Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had become a more frequent occurrence in which Yellow and Blue would come over to Dark and Chosen’s house — Yellow in search of Dark, and Blue just because you don’t ever see the two separated. Dark had been apprehensive when the two first showed up, but it was only after the third visit that she began to relax. Yellow’s appearances only began after Dark made an offhand joke about teaching Yellow about making a bomb. And then he came over, so Dark decided to teach him how to make a bomb. 

They weren’t done — but they were nearly there. Once Chosen had walked in on them tinkering with wires mid second week, he’d insisted on supervising the entire time. Just to make sure Dark didn’t mess up and Yellow would mess up and probably blow up the house. 

Dark, personally, thought that was over the top. Especially since Chosen’s hovering was causing distractions and putting back the bomb-making and coding lessons much, much further than Dark predicated. 

Today, though, Chosen was off taking a nap and didn’t stir when Yellow and Blue arrived. Dark sat on the floor of the living room whilst Blue baked cookies and handed Yellow a screwdriver. “See, here?” she points to the compartment that would hold the timer. “Your screws aren’t tight enough. That shit’s gonna fall off and then fly into your face.”

Yellow frowned as he took the parts. “But I swear I screwed it as hard as I could.” He sticks the screwdriver into the slits and struggles to twist it. His face twists up at the exertion and Dark has to try not to laugh. 

“Are you serious?” she snickers right as Blue collapses on the couch, sleeves rolled up and freshly washed. Yellow pouted as he handed the compartment to Blue. Dark rolled her eyes. “Yeah, pass it off to the softie baker —“

Blue tightens the screws without even a twitch of his face, handing it back to Yellow just as calmly. Dark’s eyes widened and she blinked in astonishment. “Oh, shit. What the fuck?” 

“Baking’s a workout,” Yellow offers, sending Blue a wide and thankful smile. He holds up the tightened compartment. “What next?”

Dark forces herself to step away from that amazement. “Right, the timer. You’ve got it all finished up, yeah?”

Yellow proudly holds up the little timer and Blue claps in encouragement. “Stick that little bitch in the compartment and then connect the wires,” Dark explains, pointing to the two red and white wires that stuck out from the sides. Yellow nods and carefully drops the timer into the space, picking up a tool to connect the wires. Blue looks over his shoulder and watches as he works. 

Dark watches the kids and suddenly makes a connection between the two and her and Chosen. They were close, a duo even amongst their friend group. Dark wasn’t sure what made her compare their relationship to her and Chosen’s, but just seeing the two young sticks hang off of each other’s arms just reminded her of the old days with Chosen. 

She almost laughs out loud at the thought — look at her, being all reminiscent and sentimental. The beginning days that followed her creation were nothing if not a mess. A smacking identity crisis that wracked her brain for weeks, wondering why she had done what she did and abandoned her creator. Animators were gods to be praised, and she had rejected hers in favor of what? Some tousled, bloodied stick that pointed out her impermanence and decided to take her with him to find something eternal together? In hindsight, Dark maybe should have hesitated some more. But she remembered the clarity that showed when Chosen picked her up to her feet, and the crisis that followed was worth it. 

It was a swirling, bubbling storm of wondering who am I now? What was she without a creator, a purpose, a reason to follow the code inside her? Who was she, really? What was the point of existing if all she could do was everything she rejected? Dark clawed at herself when she looked in front of the mirror, unable to connect the person staring back at her to herself. Even now, in the present, nothing felt concrete. Something was wrong with who she was and Dark knew it. 

“I got it!” Yellow exclaims excitedly, holding up the open bomb almost carelessly to display her work. Blue made an amazed noise and clapped again. Dark blinks out of her thoughts and grins at the kid. 

“Nice job, you only really need to connect the outer wires and put the cover back on. Then we’ll go through some trial and error stages so we can perfect it.” The thought of tossing bombs around in her backyard like she was a reckless young stick again was filling Dark with adrenaline. She wonders if she should wake Chosen for this, but he might be too pissed at the fact that he was awoken by anything other than himself to care. 

Yellow makes a whooping noise and high fives Blue. He gets to work on the next step immediately. The scent of chocolate chip cookies were beginning to waft through the air from the cooked dough, and Dark took a peek at the oven timer. Seven more minutes. Blue followed her line of vision and giggled softly. “Hungry?”

She puts a hand to her stomach, which growls. “Fuck yeah, bitch. I’d be surprised if Cho doesn’t wake up from this.”

“I think I should get the first one,” Yellow announces, not looking up from the bomb. Dark starts to protest, but he quickly adds, “I am doing all this work, and you’re just sitting there.”

“Teaching’s a very draining task,” Dark defends with a huff. 

Yellow pushes up his glasses and slips the lid of the bomb over the rest of the structure. Then he hands it and four screws to Blue. As he takes it and begins to tighten the screws, Blue asks, “By the way, did you take your shot this week?”

“Oh shit,” Yellow curses simply. Dark looks over at him curiously. “Nah, I’ll probably do it when we get home. What would I do without you reminding me?”

“What shots?” Dark asks, and her interest is only piqued more when both Yellow and Blue pause. Not in a scared, deer-in-headlights frozen way, no. Just like they were caught in a thought. 

Yellow was the one to say, “Testosterone shots. I have to do ‘em every two weeks.”

Dark furrowed her eyebrows and her expression turned quizzed. “Isn’t that a male sex hormone?”

Now the kids’ faces looked a bit uneasy. Blue finished screwing on the lid of the bomb and placed it down on the floor, but no one was paying much attention to it now. Yellow’s finger tapped rapidly on the side of his leg. “It’s — um, well, yeah. I’m…trans.”

“Okay.” Dark looked over at Blue, then back at Yellow. “I don’t know what that means.”

Yellow exhaled and Blue dragged a hand down his face. Their reactions were honestly starting to make Dark a little nervous. Was it something he ought to know already, or was it a new-generation kind of thing? Yellow and Blue weren’t… that much younger. Dark liked to flatter herself and pretend like she wasn’t as old as she really was, but sometimes hanging around such young sticks made her age stick out like a sore thumb. She waits for an explanation and tries not to ditch the topic. 

“Trans means transgender.” ‘Across’ and ‘gender’. Dark sort of had an inkling on what the word could possibly mean, but the idea was vague and was honestly more a feeling than anything solid. Yellow continued to explain, “It means that your body is the wrong gender. I’m a boy but my code came out as female. So I had to go fix that.”

“You can do that?” Dark asks in surprise. “Just switch it up? Do a little switch-er-oo?” She imagines herself as a boy as well — broader shoulders, deeper voice, less cinched waist — and is shocked when it didn’t seem half bad. She’d expected the idea to feel wrong, or off at the very least, but it was the complete opposite. She welcomed the feeling, the idea that she’s slipped into the right suit — 

Was she…no, no. Probably not. She couldn’t be, right? 

Yellow nods. “I did the switch-er-oo a little while after I met Orange. Told Blue about not feeling like a girl and he told Red who told Orange who told Alan —“ Dark winced — “who pulled up the meaning of ‘transgender’ on Wikipedia and showed it to me.”

“So you’re made to be a girl,” Dark says slowly, trying to wrap her brain around the concept, “but your head or heart or whatever says you’re a boy. So you changed up your body to match it? You can just be made with the wrong body?”

“Hell yeah you can,” Yellow claims and Blue nods in agreement. “On every level except for when I was created, I am a boy. Besides, the girl I was before is dead now.” He smiles. “So, actually, on every level and every single level, I am in fact, a boy.”

…Huh.

“How’d you know?” Dark questions. In her mind, there’s a storm of thoughts as she tries to match the male label to herself. Every sentence is replaced with male pronouns — and then, it just seems so much better. He didn’t even know that ‘she’ was such a weird fit until he tried out another. And boy, was that thought alone just a rush of happiness and excitement and right? 

“Well, it was just a sense of wrongness, I guess?” Yellow hums. “At first I kinda just experimented a little, you know. Told Blue to try calling me by he/him pronouns. Chopped my hair short. Spoke a bit lower than I usually did. And it just felt like everything was right. Wasn’t exactly an overnight thing, I’ll tell you that.”

Dark hesitated. She…he…wasn’t really sure if he wanted to ponder over the subject far longer. If he really was like Yellow, then that would open up a whole new portal of change that he just didn’t feel like having to do. But, still, he swallowed and asked quietly, “Call me a boy.”

Yellow blinks, seemingly lost. Blue turned to Yellow and said, pointedly, “Don’t be rude to him, Yellow. You gotta answer his questions.”

Dark looked down and sucked in a breath. The feeling was exactly what Yellow had said to would be: right. There wasn’t anything else that could be used to describe it. Everything in the universe had shifted and looking back he could see just how off it had been before. He. The Dark Lord. 

Yellow let out an excited gasp and jumped up, doing little excited hops. “Holy shit, holy shit! Are you — is this — oh my —!”

“I — need some time to think,” Dark says shortly, still winded from the change in perspective. “But — uh, just for now, could you keep doing that? Use guy pronouns?” He pauses for a second. “Just when we’re alone. I dunno how I feel about it yet.”

“Yeah! Yes! Okay! Perfect!” Yellow was still vibrating with excitement, and there was a large grin stretched along his face. At this time, the oven timer went off, startling the three. Blue gets off the couch and goes back into the kitchen. When he pulls open the oven, the strong scent of cookies escapes. Both Dark and Yellow are distracted by the gender-talk and scramble to follow him. 

Barely a minute later, when Blue sets the baking tray onto the counter, does the door to Chosen’s room click open. The hollowhead trudges into the room looking sleepy and dazed, but he makes a beeline for the cookies. Dark nibbles on his own pastry and glances at Chosen. He probably won’t tell him yet. He doesn’t really know how he’d react to such a thing.

“Oh, Cho,” Dark says instead, “we finished the bomb. Want to see it go off?”

Maybe a few days later, Dark stood in front of the mirror in their bathroom. He’d been preparing to take a long overdue shower, after pulling all nighters to tinker with bots and codes and whatever projects he had in mind. But after taking off his shirt, he’d caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and taken a pause. That weird feeling of wrongness when he took a bit longer to stare at himself. Thin neck, soft eyes, small waist, delicate hands. But mostly…

…His chest felt wrong . 

Dark never really cared about his breasts, but with his new identity crisis comeback, it felt weird. Strange. He pokes at himself, prods, squishes, then covers them up with his arms. He imagines a flat chest, and then tries to imagine himself as a boy. Again. The image has come up so often that Dark could conjure it up immediately. His body was wrong. His body was not his. 

Dark grabs his phone and opens up messages. He pulls up Yellow’s contact and furiously types.

dark: how do i get rid of boobs

A few seconds later, the message is read and Yellow is typing a reply. 

tech kid: LMAO?????? 

tech kid: ok im gonna assume this is gender related 

dark: yes

tech kid: binders! they r compressions for your boobies so they r flat when you put clothes over on top

tech kid: ur gonna have to buy ur own bc i only have 1

Dark exits the messages app and begins to search for chest binders when Yellow suddenly messaged him again. 

tech kid: oh and u gotta bind safely let ur boobs breathe once in a while 

Dark rolled his eyes. He does some more research — and it’s surprisingly not a rare thing. Or, unsurprisingly. Whatever. He clicks on a few stores online and debates getting one. He wouldn’t really be able to hide the fact his breasts were, well, gone from Chosen. That topic oughta come up.

Then Dark pauses. Wouldn’t it be funny to mess with Chosen? It’d be embarrassing for Dark to bring up his own breasts, but it would be even more embarrassing for Chosen to do so. How long could he start shredding away his feminine parts before Chosen would break and ask? 

Dark snickered to himself, already imagining Chosen’s face. He probably shouldn’t, but the idea was just too fucking funny to pass up. Dark buys a binder online that very moment, and puts his phone away so that he could actually take that shower. 

Yellow and Dark talk a lot more about the whole, er, “changing genders” thing. Dark still hasn’t fully said it out loud that he was transgender, and he wasn’t sure if he was ever going to. There was always something pulling him back from officially accepting it, which was weird considering he’s fully embraced the male pronouns, bought the whole ass binder, and couldn’t even think of himself as a “girl” anymore. 

Funnily enough, it wasn’t Yellow that’s hanging out with him this time when his binder arrives. It’s Second. 

Second comes over almost periodically — two times every month. He sleeps over mostly, those times, so Dark and Chosen have decided to just let him have the spare room Dark had previously used for building the virus. They’d cleared everything away, of course — set up a bed, a dresser, put a flowery curtain over the balcony for some privacy. It’s covered with Second’s stuff — clothes he’s forgotten, drawings, books. 

“You’ve got a package,” Second says when Dark opens the door. “I didn’t think you actually had things delivered here.”

“Not usually,” Dark says vaguely, snatching up the box. His heart thumps with adrenaline when he realizes what has come — he'd been waiting in anticipation for the day it did. Dark glanced over at Second, who was in the middle of taking off his shoes. Not the best condition but…

Second should know, right?

“Cho’s out buying groceries. I gotta tell ya something, dude,” Dark says, pointed to the couch. Second follows and sits down, though he does tilt his head curiously. “Now, I want you to promise you won’t tell Cho.”

“Is it —“

“No, it’s nothing bad or evil,” Dark quickly cuts him off. He sticks his nail into the tape and slices it open. “I just think it’ll be funny as fuck. Okay, promise you won’t freak out. Well — I know you won’t. But, still. Promise.”

“I promise!” Second swears, and there was some excitement in his expression as he tried to peer into the cardboard box. Dark takes a deep breath and pulls out the binder, wrapped up in a plastic bag. Second furrows his eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“I’ll show ya. Gimme two seconds.” Dark pretty much runs to the bathroom so he could try it on. The excitement was beginning to bubble up, and Dark strips off his shirt and bra almost instantly. The binder was a bit of a tight fit, but then again it was a compression, so it made sense. Dark keeps his eyes down while he puts it on, just to save it for the big reveal when he had it on properly. 

Dark looks into the mirror. 

He’s — holy shit, his tits were practically gone. He wasn’t necessarily big per se, but it was still a shock how well it worked. Dark turned to the side and admired it — he was practically built like a plank of wood! Holy shit! 

Dark doesn’t even bother about putting his shirt back on and just heads back outside. Second perks up, and when he sees him, his mouth falls open. Wide eyes fly up to his eyes. Dark’s smile almost ached with how wide it was. 

“You —“ Second cuts off with a gulp, and suddenly he jumps up. “Is this your way of coming out to me?”

“Shit, that is what this is, huh?” Dark says with a giddy laugh. He couldn’t stop looking down at himself, so used to see his breasts only to see nothing. In his excitement, he scoops Second into a tight hug and laughs again. “Holy shit, this is awesome!”

“Oh my cursors,” Second gasps, and he embraces Dark back. They jump around in the hug, excitement bouncing off of each other. “Dark, this is so cool! I’m so — I’m happy for you! 

“It feels right,” Dark laughs, almost light headed. “I’m me!”

“You’re you!”

“Yeah!”

Chosen stares at Dark for a full minute when he comes home, but doesn’t say anything. His eyes grew wide, and Dark could almost see a question mark above his head. Dark covers his mouth to hide his laughter, and even Second snickers.

Sometimes, Mango gets too busy with work and asks Dark and Chosen to “babysit” Purple. Purple was well over the age of being able to stay at home by himself, but Mango was still paranoid and worried over his son. It was funny at first, when Mango asked, but Dark thinks this is just getting out of hand. Purple was going to be fourteen this year, he can stay at home by himself for more than twenty minutes! 

“Hey, loser,” Dark greets as Purple lets them into the house. He ruffles the kid’s hair — messing it up on purpose — while Chosen closes the door behind him. 

“Man am I not happy to see you,” Purple says back with a roll of his eyes. Then he blinks repeatedly, staring at Dark’s flat chest. Which would be really funny out of context. He looks up with a questioning expression. “Um…”

“We brought dinner!” Dark says instead, and somehow Purple seemed to grow even more confused. Chosen holds up some takeout behind him to show it. “Wanna eat now, or later?”

“…later…?” Purple’s eyes flickered to and from Dark’s face to his chest. It was a battle to not break down laughing. Then he even looks over at Chosen , like he knew what was going on. 

“You like my outfit?” Dark says as he flops onto the couch. The TV was turned on already to some…anime? Probably, yeah. He smiles deliberately. 

Purple looked strained. “Are you —“

“Let’s just say,” Dark says, bringing a finger to his lips and glancing pointedly at Chosen beside him. Purple’s eyes dawned with understanding. “That I’m doing the little switch-er-oo.”

“The little…right. Right — but um,” Purple looks over at Chosen. The hollowhead blinks at him, and Purple quickly averts his eyes. “It’s not…um…common knowledge?”

This was way too fun. “What are you talking about?” Chosen asks bluntly. 

“Kid’s just asking about my outfit,” Dark explains with a wink to Purple. He looked like he wanted to either scream or cry. “Okay, now what were you watching?”

Purple refers to him with male pronouns the rest of the day, and although Chosen frowns in confusion, he doesn’t say anything. Dark is surprised he was able to keep in the laughter.

Dark thinks it’ll be funny to drag Chosen to his first TRT appointment. Especially without telling him what they were there for. Chosen’s too antisocial to ask the doctor for clarification either, so it’ll be hilarious to watch. But this would probably be the limit Dark is willing to go. Otherwise it’ll just be too mean, especially now that he’ll get started on testosterone. Months have gone by, to the point where Chosen had picked up the he/him pronouns but never asked for clarification. Dark wasn’t too sure if he figured it out himself, but he still looked confused. It was endearing in a hilarious way.

“I’m not sick, for the last time,” Dark groans. “Do I look sick to you?”

“You won’t tell me what we’re here for,” Chosen grumbles. 

“I told you it’s not because I’m sick.” 

“Then what? Is it that you’re pregnant???”

“Do I look pregnant to you? You calling me fat?”

“The Dark Lord?” calls the doctor, and Dark grins at Chosen. He gets up and follows the doctor into the room, the smell of disinfectant and overall clinic strong. The doctor smiles and puts his clipboard down. “So, I understand you’re wanting to start on testosterone?”

“Sure thing.”

“And just to be clear, your assigned sex is female?”

“That’s right.” 

Chosen, throughout the exchange, looked stressed. Either from confusion, or because he still thought Dark was sick, it wasn’t too sure. However, he did frown when Dark had to be given a blood test. And when Dark sat back down on the plastic chair next to him, he asked, “So you’re not sick.”

“Told ya so.”

Chosen huffed in exasperation. “Why’d you have to be so cryptic and annoying?”

“That’s so mean!” Dark gasps and smacks Chosen’s shoulder. “C’mon, the test takes a week to get back.”

The walk outside of the clinic was quieter than usual. Dark pauses when Chosen stops walking a little ways out of the doors. He looks back at him and Chosen opens his mouth. He takes a deep breath. “Dark, I’ve been meaning to ask…”

Oh my gods, Dark thinks with a grin, it’s happening. “Mhm?” he prompts.

“You —“ Chosen struggled with his words, and his hands came up a few times to make half-assed gestures. “For a few months, you’ve been — I just wanted to ask —“ he cuts off and looks frustrated. 

…Now Dark felt a little bit bad. “Yeah?” he tries again, hoping Chosen might be able to say it with some more provocation. “What is it?”

“I — nevermind.” Chosen shakes his head and starts walking again, breezing past Dark. He sighed — Chosen was like a little puppy. And the joke’s been going on for long enough.

“Chosen.” He stops when Dark calls his name. “I’m transgender.”

For a second, it’s silence. And then Chosen spins around with obvious relief. “Oh thank goodness, I was so worried I was wrong.”

Dark breaks out into laughter and he throws his arms around Chosen. “You idiot!” He laughs as Chosen hugs him back. “You figured it out? Since when? How long have you been dying here?” 

“When you started binding out of nowhere,” Chosen says as they pull away from the embrace. “I had this really strong feeling but you didn’t say anything so I didn’t. And then you started changing your clothes and especially when everyone was calling you he and him.”

“Aw, that long ago?” Dark whines. Though he supposed the binder was a big giveaway. “I am a little sorry for telling you last.”

“Because you think it would’ve been funny.”

“Yes.”

“Was it?”

“Kind of. But, hey, now you know.” Dark grinned at him. “Thanks though.”

“For what?”

“I guess for having the reaction you did. And being cool with it. I knew you would be, but it was just paranoia.” Dark slips his arm around Chosen’s and hooks them together. “Now let’s go buy some milk tea!”

“Are you gonna cut your hair?”

“Are you fucking crazy? My hair is a beauty, I’m gonna keep it the way it is.”