Work Text:
“Yeah, yeah,” Karkat said into the phone pressed between his shoulder and face, “I heard you, I promise.” It’s pretty hard to focus on sorting papers and talking on the phone, but he’s got it mostly figured out now. After years of being extremely busy with a very, very talkative family, he sort of had to get used to it.
“Are you totally sure you got it down, man, because I said at least four interesting points in that one sentence,” Dave said on the other end, speaking over what sounds like screaming children.
“Kinda hard to catch it with all that noise, but I did hear you,” Karkat grumbled back, tossing a crumpled paper into the bin under the desk. God damn, paperwork SUCKS.
Dave scoffs, and Karkat smiles a little. “It’s not really my fault,” Dave says, “I absolutely refuse to actually have kids do anything today, so it’s free period.” You vaguely remember something about an assembly that had the choir kids performing, but you are also trying to read this file, but whoever wrote this down has sucky handwriting. What the fuck. Also, is that…? Ok, that better be coffee, but this is a hospital, it probably isn’t. Fuck.
“Aren’t you in charge?” Karkat asks, already knowing the answer, “You can just tell them to shut up.”
“I could,” Dave muses, “Hey kids, everyone please be quiet so that I can have this totally not important but also still enjoyable conversation with my loving husband whose ears are bleeding from the amount of noise you’re making.” The noise behind Dave actually does quiet down a little, then erupts into a large commotion of laughter and “oooooohs” from the high schoolers. “Oh my god, guys, shut up, jesus christ on a bike.”
Karkat laughs as Dave tries to get the class to stop making fun of him. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but it hasn’t gotten old yet. From what Dave tells him, Mr. Strider-Vantas is the cool teacher who everyone is always trying to figure out, but Karkat doesn’t believe that Dave is as aloof as he thinks he is.
Karkat glances up as someone in a familiar red skirt glides through the front hall of the oncology office and up to the desk Karkat is currently occupying. Karkat attempts to rearrange the papers in front of him as he stands, “Dave, I have to go, I have a job to do, yeah, love you too, okay, bye.”
Putting the phone down and the papers away, Karkat looks up just as Kanaya settles her folded hands on the high ledge of the front desk. “Good afternoon, Karkat,” she greets him, smiling. Karkat isn’t sure how she makes the red skirt work with the color scheme of the hospital’s logo on her name badge, but he isn’t about to question it.
“Hi, Kanaya.” She doesn’t look to be in a very good mood today, so Karkat decides to hold back the usual biting remark. “Is it lunch time for you already?”
“No,” she begins, and she pauses to look around at the empty front room, “Do you have a moment, however?”
Karkat looks at a watch that isn’t there and taps thoughtfully on his chin, “Well, I suppose I could fit you into my very busy schedule. I do have a lot of completely pointless paperwork to do.”
“Oh, hush,” she replies, quickly moving around to sit behind the desk and next to Karkat. She’s got that look on her face where she really wants to just start bitching, which is Karkat’s favorite of her expressions, but she is kindly waiting until Karkat gives the go ahead.
Karkat pulls a stack of files over to his already large stack, “Alright, what’s got your skirt in a twist?”
Kanaya takes a deep breath (and Karkat braces himself) and she begins. “Do you remember how I was working with the human family looking to adopt a wriggler? They were getting evaluated and interviewed to make sure they know how to grub-proof a house, which they didn’t know entirely, but that’s really no issue we can’t address, but upon asking them about how they were going to install a recuperacoon, they actually answered pretty well! Which was shocking, considering we had to teach them more than the basics of wriggler diet, but they seemed to have it figured out.”
“Then why do you have that constipated-angry look on your face?”
Kanaya playfully punches Karkat’s arm, “Oh, shut up, you insufferable windbag, I’m getting to that. As I was saying, they were doing really well, so we finally let them meet the wriggler and they took them home a couple weeks ago.”
“Are you saying that those bastards from the news were people you worked with?” Karkat glanced up from his vigorous transcribing to glare.
Kanaya threw her hands up, an expression of pure anger and sorrow on her face, “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying! They just came in a few days ago and now we have the wriggler back! Who just returns a child? What is it, last year’s pair of boots? A pillow that doesn’t go with the color scheme of the living room? That’s a child!”
Karkat nodded along, also fuming at the story, but also trying to be productive. He hated the idea that people were adopting children but were so unprepared that they just gave up the kid. Who does that?
“Which just reflects on my bad judgement of character,” Kanaya lamented, “I should have seen this coming, but they seemed so earnest.”
Karkat scoffed, “I feel like you wouldn’t have known at all. Weren’t they just doing it for the ‘woke’ points? They probably seemed pretty legit.” He didn’t really know the process for human families when it comes to adopting wrigglers, but he’d imagine it would be pretty hard to decide if they were good people.
“It’s literally my job, Karkat!” Kanaya wailed into her hands, “I’m supposed to know!”
Karkat waves his pen, “And they knew that they had to pass your little test! It isn’t a flawless system, Kanaya.”
“Ugh!” Kanaya doesn’t look like she’s going to agree with you out loud, so she buries her face in her arms as she leans down on the desk. You raise an eyebrow at her, knowing full well she doesn’t see you, and continue with the papers.
After a moment, her head pops back up. “Are you and Dave still planning on scheduling a meeting with us? I don’t think I’m allowed to help you personally, but I’d like to hear about it.”
Karkat looks up from his work, face set into a thinking frown. He and Dave had been thinking about adopting a grub for a while. I mean, having one human kid was totally enough for them, but Rose had mentioned how different it was to raise a grub, especially when they molt from six legs to two and for some reason, that got Karkat thinking.
“Maybe,” Karkat shrugged, “We aren’t totally opposed to the idea, but we’ve also only been parents for, like, a few years. I wouldn’t call us the most experienced.”
“Oh please,” Kanaya sat back up, “You two make amazing parents. Benjamin is healthy and happy and wouldn’t it be lovely for him to have a younger sibling?”
“I could say the same thing about Ofreya, you know,” Karkat shot back, “And you can just call him Ben, Benjamin is almost too formal.”
“I believe Rose and I are alright with just the one, but that’s a valid point,” Kanaya concedes. She glances at her watch and moves to stand. “I will see you in around an hour, then. I definitely have more news.”
Karkat smiles up at her from his seat, “Can’t wait.”
Once Kanaya leaves, Karkat has one moment of blissful silence before his phone starts ringing. Christ.
It’s Dave, again. What, is he not working today? “Hello, why are you calling me for the second time in the middle of my 12 hour shift.” Karkat phrased it less like a question and more like a deadpan statement, just to show how unsurprised he is by this development.
“Oh, no reason. I mean, Rose just texted me about adopting a grub, have you talked to Kan recently?”
Karkat sighed. “Literally two seconds ago.”
“That’s why, okay,” Dave paused for a moment, but continued, “What did she say?”
“The usual of ‘you are both great parents and I believe it would be a good idea,’ you know, the normal vague but not-at-all meanspirited guilt tripping.”
“Neat, cause I got a whole new rant from Rose about why she wants another niece or nephew like she can’t just adopt another kid herself, but you know, Rose was really going off the rails with this one, someone call the Crazy Train and come pick her up, because that argument was definitely a weird one and should only be considered at the funny farm.”
“Don’t make fun of mental hospitals, Dave.”
“Right, my bad,” Dave sighs, “Anyway, while it was a weird argument and she was probably just tired when she was crafting it, have you, like, thought about it?”
“Giving in to Lalonde’s desires for another child to dote on occasionally without the responsibility of actually taking care of it?” Karkat laughs, “Because I actually have.”
“You know, I think it’s good that they only have one kid,” Dave starts, “They make a nice little team.”
Karkat dropped his stack of papers (finally done) into the tray, and began to walk back to the work station where he kept his current patients’ papers. “You’re right, but what makes them think us three don’t make a good team?”
“Oh, we totally do, don’t get me wrong,” Dave replies, “But don’t you think it would be cool for Ben to have a little bug brother or sister?”
“That’s two recupercoons in the house, and we would definitely need to childproof the corners more than we already do,” Karkat muses, “but I’m not totally against the idea.”
A bell rings behind Dave. “Okay, Karkles, I actually have to go this time, but we can talk about it when we get home?”
“I’ll be there around 6:30.”
“Cool. Love you, ass for brains.” The noise from behind Dave is incredible and Karkat realizes that he hates teenagers.
Oh well. “Love you too, shitpress.”