EXTRA WARNING FOR CISSEXISM AND THE T-SLUR
Your name is David Elizabeth Strider. It wasn't always. Actually, you're pretty sure that legally it would probably still be Elizabeth David, but whatever. It's not like you had a birth certificate anyway. And besides, you were never really an Elizabeth anyways.
For the first few years of your life, you were Liz. And honestly you kinda liked that name. Words with Z in them are inherently cool when you're little, and your bro gave you that name so it had to be pretty sweet. Anything having to do with your bro was instantly cool. He gave you some awesome shades, taught you how to use a sword, and his careful sage wisdom had made it so no other toddlers stood chances in rap battles or gymnastics when you were involved. The others at the park made no challenge to your absolute flawless amazingness and you unquestionably ruled the playground until the six-year-olds showed up. You kept you hair short so it wouldn't get in the way, and wore jeans and t-shirts because they were comfortable and you could get cool things like hearts and records on the latter. Those were the good days when were pretty damn content with your life. Grown-ups would whisper to each other, questioning if you were a boy or a girl, but what did you care? You had shit to fuck up, and grown-ups didn't understand things anyway. That's why you had a bro and not a dad. Obviously.
Then kindergarten happened. Kindergarten happened and those other grown-ups started having power and you started having to listen. Apparently you were supposed to wear dresses and play with dolls and talk about boys more than you played with them. You thought it was dumb, and so did most of the other kids, but the teacher kept pressuring you and to make it worse she was always calling you Lizzie no matter how often you corrected her and telling you how cute you were and saying to play with the other girls so you didn't get dirty or smelly.
"How come?" You asked one day.
"Because you're a girl," was her simple reply.
"Well, then," you said, "I don't wanna be a girl anymore."
And then she laughed. "Oh, Lizzie it's not a choice."
"Then what makes me a girl? What makes me so different from my friends?"
She laughed again. "Oh, sweetheart, you'll understand when you're older. Now run along and go play."
She motioned over to the jungle gym, but your friends were over at the sandbox, so forget her.
But the question haunted you for the rest of the day. You tried to ask the other kids, but the only answer you got was something about going to the bathroom different? But why would that matter?
So you just asked your bro.
"Society," he says.
"huh?"
"Someone a long long time ago that if you had a couple arbitrary characteristics you had to have all these other characteristics too."
"That's so dumb!"
"Isn't it, though?"
"Does that mean I don't have to be a girl anymore if I don't want to?"
He turned his whole head towards you, his face expressionless. "You don't. It's more important that you're yourself, because in my humble opinion you are pretty darn rad, kiddo, and it would be massively unjust to deprive the world of that. And there's nothing wrong with being a girl who likes rougher things. You don't have to go all the way to the other side."
"I don't care, I wanna be a boy."
"Maybe give it a little time. If you go that way it's not gonna be easy, and you've got time to figure out who exactly you are. When you do figure it out, though, I'm going to be there for you."
"Okay…" Something about that just made your heart sink.
"Do you have any other questions?"
"Yeah, what does arba-tary mean?"
Bro taught you not to show your feelings, so you tried to keep that disappointment to yourself, but after that you always had that little seed of doubt deep in your heart. And the more and more your teacher and the other kids called you a "she" the more and more it started to hurt. They weren't looking at you, not really. They were seeing what they wanted to see and not the person you wanted to become.
You decided you'd wait the rest of the year, and then you'd talk to Bro, and then he'd help you, just like he'd promised. The last day of school you stopped him as soon as you left the parking lot.
"What's up?"
"I'm a boy."
"Not want to anymore," he noted.
"No, not want to. I am."
"Hmm," He turned away from you and looked up at the clear blue sky. "Remember, kiddo, it's not gonna be easy."
"Well, if I get to be a boy, boys are tough, so I get to be tough!"
He actually smiled at that, though he didn't turn back to look you in the eye, "That's right lil man."
And then you started being Dave. Bro pulled you out of that school and put you into a new one where no one knew you. He made it clear before you started to not tell anyone your secret, and it probably helped keep the bullies at least at bay, but it began well over a decade of complete insecurity.
As you got older it got harder and harder to keep friends. When you were little your red eyes and white hair were cool, and people thought you were fun. But then once you were ten people started thinking you were weird. The people who hung out with you were alright sometimes, but they kept making fun of girls, calling them stupid and you couldn't help but wonder if they'd think you were stupid too if you still called yourself Liz. More time passed and it got worse. When they started using words like 'tranny' and 'faggot' you refused to take any more of it.
That was when you met John and for the first time in a long long time someone was nice to you. Maybe he wasn't as nice as he could have been, he knew you were a dork and said so a lot, but he was kind of affectionate about it. You didn't really care. You were starving for attention. And then you met Rose and Jade, and they were pretty cool too (especially Rose. You just felt like she understood you in a way Jade and John didn't, though it wasn't until the game started you learned why), but you didn't feel quite the same way about them. They just never had the pull that John did, and you never craved their validation as much as you did his. To this day you're still not sure if it was love or the stirrings of puberty or if you just really wanted the approval of a cis guy to prove you passed some arbitrary boy exam.
You still remember the day you told him perfectly clearly, even more clearly than all of that stuff with bro when you were little. School had been a bit… rougher than usual. The bullies teased you without getting caught, you'd done poorly on a math test, the bus was late and you had to wait in the rain, you tore your shirt, and to top that all off you were on your period and your boobs were starting to grow in too big and too fast and you couldn't get out of this body that felt like a hand-tailored suit for someone with dimensions far different from your own.
You just barely made it into your room and locked the door before you started crying. As quickly as you could you shut the blinds. No one probably cared about the little boy crying alone in his room, especially since the torrential downpour outside would have made you impossible to see, but no one was allowed to see you. You really hoped your bro couldn't hear you, but you knew deep down he always knew when you were sad. Luckily he understood well enough to pretend he didn't notice and he "just so happened" to grab some extra apple juice and triple chocolate ice cream when he was at the store.
Admittedly, removing your sodden clothes helped your mood a little bit, especially since afterwards you but on some of your bro's clothes that had ended up in your room by mistake. They were massive and warm and formless and smelled like safety. You'd just curled up in your bed to begin the long arduous process of crying it all out when your computer pinged softly.
gt: hi dave!
You wiped your eyes and took a deep breath. It was impossible to stop your tears from flowing, but John didn't have to know that. You were behind a keyboard, he didn't have to know anything.
tg: hey
gt: i just got out of school. ugh, what a shitty day!
tg: you too huh
gt: yeah! i swear there are so many more assholes in junior high.
tg: tell me about it
gt: especially in gym class.
tg: agreed
gt: everyone makes fun of me, calls me a shrimp and a dork because they hit puberty freakishly early. i'd better hit my next growth spurt soon, but i'm not really sure how much that'll help. boy do locker rooms suck.
tg: you have no idea
gt: what? are they teasing you for being fat when you're a total fucking ninja or something?
tg: no its not that
tg: its
Your hands still on your keyboard, heart racing, eyes still stinging from the tears. One more rejection today might fucking break you, but if you can't tell him who you are what kind of friend would you be?
tg: can you keep a secret
gt: sure thing! i'm your best friend, dave.
gt: if you can't trust me who can you trust?
tg: Okay, this is really serious. See how serious it is? I'm typing properly.
gt: Alright, capitols on! I am ready for any bombshell you are preparing to drop!
One more deep breath. Here goes everything…
tg: I'm trans.
gt: ?
gt: Dave, what does that mean, exactly?
tg: shit ive never had to explain this to anyone before
gt: capitols back off?
tg: this is still serious
tg: like serious as a clown who completely reversed the idea of his job description its just that old habits die hard and if im gonna have to write a bunch of shit out were not dealing with that because it slows me down too much when im trying to say important shit
gt: dave, we don't need capitols to be serious. i am totally being serious here. i want to help you or at least offer support or something but i need to know what you're talking about first.
tg: fine.
tg: basically its like
tg: okay what makes you a boy
gt: that's kind of a weird question.
gt: i guess because i have a penis?
tg: yeah but why does that matter
gt: i
gt: i've honestly never really thought about it.
tg: most people dont
tg: gender is really fucking confusing but people like to pretend its not so they dont have to think about it.
tg: like imagine you woke up tomorrow morning with a vagina would you still be you
gt: well i'd be girl me.
tg: but what would the difference be
gt: not that much other than possibly having boobs and stuff i guess?
tg: exactly but theres all this shit boys and girls are supposed to do different and all the ways girls and boys are supposed to be different and its based on bits you dont even show to most people
gt: wow, when you put it like that it does sound really fucked up!
tg: it really is
tg: so like
tg: my problem is that im a boy but they fucked up my order and gave me the wrong bits
gt: so you're really a girl?
tg: no john i just fucking said i was a boy
tg: thats what trans means it means they fucked up on my order by one chromosome
gt: oh.
gt: well, i guess that explains why you hate gym so much, dave!
tg: so does it bother you at all
tg: me being the way i am
gt: no.
Your breath stills for a moment. Shit, you thought heart swelling was just a romantic cliché. You've gotta reevaluate your life choices feeling that kind of shit.
gt: you're dave, and you're my best friend. and if you say you're a boy i'm going to believe you.
And for the first time you really felt like you would be okay.
But now, now you feel way more than okay. Now you're curled up in bed next to him, his fingers tangled in yours as Karkat sleeps curled up at your side. He's smiling softly, his eyes still gleaming bright and blue in the relative darkness.
He still hasn't been an active participant in the fucking, but he's getting comfortable with the idea of being naked in front of you and Karkat. And you're getting comfortable being really naked in front of him.
"You're really beautiful, you know," he says.
"Hey, even with my tits out I prefer handsome."
"Okay. I don't know how much I like that word, though. Because handsome is like all neat and contained and tied up. You're like a force of nature."
"Like a god?" you ask, half-smiling.
"Something like that. Both of you are, really."
"That actually means a lot coming from you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"One, you're fucking hot. Two, you're the only one who's deficiency we can't see right now."
"Hmm?"
"Well, we got the alien mutant," you run your fingers across one of Karkat's wings, not as bright red anymore since he's not showing them off anymore, "the tranny," John's nose scrunches at the word, "And finally the sex bomb who just doesn't feel the inclination to fuck."
"Wow, when you put it like that it does sound kind of fucked up."
"Doesn't it thought?"
"But we're more than that. We're not broken, Dave. We're special. And that's why we're here, why we're alive in this new world instead of anyone else sitting here."
"I suppose," you say, turning away
"Hey," He grabs your chin, and with those stupid big hands of his he carefully pulls you into a kiss, slow and sweet, so like that first one you shared on his porch months ago.
"Even if we are broken," he says as he pulls away, "We're broken together. It doesn't all have to be black and white. It- there can be shades of gray. And those shades can move, they can change. Look at me."
"I am."
"I meant, like, for example. I used to be full on aromantic, but now I'm obviously somewhere in the middle because I'm dating you and Karkat. And maybe the ace thing is changing too? I don't know. It's kind of hard to tell if it's that or if I'm just getting more used to the idea of having sex with you guys. We'll figure it out. And it's only tricky and confusing to start with because our old society stuck words on to people based on who they felt like sleeping with. You're only trans because at some point they decided that gender went with genitals and chromosomes. Heck, even Karkat's only considered a mutant because he was one of two in known history to bleed red.
"But this is our world. We get to make society however the fuck we want. Karkat's a significant percentage of living trolls at this point, but even if red blood is still rare later on we can make it so trolls put less stock in blood color here than they did on Alternia. And we can definitely make it so people aren't so hard set about boys with dicks having to marry and have sex with girls with vaginas. Maybe we can even let humans choose gender like trolls do, even though I don't think they'll be able to change their anatomy the same way."
"Okay," you say softly, unsure of what else to say.
John runs his thumb across your cheek. "If we thought we were broken it's because we didn't fit in society. And we're making this society fit us. And we're going to be okay."
You smile. Letting go of the last of your inhibitions, you decide to believe. You believe in John and his stupid quasi-messiah tendencies and his fucked up slidey grayscale philosophy.
Your name is David Elizabeth Strider, now and forever, and you are going to be okay.
Well, it's done. I'm really not entirely happy with this chapter, but I've been sitting on it for long enough.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story!
I might or might not be continuing this AU. If I do it'll be in another fic, and I'm not sure if I want to go forward and deal with more on settling the planet or go back and work on bits of Dave's past (I have a few little ideas for how various other characters find out he's trans)