A/N: There's not much to say here, other than that this is a trans!Karkat x Sollux fanfic inspired by DawnGyocry's Variation Modification. R&R, if you'd be so kind, and enjoy.

It was the first day of second grade when you met Karkat.

You hated your teacher almost right away. She was young and beautiful with the kind of peppy persona that you'd expect from a kindergarten teacher. You had tried to ignore her as you sauntered into the room and took your seat at the table smack dab in the middle of the room next to Gamzee Makara, your frienemy and upstairs neighbor. You liked this seat the best, because you had a perfectly even view of everything going on on either side of the room. Gamzee presumably liked it only because you were there, and before Karkat you were the only person who'd put up with his bullshit; seriously. It was no wonder he had no friends, showing up to school in polkadotted pajama bottoms with clown makeup on.

Anyway, you were pretty sure that you and Gamzee would spend the next one-hundred and eighty plus days sitting alone, which would have been fine by you. Everyone else had already chosen a seat with their friends, leaving no empty seats other than the extra one at your own table.

Just as you were beginning to settle down, though, the albino named Karkat poked her head timidly into the room.

"Sorry I'm late..." you heard her whisper to the teacher. Her fists were curled at her side, trembling, as she placed her backpack on the floor, since all the hooks on the door were taken. You wanted to cry with frustration as she slid into the seat at you and Gamzee's table, scraping the chair on the floor with a loud screech. You didn't, though. You just exchanged a wordless glance with Gamzee as the teacher introduced herself and began passing out paper and crayons to make name tags with.

You watched as Gamzee went straight for the purple crayon, like you knew he would. Karkat reached uncertainly for the red, then changed her mind and picked up her pencil and started writing. You raised an eyebrow questioningly; the gesture was lost upon unwatching pinkish eyes. You shrugged and picked up the yellow crayon, and then the blue one and the red that Karkat had not chosen, in a manner that conveyed dominance over your tablemates. You really only needed three colors to prove yourself the alpha, anyway. You could make almost anything with them. As if to prove that, you drew a little blue star in the corner of your paper, then an overlapping red one that turned the points purple where they met.

Beat that, Makara.

You then picked up the yellow and wrote your name in the largest, neatest penmanship you could manage. The yellow writing on a white background was difficult to read, so you traced it lightly with red and blue, then added another layer of yellow. The result was a somewhat brown looking hue of olive, but you didn't really care all that much. You sat back to admire the name "2ollux Captor" scrawled across your paper. You folded it across the center, your OCD making you cringe when the corners didn't match up, and stood it on the table in front of you.

You glanced to your side to look at Gamzee's paper. He had just finished writing his name in alternating caps, so that it looked like "GaMzEe MaKaRa". The teacher was going to have a hell of a time reading your friend's atrocious handwriting, especially with all the little stick figure clowns and bloodied dragon heads consuming every inch of the name tag.

You looked next at Karkat's paper, expecting to see flowers or kittens decked in pink and red. Instead, you were met with a plain grey backdrop and "KARKAT A. VANTAS" in all capital letters. A red crab monster glared back at you, partially crossed out.

"Whoa. Sweet drawing, sister." Gamzee murmured, following your gaze. He then added, as he didn't start swearing until middle school, "motherfreaking awesome."

"Thanks..." you still remember how Karkat sounded. Her voice was barely a hoarse whisper, with a forced gravely quality to it.

The second time you heard her raspy voice was when she approached you at recess. It was also the first time you started to realize how different she was.

You were lying down on the tire swing as Gamzee held the chains and spun you in circles. Your eyes were closed in a peaceful bliss, the gentle rocking lulling you to halfway to sleep.

"Uh...um..."

The questioning murmur prompted you to crack open your left eye. The world was upside down, but you could still make out Karkat, her arms folded across her chest, and this was the first time you really got a good look at her; her long silvery hair that never stayed neat, her intense red stare, and the way her lips never quite formed a genuine smile.

"Yo, sister!" Gamzee was grinning when he let go of the tire swing, leaving you to sit up with an indignant cough. You couldn't really fault him for having a short attention span...you guess?

"It's Karkat." Karkat hissed, thrusting her hand forward for Gamzee to shake. "Karkat Vantas."

"Gamzee Makara."

You had interrupted and introduced yourself, not wanting to be left out. You stumbled off the tire swing to shake Karkat's hand, looking into her red eyes. She broke eye contact first, tugging on her pink sweater with a frown.

"I didn't catch that..."

"He's Sollux Captor, motherfreaker." Gamzee translated before you could clarify. You hated when he did that, went around acting like your aid and interpreter because no one could understand your goddamn lisp. You knew he was trying to help, and you appreciated it. You just hated being pitied by a clown.

You muttered a few bitter words, rubbing the sleep from your eyes. When you excused yourself as politely as you could manage to return to the school building to take a piss, you weren't surprised when Gamzee followed. You couldn't have truthfully claimed that you were expecting Karkat to trail after him, however. You probably wouldn't have cared, either, had she not almost followed you and Gamzee into the bathroom.

"Um...KK?" You asked, ignoring her when she corrected you. "You can't come in here...thith ith the boy'th bathroom."

You expected her to return to the playground while your back was turned. When you pushed open the door a few minutes later though, she was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall and her knees tucked up to her chest.

After that, she never left your side.