English is a Beetch (Homestuck fic)

[nobrandhero]

Title: English is a Beetch
Fandom: Homestuck
Rating: G
Word count: 2,630
Pairing(s): Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Warnings: N/A

Summary: When Rose and Dave join the meteor crew, they find the trolls speak with heavy alien accents, Karkat being the worst offender by far. Karkat's English is indecipherable to the point that he asks Dave to help him improve it, accidentally gaining a shiny new Texan accent in the bargain.

Notes: Based on a prompt by Redbird25 on Tumblr.

Read on Dreamwidth under the cut, or over on AO3.

----

Universal translators made no damn sense. Somehow the trolls had managed to learn to read, write, and understand English nigh instantaneously, but they had never actually spoken it or heard it spoken aloud until Rose and Dave joined them on the meteor. It seemed a safe assumption that the sudden inclusion of audio shouldn't have made a difference in their communication. Instead they had the thickest goddamn accents Dave had ever heard.

He could understand Terezi and Kanaya after a second to mull it over and piece it together through context, at least. Dave had plenty of practice hearing through thick accents in Houston -- hell, he even spoke a few words of Spanish; it was just decent manners to try to share the load of grappling through awkward grammar -- but Karkat took "indecipherable" above and beyond any levels of ESL. As far as Dave could tell, the moron had somehow managed to concoct his own Germanic language that only Rose and his fellow aliens could understand. Hell, he half-suspected Rose had turned mindreader, for as quickly as she could respond to him.

Dave couldn't even fall back on trying to pick up the slack on the language barrier and learn the weirdass troll language. He only needed to hear a few loud exchanges in Alternian between Karkat and Terezi to know his human throat would never be able to imitate their clicks and growls well enough to learn how to say "Where's the bus stop?" let alone "So, any plans yet for what the fuck we do when we reach the new session?"

Before long, if the plans for the day didn't involve wordless activities like doodling chalk drawings with Terezi in Can Town, Dave spent his days alone with his headphones.

Granted, "alone" usually meant "in a public area where anyone could bug him anyway," because he wasn't actually that introverted, he just sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to instigate a headache of a conversation.

Terezi liked to plop next to him at the table in the common area, chalk and paper in hand so she could draw dragons while he worked on new raps, which was pretty cool. They could write notes and sketches to each other. Even though Terezi's English wasn't that bad -- comparatively -- she seemed aware that their conversations flowed better in text form.

They were interrupted when Karkat slammed his hands against the table for attention. Dave pretended not to notice until Karkat made a move towards him as if he might snap his headphones in two, so he finally deigned to raise his gaze from his lyrics and pull his headphones off.

Satisfied he had their attention, Karkat broke into a lengthy diatribe, speaking so fast it would have been easy to get lost even without his tenuous grasp on English.

Dave might as well have left the headphones on, for as much as he picked up. "Uh... Sorry, dude, I didn't catch, like... any of that."

Karkat facepalmed. "Strideer... dide... yoh usey... thee... ale-chee-mite-er... yoh... groobfyook?"

Terezi leaned over, as if she was going to whisper in Dave's ear, then said at full volume, "Karkat probe-bay-blie broke it, he means!"

"I dide fyooking note!" Karkat said, an alien growl in the back of his voice.

Something about Karkat's choice of pronunciation finally clicked and Dave straightened. "Hang on. Are ya speakin' fucking phonetically?"

Karkat was startled enough that his heckles went down. "Whayt?"

"Say my classpect," Dave said. There couldn't be a better choice of words to test Karkat on.

Karkat narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly, as if he suspected a trick. "Kahnig-hut of Timey?"

To hell with not looking like a racist dickhole who found humor in other people's struggles with language. Dave burst out laughing. "Oh my god."

"I told yoh!" Terezi said, cackling. "I sayd it was Kahnite of Time ages ago!"

"Theerey eyes a G ein aight!" Karkat shouted, looking furious. "Whayt thee fyook woe-oold theerey be a G ein aight for, eif you'rey note supposeyd toe say aight?"

"I dunno, dude," Dave said, his laughs quieting to a snicker. "I didn't invent the English language. Actually, technically speakin', you did. So you tell me, Vantas: why did you include a G if you're not supposed to say it?"

"Fyook yoh, yoh mag-gote einfeesteed sake of crayp!" Karkat stormed away. "Don't kuh-now why I eeveen fyooking boe-theer!"

Terezi chuckled and went back to her drawing, but less than a minute later she nudged Dave and slid over her latest masterpiece of a furious gray stickfigure of Karkat with the speech balloon "HUM4N WORDS 4R3 TOO H4RD" written in bright red chalk.

Dave fistbumped her.

* * *

Not long after that, Karkat visited the small corner of the meteor Dave had claimed as his room for the first time. Even his knock was unnecessarily loud and Dave could guess who was on the other side of the door even before he answered it.

Karkat glared him straight in the eye. "Strideer."

Dave stepped aside to let Karkat enter. "What can I do for ya, Vansweetie?"

Karkat gave him a disgusted look. "Whayt?"

Dave smirked. "It's pronounced Strider, not Stri-dear."

Karkat pulled at his hair and let out a frustrated groan, staring at the ceiling. "Thayt eyes exayctlie whayt I need toe tay-elk toe yoh aboe-yoot! Theyes layngyoo-age thyng eyes hoofbee-ast shyt!"

"Yeah, I have no clue what ya just said."

Karkat grit his teeth and spoke slowly. "So... fyooking... teell me hoe-ow... toe say aight... rigut." The effort it was taking him to keep a lid on his temper leaked through to his expression, but somehow he wasn't shouting.

Dave stared for a moment. "Are ya tryin' to ask for English lessons?"

"Yes," Karkat said, flinching and refusing to look Dave's way.

"Why?"

"Becay-oos no oney cain fyooking oonderstaynd me," Karkat muttered. "Thee-eyr thynk pains arey toe fyooking stupied toe put toegeetheer somey sligutly dyffeereent pronyooncya-tye-ons."

"Yer accent's a bit stronger than some slightly different pronunciations, dude."

"Fyook oof. Wile yoh heelp or note, boolgelyker?" Karkat glanced at Dave, still daring daggers or else he might have looked nervous.

Dave waited a moment just to draw out the tension and make Karkat fidget. "Sure, why not?" He crossed his arms. "First order of business: Say my first name."

Karkat narrowed his eyes. "Hoe-ow eyes aight sayd?"

"Lemme hear how ya think it's said."

"No." Karkat frowned.

"Thought ya wanted to learn, dude. Just say it."

"Fyook no."

Dave shrugged. "Well. Can't help ya if ya won't let me hear what needs fixin'."

Karkat muttered something presumably vulgar in Alternian before saying, after a long moment of hesitation and thought, "Davey."

Dave cracked up. Holy shit, he didn't think anyone had called him that since he was six. Under any other circumstances, he would have flipped them off, but Karkat saying it without a fucking clue was borderline precious.

Karkat glowered worse than usual. "Hoe-ow eyes aight sayd, ace-holey?"

"Dave, asshole."

"Theen why thee fyook eyes theerey an E?" Karkat screamed.

"First off, it's said 'fuck.' Second off, that's English for ya. Just accept it, bro."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck yoh, Dave."

Dave smirked. "Jesus, you are bad at this English thing. The phrase you're lookin' for is thank you."

Karkat looked three seconds from exploding, but to Dave's surprise, instead of launching into another shriek, he just let out a heavy sigh.

Dave cocked his head and led him over to the corner he'd set up as his computer work station. They could figure out how to alchemize a fine mahogany desk if they wanted, but it wouldn't have felt right if his laptop didn't sit on a desk made of plywood and cinder blocks that sat so low it was better to flop on the floor than pull up a chair.

"Okay, so the truth is, I'm not certified in teachin', so it's a damn good thing the only lawyer still alive doesn't know Earth law." Dave moved the mouse to wake his computer up, opening a browser. "But, uh, I figure we can try readin' shit out loud and I'll correct your infinite mistakes until you get the hang of it, sound fair?"

Karkat grunted, settling next to him while still keeping distance.

Dave pulled up the latest page of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff and gestured to it. "Okay, go."

Karkat glanced over the comic, his brow furrowing the more he read it. "Hay-elf of these-y woe-rds air-een't eveen speel-leed rigut, eye-dye-it."

"Half of these words aren't even spelled right, idiot," Dave corrected in a monotone.

Karkat glared. "Shoot oop."

"Shut up."

"FUCK EENGLEYESH!"

"English."

Karkat let out an ear-splitting screech, threw his hands in the air, and stomped out of the room without another English word, though he yelled more than a few no doubt colorful Alternian essays at the ceiling in the time it took him to leave the room.

A lesser man might have been offended or turned Karkat away when the stubborn ass of an alien returned a few hours later, head bowed and mouth turned down in an embarrassed frown, but Dave just smirked and let him back in.

Karkat refused to learn from SBaHJ (though Dave did get the satisfaction of hearing him call it "Sweet Bro and Heellay Jeeff" once), but they compromised by reading off the backs of DVD cases. Karkat would sound out each word and Dave would correct him where necessary, until Karkat could read out the entire plot synopsis with only a tinge of an alien accent. Karkat even started bringing books Rose must have alchemized when DVD covers were becoming too easy.

When Karkat put his mind to it, he made a surprisingly decent student. He looked two seconds from exploding in rage at any given correction, but usually he just muttered lengthy curses in Alternian and made notes in a sketchbook he'd started bringing to their little English lessons. The only times he tended to really get testy was after a good hour of practice that involved a word contradictory to what he'd already written in his notes.

"Why the fuck is the E silent?" he snarled.

Dave shrugged. "Just is, Vansweetie. I didn't make the rules and I sure as hell don't pretend to understand them."

"English is stupied!"

"Stupid," Dave corrected, almost on automatic by that point.

"It's fucking both! Is John's name pronounced Guh-bert then? Wait, I thynk I used too much E, obvieously it's said John fucking Guh-brrrt."

Dave tried to tell himself he was cackling at Karkat's temper tantrum over a goddamn vowel and that his laughter had nothing to do with enjoying the surly bastard's company.

* * *

It was tempting to punk Karkat sometimes, but the novelty of his accent was satisfying enough. That didn't mean Karkat didn't question his honesty sometimes, like the paranoid asshole he was. (Okay, maybe Dave had told him that "count" was pronounced without the O once, but he corrected him right after he got the sweet experience of hearing it repeated in a sentence just five seconds later.) One such time, he lowered the book they were glancing through and gave Dave an unimpressed stare.

"I'm not fucking fallin' for that, Strider."

Dave rolled his eyes. "I'm not fucking jokin', Vansweetie."

Karkat growled and snapped the book shut, keeping a finger between the pages to keep their place as he stomped out of the room. It wasn't his usual angry "Fuck you, I give up" abscond, so Dave followed half out of curiosity.

"Dude, I'm seriously not trollin' ya here. That's how it's said."

"Shut up," Karkat said, ignoring Dave until he found Rose in the common area. He marched over to her and opened the book. "Rose, what the fuck is this word?" He pointed to the page.

Rose peered closer. "Colonel?" she read aloud, raising an eyebrow.

Karkat glowered and snapped the book shut.

Dave leaned against the door frame and smirked. "Told ya, bro."

"Fuck English," Karkat muttered as he shuffled past him on the way back to Dave's room.

* * *

Rose had never reacted to any troll's accent with more than a small smirk, and usually she had the grace to pretend she hadn't noticed at all, but Karkat finally managed to break her composure.

As far as Dave knew, she hadn't even had much communication with Karkat. She kept company with Kanaya the most, her paradox sibling next, and books after that. She had to have noticed he wasn't quite so unintelligible, but she probably didn't know to what degree since they didn't share many lengthy conversations.

Dave entered the common room in search of coffee one day to find the entire population of the meteor hanging out, sans the juggalo and the mayor. Rose was reading from a hefty tome and the trolls were conducting some kind of meeting amongst themselves, maybe about the upkeep of their slime beds or their never-ending quest to alchemize proper "grub sauce." They'd taken to speaking English more often than not -- Dave wasn't sure if it was to accommodate their human neighbors or to get more practice in -- and Rose kept glancing up from her book as they talked, watching Karkat especially out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't say anything.

As the meeting reached its end, having not gone his way at all, Karkat let out a disgruntled, "Fuck y'all!"

Not only did Rose burst out laughing, but she fell out of her chair and practically gasped for breath.

"What? What? I said it right!" Karkat said, glaring at Dave all the same as if he suspected sabotage, while the other two trolls looked confused.

"Don't look at me, dude." Dave shrugged. "Ya sounded fine from here."

Rose clutched at her stomach and managed to choke out, "You gave him a Texas accent!"

Dave scowled. "What were ya expectin' me to do, give him a New York accent? Ya want him to go around talkin' about his caw-fee and those damn May-rio and Luigi games?"

"We do not say it Mayri- May..." She wiped at her eyes and managed to crawl back into a sitting position. "Shit."

Karkat looked livid. "Strider," he growled. He jerked his head towards the door as indicator to follow and left the room.

His quest for coffee abandoned, Dave went with him, walking in silence until they stopped in a quiet hallway. Karkat turned on him, his glare harsher than it had been in a while.

"Ya made it fucking worse, didn't ya?"

Dave frowned. "At least people can fucking understand ya now."

"Oh, of course! Instead of gettin' blank-eyed stares, I get fucking laughed at! That's exactly what I wanted, Strider! What a goddamn improvement!"

Dave tried not to flinch. Fucking hell, this was not a conversation he wanted to have. He hadn't even noticed he'd been passing on his regional inflections until Rose pointed it out. "So Southern accents are the buttmonkeys of accents. So what? If ya didn't want one, ya should have asked for help from someone who doesn't fucking have one."

Karkat's body language calmed, though he still scowled. "So it's what ya speak."

"Yup."

"And ya taught it to me."

Dave held back a sigh. "'fraid I didn't have much choice."

Karkat lowered his gaze, brow furrowed in thought for a long moment. "Fine."

"Fine?"

He scoffed. "Yeah, fine. I'd rather fucking talk like you than Rose anyway."

Dave slowly grinned and he wrapped an arm tight around Karkat's shoulders. "Did ya just compliment me?"

Karkat glared and wriggled his shoulders a little, but made no real effort to get away. "Fuck off, Strider."

Dave squeezed him and couldn't help noticing that Karkat leaned into the embrace. "Not on your life, Vantas."