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For someone who has been teaching for the past 8 years, you consider yourself pretty good at the whole “eyes on the back of your head” thing. Okay, maybe high school music doesn’t require the same amount of skill as, say, kindergarten, but you know when a kid is about to vandalize something (not that you’d stop them, most of the time).
So this whole watching-your-kids-at-the-park thing? Piece of cake! You’ve done this a million times.
Usually, it’s just you watching the two kids, since your schedule tends to work out better and usually you go to a park closer to home, but since you and your family are staying with your sister for the annual reunion bullshit, both you and your husband are at this crowded park.
It’s a way bigger playground here and your oldest seems to be having the time of his life right now. He’s running around on the second level out of, like, four, on this big ass city park playground, bumping into the other children and laughing. There are a lot of other children. Who knew it would be so crowded on a Saturday in June, huh?
Beneath the towering playscape, there were several parents standing, some chatting, most looking up and watching their kids closely. Among this group is your husband, who appears to be talking with another parent. They seemed to be having a friendly conversation, but from your vantage point on a bench, you can see a few parents giving Karkat the stink eye. Honestly, you aren’t sure exactly what is going on with that but you don’t like it. You feel kind of angry, but you know if there is an issue, Karkat can handle it. He doesn’t seem to notice them anyway.
Speaking of noticing things, you notice that there are several more grubs in the sandbox next to you than there used to be. Not an issue. Your youngest is blue (indigo, so you’ve been told), so obviously just look for the blue one.
There are two blue ones.
Okay, so maybe you’re an awful parent or maybe you’re xenophobic, but you really can’t tell the difference between grubs by anything besides horns. Maybe teeth, if they happen to have wild teeth. Rose’s kid had some mad teeth as a grub. Could see that little green (jade, you think) bug from a mile away. She grew into them, so it’s way less cool, but whatever.
But your son, the grub, did not have cool teeth. In fact, the two blue ones even had similar horns; just little basic devil-looking horns and little sharp teeth. Both of them.
The sudden realization that you are in over your head has become a common realization, and this is no exception. (Damn, you need to write that line down, that’s good.) Anyway, you flick your eyes back and forth over the grubs in the sandbox, hoping to whatever god that your shades are hiding your mild panic.
You think back to the conversation you had about grubs a few weeks ago with Kanaya. She said something about body segment sizes and leg length that was really impressive but totally not helpful for the current situation. What, are you going to whip out a ruler and start measuring random kid’s legs?
Don’t.
Oh thank god, here comes Karkat, holding offspring one and hopefully going to help you with offspring two. Ok, offspring doesn’t really work here because troll science and the adoption system, but whatever, close enough.
Now that you’re looking at him, he looks a little bit pissed off. Well, looks more pissed off than his neutral face, which is already pissed off.
“Hey,” you say as he plops down onto the bench beside you.
He just kind of grumbles and lets your son down to go play in the sand box too. You raise an eyebrow over your shades, which he frowns at.
“What’s up?”
“Goddamn playground mulch got in my shoe.”
You snort, which causes Karkat’s frown to turn up a little. Before you can start to make fun of him, he pushes your face away with one hand and looks over at the sandbox.
His face falls a little, but in a concerned way, when he sees what’s going on. He stands up and grabs your two kids, one in each arm. The two, despite being pretty young, appeared to have been throwing sand at each other. Karkat then gets a face full of sand (of course from the kid with actual hands), but keeps walking.
You take the grub son (bug son, little bug man, buggo) and let him crawl onto your shoulders. You aren’t sure if you’re going to tell him about mixing up the grubs, but at least you got that figured out.
Well, you think you have it solved, but then Karkat is staring at the grub on your shoulders.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“That one’s not ours.”
You carefully take the grub off of your shoulders. “This might sound absolutely terrible, but how can you tell?” Karkat kind of looks at you as you put the grub down and pick up the other one, but it isn’t in a mean way. Like he isn’t sure if he knows the answer either.
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a terrible question, but I guess it has something to do with troll senses?” Karkat says, confirming that the new blue grub in your arms is indeed your son. “Kind of like how I can’t tell human babies apart very well.”
“Every baby does look pretty similar,” you reply as your son (actually your son this time) crawls onto your head. You really hope you didn’t anger some other parent by holding their child, like, it was awkward for you too, jegus. “Time to head back?”
Karkat nods. “I think Kanaya said something about dinner, and I should probably help. Also, those cockmunchers over by the swings are looking at us funny and I’m sick of it.” He kind of bristles as he says that, and when you look, there’s a human couple pushing their daughter on the swings and giving you the side eye. You smile and wave at them, and they act like they weren’t looking.
“What the hell?!” Karkat whisper-shouts at you as you start to walk back towards the parking lot, kids in tow. You shrug and you snatch your husband’s hand with more gusto than probably necessary. He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t take his hand back, instead using his other hand to adjust the bag over his shoulder. (The almighty parenting bag, as you call it, because it holds everything from snacks to toys to a small country, probably.) It’s been a solid long-ass time since you fell in love with this troll, but that doesn’t stop your heart from doing a miniature flip.
“If I have to eat one more meal involving an entree of bugs, I’m going to McDonald’s.”