#and this is such a reach youre clearly just pissing your pants that a trans man

[roughentumble]

This is your own fucking post dumbass

https://www.tumblr.com/roughentumble/770421818611892224?source=share

At least fucking remember what you post

is saying "hey man" casually in the same tone as "hey buddy" or "hey guys" or "hey folks" now Violent Transmisogynist Misgendering?

the only dumbass here is you.

[roseblog-rog]

I Guess I Do Belong in the Woman’s Room.

It’s always a scary endeavor: going into a public restroom as a trans person. There’s always that fear of being outed or shunned or screamed at or punished or SOMETHING. So many risks, all for pissing. But I digress, I have no time to worry due to how badly I have to go.

I enter the woman’s room to find a group of five girls doing makeup in the long mirror which spans the whole bathroom, lined with sinks and soap dispensers. The floor is white with recently cleaned tiles, the gray stalls packed together on the opposite side. The walls are a soft shade of pink that almost feels…comforting. Inviting.

Though no other people aside from the group appear to be in here, I move quick. I swiftly and quietly do my business and exit the stall to wash my hands, moving to the opposide side away from the group of girls, who are now giggling and applying their different colored lipstick. They’re all really fucking pretty, and I feel a warm blush creep up onto my face. I pray their laughter has nothing to do with me. That hope is short lived, however, as one of them—the one with red lips—speaks in a deep airy voice once I finish washing my hands.

“Hey girl, your fly is still open.”

Shit. Well that’s embarrassing. I nod and quickly fiddle with my zipper. I must’ve forgotten to zip it up after buttoning my pants with how much I was rushing to leave. Hopefully they didn’t notice my—

The one with pink lips speaks now, her voice being much higher and softer. “I’m sorry…but is that a bulge?”

Fuck. Now all five girls are glancing down at the bulge in my jeans. It looks so much more obvious in this new light. My face goes completely red.

“No! No. I uh…uhm…” I struggle to formulate an excuse, voice on the verge of cracking with how high and feminine I’m trying to make it combined with the tears starting to form my eyes. My worst fears were being realized, and the most embarrassing part is my gock begins twitching from all the attention.

Red chuckes and speaks again. “Hey, don’t worry girl. In case you haven’t noticed you’re not the only one packing here.”

The blunt response startles me, but with the invitation to look I now notice that all five of them also have bulges, though theirs are much harder than mine, which makes me shiver from…something.

“We didn’t mean to startle you.” Purple speaks in a rough, bright voice, elbowing Pink, who looks down in shame. “We were just, well,” she glances back down at my crotch and smirks “curious.”

“Yeah, sorry for the scary question. We get how it can be in public restrooms.” Pink looks incredibly guilty.

“Haha…yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to get so startled.” My voice settles in it’s natural state, which is still fairly feminine, though deep enough to warrant ‘suspicion’. The blush slowly fades from my face, the tears subside and my breath levels. I’m safe.

“Though I have to ask…why were you so afraid? You belong in here just like anyone else.” Blue pipes in with her quiet and monotone voice, raising an eyebrow at me.

I itch to leave, but something about the group is so comforting and intriguing that I endulge their curiosity. “Well…not really. I mean, I’m at a point in my transition where I’m much more feminine……” I trail off.

“But..?” Purple prompts.

“But I’m still so tall and lanky, my voice is deep, my stubble is annoyingly apparent…I guess I don’t feel pretty enough to be in here comfortably.”

The last member of the group, Orange, walks forward towards me at this response, clearly checking me out. I fidget in place as she gets closer. She’s taller than me, just an inch or two, but still noticeable as I slightly tilt my head up to look at her face. She’s beautiful. Her voice is so silky smooth it brings my blush right back onto my face.

“I think you’re pretty.”

I look down at the ground, my blush reaching embarrassing levels of red. I blush way too easily. “Thank you, uh, I think you’re pretty too.” I notice just how much my voice wobbles, whether it be from embarrassment or being so flustered.

Orange lifts her right hand up to my chin, using her pointer finger to gently lift my face back up to meet her gaze. I twitch again, ugh. “I mean it, how could you think you aren’t pretty enough to be here?”

She turns my body to face the mirror, and I really look at myself: my red and freckled face, my long blonde hair, my wide hips, my bulked up arms, my boobs…everything. Orange stands right behind me, softly smiling as she moves her hands down my waist. It feels so fucking good, I’ve always been so sensitive to touch…but…

“W..wait! I barely know you.” I stutter out as I move away from her. My hardening gock betrays my sentiment, but I ignore it.

Orange’s gaze softens. “That’s okay…forgive me for being so forward.” She glances down. “Though it seems like someone wants more.”

My face feels so hot I think I might just die. I can barely even get any words out, just mindless stutters. The only word I manage to speak before my mind completely blanks is “Please.”

Orange’s gaze darkens with a smirk. “Girls! Let’s help her realize just how pretty she is.”

The five of them now crowd around me, moving me so I once again face the mirror. I’m shaking, my now fully erect gock starting to drip as Red lifts my shirt off of me. Pink goes to undo my jean button and zipper while Black pulls them down. Blue undoes my bra while Orange once again begins feeling up my now exposed body. Despite the circumstances it feels so…freeing. So beautiful and—oh FUCK.

Red begins to kiss just above my right breast, leaving a very obvious lipstick mark. The five of them grin so simultaneously it’s almost terrifying. Almost. They all begin feeling me up while kissing me with their multicolored lips. I’m moaning and whimpering so much at this point that one of them exclaims “Looks like someone’s a noisemaker. She’s adorable!” However, my mind is so fuzzy and warm at this point that I can’t even tell who says it.

They’re pressed so closely against my shaking frame that it’s impossible for me to fall to my knees despite my wobbling. I can feel their hot bodies against mine, hear their heavy breathing as we all start to sweat. My skin begins to be covered with red and pink and purple and blue and orange. Little reminders of this wonderful group.

Soon enough one of them pulls my panties down and immediately makes an excited noise at my hard, dripping gock. “Holy shit! You’re gorgeous!” I then feel the now familiar sensation of a mouth being closed around it, a tongue starting to feel around it, and this earns several loud moans. The kisses from the other four girls get rougher and more sensual: sucking and biting and licking all over my quivering frame.

I feel bliss, seeing my naked body being marked and used and sucked by all these women, and I start to feel so beautiful. I notice the clear markings and lip stains…but I also notice my soft skin and nice curves and all the little things I don’t usually stop to look at. I notice how pretty and shiny my gock is, as each girl takes turns sucking on it.

I feel everything. There’s so much stimulus that I start shaking harder and moaning even more. I can barely hold myself up, but one of them is clutching me tightly by the hips to keep me from falling. “I want you to say how pretty you are.” Of course. Who am I to deny her?

“I’m pretty.” I barely get the words out.

“Again. Say it like you mean it.”

I feel myself teetering on the edge of an orgasm, a rare sensation for me with how far my transition is. I’m now completely coated in multicolored lips and bite marks and hickeys and various fluids. It’s…well, it’s pretty.

“I’m pretty!” I shout it this time, staring myself down in the mirror.

“One more time, you’re doing so good.”

“I’m pretty! I’m so fucking pretty!” I lock eyes with myself as I cum into whoever’s mouth is sucking me. I’m breathing so heavily I’m almost afraid for my safety…but these women are here for me. I’m okay.

They help me sit down and crowd closely around me, the scent of our sweat and their makeup becoming much more apparent. It’s all so wonderful and safe and relaxing that my eyes start to shut as they coddle me and play with my hair.

“It’s okay baby, you can rest.”

The last thought running through my mind is how pretty I am before I fade out of consciousness.

~~~

MY FIRST TIME WRITING SMUT WOAG!!! Because this is such a momentous occasion and I am so awesome, @xenasaur @lilithtransrights enjoy my cool lil thing.

[rustandyearnings]

To be women

loan tran

I am 6 years old. My hair is cut into a short bob and I am wearing a white t shirt and striped shorts in a peach orchard. I lean back and smile at the camera before climbing the tree with my leather strapped sandals. The women all around me are laughing under the shade with small peeling knives in their hands; separating skin from fruit. For a moment their hands are soft, peach fuzz smoothing at their callouses from days and years of piecing together fabric at their sewing machines. They enjoy each other. I reach for my own peaches and later I stand in the back of my family’s green pick-up truck waiting for someone to weigh our baskets filled to the brim. I hold my hands behind my back, small and shy, watching a woman shift and re-arrange the crates. I am awkward and can’t stop staring. She only smiles back at me. 

I am 8 and spend most of my days after school with my dad at the billiards hall where he plays cards and jokes in the backroom with his friends. I make my own friends with the domino sets, the wobbly coffee tables, and the woman who works there. She has long black hair, just like mine, though kept much better. One afternoon she tucks me gently into her arms as we sit on the hood of an old Cadillac. Everything bright: the car, her pants, her smile. I am small and still shy, hair longer, and with the reasonable fashion sense of an 8-year-old; pink leggings sticking out from under my khaki uniform pants, matching my pink shirt. I am wearing sneakers and she, a pair of black stilettos. She cares for me in absence of everyone else and I never feel like a burden.

I am lucky that from a young age, the women around me, if I paid enough attention, allowed me a life to claim, to call my own. They offered a recognition that I mean something. I’ve learned that women make a conscious choice to love—not in a reductive way; not in the, we are ok extracting feminized labor kind of way. But in a way where time and time again, I have seen the women in my life deprived of respect in a world hellbent on their punishment for not being man, or white, or able-bodied, or straight, or cisgender still root in dignity and regard for other human beings. I am lucky for the persistence and clarity of women’s regard. 

 “Woman”—with its complexities, contradictions, and its constant dance against/with/for colonization, white supremacy, patriarchy and transphobia, and capitalism—is not a matter of biology. It’s instead the active choosing of the relationships, connections, desires, acts of care and love we are trained to cast away and make invisible. 

Women’s regard is what makes me the dyke gender non-conforming person I am. It is what gives me the conviction to be on testosterone and feel confident that I can be a woman of a different kind. 

 The women who make me woman are the women who clearly have defied all odds to be their own, in a terrifying and heart wrenching world which takes from them everything: their bodies, their joy, their love, and their care. The ones who have been called failed women, because of their skin, desire, shape and size of their body, or ability of their body. The ones who have strapped guns to their backs to harvest the field and have written poems at wartime; whose strongest political directive, whose clearest tactical skill comes from a place of deep knowing that the care we have for each other allows care for ourselves, and that is what gives everything in this fleeting lifetime meaning. 

To be women, in the morning: 

I wake up and question the width of my own hips or contest the shape of my chest, wondering if it is meant to look this way. I wonder where else this body could have hair and why don’t I have it there. I argue with myself in the mirror; on today’s menu of misogyny, do I want to be seen first as a man and then a woman or a be seen first as a woman and then a man? I try to accept that when I leave the mirror, my want won’t matter. I clean my skin with an alcohol pad and inject testosterone into my body. This is one year and not much has changed. I cringe at being called “sir” for my voice and mustache as much as I cringe at being called “ma’am” for my hips and breasts. I am anxious that what I believe lovers love about me is different than what they may actually love about me. I am worried about love. I wait still for the moment of “discovery”; for when someone claims I have lied about myself and that somehow that is more offensive than lying to myself to comfort them. I get good at redirecting the self-negating thoughts. This body hollows out on command when I am misnamed. I get ready. 

And in the same morning: 

I wake up and feel desire and heat in my bones for a woman. I imagine the skin of my arm touching my face to be the skin of another woman. I find tenderness with a certain name I can press my tongue into, so softly, without hesitation, as if that name were my own. I smile to myself imagining the full depth and gravity of the lives of the women around me. I read these women. Adrienne Rich writes: without tenderness, we are in hell. And Toni Morrison said: It is more interesting, more complicated, more intellectually demanding and more morally demanding to love somebody, to take care of somebody, to make one other person feel good. And my body eases in the middle of a world on fire. I remember to keep caring, to smooth the callouses, to enjoy the fruit. I get back to the ground, to the earth, to my own body that women make possible; whether with piss your pants laughter, unashamed crying in public, or the caring nudge of a plate of food in my face: eat, you have to eat. So then I look in the mirror at myself and think: oh, there she is. There’s the woman I’ve been looking for. There’s the woman I am choosing to be. 

The most significant relationships in my life have been with (other) women, somewhere on their journey – whether across borders, lifetimes, bodies, or binaries. We bear a kind of witness for each other that tells me that I can’t separate my gender and my desires. Who I am is who I want is who I want to be. No more flattening, no more making the parameters of this life small, the possibility of this life small—when our lives deserve to be big, complex, ever-changing, bursting at the seams with the invitation to constantly become what we are seeking of and in each other. 

For a long time I have seen this body as nothing more than a failed project. This body: Viet, survivor, migrant, gay, gender non-conforming, girl, weirdo, woman, freak. I learned early that my body would not be my own unless I fight for it. I have been fighting for it for a very long time. And I love it just a little better now, having given myself permission to belong to this body and to remember womanhood is something ever expansive. 

I choose woman for myself because I want to honor my own pain and misery and heartache and joy and pleasure; because I want to be like those women in my life who have a steady generosity to stand witness for the pain and misery and heartache and joy and pleasure of others—as friends, family, and lovers. 

I am 10 years old and the only way I am speaking to the world is through a composition notebook drowning with badly written and very sad poems. My dad has gone to jail and I feel utterly alone. In my yearbook, my English teacher, Mrs. Roberts wrote: keep writing, you’re good at it. So, this is for me, for the women to whom I owe my life and belonging. For the women who have given me the chance to choose and to be. And to be of them.

[profound-boning]

First Impressions

@deancas-sweetheart Challenge prompt: Dean calls Cas “sweetheart” pairings: destiel, gadreel/sam mentioned word count: 1.3k tags: no warnings apply, coffeeshop!au, owner dean, customer castiel, meet-ugly, valentine’s day, small misunderstanding leads to fluff ao3

“Uh, Dean?” Krissy’s voice raised above the Metallica on the speakers. Dean looks up from the dough in front of him.

“What’s up?”

“There’s this guy yelling at Kevin, so…” She trails off, gesturing over her shoulder.

Dean’s brow furrows and he wipes his hands on his apron as he steps through the doorway. Krissy was right, there’s some dark-haired guy at the counter, frowning deeply at his cashier Kevin. Kevin Tran is an AP student, a cellist, and a future editor. There’s not a mean bone in his body; this guy is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks he can yell at any of Dean’s employees, but especially Kevin.

“Sir,” Dean intervenes, placing a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “How can I help you?”

“Are you the manager?”

Dean cocks an eyebrow. “I’m Dean Winchester and I’m the owner. Welcome to Heaven Sent.”

“Great, so can you please tell your barista that there is, in fact, a difference between a skinny and a regular vanilla latte?”

Dean looks to Kevin, who grimaces.

“I forgot and I put the whipped cream on both of the drinks. He also got a regular chai latte.”

“But you used the non-fat syrup and milk in the skinny one?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Kevin affirms with a nod. “Promise.”

“All right.” Dean claps his hands together, grabs a spoon, and reaches out for the offending not-that-skinny vanilla latte. “Easy fix, sweetheart. Hold your horses.”

The guy just crosses his arms and squints at Dean, like he’s going to remove the whipped cream with his tongue instead of the spoon. Dean is sure to make a show of carefully removing all of the whipped cream from the top of the guy’s drink and giving it a new lid. Then, ever the cheeky asshole, he pops the spoon into his mouth with a wink. He slides the newly-skinnified beverage over the counter to their customer.

“Thank you,” the man says tersely, handing a credit card to Kevin, who dutifully completes the transaction. Dean leans against the counter and licks the spoon clean. He watches the customer leave and pats Kevin on the back for handling it like a champ. Luckily it’s the slow part of their morning so the kid can take a quick break and sit down. Dean returns to his kitchen to finish scooping the dough into muffin pans. And thinks about that guy’s ass in his dress pants, his shoulders under that beige trench coat.

So what if the customer was super pissed for no good reason? Dude was hot. Dean could appreciate that.

:     :     :     :     :

Valentine’s Day is a busy time of year for places that sell yummy baked goods, and Heaven Sent is no exception. Dean's had plenty of cake and cupcake orders to keep him busy and he was grateful to get some extra help from his brother-in-law Gadreel during the week.

But on the big day itself, things are relatively calm. Dean methodically restocks the front end while Krissy is on her lunch break, humming mindlessly and thinking about what flavors he’ll be introducing in the next few days. He hears the bell of the door chime and calls over his shoulder that he’ll be ready in just one moment. With that weird popping noise in his knees, Dean stands and smiles at—

At the gorgeous but angry customer from a few days ago.

“Uh, hello,” Dean greets him with an awkward wave. “Welcome to Heaven Sent.”

“Hi.” Those blue eyes twinkle as his mouth snaps shut. He tries again. “I have—. That is, I was here a few days ago. If you recall?”

Dean clears his throat. “You ordered two coffees and got upset with my baristas.”

“Er, yes.” Now the customer looks a bit flustered. He’s so damn cute Dean can hardly stand it. “That’s why I wanted to come in today, actually. To apologize.”

Dean blinks at him. “To—? What?”

“I am sorry for being an assbutt. I was ordering for someone else and she was already having a difficult day so it just—. It was very frustrating to think of yet another thing going wrong. But I still yelled at a teenager for putting whipped cream on a coffee, of all things. I completely overreacted.”

Never in a million years would Dean have guessed that this is how today was going to go, but he wasn’t about to argue.

“That’s really nice of you, man. I appreciate it. Kevin would, too, but he’s not in today. I’m happy to pass on your message, though…” He trails off, hoping the customer will catch on.

“Oh, I’m Castiel. Please call me Cas,” he supplies.

“That’s a unique name,” Dean tells him, leaning forward against the counter.

“It’s an angel's name,” Cas replies with an air of ‘I hate having to explain this to every single person I meet but such is life.’

“Figures,” Dean winks at him. “You don’t get a face like that without some kinda divine intervention.”

Cas flushes bright red and he smiles with his eyes locked on the ground. “I could say the same for you, Dean Winchester.”

Dean grins, his heart beating hard against his ribs with joy. It feels nice to successfully flirt with someone so perfect. Who apologizes for yelling at a barista anyway? People yell at folks in the service industry plenty and never give any apologies, so this guy is clearly something special. Except…

“So, uh, your lady.” He hates to ruin a moment but Cas definitely purchased a skinny latte for a person who uses female pronouns, and he really doesn’t want to offend. “Was the latte okay?”

Cas looks confused for a moment, blinking back at Dean. Then his face clears. “Oh, you mean Hannah.” He waves his arm dismissively. “It was fine, really. She was just so wound up about the cake tasting and the final dress fitting being on the same day, I just wanted to do something nice, you know?”

Oh shit. Not only was he hitting on a taken guy but a  soon-to-be-married guy.

“That does sound stressful,” Dean says honestly, slowly standing up and away from where he and Cas had been leaning toward one another over the counter.

“Yes, I’m afraid we both got our mother’s neuroses,” Cas continues with a small smile. “But Hannah is meticulous and considerate; I knew she could handle the bride’s nerves just fine. I was more nervous about the other bride’s reactions to the cake tasting. I was sure she was going to hate the coffee cake that her fiancée wanted, but it all worked out in the end.”

The gears in Dean’s brain are stuck, unmoving. He jumps to the only part of the conversation he knows that he understood. “Coffee cake? For a wedding? Really?”

Cas heaves a deep sigh. “I don’t understand it either, but planners don’t get to have such opinions when it comes to clients’ whims. Surely you understand; I know for a fact you’ve had at least one crazy customer in here complaining.” He smiles brightly at Dean and it clicks into place.

“You’re a wedding planner. And Hannah is your?”

“My partner,” Cas fills in. “In utero and in business.” He laughs at his own joke, and Dean wishes he could catch the sound in a bottle for a rainy day.

“Twins, huh? That’s cool. Got a younger brother myself, actually.” Dean relaxes again, very relieved to know that Cas is not engaged. Well, just to be sure—

“Got any other partners I should know about? It is Valentine’s Day, after all.”

Cas blushes again, smiling. “No, no one. I, ah, I had forgotten the date. Most people don’t get married on Tuesdays, anyway, so.”

“Cool.” Dean smiles widely. “Never made a wedding cake myself, but I got some other sweets here if you’re hungry.”

“Yes, that would be great, Dean. Do you have any pie?”

“…Marry me.”

Cas laughs, flush high in his cheeks. “That’s a terrible proposal, Dean, really. I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.”

“All right, sweetheart, if you insist.”

Little did either of them know that on a sunny Valentine’s Day five years from that moment, Dean would ask Cas once more for his hand, and this time Cas would say yes.

And Dean would bake the perfect wedding pie.

[bronzeflower]

Who The Fuck Writes A Ten-Page Rant?????

Chapter 20: Mango Sorbet

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

You were currently in a very specific predicament.

You were in a bed. That, in of itself, was pretty normal. Nothing wrong with being in a nice, comfortable bed with a bunch of blankets on you and a bunch of pillows surrounding you. Exactly the way a bed should be. It’s comfortable and cozy and soft and nice and whatever other synonyms there are for the word comfortable. The point was, you were in a bed, and that particular part was not the problem you were having.

What the main issue was that it wasn’t your bed. It was someone else’s. Usually, you wouldn’t mind that a whole bunch. There have been more than a couple times where you went to someone’s house, and they offered their guest bedroom for you to use or something similar. So, no, that wasn’t the issue either.

The issue was whose bed it was. Because that made all the difference.

Here you were, in Karkat and Kanaya’s house after Kanaya’s birthday party in a bed. Specifically, you were in Karkat’s bed while he snuggled up against you like being an octopus was his goddamn job. You were almost surprised that he hadn’t died yet due to living outside the water because you were pretty fucking certain that Karkat was literally an octopus with how he was cuddling up against you.

The previous night, you and Karkat watched movies on Karkat’s laptop until you fell asleep. You were pretty sure that you were the first to fall asleep, otherwise, you would have figured out something to avoid sleeping in Karkat’s bed.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. There was a part of you that was absolutely ecstatic about sharing a bed with Karkat. That part of you was mostly your heart deciding to go absolutely wild once you realized what was happening.

However, you usually would have asked for a different solution out of politeness and common etiquette, like a blow-up mattress or sleeping on the couch or in the guest bedroom or something like that. You know. Just as a courtesy, and you certainly also don’t really want to make Karkat uncomfortable at all. Although, he seemed to be pretty comfortable right now doing his duty as a literal octopus.

Karkat squeezed tighter around you, clearly having absolutely no awareness of the situation at hand. Not that you could blame him at all really. That was a pretty tiring party, and the two of you did stay up fairly late.

But Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. What should you do? What should you be doing? What could you even do in this sort of situation? Was Karkat okay with this at all? If he went to sleep after you and had enough thought process to put his laptop away, he must be at least a little bit okay with this. Maybe. Hopefully.

Honestly, you didn’t know the protocol for this or anything. Your crush on Karkat just made this entire situation at least one hundred times worse. Or better-it was kind of difficult to know which.

Not to mention that being this close to Karkat kind of made your brain stop working. You were pretty sure if someone asked you what two plus two was, you would say twelve because you clearly are unable to do basic arithmetic. But you were also apparently lucid enough to think the word ‘arithmetic,’ so you suppose some part of your brain is still actually working. Supposedly.

You were actually extremely thankful that Karkat was asleep and therefore unable to see how much of a mess you were.

You then noticed that you didn’t have your sunglasses on. You looked over to the side and saw them sitting on the side desk thing of the bed. That must have meant that Karkat took off your sunglasses for you because you certainly don’t remember taking off your sunglasses yourself last night.

Thinking about it made you a little dizzy, so you stopped thinking about that and started to wonder how the hell you could possibly escape from Karkat’s clutches.

“Yo, Karkat. Hey, hey Karkat. Karkat. Karkat,” You repeated. Even with your vague attempt to wake Karkat up, you didn’t actually try to actually wiggle out of his grip.

Karkat barely moved a muscle, so you decided to try again.

“Karkat. Yo, Karkat. Hey. Karkat. I gotta piss. You gotta let me up, Karkat. Karkat, are you alive. I need to know if you’re alive. Am I going to have to bury you? I’m not really fond of the idea of putting you into the ground. Maybe a cremation? Actually, I don’t know what you want for your body when you die. Hey, hey, Karkat. Do you have a will? You should have a will. You never know when your gonna die, so you should always be prepared. I’d say that I learned that the hard way and be all dramatic and stuff, but that would imply that I died, wouldn’t it? God, dying is fucked up. Like, we have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going to happen after death, and we have no way of knowing without dying ourselves.”

Karkat responded to the amount of noise you were making by making a grunt sound and shoving one of his hands in your face in an attempt to shut you up. You responded like any sane person would-by licking Karkat’s hand.

That woke Karkat up real quick.

“Ew! Ugh! Gross! Why?” Karkat exclaimed and then proceeded to wipe your spit on your sleeve. “There. Take your goddamn spit back, you heathen.”

“Aw, no fun insults for me?”

“No. You don’t deserve them. I don’t have to spend time and energy figuring out insults to call you because that would be a waste of my talents.”

“Yeah, maybe instead you should become a food or movie critic and truly offer businesses only the most deserved pile of insults. The ones who are actually horrible for one reason or another will receive your most hurtful and festering insults, while the ones who are good will receive your infinite praise.”

“Don’t kid yourself-I’m practically a movie critic already. You’ve already received one of my best works, you ungrateful piece of shit.”

You gasped.

“I’m not ungrateful! I cherish that rant with every fiber of my being! I even had it printed out on fancy paper and framed each and every page of it.”

“Yeah, all ten pages of it. That’s excessive and wasteful. How expensive was it to frame each page?”

“I spared no expense!” You swiped your hand in the air in the same dramatic fashion that people in movies do when they’re excited about the possibilities they’ll find in a new town. “I used only the finest of gold frames, ones meant to truly highlight the beauty of your writings. Of course, I did only what your writings deserved, which included nothing but the best materials.”

Karkat laughed, and your heart soared.

“You’re a dumbass,” Karkat said, still smiling brightly.

It was then when he realized the position he was in, and he hurriedly detached himself from you.

“Shit! Sorry about that. I probably should have warned you that I tend to grab onto anything close to me when I’m sleeping.”

“Nah, man, it’s chill. If I cared, I would have told you.”

“Still. There are a bunch of folks who definitely do care about that sort of thing, and, trust me, I’ve been in loads of situations with people who got mad at me for that because their masculinity was more fragile than glass,” Karkat explained, and you frowned.

“...I was like that at one point, if you can believe it,” You responded.

“Mr. Pink-pants? Mr. Nail-Polish-And-Makeup-Video? Mr. I-Put-On-A-Skirt-Because-They-Shouldn’t-Be-Just-For-Girls-And-Also-They’re-Pretty? On level with the guys who couldn’t even wear a dog tag necklace without thinking it was gay? Really?”

“No! Really!” You insisted. “It… actually took a while to unlearn that kind of toxic masculinity, and I’m still struggling with it to this day. It’s not really something that goes away immediately, even if you’ve been out for a few years. And sometimes I feel like being trans kind of made it more difficult, you know? Especially with the idea that following this kind of toxic masculinity was the only way I could be considered a ‘real man.’”

Karkat said nothing for a while, letting the silent tension build and build until it was practically unbearable.

“I’m…” Karkat finally broke the silence. “I’m glad you’re working to unlearn that kind of thing.”

That told you everything you needed to know. You popped on your sunglasses and grinned.

“Alright! We should get started on that mango sorbet, shouldn’t we?” You got out of the bed probably more energetically than you had in a while.

“Hold up, we have to eat breakfast first, you dumbass!” Karkat interrupted, stopping you in your tracks to glory and ice cream.

With that, you were forced to do all the typical morning stuff, like using the bathroom and eating breakfast instead of eating mango sorbet, which was obviously the breakfast of champions. Now you were forced to eat the lunch of champions instead, which was a phrase that wasn’t nearly as fun to say as the breakfast of champions.

You also had to go back to your own house to get the mangos before bringing them back to Karkat and Kanaya’s house. Yeah, that was also a thing necessary to do in order to accomplish the goal of actually making the mango sorbet. After all, you can’t exactly make anything if you don’t have the ingredients to do so.

Well, you supposed that you could always use substitutes in recipes, but if you use too many, you’re basically creating a different thing, which was something that still required certain ingredients in order to reach the exact product. Not to mention that the point of making mango sorbet was to use the mangos that were going to go bad soon if you didn’t use them almost immediately.

Never mind all that though. It was time to get started on the mango sorbet.

“Wow, these mangos really are ripe,” Karkat commented. “Do you know how to cut a mango, Dave?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” You responded. “Honestly, when I tried one, I kind of just chopped it up in a way that would give me access to the meat part of the fruit.”

“Oh thank god you didn’t try to eat the skin,” Karkat held a hand over his heart. “I’m not sure if I could be friends with a dumbass like that.”

“I’m almost certain that you’re friends with a dumbass like that.”

“Yeah,” Karkat sighed. “I have multiple dumbass friends who did that, including Terezi.”

“Honestly though, I feel like she should get some sort of a pass on that. She tries to eat everything, even when it’s in no way edible. And also she’s blind. Who’s tried to eat the mango skin who isn’t Terezi?”

“Well, all the friends that I’ve seen try to eat a mango and try to eat the skin include Sollux, Terezi, Vriska, Eridan, and John.”

“Isn’t that, like, half your friend group?” You asked. Karkat responded with a facepalm.

“It’s a good bit of my friend group. Haven’t seen Vriska in literal years though. I think she’s in jail or something. But, nevermind all that. I’m gonna teach you how the hell to cut a mango because that’s an invaluable skill for every single person in this world to learn.”

“Alright, here’s how you go about it,” Karkat placed one of the mangos on a cutting board with the fruit being placed vertically in reference to Karkat. “You’ve kind of got to cut around the pit because that thing is extremely hard and basically impossible to cut through, so it’s honestly better to just avoid it completely. So you’ve got to cut to the side of the pit like this.”

Karkat made a clean cut on one side of the mango, chopping off about a third of the mango.

“Then you do the same to the other side,” Karkat turned the mango around and cut another third off the mango.” Next, you lay the mango on one of the sides you just cut and slice off the excess. You got that?”

Karkat glanced towards you, ultimately making the exact same face that every single hot character in an anime does multiple times towards their love interest, and it was a stupid fucking look, and yet it made practically all the blood run to your face and made you almost completely lose your ability to form complete sentences.

“Ye-yeah. Yeah, I got that.” Yes. You definitely knew how to make sentences. It was very simple. It was just a noun and a verb. That was all that was necessary to form a full sentence. Like, I run. He runs. She runs. You run. I ran. They ran. You ran away from this train of thought and went back to trying your best to focusing on whatever Karkat was actually saying.

“Next, since we’re going to be turning this into a puree, we’re going to cut up the mango into cubes. Just slice the flesh into squares while it’s in the skin and then you can kind of pull the skin off,” Karkat did so and put some of the cubes of mango into a blender. “Or you can squeeze them off if taking the skin off becomes too time-consuming.”

Karkat cut the rest of the mango into squares and put them into the blender.

“Do you want to try cutting one of the mangos?” Karkat asked, and you pretty much immediately agreed, even though that was probably an awful idea because you didn’t really know exactly what you were doing. Oh well. Practice makes perfect, right? Or something like that.

You placed one of the mangos vertically towards you and did your best to ignore Karkat looking over towards you to make sure you were doing everything correctly because Karkat was a very distracting person.

You looked at the mango and tried to guess where the pit was. You honestly couldn’t tell at all where it was, but you could certainly guess.

You started to cut through the soft flesh of the mango before you were stopped by something rock hard, and, no matter how hard you pressed, your knife refused to slice through that part of the mango.

“Hey, hey! You’re going to hurt yourself if you try to cut through the pit!”

As if on cue, you accidentally cut yourself. It wasn’t a large cut-you’ve certainly had much, much worse, but seeing the blood, regardless of how small of an amount it was, still made you feel kind of dizzy.

You barely noticed as Karkat guided you to the sink and turned on the facet to clean the wound. He got something out of one of the cabinets in the kitchen.

Karkat rummaged around in a box and pulled out some things.

“Dave,” Karkat’s voice was still loud, but it was soft and reassuring. “**** ** ***** ** hurt *** * ******. *** disinfectant. Is that okay?”

Karkat’s voice was a little fuzzy, but you nodded, and Karkat took a cotton swab and lightly swiped it over your finger. It stung, but no more than the initial slice did.

Karkat then put a bandaid on your finger and then kissed where your wound was.

That broke you out of our stupor. Your heart started racing at 100mph, and your mind filled up with…certain thoughts that were almost certainly not appropriate at all, and you could feel all the blood rushing towards your face as if your blood cells were race cars and the finishing line was your brain.

“Dave! Are you okay?” Karkat worried, putting a hand to your forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

“Ah, n-no,” You managed to stutter out. “I’m just a little bit, uh, you know…”

Karkat’s eyes widened as he seemed to realize what he had just done.

“Sorry, I kind of got carried away.” It was Karkat’s turn to blush. “Kanaya and I do that for each other sometimes, so I guess instinct kind of took over. Are… are you okay?”

“Yeah,” You choked out. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m cool as a cucumber, cold as ice. I am zero degrees Kelvin.”

“If you were zero degrees Kelvin, you would be dead.”

“I’d be more than dead. All the molecules in my body wouldn't even be moving. Actually, do you think that’s why they call it freezing time? Because all the molecules aren’t moving and are therefore frozen? How would it be for the person who freezes time? Is that why freezing time is considered impossible? Because reaching zero degrees Kelvin is impossible?”

“You could probably make the time go really, really slowly.”

“Just freeze everything to one degree Kelvin. People would probably die if you do it for too long though.”

“Ah, the dangers of time travel. You gotta be super careful with that kind of thing.”

“You’ve also got to be super careful with knives.”

You laughed.

“Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Gotta be hella careful.”

“You wanna try again with cutting the mango?” Karkat asked.

“You’re trusting me to try again? Not worried about me cutting myself again?”

“Everyone makes mistakes. It makes no sense to forbid you from cutting a mango simply because you fucked up the first time you did it. And I guess I am still kind of worried, but it’s not like you’re going to cut your hand off or anything.”

“Yeah, I’ll try again.” You went to stand in front of the cutting board and picked up the knife. “You might want to guide me though. You know, just as a precaution against an accident happening.”

You were honestly joking. You really had no expectations for Karkat to take you up on your request, but Karkat walked over and lightly placed one hand over yours and put his other hand on the mango. He placed his head on your shoulder in order to see the cutting board.

First a kiss and now this? You were going to die. You were in heaven, on cloud nine, and you were also so, so dead.

“So you need to cut around the pit,” Karkat said, his voice awkwardly close to your ear. Was it just how close he is, or does his voice sound deeper? Karkat guided your hand to finish cutting the initial slice you did off of the pit. He then turned the mango around and cut off the other side.

“Put it on its side…” Karkat muttered, clearly more talking to himself, but it still sent a shiver down your spine. Karkat laid the mango on its side and had you cut off the flesh on the top and bottom of the pit.

Karkat then realized exactly how close he was to you and quickly removed himself, leaving you feeling a little chilly without his body pressed against yours.

“S-sorry,” Karkat apologized, keeping a good distance away from you.

“It’s-It’s fine.” You placed down the knife. “How about you handle the mango cutting?”

“You can put the stuff in the blender,” Karkat suggested, likely as a way not to leave you out of the cooking process.

“Sounds good.”

You were both clearly very embarrassed if the awkward silence that followed was any indication.

Karkat cut up a mango and handed you the parts that you were supposed to take the skin off of, so you put the edible parts of the mango into the blender while Karkat continued to cut the other mangos.

It took about three mangos before the silence was completely unbearable.

“So what’s going in this other than mangos?” You asked because, obviously, you were going to ignore everything that made the situation awkward, no matter how much those situations made your heart flutter.

“The other ingredients are honey and lime juice,” Karkat responded. “Although adding a bit of salt might also be good.”

“Yeah, get that salty ice cream.”

“What do you think salted caramel ice cream is there for?”

“That's completely fair,” You said. “God, now I want caramel.”

“We have caramel, but I can’t guarantee that it would taste good on mango sorbet.”

“You never know if something is going to taste good unless you try it.”

Karkat stuck out his tongue in disgust.

“Feel free to do that to your taste buds, but I, for one, am not going to tarnish my delicate palette by doing that.”

“I’ll tarnish my palette for you,” You responded.

“That’s not necessary, thank you very much.”

“I’ll tarnish my palette for myself.”

“I have no qualms about allowing you to do that, but if you end up sick, it’s not my fault.”

“That’s completely fair. Now, how much honey and lime are we going to put in here?” You questioned.

“Hold up. We gotta finish cutting these mangos first so that we can see how much mango puree we have, and we can figure out how much stuff we’re going to add.”

“Alright. I’ll be patient. I’ll wait before adding a bunch of random stuff to our lovely sorbet that we’ve put so much blood, sweat, and tears into. It’s an old, secret recipe that we would die to protect because allowing it to fall into the wrong hands would be dangerous to the world.”

“I’m going to throw a mango at you if you keep being so goddamn dramatic.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” You challenged, honestly fully expecting Karkat to just straight up lob a mango at you.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t. That would be wasteful,” Karkat said.

“It wouldn’t be that wasteful,” You argued. “Afterall, the mango would still have the skin on it, and we could just wash it if it fell on the floor. We could definitely still use the mango.”

“Are you trying to get me to throw a mango at you?”

“I won’t stop you if you did throw a mango at me,” You really didn’t know why you said that. You don’t actually want Karkat to throw a mango at you, but also you kind of wanted Karkat to throw a mango at you.

“I’m not going to throw a fucking mango at you.” Karkat handed you a cut mango for you to throw in the blender. “I will only hand them to you gently and carefully like a newborn baby.”

“I’ve never been all that good with babies.” You put the flesh of the mango into the blender.

“I’ve never even touched a baby. I just know that they tend to be more fragile than troll grubs.”

“I don’t know enough about grubs to dispute that, and I’m also not sure if you’ve ever actually touched a troll grub anymore than you’ve touched a human baby.”

“That sounded weird,” Karkat mentioned. You shrugged. “Besides, I have actually worked with troll grubs before. Sometimes I help out Kanaya in her jadeblood duties.”

“I thought the system made it so that anyone who wanted to could work with the grubs and so jadebloods weren’t required to do grubsit anymore.”

“They did do that, but the name ‘jadeblood duties’ kind of stuck around because of how it was required in the past.”

“Huh.”

“Would you ever consider volunteering for something like that?” Karkat asked.

“Ah, no. No, not really,” You answered. “I don’t really trust myself around kids, you know?”

Too worried that you’d be a bad father. Too worried that you might fuck them up completely. Too worried that you’ll be apart of a circle of repeating events.

“I get that,” Karkat said, asking for no explanation whatsoever, and you felt a little more relaxed.

“Is that the last mango?” You asked as Karkat handed you yet another mango. “Are we ready to fire this blender up?”

“Go ahead.”

You pressed a button on the blender and realized it was unplugged. After plugging in the blender to the nearest outlet, you turned on the blender and watched it turn the mangoes into mush.

You varied up the speeds to make certain that the mango mush was perfectly smooth. Once you were absolutely sure that it was smooth, you poured the puree into a large measuring cup.

“Looks like we’ve got about threeish cups of this. How much other stuff should we add to it?” You asked.

“An amount.”

“That’s specific.”

“Yes.”

From there, Karkat took over all the measuring and putting stuff into a bowl.

“Grab the bowl thing from the freezer,” Karkat ordered.

You went to the freezer and found the bowl thing.

Karkat took it, put it on a platform thing that it is attached to and poured the contents of the mixing bowl into it.

Karkat put other attachments onto it and pushed a button. The bowl started spinning.

“Alright. Now we just wait for twenty minutes.”

“God, Karkat, I’m not sure if I can wait that long. I’ll die of starvation in that time period.”

“Well then, I guess you’re just going to have to die.”

You placed yourself on the floor and pretended to be dead.

“Come on. Get up,” Karkat lightly nudged your corpse with his foot. “We’ve got to pick our a movie or show to watch, and, if you don’t get up, I’m eating all the sorbet myself.”

“Well, would you look at that-I’m alive! It’s a miracle.” You stood up and wiped yourself off.

Karkat rolled his eyes, and the then the two of you decided to watch Queer Eye and then proceeded to eat way too much mango sorbet.

All you had to do was remind yourself that this wasn’t a date at all because, otherwise, you were pretty sure you would have died.