’re cool with.

Kanaya of course has taken on the task of outfitting you and John, as well as Dave as master of ceremonies and naturally herself and Rose. She sounds very put out about it, but Rose assures you that’s her happy voice. Karkat tells you he was going to handle the seating plan before you realise you would even be having one of those. Callie’s doing the invitations and save the dates, which apparently are two different things. Jane is in charge of getting people where they need to be on the day.

Roxy and Rose decline roles, something they come over to your house specifically to do, despite you never implying that you were handing out roles to every one of your friends. They sip colourful mocktails as you explain to them it was never “a thing” but you can find something for them to do if they really want you to. Rose predicts that they’ll have enough on their hands as it is, which you do not allow to freak you out. You ask them to involve Jake with their gossip party as he’s the only one left roleless, at which point Roxy twinkles her fingers and Jake pops out of the void, holding a drink as well but facing the wrong way. Right. Okay. Fine.

Everything else you and Hal take care of. He researches, narrows down and then talks you through his process of choosing, which you always agree with but need to hear the thoughts behind because you’re you. And you are the people person, wildly, going out and hiring the photographer and the entertainment and the decor agency that he specifies.

A week before your wedding, you and John are set to have separate bachelor parties. You with the girls, him with the boys. He thinks you’re being ironic, which you definitely are. But objectively speaking, the girls in your gang are just way cooler than the boys. Callie, though neither girl nor boy, elects to join the girl party because Roxy’s there. (You have a sneaking suspicion that Roxy is also in the neither category, but you’re not pushing that. It’s none of your business so long as you’re not being a dick by calling her “her”; you’d never want to force a coming out.)

Your party is a dry one, because half the party doesn’t drink on the grounds of species incompatibility or personal preference. You have full faith that your girls will manage to show you a good time regardless.

They all show up at your house at 6:30, half an hour before you were told to meet them at the restaurant. All of them look fucking awesome, wearing form fitting suits of various colours and styles. Jade’s top under her jacket is all lacy like lingerie, Kanaya is unabashedly wearing 6 inch heels despite already towering over everyone, Jane’s boobs are literally the most distracting things you have ever seen and they all have dramatic makeup on.

‘John, go to my house,’ Jade says, instead of hello.

‘Hello,’ you say, demonstrating human greetings.

‘Why do I have to leave my own house?’ John demands. ‘My thing doesn’t start till 8.’

‘Fuck off, John,’ Rose says. ‘We need to make Dirk look hot.’

‘I want to see hot Dirk,’ John says, his voice just on the edge of whiny.

‘The correct answer there was, “He’s already hot,”’ you tell him, smirking at his commitment to the bit. ‘But yeah, fuck off. Someone will presumably take pictures.’

John sighs and disappears into the breeze, causing everyone’s hair to fly around wildly with a much more intense gust of wind than he usually makes. You can’t quite repress the smirk that’s threatening to turn into an all-out smile at the implication that he wanted to stay.

‘So, makeover?’ you ask.

‘Makeover,’ Rose confirms, smiling way too widely for comfort. Luckily for you, you’ve prepared yourself for just about any discomfort they can throw at you.

Jane does your eyeliner, because she’s the only one you trust near your eyes. She adds concealer over the admittedly deep shadows underneath them and blends it in with gentle fingers. When you see yourself in the mirror you sincerely contemplate wearing it full time.

‘Should I rock the eyeliner full time?’ you ask the room at large.

’Yes,’ Roxy says in the kind of voice she usually reserves for Tessa Thompson. You give her an arch eyebrow and a smirk.

‘Are you retiring your gandershields?’ Kanaya asks.

‘Oh, no,’ you say. ‘I’d keep the shades.’

‘But no one would be able to see your eyeliner,’ Jade says, her head cocking to the side and making her ears flop adorably.

‘Yeah,’ you say.

‘Don’t say it’s ironic,’ Rose warns.

‘Hal would be able to see and he’d call me pretty,’ you say.

I would. And not even to make you think I’m being sarcastic and actually there’s something wrong with how you look that you haven’t picked up on with your pathetic human eyes.

No one else is impressed with your life choices, but they don’t quite seem to be able to find the words to articulate their various issues with the majesty that is Dirk Strider.

Then Kanaya drops a dope black suit from her sylladex and you actually stand up with excitement to try clothes on. Woah. Weird. She gives you a satisfied half smile.

‘Beloved friends,’ you say dramatically, ‘we are going to make the world mourn my farce of a marriage.’

They don’t leave the room while you change or allow you to leave it, because they’re awful. When Kanaya has a fit over you attempting to pull on the tightest pants you have ever worn in your life over boxers, you’re still not allowed to leave, so you make sure to make unforgiving eye contact with Kanaya specifically as you change into briefs and then tackle Roxy to make sure she didn’t snap a picture of your junk. (She didn’t, but you tickle her until she gets the hiccups and hands her phone over anyway.)

You head out of the house with Callie under one arm and Rose under the other so you look tall by comparison. You were not provided a shirt with your suit, but you are sporting a choker necklace that you’re not allowed to call a collar. Your shades are folded safely in your breast pocket as if Hal’s your signature fashion look. You might be the sluttiest in the gang and Jane’s tits are like, right there. You should have gotten engaged to a friend who will never love you back ages ago.

Roxy films you as you walk in dramatic slow motion and then takes about a million selfies, somehow not stopping even as Jade teleports you all to the restaurant. You’re barely late for your reservation.

After dinner, during which you are treated to the special magic that is feminine conversation style (they talk over each other and in separate groups then come back together and somehow it all flows, like an orchestra of instruments that couldn’t intrude on the others and it never fails to amaze you), Jane and Roxy take your arms and hold them with a little more firmness than necessary.

‘I’m down to party,’ you assure them.

‘Even you have limits,’ Jane says, ‘and the Lalondes planned this.’

‘Do I have limits?’ you ask. ‘Let go of my arm so I can ask Hal.’

‘Honey, I know you’re gonna love this. It’s erryone else we gotta convince that you don’t actually have a pole up y’r ass.’

‘Isn’t it stick?’ you ask Roxy.

‘No, it’s pole,’ Kanaya says.

Ha, okay. You’re at a strip club. Given your company, you’re assuming that your tastes will not be taken into account even though it’s your party. Fine by you, this is a classic bachelor party move and it’s not like you’re repulsed by women.

You’re manhandled through the door, despite it not being wide enough for your captors and you to get through like this and needing to go sideways and also despite you not needing to be manhandled, and then you’re in the … bright, empty room? Aren’t clubs supposed to be dark? Even if they paid for the whole place … oh. You get it.

Kanaya steps forward and turns on her very high heels to face the rest of you. She splays her hands on her thighs and with one smooth movement rips her suit pants off. Your jaw falls open. Roxy makes a very high pitched noise and Rose sticks two fingers in her mouth to wolf whistle. One by one, the rest of the gang rips their own pants off, with the exception of Callie, who is filming and who you cannot imagine doing anything so overtly sexual. You raise your eyebrow at Kanaya and grip the front of yours. Kanaya nods benevolently.

‘Wait!’ Roxy says. She takes a low angle with her phone and directs Callie to film from a higher one. ‘Okay hot stuff, put Matthew McConaughey to shame.’

‘That’s my fiance’s celebrity crush you’re pitting me against,’ you drawl.

‘Strip!’ Jane urges.

You turn and grin at her before looking directly into Callie’s camera.

‘People of Earth C,’ you say, ignoring the way Jade’s giggles seem to be infecting the rest of the party. ‘You’re fuckin’ welcome.’

The pants tear away perfectly, because Kanaya is a genius and you can admit that in the privacy of your own head. You unbutton your jacket and wink at Roxy before dropping that to the floor too.

After you and Jake split, about 3 months after winning, you both did a bit of acting as a way to learn to be around each other without it being weird, and also because Jake still felt like his best asset was his admittedly fantastic rump. Him quitting the movies and settling in with Jane has made him more settled, sincerely happy in a way you’d never seen before, so of course you dropped the movies too. You couldn’t be responsible for accidentally tempting him back into commodifying his body. But fuck you’ve missed showing off.

Kanaya catches a pair of heels, thankfully about half the size of hers, from her sylladex. You take them willingly and use Jade’s shoulder to balance as you put them on.

‘I’d have waxed if I’d known,’ you say.

Jade and Jane laugh like you’re joking. You catch Rose’s eye and she clearly knows you would have. And that you’d love this. You definitely got the better bachelor party.

‘Friends and invitees,’ Kanaya says, getting your attention immediately. ‘This evening I’ll be teaching you how to make these poles your bitches. Rose has informed me that this is an essential skill for one entering a marriage and I have certainly found it valuable.’ You laugh with everyone else, leaning on Jade so you can pull your heel to your ass and stretch your thigh out. ‘I advise everyone to use plenty of powder and to tell Jane if you break anything.’

You proceed to make a complete dick of yourself, your previous cockiness absolutely obliterated by the fact that apparently your righteous sword fighting skills do not translate to being a natural pole dancer. You should be embarrassed, probably. Historically you have not been okay with imperfection. But you’re surrounded by friends who are being equally as uncoordinated (with the exception of the Maryam-Lalondes, who evidently are not new to this) and you’re the first one to climb to the top of your pole, not that it’s a competition.

Callie’s camera is most frequently focused on you, but she captures plenty of footage of everyone. She directs the girls to give you and John well wishes and advice for a happy marriage. You call out over the top of Rose’s advice to ask that please dear God can your daughter not give you a sex tip right now. Rose pokes her tongue out at you before turning to the camera, eyes glowing golden.

‘Call John on his shit, but give him space,’ she says. You step off your pole to give her more attention. ‘And John, talk. To him, but also to me.’ She blinks the light out of her eyes and her black lips quirk up. ’Especially after your honeymoon.’

With that, the slightly heavy mood is shattered with giggles and whoops and Callie comes back to film you as you manage to get the step-step-jump-onto-pole-and-spin move you’ve been working on for the first time.

‘HA!’ you say triumphantly, punching the air. Jane runs up to you and gives you a high five that sounds like a thunderclap. You laugh breathlessly and do an insane run up to a neighbouring pole, leaping halfway up the thing and trying to replicate the momentum you had going with your much simpler move. Jade teleports you to safety before you give yourself a concussion.

‘John,’ you tell Callie’s camera, lying on the linoleum where Jade has courteously laid you down with your hands behind your head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t actually give up the stripping like I promised I would if we got married. It’s not about the men, it’s the rush. And also the men.’

‘Gawd,’ Roxy says, falling dramatically into you and cushioning her head on your bicep so she can be in the shot too. ‘Imagine John doing this.’

Your train of thought before that sentence was carrying perhaps the lightest load of anxieties it ever has and yet those four words still manage to cause a tragic and violent multi-carriage pileup. There are no survivors; your thoughts are scattered to the breeze like the souls of the dearly departed victims.

‘Oh-my-god,’ Roxy laughs, ‘you’re totally blushing!’

Fuck.

‘Rox, I’ve been exercising for a million years, I have plausible deniability,’ you say, pouring her off your arm and casually pulling her into a full nelson. ‘Also John is hot as shit and you asked me to imagine him prancing around a phallic object in panties.’

‘I didn’t say nothin’ about panties,’ she says as if you don’t have her in a hold that’s so inescapable it’s illegal in professional wrestling.

‘Didn’t you? It’s an improvement, we’re riffing, step up your game, Lalonde.’

‘John would wear the shit out of high heels,’ Rose declares, sitting down and draping her legs over Roxy’s with no concern for your very impressive and did you mention illegal wrestling hold. ‘Dirk,’ Rose says. ‘John. High heels. Thoughts?’

‘I don’t know,’ you say, hoping your voice still sounds as ice-cold as you know it can, ‘Janey, bring your genetically similar ass over here.’

‘Jade too!’ Roxy says.

‘Now you’re just perving,’ Kanaya says, sitting next to Rose. ‘Jade, I can’t see your ass, be considerate.’

You release Roxy and she leans her full weight against you. You smooth her hair back so it’s not in your face and watch with amusement as Jane and Jade have a twerking competition despite neither of them knowing what twerking is.

‘You should have a bachelor’s party every week,’ Roxy tells you.

You blow a raspberry on her forehead. Your party definitely won. Not that it’s a competition.

Chapter Text

Dirk’s funny when he gets caught up in something. You like him with a project, one that’s for him, not other people. You’ve continued to distract him from his obligations and have taken it upon yourself to hiss like a goose at the people who are attempting to put responsibility onto his overburdened shoulders.

You get measured by Kanaya, who refuses to tell you what you’ll be dressed in, which is SUPER FUN given the fact that you fucking know your fiance, but you also will let him have this one, even if you end up wearing a leather dog mask or whatever he thinks is funny. You might just end up in something nice, given that Dirk is actually capable of romance and Kanaya is in charge.

Not that it’s real romance. Probably. Just, it feels like it is sometimes? Like when he proposed, that night when you got home you just stared and stared at your ring on the pillow next to you and you still have no idea what you were feeling; you definitely weren’t thinking. Sometimes on date night he’ll say something in this soft voice and you feel like it’s the most important thing you’ve ever heard even though it’s nothing. He always remembers to get the brand of cheese you like and he doesn’t even do dairy.

Hal’s tried to talk to you about it because God knows that Dirk isn’t going to and you wanted his advice, once. Dirk just made it a million times scarier when he proposed. What if you don’t love him? What if you do? You feel like Dirk should be the first one to know that, and he’s your best friend, so if you were going to talk about it with anyone it should be him.

You should just know. The fact that you don’t means that … well, you don’t know exactly what it means, but if you just have some more time, maybe you’ll know and you won’t have to make Dirk have that conversation when you don’t know what it is you want.

And you like living with him. You like being his fiance.

You like watching him plan your wedding, the way he gets excited in his Dirk way that comes out in a relaxed drawl and more gestures than usual. He gives you these smug smiles when it’s just the two of you because he thinks he’s so fucking clever for thinking to let Jade do the flowers and it makes you so happy.

He gives you the job of organising dessert, which is infuriatingly thoughtful of him. You were thinking you just wouldn’t eat it, like at Rose’s wedding. But now you have to do shit and if you don’t eat it then it’s on your head.

You figure it out, obviously. It’s your only job, apart from writing your vows. You write two versions, one for if it’s dumb and jokey and one for if it’s not. You don’t know which you want to read.

Eventually, it’s time for your bachelor party. You can’t help but notice that Dirk’s party has more members than yours, and also has Lalondes planning it. You’ve never seen evidence that Jake, Dave or Karkat can plan.

You’re lounging on the couch with Dirk when the girls burst in as if you don’t have a door, with an actual lock on it. You pout at the ceiling in a way that you hope isn’t noticeable. You don’t even know why you’re having a bachelor party.

‘John, go to my house,’ Jade says.

You glare at her in her stupid fancy suit.

Dirk says, ‘Hello,’ which you probably could have managed if you weren’t being a baby.

‘Why do I have to leave my own house?’ you ask. ‘My thing doesn’t start till 8.’

‘Fuck off, John,’ Rose says, smiling wickedly and with zero room for disagreement. ‘We need to make Dirk look hot.’

‘I want to see hot Dirk,’ you say. You want to see any Dirk, really, you don’t like being told where to go or when to do it and it’s your house.

‘The correct answer there was, “He’s already hot,”’ Dirk says, smiling in that cocky way you love. ‘But yeah, fuck off. Someone will presumably take pictures.’

You can’t actually tell him no. He wants the full experience, and that means leaving him to these awful women while you go and presumably just watch movies at Jake’s place. It’ll be fine, but ugh.

You sigh heavily, so that everyone feels your disapproval and breeze out to Dave’s house. You assume your jeans and t-shirt are fine. You realise just after you knock that there’s a hat on it. It’s not Dirk’s, you’d hulk those out. He just got you it as a gag gift for your 6 months together and you like it, sometimes. Not usually out of the house. It’s too late to change it now.

‘Yo,’ Dave says when he opens the door. He’s wearing a shirt with the torso of a girl in a bikini on it, as if he’s the girl. Her boobs are kind of weirding you out, attached to Dave’s face. ‘My eyes are up here, dude,’ he says.

You drag your eyes from his tits and look him in the sunglasses instead. Much more normal.

‘Your stupid girlfriend kicked me out of my house,’ you tell him.

‘Yeah, your stupid sister told me she was gonna do that.’

You scowl at him and he laughs, pulling you in. He laughs more and more now, which is nice. Doesn’t make it any easier to come over for dinner with all three of them still somehow locked in honeymoon mode, but it’s cool when Jade’s not around to make him all gooey. Karkat and Dave have a much more lowkey thing going on, but Jade is the same Jade who could talk Dave Sprite into bouncing on beds with you, even with his tail.

Well, not the same Jade. But still.

‘Yo,’ Karkat says. It’s cute how both of them have picked up each other’s ways of speaking in different ways, but nothing is better than the fact that Karkat sometimes sounds like a Texan skater. Well, he uses the words; the actual delivery is all Karkat, which makes it perfect.

‘John here was just crying about how Jade kicked him out,’ Dave says.

‘Yeah, well, Dave was just crying about how everyone is more attracted to his shirt than to him personally,’ you say.

‘I didn’t say that,’ Karkat says, defensively. ‘I said it was a funny shirt and you could wear it more often than just tonight.’

‘You literally said I could wear it to bed.’

‘As sleepwear!’

You grin and leave them to it, going to the fridge to see if there’s anything worth stealing instead. There’s way too many vegetables. You take a carrot dejectedly.

‘So,’ Dave says, his elbow propped on Karkat’s head casually, floating a good six inches off the ground to make this possible, ‘this is going to be pretty lowkey, obviously. There’s four of us.’

‘I know,’ you say.

‘But that doesn’t mean we haven’t put effort in!’ Karkat insists. ‘You don’t need to say it like it’s going to be shit, asshole.’

‘Do you think we should get going now? While it’s still light?’ Dave asks. ‘We’re ready, right? We could just go pick Jake up.’

Karkat agrees and they both double check their sylladexes mysteriously before you breeze all three of you to Jake’s place. He and Jane used to live in a mansion, but Rose went over one day and then a week later they moved to this cute little cottage thing. You didn’t ask what happened, it felt weird and you tend to leave weird things be. Not worth the questioning.

Jake bounds outside like a golden retriever on steroids in the shape of your doppelganger. He’s wearing his khakis and a long-sleeved shirt.

‘We are not going on an arctic rave,’ you say firmly.

‘No, dude, what?’ Dave says. ‘Do you really think Karkat’s adorable ears could withstand either the cold or the noise?’

‘We’re going camping!’ Jake says. ‘Oh faddle, was I supposed to say that?’

‘Pretty sure he’d realise when we asked him to transport us to the campsite,’ Karkat says dryly.

Jake grins sheepishly and decaptchalogues a map. It takes you a little bit to orient yourself to where you are, then a bit longer to understand where you’re going, especially because Jake keeps describing it as you’re trying to figure out how a paper map works when you can’t turn it around with your fin—oh, you just move around it so it’s still facing north.

You close your eyes to concentrate and the map kind of makes sense, but what Jake was saying about the lake and the mountains and the cabin is more present. You hold your hands out and take them, working on instinct as much as information. You’re supposed to be there, so you will be.

The sun is two fingers from touching the horizon when you get to the place Jake indicated, a bit higher than when you left his place. Your mouth opens a little in surprise when you see it. His words, while very colourful, did not adequately prepare you.

‘Nice,’ Dave says.

‘I came out last weekend,’ Jake says. ‘Which means we don’t have to do nary a fuck of work, it’s all prepared!’

‘It’s nice,’ you agree.

“Nice” kind of doesn’t do it justice at all, but Jake hugs you around the middle and lifts you up at least a foot from the ground, which makes you laugh helplessly and squeeze your eyes shut against the ridiculousness of all of this.

Which is why it takes you by surprise when you feel Jake jump, you still in his arms, and then oh my God cold water!

He lets you go and you swim to the surface instead of breezing like a cheater, only to find Dave cannonballing in right next to you while Karkat carefully steps in, looking very uncertain about the whole ritual. Jake shakes his head next to you and Dave tries to push you under the water. You can’t stop grinning.

You and Dave coax Karkat in while Jake stays suspiciously quiet, like he’s thinking very hard about what he hopes will happen. It’s honestly a good thing that Jake kind of looks constipated whenever he tries to make his powers work, and also a good thing that you and Dave are so distracting in this one instance.

With Karkat on your shoulders and Dave on Jake’s, Karkat wrestles Dave into the water every time. With the roles reversed, you can’t beat Jake. Neither can Dave or Karkat, even with you as a more solid base. You can beat Dave, but not Karkat. There’s a big production about all of it until Dave does a handstand and then you all decide that’s the new competition. Dave wipes the floor with all of you.

Floating on your backs, Dave makes up ridiculous “what if” statements and the rest of you try to say the most entertaining response.

‘What if,’ he starts, pausing the prerequisite time to make it a drama, ‘you could choose to look any way you wanted but one day a week Rose could choose.’

‘Well Dave, that’d be fucked up,’ Karkat says, very matter-of-fact.

Dave boos him.

‘I just wouldn’t leave the house that day,’ Jake says. ‘Get a very whatchamacallit, gothic type dohickey, like a vault but better, and then lock myself inside. And Rose is a theatrical Thelma, she’d appreciate the effort and leave me be.’

Dave waves his hand so-so.

‘I’d make myself look like Rose for the second week and just follow her around,’ you say, splashing like you don’t really care about the competition. ‘Then she’d give me whatever she wants ‘cause she wouldn’t want to see herself smiling at her wherever she went.’

‘Damn, John,’ Dave says. He whistles. ‘Obviously he wins, and not even because he’s the bachelor.’

‘Go again,’ Karkat says, focused now he knows the game.

Jake shoos you all out of the lake as it becomes harder to see each other, Dave still threading a story about what if your fingers were those fake cheese tubes, would you eat them or what? Karkat asks if it’s just your fingers and Dave pretends disgust as he goes on a spiel about Karkat wanting a person to be as much cheese as possible, which can't be helping certain rumours about him eating paparazzi.

You dry everyone off with the breeze, which makes Karkat’s hair adorably fluffy and his temper very mad, and Jake lights a giant tee-pee of a bonfire before taking you inside to organise food. Jake brought the gadgets he used before Sburb, somehow under the impression that they’d create a shared nostalgia. You humour him anyway.

You take your meals out to the bonfire and Jake decaptchalogues a refrigerator, except every picture on the dial is a drink. You look at Dave, who you have never known to drink and he shrugs, holding his hand out.

‘Give me a cold one, cobber,’ he says.

‘Dude, what,’ you whisper to him.

‘Shut up, it’s Jake’s beer,’ he says.

You all follow Dave’s lead, Karkat with a cream soda and all of you with no real idea of how to get drunk or whether you want to do that. You guess you’ll just see how you go.

‘Is this when the wedding themed conversation starters come out?’ Karkat asks sarcastically.

‘Ridgey-didge!’ Jake says. ‘You’re sharp, Karkat.’

Karkat face plants into Dave’s shoulder.

‘What are wedding themed conversations?’ you ask. ‘I was not involved in the planning.’

‘Nah, like we go around and say a time when you and Dirk were totally in love or something, right?’

‘Um …’ you say.

‘Circumstances prohibit the traditions,’ Jake says cheerfully. ‘Let’s just tell a dumb Dirk story so John knows what he’s getting his wick into.’

This is met with much enthusiasm and passes the time until Jake’s passing around third drinks. You’re pretty sure you’re not feeling it, but on reflection everyone is pretty loud. Probably just excitement.

‘The entire thing with you two counts as a dumb story,’ Karkat says. ‘From the dare to how frustratingly cute you both are, making us regular boyfriends look bad.’

‘A very unorthodox way to hook up with your future husband,’ Dave nods. ‘And public, so we can’t even ask you for the story.’

‘Well what about you guys?’ you ask. ‘That’s on theme.’ On theme of you not having to talk about your very confusing feelings, anyway.

‘I need at least two more beers for that,’ Dave says. ‘You go, Jake. How did you and Jane get together? Hell, how did you and Dirk get together?’

Jake grins, takes a swig of his beer and then plants it in the ground, twisting it to keep the base steady. He gets his hands ready, elbows tucked into his side, which means he’s either going to tackle someone or he’s about to gesture wildly. You hope it’s the latter.

‘So, imagine me, alone on my island,’ Jake says. ‘It’s game day and I’ve spent most of the morning trying to wrestle uranium from the dastardly metal Strider who stalked both the monsters and myself. In fairness to Mister Strider, that confounded tin man sure did bisect some creatures before they gobbled me up, but he also kicked the stuffing out of me whenever I ventured from my abode.’

‘We wouldn’t want to be unfair,’ you say. Dave laughs, more easily than he has been even with his datemates making him all happy. Maybe something is happening, alcohol wise.

‘And he sure delivered a pounding that day! I came over quite somnial and I suppose I was lucky that my attacker was also a guardian against those great bastards.’

‘Super lucky!’ Karkat says. You and Dave laugh and Jake gives Karkat finger guns as if he has made an astute observation.

‘When I awoke, it gave me the uranium I needed, so I went on this convoluted adventure to send Terry Kiser to you, John! I went involuntarily bedebyes a couple more times, as my noggin is predisposed to shutting down upon a thorough landing upon it, helmet or no helmet, and then, you’ll never guess what was waiting for me!’

‘Something Sburby and bullshit, I assume,’ Dave says.

‘Close! Stridery and bullshit! His head!’

‘Without his body,’ Dave checks.

‘Correctomundo.’

‘Cool,’ you say blankly.

‘So I kissed it better, as my volcano went off and there was a literal dragon in the sky, which was very romantic and also unnerving, which is a venn diagram intersection in which Dirk tends to operate, and that made it quite confirmed that he was courting me. And that … was sometimes quite good!’

‘That was a lot of information,’ you remark. ‘And ridiculous that it didn’t come up in the dumb Dirk stories.’

‘It wasn’t dumb,’ Jake insists. ‘It was like a movie.’

‘What about you and Jane?’ Karkat asks. ‘Was that like a movie?’

Jake passes around more drinks, which you’re grateful of after that exposition. And even more grateful of the fact that Dirk’s never decapitated himself for romance reasons with you.

‘No, we’re not like in the movies at all,’ Jake says. ‘Jane told me that she could see I wasn’t enjoying the movie scene, which I didn’t realise at the time. And she was always the gal I turned to when I needed to get something off my chest, and I had a lot of things in the lobster trap at that point. So we were at her house and she was making cookies and I asked about her feelings, which I didn’t do enough. And she told me about some drama she’d gotten into that wasn’t even special in any way, but I liked how she told it. And it kept happening, I kept liking things and she never made me feel like she wanted anything but what I wanted to give. So I wanted more.’

You stare at your beer and think about how you like so many little things that Dirk does that aren’t special. About how he’s your favourite person and you’re his and he hasn’t once made you feel like you’re imposing on his chances to find a guy who would actually love him in the way he deserves. He makes you feel like your kind of love—‘cause it is love no matter what kind it is—is perfect.

‘Anyway,’ Jake says, waggling his finger at Dave and Karkat. ‘Why do none of us know how you two got together?'

'Because it's fucking private,' Karkat says. 'And embarrassing.'

'Oh you gotta tell us now!' you say, grateful for the distraction.

'When he says embarrassing, he means manipulative,' Dave says, grinning. 'And when he says private, he means, well, we were together in every other way except for one before that day.'

'I didn't manipulate you!' Karkat protests. 'I meant it! How was I supposed to know you'd react like that?'

'Because you know everything about me, dude.'

'What happened!!' you demand.

'Rose and Kanaya's engagement party, right, so obviously I'm wearing a suit,' Dave starts.

'Why didn't you and Dirk have an engagement party?' Karkat asks.

'Jeez, thirsty much?' Dave teases.

'I told him he looked like Obama in his suit,' Karkat says abruptly.

Silence falls on your party. They have to be joking.

'What.'

'Yeah,' Dave says. 'So obviously I—'

'Nope!' Karkat interrupts.

'How did Karkat even know what Obama looks like?' you ask.

'Because I carry a picture of him in my wallet,' Dave says at the same time that Karkat says, 'Because there's a picture of him on our mantlepiece.'

'That's why you were late!' Jake says.

'Yup,' Dave says, looking surprisingly smug for a guy who didn’t want to tell the story two beers ago.

'I meant it,' Karkat grumbles into his soda. 'He had an air of authority or something, he looked like if younger Obama had break-up bleached his hair.'

'How dare you, this is natural,’ Dave says.

You and Jake raise your eyebrows. Admittedly, you’ve never seen Dave with regrowth, but come on.

‘Oh,’ you realise. ‘He came out of the tubes with white hair.’

‘Stress from you being the one responsible for my fuckin’ birth, presumably,’ Dave says.

You stop drinking when Karkat nearly falls over getting up to take a leak. The bonfire was burning low anyway. It’s a nice night, so you and Jake, the least drunk of the party, pull out a tarp and bedding so you can sleep under the stars. Every now and then a log drops in the bonfire and sends orange sparks into the sky.

Jake tells you stories about constellations, his voice quiet and low like a reassuring documentary narrator. Karkat shuffles his sleeping bag so he can rest his head on Dave’s shoulder and you see Dave squeeze him close. They fall asleep quickly, the strange environment apparently not bothering them. Maybe it’s that they feel at home together. You feel kind of sappy, after all the stories and probably the beer.

‘Hey John,’ Jake asks quietly.

‘Hey Jake.’

‘I might be barking up a tree very far from the one you’re perched on, but I’ve got an idea in my head. You don’t have to answer, tell me to go get buggered if you want.’

You smile at the stars before turning over so you can face him.

‘Are you in love with Dirk?’ he asks.

You hesitate. You didn’t want to talk about it. You barely want to think about it. It’s scary, not knowing. A lot of things about it are scary, actually.

‘I don’t know,’ you whisper.

‘You don’t have to,’ he says. ‘I won’t say anything. I just thought I’d ask, in case you wanted a confidant.’ Jake wriggles his arm out of his sleeping bag so he can tap his nose. ‘Mum’s the word.’

‘Is it mean of me to marry him?’ you say, quiet enough that Jake moves a bit closer to you.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘He asked. But he’s got an awful habit of not pushing until he snaps. I don’t think you’re mean, John. And I think you make him very happy, just being you. Maybe it’d be mean to take that away.’

You make an uncertain face and Jake claps you on the arm.

‘Talk to me, maybe after the wedding. That’ll be a good party no matter what, right?’

‘Yeah,’ you say, trying to cheer yourself up. ‘It’d be a dick move to cancel a week out just because I’m confused, right?’

‘Right!’

Right. Okay. You’ll think about it in a few weeks, maybe. With Jake, even. He gets what it’s like to not want to think about things, and what Dirk’s like. He’s good at secrets, too.

Chapter Text

When Kanaya and Rose got married, they got ready together. They couldn’t stand to be apart for a second, and walked down the aisle arm in arm. You see a lot of value to that, specifically the part where you don’t have to panic about John standing you up, but Jane asked with her big blue eyes if she could help you get ready and you felt pre-emptive guilt about even thinking of excluding Roxy and you knew it would just get more and more crowded if you kept thinking like that.

So you’re at Jane and Jake’s with Roxy and Callie, all lounging in the “ceremonial pillowfort” that is definitely not traditionally but honestly should be. Saturday morning cartoons, an institution that Earth C very correctly preserved, are on quietly in the background. John’s at Rose’s, hopefully having a good time too.

He came back from his bachelor’s considerably fresher than you; despite his actually containing beer, at least they slept. And they arrived home half an hour before you, having had a much better breakfast than the fries swimming in gravy and cheese that had been Jade’s brilliant idea. He helped you to your bed and got you down to your briefs, then stroked your hair until you slept. You’d felt jittery and wired after dancing most of the night and just being hyped up by company, but he settled you down like it was the easiest thing in the world.

‘Your head doesn’t seem like it’s here with us watching this beautiful thembo solve crimes with the power of friendship,’ Roxy says, poking you on the cheek. You grab her finger and bite the tip of it gently in rebuke.

‘Was just wondering what the other team are up to,’ you say.

‘Not eating as well, I’d bet. My molly’s a classy hostess!’

Oh shit, you’d almost forgotten about your pancakes. That’s approaching illegal. Jane’s put little choc chips in them and they’re fucking heavenly.

‘Do you have any goss about John’s party for us Jakey?’ Roxy asks. ‘We haven’t stopped talking about Dirk’s.’

‘The video is nearly ready,’ Callie says cheerfully.

‘Not a peep,’ Jake says, smiling guilelessly. ‘It was berries of fun, naturally. But we didn’t even approach half-seas over, not for lack of resources. We did find out how Dave and Karkat eventuated, which was something.’

‘I want to hear that from you, actually,’ you say. ‘I’m pretty sure John’s fucking with me.’

Roxy makes a noise of excited interest and shuffles closer. You swap your fork to your other hand and sling an arm around her shoulders. She presses her head into you affectionately.

‘As I gather it,’ Jake says, ‘Karkat was rather taken with Dave’s apparel. He compared him to Obama, which promoted Dave quick-smart to cake-eating.’

‘Please tell me that isn’t as gross as it sounds. That’s my brother.’

‘I just meant they got a bit gay with each other,’ Jake protests. ‘They didn’t exactly distribute visual aids.’

You sigh and take another bite of pancakes. So either John wasn’t lying or Jake is too. Jake doesn’t really lie, except when he’s lied to himself so thoroughly that he thinks he’s telling the truth but deep down knows he isn’t or when he avoids the topic. And that comes with a lot more ridiculous word usage than his mildly uncomfortable with the topic Jakeisms.

After breakfast and cartoons, Jane puts the others to work making sure all your clothes are wrinkle free and takes your shades off so she can put subtle makeup on you. Just enough to remove your triangular tan lines, reduce the shadows under your eyes and okay, yeah, a little eyeliner. You liked it, okay?

‘You’re okay, aren’t you dear?’ she asks quietly.

You can hear Roxy laughing from the other room. Jane is looking at you all concerned and supportive and you don’t know if you can lie to her.

‘You know me, Jane,’ you say.

‘I do, that’s why I ask.’

She smiles kindly, her eyes still serious. Then she gives up and keeps filling in your eyebrows so the foundation she used on your tan-line isn’t on them.

‘I love him,’ you whisper.

‘Oh, Dirk,’ Jane says. She puts the pencil down carefully and draws you into a hug, your face innocently pressed just above her breasts. It feels very … maternal.

‘I’m okay,’ you mumble. ‘It’s fine, I get to be around him every day.’

She releases you and sighs at the foundation you got on her shirt. She fixes your face up and then tells you to close your eyes as she sprays you with something to keep it in place.

‘I’m not going to make either of us talk about something like this when we’re both wearing make-up and our much less subtle friends are just in the other room,’ she says, holding your hair back with a hand as she sprays. ‘But I love you so much. And I will interview second husbands with you if you want. Maybe we’ll find you a troll who could throw you through a wall, you’d like that, right?’

‘Jesus, Jane,’ you laugh. It’s not quite happy. You swallow and take a breath, exhaling heavily through your nose as you compose yourself. ‘Probably, yeah. Not on my wedding day though.’

‘Well shucks, I hadn’t realised you already had plans!’ she teased.

‘What plans?’ Roxy asks from the doorway. She’s holding your suit bag and looking alive with laughter.

‘Just shackling myself to the biggest dork on the planet,’ you say easily.

‘Oh that,’ she says. ‘I was hoping it was honeymoon related, ra-row.’ She winks with her whole face as she makes a sexy cat clawing gesture.

‘Am I done?’ you ask Jane.

‘You look lovely,’ she says, nodding.

You smile at her gratefully and rise to your feet.

‘Dirky no, I have your suit, you can’t get me when I have your suit!’

Roxy manages to keep your suit safely in extended arms as you chase her over Jane’s cottage, both of you laughing like lunatics.

*

It’s been a while since it’s just been you and your friends. You don’t know where Kanaya and Karkat are, even though you were expecting them at Rose’s too, and you’re okay with this. It feels like a sleepover with just the four of you.

‘That is where you are fucking wrong, Lalonde,’ Dave drawls. ‘I’ll fight you over this. Best Cage flick is Face Off.’

‘Have you even watched it?’ Rose asks.

‘Honestly don’t see what that has to do with it,’ Dave replies. ‘I’ve read the wikipedia pages on every single pre-2009 Cage movie and I’ve been reliably informed that makes me an expert.’

‘Dirk isn’t a reliable source on anything,’ Jade says. ‘The other day he told me that he was really, really sure that you only talk so much because of Roxy.’

‘No way,’ you say.

‘He did! In the middle of about a million other words!’

Rose points at Jade, eyebrows raised at Dave as if this is sufficiently discrediting information.

‘It doesn’t matter if Dave’s wrong,’ you say. ‘The issue is that there’s not a single universe out there—I checked!—in which his best movie is National Treasure 2.’

Dave points to you in much the same way that Rose is still pointing at Jade.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen any of his movies,’ Jade says.

Your heart does something weird as you’re reminded again that this isn’t the sister who you got so close to over three years of isolation. You smile weakly and shove at her shoulder.

‘You didn’t raid my movies on the ship?’ you ask, mock-offended.

‘Couldn’t! I raided Rose’s,’ she says, falsely cheery.

Oh shit. Your land exploded. You don’t know how to take it back so you look wide-eyed at Dave. He shoves Jade into you and you end up with your arms around her. Hugs, right, that’s what you do. You whisper, ‘Sorry,’ to her.

‘What kind of movies did Rose have?’ Dave asks, as if you didn’t just completely swallow your own foot.

‘A lot of pretty slow ones,’ Jade says, not making any effort to move out of your cuddle. ‘There was one called The Birds, that made me think of you and your crows.’

‘We had the full Hitchcock collection,’ Rose says. ’Rear Window is his best.’

Dave groans and you know the whole argument is about to get a billion times more stupid. It makes you smile though. Maybe you should do what Dirk does with his friends and make sure you see each other. You maybe have been avoiding them? Not, like, individually. But you thought for sure this kind of thing would hurt a lot more than it is.

Not that the Jade thing didn’t hurt, but that kind of slip actually happens a lot. You’re both kinda dumb about it. But you were afraid Rose would tell you that you were “isolating yourself from anyone who could tell you weren’t okay” or something. It was easier to see them all in other groups, where it’d be inappropriate for things to get heavy.

‘What do you think of Dirk and me?’ you ask, not really paying attention to the argument you’re interrupting.

All three of your friends look at you, Jade wriggling out of your arms so she can be part of the firing squad.

‘Just, because,’ you say helplessly, ‘like in a bro way. Like, we work good as bros, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Dave says.

‘You were kind of miserable before this, John,’ Jade says.

Rose stays silent, smiling in a way that isn’t quite agreement. You don’t think you want to hear her opinion when you have to marry Dirk today. But you also can’t have it in the back of your head that she has something to say.

‘Rose?’

‘You’re good for one another, for the most part,’ she says. ‘And I’m uniquely positioned to say that I look forward to your self-imposed isolation reducing even further. I’ve missed you.’

‘Is this a good idea?’ you ask, slightly desperately. You can feel Dave and Jade’s eyes on you, but you can’t care.

‘Yes,’ she says, full of Rose tier confidence. A tightness in your chest eases. ‘Relax, John. Wedding day jitters are very normal.’

*

You smooth down your jacket for the millionth time. It’s becoming a tic. John’s colours suit you surprisingly well and you fully intend to steal his hoodie after this. Is this taking longer than it should? You feel like it’s taking a long time.

‘Is this taking a long time?’ you ask Dave.

‘Dude, chill,’ he says. You smooth your jacket down again and he puts his hand on your arm to stop you. ‘I love you but you’re giving me second-hand anxiety.’

Jake stands up from the front row (you’re only using the front row) and tugs you away from Dave.

‘Dirk, I’m hoping quite hard that this goes well.’

You smile. ‘Thanks, man.’

‘I also believe in you.’

He hesitates and you exhale in what’s almost a laugh.

‘Dude, if you’re going to impart some last advice, you’d better hurry it up. My fianc-gay’s gonna walk in any second.’

He lets his breath out in a woosh and looks you in the eye with uncharacteristic solumnity.

‘It’s like in the classic movie, Just Go With It, did you manage to watch it before the world ended?’

‘Jake, I’ve put up with a lot from you, but you are not talking to me about an Adam Sandler movie on my wedding day, regardless of the sincerity levels involved.’

‘He’s easy-breezy, she’s a bit uptight, but they have fun and they’re very good at faking it!’

‘I’m Jennifer Anniston,’ you observe.

‘Yes and he’s Adam Sandler,’ Jake says, eyes wide like he’s imparting some essential information.

Then Rose coughs delicately and you watch her raise her bow to her violin.

‘Good talk, Jake,’ you say.

You move back into place and Dave claps you on the shoulder and shakes you a little bit. Jake sits back down.

The doors open with a controlled gust of wind and John steps through. He looks so fucking handsome in a suit of plums and pinks, a black shirt to contrast with your white. Your face is bare and you know there’s too much emotion in your eyes but you can’t stop looking at him. He’s going to be your husband. Yours.

*

You’re on your own outside the church. Neither of you are religious, but Dirk told you that you deserved a movie level wedding and all your favourites happen in churches. He cares so much about you it hurts.

You straighten your shirt cuffs absently. You’re allowed to take as much time as you need. Rose will know when to start the music and when you hear it, you’ll know you’re ready. She makes you feel certain.

You lean your forehead against the cool stone of the church and breathe. You’re going to stand in front of your friends, profess your eternal broship to Dirk and party for a bit. And then you’re going to go for a honeymoon.

It’s all ironic of course. He’s never expected anything from you. He’s only initiated kissing you twice, even though sometimes he cuddles up to you in movies and he is affectionate in other ways.

It’s just … How far can you take this?

Will you be old men together, married for so long that no one can remember it’s all a joke, raising your three cats together and holding hands as you do the crossword? Maybe you should just let him win. If getting married isn’t too much, the only way you can see this ending is if you want to date someone for real. And you don’t want anyone to get in between the two of you.

It’s more than that. You want him to be only yours. You want him to be your for real husband, because that thing with the cats actually sounds great. You like kissing him. Sometimes you wonder what he’d be like if you wanted to have gay sex with him and you know he’d be just as gentle and attentive and kind as he is with everything else. And he’d look at you that soft way he does sometimes that makes you feel like the floor’s not under your feet anymore and like you could save a million universes and still not deserve someone looking at you like that.

Is that love? Do you love him?

You hear Rose’s violin and stand up straight. You didn’t realise you were ready, but you guess she knows better than you. You take a deep breath in, move to the middle of the doors, and exhale.

The doors open with your breath. You can’t see anything inside for your first couple of steps, eyes still getting used to the contrast of light. But then you see what he’s done for you. What everyone’s done.

Rose is playing her violin to the side, her tongue poking out of her black lips in concentration the way you’ve only seen a couple of times. It’s still adorable. Your friends are all turned to see you, smiling and dressed up all fancy. There’s so many flowers, spilling over pots hanging from every pew, raining down from netting above you, in a vibrant arch at the end of the aisle.

And in front of the arch, you barely see Dave. Dirk’s in a blue suit that makes him look taller and thinner than usual. It’s a mark of how good he looks that you even manage to take in what he’s wearing, though. Because he’s looking at you like you’re the whole world.

He loves you too.

*

John arrives at the altar and smiles at you like you’re sharing a secret. You need to touch him, and reach out to link your pinky with his. He looks down and then smiles at you like he thinks you’re a massive dork, but he likes it. You make yourself focus on Dave.

‘Yo,’ he says as his opener. It’s gender inclusive, succinct and secular. ‘This might be an unconventional setup, but we’re here to celebrate a special kind of love. The love of Riggs and Murtaugh. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Cameron Poe and the guy John Cusack plays. The love of two bros. But first up, can I get a dayum for how hot my bros are looking today?’

John looks at you with raised eyebrows as your friends dutifully intone “dayum” at Dave’s prompting. Jane’s dad’s voice is particularly notable, more adult than the rest. You give him the smallest smile you can manage while feeling particularly pleased with yourself.

‘Sorry for this part,’ you whisper to him as Dave decaptchalogues his boombox and leans himself heavily on John’s shoulder.

‘Yo we’re here today to make a marriage, a special kinda bond ya can’t disparage, with the prince and the heir and a big carriage, not for babies just like in general, a mode a transport, a way of gettin … from the wedding to the bedding we be shredding all these beats, they be shedding all they clothes, they be spreading all they—hooooooos, and meanwhile, i’mma freestyle, ya boy’s versatile, you wanna reconcile my profile with my hella guile, cause a boy this pretty shouldn’t be this witty—’

The rap goes on for a very long time. John glares at you for almost the entire experience. You can feel it, even though you keep your eyes on Dave as he slouch-hops his way around the church, high-fiving people and crouching in the aisle and basically being the dorkiest rapper you’ve ever seen in your life. It damn near brings a tear to your eye.

‘Shout out to Jane and Jake for providing the fine ass material for John, and I do. Mean. Fine. Ass.’ You smile winningly at John and he rolls his eyes at you. ‘And to me and Rose for occasionally referring to Dirk as our kid for funsies.’

It seems like it’s no time at all before it’s time for the vows. You’ve arranged so John goes first so you can choose which pocket to pull yours out of (you have one that’s sweet and kinda romantic, one that’s sweet but just in a bro way, a funny one, a rap, and one that just sort of happened when you started thinking about the history of marriage and really is more of a lecture).

John’s is in his left inside-jacket pocket, and he looks up at you with a quavering smile before he starts to read, head bowed like he doesn’t know he can lift the paper up. You can vividly imagine him doing school book reports or whatever like this. It makes your heart ache something fierce with love. Your left hand is in his, but he’s not remotely paying attention to your sweet hand holding.

‘Dirk. If you had told me a year ago that we would be getting married today, I would have thought it was a pretty good prank.’ You smile at yet another example in the evidence pile that the prank-master you were warned about thinks that lying to someone is a prank.

‘And it still seems a bit crazy that I am here with you, but it’s the good kind of crazy. You make me the good kind of crazy. Like how this all started because I always believed you would make me wear a chicken costume if I backed out of a dare, and I knew you would wear it without me even having to make you.

‘You make me crazy because you’ve been telling me you’re making a “better” roomba for like three months now and I don’t know what that means but our carpets are really not clean. And because it doesn’t matter how much I mess with you I’ve never got you to put so much as salt in your coffee and you’re useless in the mornings.

‘And because …’ John hesitates, glances up at you and then looks to the side of his paper in a way that’s probably only obvious to you and Dave. ‘And because whenever I see you over working yourself or not sleeping or hanging from the ceiling, I turn into this guy who sees that kind of thing and knows what to do to help you, and I’ve never been that guy before.’

He didn’t read that. He glances up at you again and you make yourself give him a small smile of encouragement. You need to steal that paper and find out what it said that he had to revise it.

‘I vow to always tell you when you’re being dumb. I vow to sometimes tell you when you’re being smart. I vow to never leave you hanging for a high-five, no matter what for.’

He looks up at Dave doubtfully and Dave gives him a nod.

Dave murmurs under his breath, ‘Therefore I, John Egbert.’

John clears his throat and repeats.

‘Take Dirk Strider to be my husband,’ Dave, and then John says.

John slips the ring on your finger and keeps holding your hand. You turn hands together so that your hand is on the bottom and you can return the favour. After you read your vows.

*

Dirk takes his vows out of his right pants pocket and flicks the paper open with deceptive casualness. He’s got this strange curve of anxiety, where when he’s totally fine he doesn’t think about how he expresses himself. As he gets more uncomfortable, he starts affecting more “chill” behaviour, slouching and drawling. Then as it gets worse he tenses all the way up, speaking all clipped and frantic. At the moment he just looks too cocky to be fine, but not by too much. Stage fright, not terror.

‘John, I fuckin’ love you, man.’ Your breath sticks in your throat as he just says that, so easily. ‘You make me live, and you’re all I see. You’re the best friend, that I ever had.’

You laugh and duck your head down to nearly touch your joined hands. That’s your song. You told him that was your song.

‘I can’t believe you’re laughing at my vows,’ he says. ‘You know I’ll never be lonely, you’re my only one and I love the things, I really love the things that you do.’

‘Dirk,’ you try to scold him, but you’re also trying not to laugh, and you just kind of choke his name.

‘Okay, okay,’ he says, smiling honest and open at you like you so rarely get to see. ‘You are my best friend, though. You make me better. You make me like mornings, because you’re there to give me shit. You showed me how to ice skate and you were so much better than me and I liked that, I don’t think there are words to express how …’

He takes a breath, and meets your eyes. He’s looking at his paper only half the time. You kinda expected him to have it memorised. This probably means if you search his pockets, you’ll find other versions.

‘I vow to always bring you back down to Earth. I vow to let you get away with your terrible pranks, and to not try to decode your magic tricks. I vow to never back down from your challenges. I vow to be your best friend, as long as you want me.’

You squeeze his hand and he smiles at you again. You want to kiss him. Soon.

‘Therefore I, Dirk Strider, take John Egbert to be my husband,’ he says, not needing prompting and tucking his vows away smoothly.

He slides your wedding ring on until it bumps with your engagement ring. You loved him then, didn’t you? You feel like the truth is pressing on your tongue after you ignoring it for so long and you don’t know how long you can keep from telling him.

‘And by the power given to me by virtue of my own divinity,’ Dave says, ‘I declare you both legally married. You may now bump fists or kiss or whatever it is you two want to do.’

You pull Dirk by the waist into a kiss before he can try and avoid it with a bro gesture. He takes your face in both hands and returns it with an enthusiasm that you weren’t expecting. The thrill it gives you zips down your body, startles butterflies in your belly and it happens again with every shift of his lips.

Dave starts clapping and Dirk lets you go and draws back. He licks his lips and you almost pull him back. You shake yourself and smile at your approaching friends, to receive hugs and congratulations. You look over Roxy’s shoulder as you hug her and at the back of Dirk’s head. You’ll be all alone with him soon enough.

Chapter Text

The reception passes in a blur. You don’t think you pay attention to a single thing, because your eyes are just constantly on Dirk. He’s happy, both of you are in a way that you associate with the first month or two after arriving on Earth C, before everything got all complicated and boring in one go. Looking back on it, you think that who you are now could probably handle all that a lot better than who you were then.

Some presents happen. Some are weird (Dave), some are traditional homeware type things (Jane) and Callie just gives you a USB and a freaking adorable wink. You and Dirk elect not to open anything the Lalondes give you. That’s a future Egbert-Strider problem. Strider-Egbert? Stridebert? Egder? You didn’t actually ever decide on that, apparently that’s some bureaucratic nonsense that happens later.

Before long, it’s time to head to your honeymoon. Being gods, you scoped out an unsettled island and Dave went back in time and had a little holiday house built. You zap the two of you there, hands in Dirk’s and feeling real dumb about how that’s making you feel excited-nervous-happy as if you haven’t been holding his hands with regularity for nearly a year now.

‘Sweet digs,’ Dirk says approvingly. ‘God I’m beat. Weddings are tiring, dude. Did Rose tell you how I straight up crashed in the entryway after her wedding?’

‘She did not,’ you say.

‘Mhm,’ Dirk confirms, stretching his arms above his head and walking towards the back of the house and presumably the bedrooms. You hadn’t actually bothered to check in with Dave. Apart from the artwork, it’s looking pretty tasteful so far.

The first door he opens (you following behind him like an apparently gay puppy) you only get a glimpse of before he closes it again.

‘What’s in there?’ you ask, craning your neck.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Let’s scope out the rest—god damn it Egbert.’

Halfway through your sentence you remember you have wind powers, bitch, and a closed door means nothing to you. You float through the wall like Slimer and oh, yeah, you can see why maybe a couple of dudes as deep in denial as the two of you would walk away from this. Dirk opens the door and joins you, crossing his arms.

‘So,’ you say, staring at the massive bed, heart-shaped headboard and stupid amount of rose petals.

‘So,’ Dirk agrees.

You know what, you’re not this desperate to dive into being gay. You’re still not 100% on that one, and this is not the thing to make you certain. It’s the thing to make you turn on your heel and open the door across the hall.

Mercifully, there’s a spare bedroom behind it. The bed is smaller and lacking the heart headboard, though also covered in rose petals. You sigh enormously.

‘They actually make the room smell nice,’ Dirk says. ‘Hey, do you think you’re supposed to actually get down and dirty on the petals? Or do you awkwardly shove them off the bed first, inevitably fail to get them all and end up with them in your crack.’

‘I think you do it under the covers,’ you say wisely. ‘Dibs on this room.’

‘C’mon, man,’ Dirk protests.

‘You’re the heart guy,’ you say with a shrug.

He groans and leaves you to go to his room. You hear the whump as he falls face-first onto his bed. You look in time to see a few petals were disturbed into the air and are floating to the ground. You twirl your pointer finger in a few circles and send a mini tornado over to him to cover him with them. He swears at you and you have to stifle a laugh.

You close the door and decaptchalogue your bag. Before long you’re in cosy pyjamas and have found a bathroom to brush your teeth in. When you walk past Dirk’s room again, the door’s still open but he’s sat on the bed and is staring vacantly into nothing. Talking to Hal, you assume.

It takes you a while to fall asleep. You’d like to blame the unfamiliar environment, but really you can’t shut your brain up. You have a real talent for that usually, which given the amount of fucked up shit you’ve been through is kind of essential. It’s weird that something that’s pretty not-fucked up is keeping you awake.

It’s not even you contemplating whether you’re gay. You don’t think you care about what the answer to that is. Dave’s given you enough talks on how labels come a distant second to feelings and it’s not like you have to go buy a shirt announcing it. It’s that Dirk’s across the hall.

He always is, has been for ages. It hasn’t affected you much in the past, but now it is. He’s right there, maybe sleeping, maybe awake like you are. Is he disappointed you aren’t having a real honeymoon? Are you?

When you fall asleep, all you’ve figured out is that you’re far enough gone to lie awake and think about him.

You wake up to the smell of coffee and bacon, which makes zero sense. You make your way to the kitchen and yeah, you’re still dreaming, because there’s not a chance that Dirk is awake before you and cooking breakfast. Wearing an apron.

He hears you come in and stops in his preparation to walk close enough to get his greeting kiss before he goes back to the pan and pokes the bacon with a spatula.

‘I wanted to bring you this in bed,’ he says. ‘Guess someone isn’t as good at calculating your sleep length as he says he is.’

‘Hi Hal,’ you say distractedly. ‘‘This is weird,’ you tell Dirk. ‘Both of us literally mentioned how shit you are at mornings in our actual literal wedding vows.’

Wow, you totally married him. You’re married. Focus, John!

‘I know, which means I’ve literally never made you breakfast.’

‘You’ve made me coffee.’

Dirk gives you a look. You smile at him and sit at the cute little table in the kitchen and pick up the knife and fork already laid there. You tap them on the table expectantly.

‘Jesus, I had hoped you were so awake when I get up because you’d had time to wake up, but you’re really just like this, huh.’ He plates up bacon, an egg and toast. ‘The bed head’s a cute touch, I’ll give you that.’

He smooths your hair down and presses a gentle kiss to the top of your head before going back to get his own food. Your stomach swooped when he touched you and you use every millisecond his back is turned to freak out over the fact that you’re freaking out over standard you-and-Dirk stuff. How is this standard you-and-Dirk stuff?? It’s so gay!

The actual breakfasting goes fine, because it’s pretty hard to fuck up breakfast food. The egg yolks are a bit firm and he didn’t use any salt or pepper, but that’s whatever. You fight him over doing the dishes (he cooked!) and he manages to win, so you go to sulk on the couch.

You take your laptop out to play the game you’re a little bit addicted to, and suddenly remember Callie’s USB. You plug it in, not sure what to expect.

It’s a video. It’s a video of Dirk’s bachelor party. It’s a video of Dirk’s bachelor party, in which he wore that and pole danced.

You’re so gay, you’re so gay, you’re so gay.

You bring up Pesterchum, open a window with Hal and then think better of it, shoving your laptop into your sylladex. You already decided you wanted to talk to Dirk first.

You go back into the kitchen and he looks up from the dishes. He’s wearing bright yellow gloves and he hasn’t taken his apron off. Your heart does something weird.

‘So, I’m gay for you,’ you say.

He drops the pan he was washing.

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘I’m totally gay for you,’ you say.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Yes, I am.’

This part of the conversation goes for a while, long enough for Dirk to strip off his gloves and stand in front of you so he can deny your feelings right to your face.

‘John, you’re not.’

’Dirk, I am.’

He goes to say it for like the tenth time in a row and you decide to do what they do in the movies. You step forward and attempt to shut him up by kissing him.

It does not work like in the movies. It turns out that people can avoid being kissed pretty easy? Especially if they’re nearly a head taller than you and they just lean back a bit and shove your face away with their hand.

‘What the fuck?’ Dirk asks, as if you don’t kiss him every single day. You hadn’t realised how he works with you for that. That’d be really cute if he wasn’t intent on not kissing you now.

‘Dirk!’ you say. ‘Will you just let me! I like you, okay! I think I know my own feelings!’

Dirk gives you a sceptical look. You want to kiss that off his face too, but his palm is still squishing your cheek. You take a step backwards and he puts his arm down.

‘You like me too, right?’ you say. ‘I’m not stupid.’

‘I’m not saying you are,’ Dirk says, his eyebrows bunching together in worry. ‘And I’m not saying I don’t, either, but ... This isn’t real. What we feel isn’t real.’

You grab him by the upper arms and shake him. He only moves a little and doesn’t magically start confessing his love for you. Ugh. You have to talk about this more.

‘This is the realest thing I’ve ever done! I know that sounds dumb because of how this started, but it’s true!’ You scrunch your face up as you try and get the right words out. This isn’t exactly your strength. ‘Ignore the bet, ignore … I don’t know, it’s all tangled up, I don’t know what you should ignore. But focus on the fact that I have never felt the way I feel about you, not for anyone, not even a little bit.

‘I wake you up in the mornings because I can’t wait to see you. I have so much fun cooking and I never did that until I moved in with you. Whenever something happens to me, even when you’re right there with me, my first thought is, wow, I can’t wait to tell Dirk. I kiss you all the time, and bros just don’t do that!’

Dirk takes a shuddery breath. You wish you’d insisted on taking his shades off, you can’t see enough of his expression. He runs his hand through his hair and all you can think is that you want that to be your hand, you want to calm him all the way down and get him all lazy and soft. If he’s trying to replicate that, it doesn’t work. He’s so tense.

‘Face it, John,’ he says, 'we're just two lonely people trying to hate ourselves a little less.'

'No!’ you scream, and you both flinch at the sound of your own voice. It doesn’t stop you for a second, even though you weren’t expecting to feel that much that fast. ‘Don't you fucking dare quote the sad horse cartoon at me!'

‘It’s not a cartoon, don’t be demeaning,’ Dirk says.

‘Yes it is!’

‘It’s a television series that happens to be animated, cartoons are for children.’

‘You’re not Blowjob Horsecock, Dirk!’ He sets his jaw and refuses to correct you on whatever the dumb horse is actually called. ‘Dirk, apart from anything else, you’re a good person!’

Dirk sighs and lifts his head to the roof. You hate this, you hate making him sad and anxious, but you need to get through to him.

‘Dave once told me that he didn’t think that bad guys worry about being bad,’ Dirk says. He looks back down at you, and you can feel he’s really meeting your eyes. ‘He meant it as a reassurance that I wasn’t a bad guy because I think about it all the time. But he was 16 and he didn’t realise that feeling guilty doesn’t stop you from hurting people, and having qualms doesn’t erase their hurt.’

You can’t speak. You can’t. This is your Dirk, the sweet heart who made Christmas nice again. The guy who has never once judged you for being a mess when you’re being dumb and sad. He proposed to you in the middle of an aurora, telling you that he would win if he got to keep you.

‘Look, my issues with myself aside, because I’m not actually fishing for reassurances on my little black heart here and I’m not saying I’m a Bojack kin or something. I’m saying that we’re the only two single winners. Who else were we going to fall in love with? It’s lonely, being a spare wheel and I like passing the time with you, but you know what? I like being with you because I like being the Dirk who can stop working when his fake-boyfriend asks him to, and has found some goddamned self restraint and isn’t trying to fix you, and who can make you smile. I can’t hate the man who makes you smile. And that makes hating me a little harder. Of course I love you. But it’s not real. And John, you’re fucking straight.’

You throw up your hands, say, ‘Arrgh!!’ and storm to your room. You don’t exactly slam the door but you’re not gentle with it either.

You throw yourself onto your back on the bed and kick and punch the air stupidly for a few seconds before letting your arms and legs be dead weights. He’s so frustrating! You can’t believe he didn’t follow you in here!

Except he doesn’t do that, not really. He lets you have all the space you need. Like he said, he’s never tried to fix you. Once you asked him about that, when you hadn’t been outside in over three weeks, not even to the mailbox, and you couldn’t remember when you’d last showered and you wouldn’t go to bed until it was like nine in the morning. He said that your “real friends” could do that shit, he was just the guy who made sure the bread was fresh in case you wanted to make toast. And there’s always cheese, even though he doesn’t eat it.

But he loves you, he does. He just said he does! Kind of. But you saw his face at the wedding, that wasn’t fake. And in the video!

You pull your laptop out again and plug your headphones in. You skip to the part where Dirk has Roxy in a wrestling hold and is trying to sound casual about the idea of you pole dancing. You didn’t think men could pole dance until you saw Dirk doing it, the movie they referenced a few times wasn’t out in your time. You don’t think you’d look like Dirk.

You’ve seen Dirk in his swimshorts plenty. You’ve seen him just in a towel. He’s thrown his shirt (and then both shoes) at you when he ran out of cushions in reach and you wouldn’t stop telling him bad jokes. But Dirk like this, with a camera lingering on the way his muscles move and then hold, when you can look at his focused expression without having any other distractions, where he’s so completely happy …

He’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen, and he’s blushing because Roxy made him think of you with them. You. And it’s not like you think that you’re hideous, you look a lot like Jake and everyone seems to like that after all, but you play video games where Jake exercises obsessively. Obviously there’s a difference.

Which Dirk knows! Because he too has seen you in your swimshorts and coming out of the shower and you know, in general. But you’ve wondered before, if maybe he was attracted to you, and you think he probably is. And he likes you as a person so, AARRRGHH! What is even the problem!!!

JOHN: what is even the problem!!!
HAL: I am not the person to ask that.
JOHN: i TRIED talking to him!
HAL: John, I’ve told you before that I won’t be a spy for either of you.
JOHN: okay, ignore that then.
JOHN: you believe me, right?
HAL: That you’re “gay” for Dirk?
HAL: I’m neutral on the subject.
JOHN: i like him!
JOHN: i like him and i want to kiss him and i want to be his real husband.
HAL: Your wedding was legally binding, you are his real husband.
JOHN: you know what i mean.
HAL: Do I?
JOHN: hal!
JOHN: i’ve talked to you about this. sort of.
HAL: That’s a helluva modifier there.
JOHN: i couldn’t talk about it properly when i didn’t really know.
JOHN: but i do know now.
JOHN: we should be triumphantly making out or something right now.
JOHN: i did the brave thing and said it.
HAL: And in a week?
JOHN: i was thinking we should get a cat.
HAL: You cannot be serious.
JOHN: wait.
JOHN: i didn’t know if i was gay or not, but dirk does.
HAL: We don’t like the restrictiveness of labels.
JOHN: i don’t have any other words for it!!!!!!
HAL: Try “mlm”. It’s an initialism for man-loving-man.
HAL: Though not for me, just for him.
JOHN: wait are you
JOHN: never mind that right now!
JOHN: obviously i love and support you in your thing, but i’m having a specific freak out!
JOHN: dirk knows that he’s mlm.
HAL: Yes.
JOHN: so why didn’t he ever tell me he liked me?
JOHN: it’s because i’m wrong, isn’t it?
HAL: John, wait.

You close your laptop lid with a snap. You hear footsteps coming toward the room just as you close your eyes and turn into the breeze.

Chapter Text

When you’re part of the breeze, time and space kind of become things other people worry about. Your self encompasses the whole world and you’re everything and nothing all at once. It’s hard to care about anything when you’re in thousands of first breaths and last exhalations and everything in between.

But you do care, you care so much and that makes it impossible to remain incorporeal. Your emotions weigh you down, force you into the shape of a man, and lead you to Rose’s door.

‘And John, talk. To him, but also to me. Especially after your honeymoon.’

You guess the honeymoon’s over. You knock on the door and Rose opens it just as you pull your fist away.

‘Kanaya’s out,’ she says with a gentle smile. ‘And I’ve just made a pot of tea I couldn’t possibly drink by myself. You may have the best timing on the planet, John Egbert, but don’t let my brother hear me say that.’

‘I’m gonna tell him,’ you say listlessly, following her inside.

There’s so many books just absolutely everywhere in her living room, not remotely confined to shelves. You pick one up from the coffee table and hold it to your nose, ignoring Rose’s amused look. The cover says The Prophecy of the Damned and has a picture of a wizard standing on a cliff, beard and hair caught in the wind.

‘Do you remember the last time the two of us were alone?’ she asks as you sit on her couch.

You struggle to shake your head. You feel the opposite of air right now, like you’re made out of a really heavy sludge.

‘We’ve never been alone in person for more than ten minutes,’ Rose says, turning away to pour tea.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I imagine that someone so opposed to self reflection would be loathe to jam with someone like me. I don’t actually emotionally vivisect my friends anymore. We’ve all changed a bit since we were 13.’

‘You said to come talk to you,’ you say.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m going to try something, and no amount of spooky Sburb powers are going to help me get it right, so … Just deal with it, okay?’

She puts the teapot down and then reaches towards you. You’re a bit confused, but she keeps shuffling towards you until she’s almost hugging you and you take pity on her and do the rest of the work.

She’s not as bad at hugging as everyone jokes. She just gets really stiff when she thinks about it too much because she knows it’s not a strong point, and stiffness isn’t really among the things people list as good attributes in hugs. But when you squeeze her tight enough for her to relax her arms, it’s nice. She’s shorter than you and she feels kind of precious to hold. Like you’ve earned something by getting past those spiky defenses.

You let her go and clear your throat of the tears threatening in it.

‘Sorry I’ve been avoiding you,’ you say.

She holds your hand and looks at you with understanding eyes. She hands you a cup. You almost can’t make the effort to put your hand in the right shape to hold things. It smells good, though. You sit up straighter to smell it properly.

‘Do you know what happened?’ you ask her.

‘Only a feeling,’ she says. ‘Perhaps you better tell me from the start.’

Rose gives you a little wry smile when you start way at the start, from your 13th birthday. You tell her how you always felt something was missing, how you thought for a while that it was just that you were destined to play the game but the empty feeling never went away. You tell her about losing your dad and how Mr Crocker makes you want to throw things or hug him, usually at the same time, and he accepts you no matter how you’re processing.

You tell her how lonely you’ve felt, being the only one from a timeline where everything went wrong, except for Roxy who is just so fine with it that you feel extra dumb for having issues. You say how Dirk doesn’t make you remember all that because you never knew the other him and he just makes you think of other things anyway.

You talk about living with Dirk, about looking out for him and how he looks out for you in a way that doesn’t feel smothering. About how he has his own issues so yours don’t ache so much, and they don’t feel as bad anymore anyway. About how he’s your favourite person. About how you like him, so much. Maybe love him. About how you don’t really know what love is, but he makes you want to know.

About how he says it isn’t real.

She just listens as you unload everything onto her, sipping her tea and sometimes nodding or making a little hum to encourage you. When you haven’t spoken for a couple of minutes, she pats your knee and starts to reply.

‘You’ve come a long way,’ she says. ‘It’s very brave of you to say all that.’

You make a face and she laughs.

‘Dirk hasn’t talked to me about his feelings. But I’m uniquely positioned to provide some insight, not because of my powers, but because we’re quite similar. I’ll blame him for that. John, unlike you, Dirk thinks about how he feels constantly. I imagine that he’s been in love with you since the beginning, and that he’s been aware of it for almost as long.’

‘But he said it wasn’t real,’ you say, frowning with confusion.

Rose sighs, tucks her hair behind her ear, and pours more tea.

‘You began this bet almost a year ago. That’s a long time to suppress feelings. I think he needs to believe it’s not real, so that he doesn’t have to feel how hard it is for him. He’s okay with suffering, more than he should be, but this is a lot. And I truly think he was willing to see this out until the end. It couldn’t be real for him, or he’d collapse under the weight of it.’

Confused hope floods your chest. Does that mean you get to keep him? What do you do?

‘Going up to him and telling him that you’re “gay for him” isn’t enough. It sounds like you’re trying it out for a whim and he won’t let you progress into a romance that you might regret and therefore let it ruin what you have. You need to show him you mean it. And not by talking like you just did with me, convincing though it was.’

‘How?’ you whisper.

‘Surely you’ve seen enough movies to know the answer to that,’ Rose says, her eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘Go do something stupid.’

*

You buy a whiteboard and markers, because that’s how the best ideas happen, and zap them up into the sky with you. You’re paranoid about running into Dirk before you’re ready, so you manipulate the air under the board and spend literally an hour brainstorming before you realise you need an expert. You zap the board somewhere safe (the roof of yours and Dirk’s house) and breeze over to Dave’s house. After eavesdropping for a bit, you determine that Dirk isn’t there and knock on the door.

‘Hi John!’ Jade says. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?’

You actually aren’t super clear on what day it is. Stupid breeze bullshit. But apparently it hasn’t been so long that you should have been back, which is good. You’re momentarily anxious about what Dirk’s been doing, but you’re on a mission! No time!

‘Hey,’ you say. ‘I still am, kinda, I just wanted Karkat’s help with something.’

Jade doesn’t question this. She might question the mysteries of the universe on a daily basis, but Jade inherited Jake’s brilliant quality of not questioning people, so she just walks back inside calling out for Karkat. You linger in the doorway, not wanting Dave to see you, who does question people.

‘I’m literally four feet away from you, you don’t have to fucking bellow across the hive like a lowblood ruffiannihalator with a big case of—oh, hi John.’

‘I need your help,’ you say, holding out your hand.

Karkat shrugs and takes it. You zap him back up to the clouds, make him a little seat out of wind and zap your whiteboard back. Karkat yelps and doesn’t stop swearing for a while. You think that stealing his breath might freak him out more, so you just wait it out.

‘—you batshitting crotchstained clown ass!’

You wait an extra couple seconds to make sure he’s finished. You’ve only seen Karkat actually scared the one time when Kanaya accidentally got knocked out in the caverns, and he went eerily quiet then so you’re not too worried that you’ve gone over any lines here. He’s actually nowhere near as bad with heights as he thinks he is.

‘What’s this crap?’ he asks, gesturing at your whiteboard. His eyes are very determinedly not looking down. You never really got that advice.

‘I want to do a grand romantic gesture,’ you say. ‘I was planning.’

‘All this says is “Heath Ledger” and “get a mullet”,’ Karkat points out.

‘I didn’t say I was planning well.’

*

JOHN: is dirk still at the honeymoon house?
HAL: Yes.
JOHN: i’m sorry for running away.
HAL: Tell him that.
JOHN: i’m gonna, i was saying it to you first.
HAL: Why?
JOHN: because you’re the one i left mid-conversation?
JOHN: and you’ve been trying to help me but i needed to get here in my own time and you have been a good bro about not making me feel dumb about that.
JOHN: you are a good bro in general.
HAL: Oh.
HAL: Thanks, John.
HAL: If you’re about to zap to the island, could I request you give us half an hour?
HAL: It’s not like we’re covered in Dorito dust or anything, it’s for another reason.
JOHN: we?
HAL: Believe me, my glasses are also absolutely not covered in Dorito dust, which of course is not obstructing my vision like the most annoying thing in the world.
JOHN: okay i’m gonna zap to the future and message you then.

JOHN: now?
HAL: Sure.
JOHN: i’d still love you if you were covered in dorito dust by the way.

You zap to the house, feeling so nervous you might puke over everyone involved. You shuffle your present to your other arm and stare at the door, wondering if you should knock. Be weird if you started now, right? You breeze through it.

Dirk’s waiting for you. His hands are in his jean pockets, his elbows sharp with tension and still damp hair pushed back from his face and hanging limply is making him look like a romantic protagonist standing in the rain.

‘Um, so,’ you start, ‘the thing is … wait, no, fuck it, I’m just gonna do the quote. Dirk, I’m just a boy. Standing in front of another boy. Asking him to love him.’

You shove your present towards him. It takes him a second to extricate his hands from his jeans, because they’re stupid and tight, the dork.

‘Should I, like, not open this till you’re gone and then go on a wacky car adventure with my British friends to win you back?’

‘Is that what happens in that movie?’ you ask. ‘No, that’d be dumb. Just open it.’

He does, tearing the paper with studied carelessness. Your first Christmas on Earth C you walked in on him talking really fast to Roxy about whether he should save the paper or just rip into it and if he ripped into it should he scrunch it, what was the proper etiquette and more importantly what was the cool move. You have a theory that he literally did practice.

He actually drops the whole box when he sees what it is, then flashes to catch it before it hits the ground.

‘Oh my god,’ he says. ‘Is this real? Or is there like a freaky Earth C version of Soul Plane I somehow haven’t found.’

‘I zapped back before the world ended and stole it,’ you say with a shrug. ‘It doesn’t have a certificate of authenticity? But that’s because of the theft.’

Dirk takes the pilot’s hat that Snoop Dogg wore in a really shitty 2000s movie and puts it reverently on his head. What is with Striders and not getting that your gifts are meant to be ironically displayed or something?

‘I don’t understand what’s happening right now, but I’m honestly too happy to care,’ he says.

‘I’m making a grand romantic gesture?’ you say. ‘Should I have made it rain? Wait, come outside and I’ll make it rain.’

‘Don’t make it rain,’ Dirk says flatly.

‘Okay.’

‘John, I …’

‘Okay, shut up. I have to do a speech.’ You probably should have written something down. Oh well. ‘I love you.’

Dirk waits for you to actually do a speech, but you’re a bit too taken aback by your own words for a few seconds.

‘I love you,’ you repeat. ‘And I told myself I just loved being around you, which is not necessarily gay, and I loved the things you do, which is not necessarily gay, and I loved the way that … Dirk, the world doesn’t hurt as much anymore. And that’s bullshit, you’re not supposed to be with me and fix me, that’s not the way it works, except of course it is? Because you didn’t relationship me better, you just gave me the space I needed to find myself and made outside not feel as bad and I fucking made myself better and it was hard. And that’s not even what I’m saying!’

You really should have written something down. You want him to hug you so bad. It’d help, probably.

‘I don’t know when I fell in love with you and I don’t know why I couldn’t see it until now but it happened and it isn’t because it’s convenient or whatever, it is just because when I see you I get giddy in my stomach.’

Dirk looks at you with pained eyebrows and a worried mouth. You step towards him and tentatively reach for his arms. He doesn’t stop you, so even though he’s still holding a box and he’s wearing a really dumb hat and really dumb shades for that matter, you lean in and kiss him. He drops the box and kisses you back, more intensely than you were expecting.

When you stop, you’re both still holding each other and your faces are so close.

‘I forfeit the bet,’ he says.

‘What?’ you ask.

‘I don’t think you’re that cruel, but if that’s the exit ramp, fucking take it.’

You kiss him again, shivering when his hand touches the small of your back. You hold him tight so he can’t pull away in case he doubts that it was a good shiver, and reach out with your tongue when he opens his mouth.

He smells like his shaving cream and your aftershave. His chest is warm against yours, he’s just warm in general, always is. It’s kind of strange that the kiss isn’t ending, that it just falls into the next kiss and the next one. You’ve never noticed the sound kisses make before, both of you breathing and wet lips brushing and a tiny noise you can’t keep in answered by a deeper noise from him.

You jump back when he bites your lip. Oh god, you forgot about the hat. You snort with laughter. He rolls his eyes and takes it and his shades off, putting them on the kitchen table. He crosses his arms, now a couple feet away from you.

‘You’re my slave,’ you remember, smiling. ‘For a whole week.’

Dirk visibly swallows and shifts his weight.

‘You’re not going to make the dude you just professed your love for miserable, are you?’

‘Tell me about your feelings,’ you say, sing-song and grinning like a maniac.

‘You’re an evil man, Egbert,’ he says. ‘And I fucking love you too, you absolute butt.’