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You know, this box step thing? It makes Karkat want to be *in* a box, six feet under. It doesn't look so hard when the instructors do it. The steps. Aren't. Hard. So why the *fuck* is his right leg crossed over his left right now?
Karkat stumbles a bit trying to start over while still keeping up with the music, and Dave. The latter squeezes Karkat's hand, causing him to look Dave in the eye, and he gives his frustrated boyfriend a smile and an encouraging nod. Easy for him to say, he lives and breathes rythm. Karkat tries his best to smile back, but it looks more like a pained grimace. He puts his right foot forward instead of sideways. He awkwardly hops to the right in an effort not to lag behind again. He's lucky he hasn't stepped on Dave's foot yet like the saddest cliché on the planet.
He takes the risk of diverting his much needed attention to look over at Rose and Kanaya's progress over Dave's shoulder. They look like they're having no trouble copying the instructors' movements. Of course they aren't. They are Rose And Fucking Kanaya. They're perfect partners. He'd like to think he and Dave are perfect partners, but with how absolutely, mortifyingly bad he are at stuff like this, he wouldn't even be mad if Dave took him out behind the woodshed. In fact, he hopes he does. He might just do it Himself.
"Karkat, pssst," Dave whispers. Karkat tears his eyes away from the brides-to-be to look at Dave again. "Try to relax, babycakes. We haven't even been dancing for ten minutes."
"Which means there's still time for me to trip and fall. Or step on your foot. Or both, somehow," Karkat sums up, whisper-shouting with his brows furrowed. Dave tuts at him, but Karkat's frown still deepens. He looks down to try to focus on his footing more. Not hanging his head in shame. Nope. "How the fuck am I gonna do this at an actual wedding, as the goddamn Man of Honour, and not add to my already laughable reputation as leader?"
"By not expecting yourself to know how within ten minutes," Dave replies instantly, emphasizing the last two words. "Also, nobody gives a shit about your bad reputation, since you don't fucking have one. You're the shit, babe, everyone who matters will agree. If I could put you on Yelp you'd have a five star review. If you ran for President you'd have a 99.9% approval rating. that last 0.01% that's missing would be from me for always being mean to yourself. Just imagine, you could be at 100% if you cut that the fuck out."
Dave squeezes Karkat's hand again, emphasizing his words, but he doesn't look up again, both because he really is desperately trying not to fuck up his footing so soon after a speech like that, and because he's not ready to agree with Dave yet. He's not 'being mean to himself'. He's just not as forgiving of his own mistakes as others are. He can't be like Vriska, who doesn't admit to making mistakes even when it's killed people, though she was still a better leader than Karkat. He can't be like Gamzee, making exceptions for himself to do horrible things, claiming outside forces were in charge of it.
Karkat makes mistakes, Karkat fucks things up. He owns that. He *has* to own that. How else will he learn?
Karkat is so lost in his thought spiral that he doesn't react to both the instructors' and Dave's ques in time, and he slips and lands flat on his ass when Dave tried to twirl him for the first time. "Shit!" Dave curses, immediately dropping down to his knees to check on Karkat, who just stays on the floor, looking dazed. Most of the couples in the class stopped to look at them, the engaged couple included. Kanaya looks startled, but her eyes visibly relax when Karkat doesn't immediately show any signs of pain, and he flops down on the floor to stare up at the ceiling. This is becoming a pattern.
Someone pauses the music. He hears Rose giggle, followed by a tiny oof, presumably from being physically reprimanded. Karkat doesn't care. Dave's shaking his shoulder, looking down at him like the guiltiest man on earth, but it takes him a few seconds to acknowledge him. When he does finally return eye contact, Dave gives him a worried smile, brows drawn together. He turns his head around to adress the instructors.
"I think me and my date here are gonna head out early. We'll still be here next week"
"No problem sir, take all the time you need."
He nods and thanks them, and turns back around to nudge Karkat and offers his hand. He lets himself be pulled up to his feet, trying not to think about how he was being stared at from every possible angle. He doesn't look at their friends as they pass them to leave, though Dave whispers a goodbye for the both of them, and they both whisper back to take care.
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Karkat's been in his workroom for the last bit. The door is closed, the curtains drawn, and the room is lit only by his desk lamp. There's a large piece of paper taped to the floor with the box step drawn on. Soft ballroom music is flowing from the speakers of his laptop, and he tries to follow along with the instructions on the paper. It's gotten pretty dirty from his shoes at this point, but he's doing okay. As long as he doesn't look up. or closes his eyes. or spaces out. He's spaced out more than a few times. He has a lot to worry about.
There's a knock on the door.
"Kitkat, you in there?"
"I am, but I'm busy right now."
"And I'm lonely. I need your magnificent bro cuddles, dude. I haven't seen you in, like," There's a beat of silence as he presumably contemplates the time. "Two hours and forty-three minutes."
Oh fucking christ, has he been in here that long? First he was doing research, then drawing up the floor map, picking out music, and it *felt* like he'd been doing the box step for decades, but he didn't think it was actually that long. Karkat guesses he must've been zoned out and stuck in his mind for a lot of it. He sighs, pauses the music and heads over to the door to open it.
"Babyyyyyy," Dave almost cooes as he catches sight of his boyfriend behind the door, and the latter smiles almost shyly. "What are you working on?"
Karkat sighs again, and gestures to his setup. "My deplorable fucking dance moves."
"Oh shit, you made a floor plan? That's actually smart as fuck. You forgot one thing though," Dave says as he moves in closer to Karkat. He takes one of the other's hands and places the other on Karkat's shoulder. Dave pulls up his eyebrows and smiles. "A dance partner."
"Urrrgghh," Karkat groans. "I really don't feel like embarassing myself in front of you today. It's bad enough embarassing my goddamn self."
"Hey now, none of that, Karkles," Dave soothes. "I could use some more practise too. And like I said, I missed you babe. Let me help out."
"God, fine, let me go put the music back on."
Dave lets him go and he walks the few steps over to his laptop, quickly pressing play.
"Okay yeah, no, I can deal with this during class, but this music is garbage."
"Excuse me?"
"How are you supposed to practise rythm when there's no beat? I've got a different idea," Dave explains as he walks over to the laptop. He types in a title on youtube, and selects a video. The song starts off with a few electric guitar notes, but after a couple of seconds an easily identifiable beat starts up alongside it. It's a little bit slower than the flow of the ballroom music too, Karkat thinks.
Dave grabs his hand and walks Karkat over to his model, positioning them so he can use it. They take up the traditional dance hold, and start on their steps.
Dave was right. He doesn't have to divert nearly as much attention to listening to the music when he can just feel it. And his earlier practise still payed off, faltering a bit at times but no missteps so far. He can feel himself starting to grin, and he looks up at his amazing boyfriend, and he grins back.
"The chorus of this song is stupidly applicable to this situation. I fucking hate it."
"Oh but you love it. You just can't handle the romance."
"Says the guy who nearly fucking cried when I took him to an orchard to pick apples as a date."
"What can I say? You made it an undeniable fact that you know me to my core that day. It's a lot for one guy to handle."
They silently repeated their movements for another minute until the song ended. Karkat realized he'd been looking at Dave instead of down at the floor for most of that time. He pulled Dave into a hug, and buried his face in his neck.
"Thambk you," he mumbled into it, speech obstructed by Dave's skin, but the latter hummed happily and hugged him back. Karkat placed a small kiss where his lips were, and pulled back to look at him.
"You wanna take a break now? You've been at it for hours dude, you deserve it."
"Yeah, that sounds nice."
Dave smiled, and walked back over to the laptop to start the song again.
"Why'd you start it again? I thought we were taking a break."
"Yeah, but I wanna make out to it."
"Good argument, I'll allow it."
The song isn't about literal dancing after all.