Chapter Text
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit...c'mon, dude, you gotta let go so I can figure out what I'm gonna do with all y'all..."
Troll grubs do not, apparently, respond to slightly nervous coaxing. They're all chittering and squeaking, and even though you've picked up a little bit of Alternian from living with Karkat for this long you can't make even a little bit of sense out of it. They're scared, though, clinging to you like you're the only safe thing here. That's pretty understandable, though.
You're rattled, yourself. The whole chain of events that led to this situation may have been a mistake.
It's not your fault Karkat wants kids as bad as he does, though. Maybe it's your fault that you can't handle the thought of little Striders running around, but there's not much you can do about that. But you will take the blame for the idea of using the Time shit to go back and pick up some grubs that would've died on Alternia...even if a little bit of it came from Karkat talking about when he was little, and a little more from Kanaya having you go observe the care of the Mothergrub.
To be fair, you meant to take one grub. Maybe two. Probably not any, this first time, this was supposed to be to look and recon and come back later—you haven't even told Karkat about this idea, asked him if he was okay with it—but. Fuck.
Those caves smelt like death and blood.
It was too dark for you to see, which was probably a mercy, but you could still hear alien children whimpering and chittering and squealing, and every so often some unseen troll worker shouting in Alternian for them to shut up.
You meant to stop, check you had the right place and time, and go home, but that fucking place...it froze you up, stopped you dead for what seemed like hours (but your time-sense promises you it was about eight seconds)—and by the end of that time the grubs had figured out you were there. How they knew you weren't some worker sent to cull them, you have no idea, but they climbed up your legs, clinging to you and sinking their claws in to stay put, trying to keep a grip on your shirt when you grabbed them and tried to hold them.
Forty seconds. That's how long it took to grab this many, then you were fucking gone before anyone actually came to investigate the fuss you'd caused. And now here you are, sitting on the floor of your and Karkat's bedroom, trying to convince four or five of the two-dozen-odd grubs to let go of your legs. The one curled around your shoulders isn't helping either—it keeps digging its sharp little claws into your neck, which is worrying as fuck.
The rest of the grubs are hiding under the bed, under the dresser, and in every little safe spot they can find. Which is also worrying—what if they get stuck? What if some of them're hurt? You need to get them out, check them all...
No, you need to calm the fuck down.
The grubs on your legs slowly start loosening their grip when you stop trying to pry them off. You reach up to carefully adjust the one around your neck, and start doing what you're best at: talking.
"C'mon, lil' guys. Come out here." A couple tiny grey faces poke out from various hiding places; they can understand tone at least. "Yeah, there you go...I'm not gonna hurt you, not gonna take you back there. I promise. C'mere." You're definitely not as calm as you're trying to sound, but it's still working—two grubs, one dark orange and one olive green, scuttle out, trying to crawl onto your lap and provoking a hiss from one of the grubs already there. "Hey, you quit that shit. There's room for all of you."
The green grub trills when you pick it up and deposit it with the others, but the orange one wails and twists, trying to get away and doing a pretty good job of it. Luckily it only has a foot or so to fall and it lands nicely on your legs.
There's orange blood on your hands, though, and when you reach down to run your fingers gently along the grub's side you find more wetness. It whimpers. "It's okay, dude, I—" And then it turns and sinks its teeth into your hand. "Fuck!"
Okay, you're supposed to be being quiet. But you're also bleeding.
The orange grub looks up and chirrups unhappily. There's a smear of your blood on its mouth. You sigh and pull your sleeve down enough to wipe that away, adding red to the rainbow of blood already staining it.
"No biting," you tell it, and the rest of the grubs squeak in what sounds surprisingly like agreement. When you go to touch the orange one's side again, a dark blue grub squirms up to press the top of its head against its chin, effectively keeping it from reflexively biting you again.
Damn, they're smart.
The cut isn't that bad, just messy and long. It's shallow enough that you know you can wait to clean and bandage it. You pet the grub's head until it stops its sad squeaking, going silent for a second before producing a soft purr.
"Ah, holy fuck." Once one starts, they all purr, and your lap's full of pleased, vibrating troll grubs. A couple more scramble up into the pile as you try to figure out how to react.
You're trying to count them when the door slams opens. They all abruptly stop purring, and you yelp as many small sets of claws dig into your skin.
"Dave—" Karkat stops dead, staring down at you in what looks kind of like horror for a moment before starting to splutter out bits of questions. "What the—how did—what the fuck did you—" He continues in that vein for a second before giving up and saying several sentences worth of rapid, incomprehensible Alternian.
Half the grubs are trying to burrow into you (unfortunately), some of them are cooing and chirping in what seems like an attempt to calm you and each other down, and the orange one squeals challengingly and dashes forward before you can grab it, skidding to a halt in front of Karkat and chittering up at him defiantly. Karkat just stares at it in bewilderment for a few seconds, then bends down to take a closer look.
"Dave," he says in that reasonable tone that means that you're in deep shit, "this is a grub. What the fuck did you do?"
"Uh." You could answer that. "Surprise?" Or not. "I can't take them back, man, they—" Okay, talking yourself out of this corner would be easier if your voice didn't just go AWOL at the thought of taking them back to where you found them.
A lavender grub with the finned ears of a seadweller wiggles out of the pile, chirps at Karkat, and starts licking the tooth marks in your hand. Karkat shakes his head and picks up the orange one, ignoring its hiss as he cradles it to his chest and comes to sit on the floor next to you. "...holy fuck, Dave."
"I'm sorry, okay?" A couple grubs are already crawling into Karkat's lap, despite your best efforts to corral them. "I—fuck, it seemed like a good idea at the time, I didn't mean—I was just gonna look, then talk to you, but—I couldn't leave them, Karkat, they were gonna die, do you get that, they—"
"Dave. Stop." Karkat frowns at the smears of orange blood on his fingers, then shakes his head and turns his attention to you again. "Give me short answers, okay? Where'd you get them?"
You actually choke on the words, and have to take a breath and start again. "...caves. On Alternia. I don't know the goddamn dates, but a long fucking time before you hatched." You can feel the caves, see them, in your head, and fuck but you're going to freeze up again.
"The culling caves?" Karkat prompts gently.
"Yeah." The grub that's been licking your hand nibbles gently on your fingers, and you pet its head, smoothing down the hair between the wavy horns. "Those."
"You went back there and..." Karkat huffs in either confusion or exasperation, taking the lavender grub away and holding it up to eye level for a moment. When it chirps at him he shakes his head. "Yes, you're a fucking seadweller, we see you...isn't this going to fuck up the timeline?"
"No." You don't have to think about the answer to that question; with the Time shit, some things you just know. "If you...take living beings out right before they'd die anyway, it doesn't change shit. Not unless the body's got a purpose to serve, and these guys..." Goddamn it, you're going to fucking cry again. "Well, guess they weren't important enough for that."
Karkat mumbles something in Alternian, and exchanges the lavender grub for a pale-yellow one. "Okay." This one hisses and squirms, and he clicks at it, not looking at you. "How many."
"Uh." Oh, you're about to be in trouble. "More than twenty." Of the three counts you took, you got twenty-three, twenty-six, and twenty-eight. You're pretty sure the second one was right, but you're not going to swear to it.
Karkat blinks at you for a moment, ignoring the three grubs that are trying to squirm under his sweater. "Twenty."
"Twenty-something."
"Oh, Dave." There's a little smile on his face as he shakes his head, despite the dismay in his voice. "We're so fucked."
"Yeah." You hold out your hands for the grub he's holding, but he just shakes his head again and cuddles it up against his chest. "Do. Do you want me to get rid of them? Some of them?"
You're not going to take them back to the caves. That's never going to happen. But if Karkat doesn't want to take all of them, you're willing to take them away, somewhere safe enough, and fuck with time so you can take care of them and (hopefully) not have him know.
But Karkat sighs and adjusts his grip on the grub so he has one hand free to reach over and pat your shoulder. "Don't be an idiot. Well, not any more of an idiot than you always are." He kisses the grub's forehead, and gets a messy lick in return. "Disgusting wriggler." It chirps happily. "I mean, this isn't exactly how I envisioned us having a family, but hey, it works...Dave, if you cry you're going to get them started too."
"Mm. Too late." You sniff, free one hand to wipe your eyes, and pat the chirring grub on your shoulders. It rubs against your hand like a cat as you look over at Karkat. "So...we're dad?"
He snorts, scoots close enough that the grubs on your lap can spread out into his as well, and wraps an arm around your shoulders. (The grub there lets out a purring hiss of displeasure, but relocates, sliding down to join the rest of the pile.) "We're dad. Or lusus. We're lusus?"
"Nah, I want to make dad jokes."
The look he gives you is disgusted amusement or amused disgust. "You're going to traumatize our children."
"Just a little. C'mon, they'll love it."
He returns your grin, then looks down at the grubs in your lap. "Yeah. They will."
You guess you have kids now.