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How do you tell your childhood best friend that you like to take it in the ass and bathe in rivers of alien ejaculate? Not, like, in a gay way, but like. In a bisexual way. But not like in the bisexual way where you like dicks and you like vaginas, but more in the bisexual way where you’re happy with whatever’s down there but are now incredibly, incredibly attached to a specific particularly ineffable set of wriggly alien genitals? You know, like, in a way that involves absolutely none of those actual words for the easy digestion of a simple not-a-homosexual?
Dirk’s assertion that a blunt approach was the only option wasn’t incredibly reassuring, especially when Dave found out that Dirk’s example of a blunt approach involved the literal blunt end of his bleeding neck stump. Still it was hard to deny that it had to be something blatant. Subtle just didn’t cut it for John Egbert. He couldn’t just throw down a ‘by the way, Karkat and I are going out now,’ without being met with a ‘oh nice, can you pick up some milk on your way back?’
Not literally that, because they hadn’t set up any Ma-and-Pa corner shops just yet, but the point still stood.
It had been several weeks since the game had ended and proper civilization was still being plotted out, but they’d finally graduated from tents to a temporary housing structure a couple of days ago. It was, to his relief, two to a bedroom just as it had been two to a tent, and as much as it hurt him to turn down John’s offer of a shared living space a second time, it just wasn’t practical for him to share one with anyone but Karkat. For, um. Heterosexual reasons. Absolutely.
All of them had been so busy that there’d been little time for catching up in between, but at least now that they were in a house it was easier to set up things like movie breaks. This was something that John had capitalized on immediately, like he’d been waiting for it. Dave had been waiting for it as well, for different reasons. Catching up would be good, hell yes he wanted that, but it was going to be hard to talk about his time on the meteor without mentioning who- er, what, he’d been doing the whole time. And for fuck’s sake he wasn’t sitting through the full hour and forty-seven minutes of Ghost Busters without talking, if that’s what John expected.
Which meant today had to be the day. It was now, or put it off until it was even more uncomfortable- and all the while Rose was laughing it up like his suffering was the best thing since making up your own subtitles for Spanish soap operas. It was easy for her to laugh. Of course John wasn’t weirded out by her, what heterosexual teenage boy would be?
Dave had had one of many good, long talks about it with Karkat last night, and had finally settled that it would be better to do it one-on-one, rather than have Karkat with him. More personal that way, and less like he was shoving his gay agenda in John’s face. It was the sort of thing he would have worried about, were it John coming out to him instead. Surprise, John. Everyone you love is gay. Even Jade, et cetera et cetera. At least a little bisexual. Funny how that turned out, but maybe less funny for John. He was the minority now.
Was he supposed to like… check his privilege or something? Did he even have to come out when gay was like the new default? He wished the answer was no but knew in his heart that there was no avoiding it.
Dave ham-fistedly sweated his way through the first fifteen minutes of Ghost Busters, managing casual banter and laughs that he hoped didn’t sound too strained while he tried to work up to it. He had this whole speech in his head, a heart-wrenching tale of self-discovery and overcoming deep-rooted biases and misconceptions all with the help of everyone’s favorite friendly alien. He’d freestyle it if he had to. He might even use the dreaded L word, because yeah, okay, if he was going to be completely up-front and honest about it…
“Are you okay?”
Dave looked up from his knees to find John no longer watching the screen but turned and facing him, leaning over him with a concerned expression.
“What?” said Dave. “No I’m fine, I’ve just got like this massive shit clogging my bowels and I haven’t been able to pass it. Haha, any day now.”
“Er, wow,” said John. “We really need to find out if any of these chess pieces have a medical license. Dave Strider’s full of shit.”
“No for real though,” said Dave. “I might have a blockage cuz I’ve been tryin’ real hard to let this shit out, sitting and straining and praying- who to, I don’t know since we’re the deities around here and we’re one Mage of Laxatives short. It’s just not coming and I think I’m gonna explode.”
“Maybe you should just relax and let it happen when it happens,” John offered. “Or drink some prune juice.”
“Yeah, I mean…” Dave grimaced. “It’s gotta come out sooner or later. I just prefer to not shit my pants if it happens unexpectedly, you feel?”
“I don’t think anyone would judge you for it if you did,” said John. “We’d laugh at you, but we wouldn’t judge you for it. It’s all good fun.”
“Nah I think you really might,” Dave insisted. “This is no average dump we’re talking here. This is the Mount Everest of feculent discharge. The sort of stink that never washes out of even the godliest duds.”
“Well I’m not going to judge you for it,” said John. “So if you need to take a shit, take a shit. Just drop trou and let the poop plop.”
Dave took a deep breath, running his sweaty fingers nervously through his hair.
“Alright, if you’re sure,” Dave said uncertainly, and John reached up to hold his nose.
“Whenever you’re ready,” John said.
“Okay,” said Dave.
It was not okay. Dave wasn’t sure at which point his poop joke aversion tactic swerved straight into real shit territory, or why. He’d had enough practice at his stoic façade, he’d assumed putting it back on for long enough to watch a movie wouldn’t be that hard. Apparently he must have looked at least a fraction of as emotionally constipated as he felt.
“So did you know Dirk and Jake used to date?” he said.
“Couse I do,” John said, surprisingly casually.
“Oh,” said Dave.
“Me and Jake have been hanging out a lot, actually,” John explained. “He’s still resolving a lot of messy business with the rest of our ecto parents, so I’m happy to be someone outside of that he can confide in. He’s a good kid.”
“Kind of a dweeb,” said Dave.
“You’re kind of a dweeb,” said John.
Dave raised his eyebrows at him and gave an unimpressed scoff.
“How dare you.”
“Pretty easily,” said John. “As certified king of the dweebs, crowned by you personally, I think I can recognize my own subjects.”
“Untrue,” said Dave. “I’m a pariah of geekdom, ostracized for my smooth moves and phat beats.”
“Or included in them literally for those things,” said John, “but whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“So, like, are we gonna watch Ghost Busters, or?” Dave asked, even though the movie was still playing.
“Not until you poop, Dave, your constipation’s tearing this family apart,” John said with a dramatic pout.
Dave heaved a long and almost painful sigh.
He’d forgotten every word of his elaborate speech. Who was Karkat? Who was he? In the grand scheme of things who were any of them anymore? How long would it be before they stopped being people and became the concepts they represented, true gods lost to the unyielding wheel of time?
“So do you ever like, get this idea in your head of how a conversation’s gonna play out?” Dave said, flopping back against the back of the couch to stare distantly at the ceiling. “Cuz I really didn’t think I was gonna lead up to this one with a poop joke.”
“There’s your first mistake,” said John.
“I mean it’s kind of a serious, deep personal issue type thing,” Dave said, rubbing at his temples.
“I figured,” said John. “It’s okay, Dave. You’re my best friend, and whatever it is you have to say, it’s not going to change that.”
Part of Dave knew that. Part of Dave knew without a doubt that the worst reaction John could have would be to not understand. And he knew that if he didn’t understand, he’d be willing to learn if it was important to him. John just wasn’t the type of person to let one mark against a person completely change his opinion of them, and he didn’t have a hateful bone in his body. Vengeful, maybe, but not hateful.
“So how are you and Roxy going?” said Dave. “I talked to her and Callie at breakfast today. Nothin’ about you but I assume that’s still like, going in a direction. You two stand next to each other a lot, that’s pretty significant.”
John shrugged uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck.
“You keep asking me that, I’m not sure what you want me to say,” he said. “She’s nice. I like her a lot.”
“She let you touch her boobie?” said Dave.
“Jesus heck, Dave, that’s your mother you’re talking about,” said John, going comically wide-eyed.
“Hey man even classy ladies want their boobie touched sometimes,” Dave said with a shrug. “If she unbuttons her shirt and thrusts her chest towards you, don’t think you gotta hold back because of me.”
“Thanks, I think,” said John. He frowned intensely. “…We do hold hands sometimes.”
“Hell. Yes.” Dave said, raising a fist which John half-heartedly bumped. “I’m proud of you, bro. Getting some real hand on hand, finger on finger action. First you hold her hand, and then you hold… her heart. Or her boob. Or both, you have two hands. Hell the boob is kinda close to the heart anyway. Maybe you could just grab both boobs and like, gently cradle the heart in their cleavage.”
“Dave Strider this is not helping you poop,” John said, covering his face. “This is stuffing your ass with cotton balls to plug it up even more.”
“Yeah, so, about ass stuffing,” Dave said, regretting the words before they’d even left his mouth but absolutely powerless to stop them. That was not the lead in he would have chosen if given a second chance. What use were time powers if they couldn’t undo mistakes like this? Nothing to do but keep barreling forward straight out of his own hell mouth. “Hey look, Slimer.”
John patiently stared him down.
“So the thing is…” Dave said, and then he had to pause to swallow heavily, even though all the spit seemed to have dissipated from his mouth. Where could it possibly have gone? Had a hot new saliva dance club just opened in Can Town? “The thing… Is.”
John smiled.
Oh, poor oblivious John who knew not what he asked for. Perhaps he would spend the rest of his life trying to recapture the innocence of a world before this reveal. A simpler time. A time when bros were bros, and hoes were sexually liberated women in control of their own bodies and free to do with them as they pleased without facing undue and biased societal scorn for it.
“Alright, here’s my shit,” said Dave. “Are you ready for it?”
“Let me just put on my catcher’s mitt,” John said, rolling his eyes.
“Fuckin’ gross, dude,” Dave said, as if he hadn’t said worse than that in this very conversation.
John reached out and shoved him lightly on the shoulder, and it wasn’t until then that Dave realized just how much he was shaking. It didn’t feel like a panic attack, thank fuck. Just regular person nerves, but a whole lot of them.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” offered John.
“Trust me, bro, you do not want to do that. I got Niagara Falls pouring from my palms right now.”
“Suit yourself,” John shrugged, patting his knee reassuringly instead.
Dave took several long, deep breaths, letting each of them out in shaky sighs like he was being throttled from inside his own lungs. This was so stupid. What was so hard about ‘I like girls and boys but mostly Karkat’?
“I-I...” he tried to start, his voice cracking even from the single syllable. “I’m… So I…”
John just smiled, hand still resting on his knee.
“I’m!” Dave said more forcefully, practically a shout. “Me and kkhhh…” He wheezed painfully. “God fucking damn it! M-me and Karkat like to kiss and are in love.”
Dave felt like all the blood had rushed to his head at once and was now fighting to pound right out of his body through his ears. He was so caught up in himself he could barely even focus on John.
“Yeah,” said John.
“Yeah?” Dave repeated, sounding winded like he’d been running.
“Obviously?” said John. “Where were you when we already had this revelation on the lily pad? You’re some sort of not straight and the only guy not in a refrigerator was Karkat. Oblivious John is one thing, but I can find my mouth with a fork to feed myself.”
“I, uh… Yeah, alright,” Dave said, wiping his hands on his pants. “You don’t think that’s like… weird?”
“I think all sex stuff is weird,” said John. “I like Roxy a lot, but I’ve only known her for a few weeks now. Meanwhile you and Rose had three whole years to figure that stuff out. The only girl and boy on the ship with me were dating each other and one of them was my sister.”
“Wow,” said Dave. “Good fucking point.”
“Gay people are just people,” said John. “I’ve never had anything against them. I know we joked a lot when we were kids, but we were kids. We still are kids. Who knows, maybe in five years we’ll all look back on this and laugh because I’m dating Dirk.”
“Uh, no,” Dave said. He put both his hands on John’s shoulders and leaned in to look him in the eye. “No, no. No. Let me just. No. Back the fuck up. I love Dirk like the brother that he not really but sort of actually really is, but you cannot date that man. He will crush you, John. He will squeeze your innocent soul for his nihilistic breakfast smoothie, do not date Dirk. Please.”
“Who knows,” John said flippantly. “Maybe it’s love, Dave. Who are you to stand in the way of love?”
“Sweet jesus, no,” Dave said leaning back and holding his head. “I demand that we’re all heterosexual again. I’m gonna marry Jade and you’re gonna marry Rose and she’s gonna pop out some babies in fedoras who’ll grow up to look exactly like your dad. Do not date Dirk.”
“Fine, fine,” said John. “But speaking of weddings, I still get to be your best man, right?”
“Naw way,” said Dave. “Kanaya’s best man. You get to be maid of honor cuz I’m the bride. I lost the gay coin toss you use to decide those things.”
“Er…”John looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure exactly how much of that joke was a joke. Knowing Dave, there was a very real possibility he was ‘ironically’ completely genuine about it.
“Come on,” said Dave. “Someone’s gotta help me get into my dress, I need to look perfect for my special day.”
“Anything for you,” John conceded, and Dave collapsed into near delirious giggles, letting the relief wash over him like a cleansing rain. Or like that ‘fresh cotton’ scented spray you put on your jeans when you were pretty sure they were still fine, but yeah it’s been a week, but you really don’t want to do laundry. All fresh and clean now.
“PS,” said Dave. “Do not joke about weddings in front of Karkat. We’ve watched the Wedding Singer about ninety billion times and I’m not sure how to tell him that’s not really something you do when you’re sixteen. He’s really into it, John. He’s really, really into it.”
“Tell him I need a few years to decide on which stockings to wear with my brides maid dress,” John offered, patting him gently on the back.
“You’re joking, but I might literally do that,” said Dave. “I’ll probably literally do that. I’m doing that.”
“Aw, sheesh,” said John. “But I don’t know the first thing about matching heels to an outfit…”
“Talk to Kanaya, she’ll hook you up,” Dave advised. “Girl’s got a bombin’ wardrobe.”
John snickered and shook his head, sighing.
“Is that it, then?” he said. “Are we all clear to rewind the movie?”
“No, actually, there’s still one more thing,” Dave said.
John looked at him curiously, raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” said Dave. “I still think your mom’s hot. Just so you know.”