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Karkat was resolutely not worried. He wasn’t worried and he very definitely wasn’t panicking.
It was the first day of school, and he’d assured himself that he was too tough to be scared about that.
His guardian still wasn’t awake, and that didn’t even matter, Karkat reasoned, because dammit he was almost three sweeps old and that made him mature.
Alright, well, mature people sometimes spill milk all over the table and less so on the cereal. What of it?
Karkat glared down at the puddle of milk on the table, willing it to maybe go away or something, he didn’t care, as long as it got the hell off the table before Slick got out here because Karkat had heard the man come in around five last night and he had a definite feeling that when he finally did wake up, Slick would not be in the mood for milk on the table.
That, of course, assumed he woke up while Karkat was still in the house.
School started at eight. Karkat knew that much because Sollux had somewhat scathingly told him so last night. Right now it was seven o’clock, and while an hour normally seemed like it lasted positively forever, the young troll realized that driving to the school would presumably take some time, and, well, Slick wasn’t the quickest to wake up under normal, non-life-threatening circumstances(1).
He was beginning to weigh the pros and cons of waking Slick up when the knock came at the front door.
“Hello, Karkat,” Droog said. His expression didn’t waver from the politely disinterested, but Aradia, seemingly never far from her guardian, blinked in a way that suggested a certain level surprise. “May we come in?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” He pulled the door open farther as he stepped aside.
“Where is Slick?” Karkat tagged along behind as Droog strode down the hall toward the kitchen. When he came upon the half-eaten bowl of cereal and the puddle of milk his lips pursed very slightly. “I see. Aradia, clean this up.” Then the man left the two of them to it, moving into the townhouse’s collection of bedrooms.
Aradia managed to find a paper towel – and where that came from, Karkat had no idea, but cleaning supplies, like food, did just sort of tend to show up when other Crew members were around – and started mopping up the milk. “You’re not even dressed yet, Karkat.”
He glowered. “I am too, what are you trying to say?”
“You wear the same shirt every day.”
From elsewhere in the house, there was a crash. The trolls ignored it. “It’s a nice shirt. I like this shirt.”
“Karkat, you can’t wear the same shirt every day.”
“Your dad wears the same suit every day.”
“He does not.”
Karkat crossed his arms triumphantly. “And I don’t wear the same shirt every day.”
“So you have multiples of that stupid shirt?” The smirk dropped off his face. “That’s retarded.”
“Shut up, Aradia.” She giggled from her perch on the chair and handed the bowl of cereal down to him.
“Dump that out, Karkat, unless you’re going to eat the rest of it.”
Voices were approaching from the hall, louder now. Droog stepped back into the kitchen, Slick slightly behind, pulling his jacket on as he complained to the taller mobster. “I just don’t understand why you couldn’t take him, since you obviously planned on it anyway.”
“I didn’t plan, I simply took your previous night into consideration and extrapolated that perhaps it would be prudent to ensure Karkat arrived on time this morning,” he muttered. Aradia hopped down from the chair and stood at attention, smiling eagerly at the adults. Slick glowered back at her.
“Morning, Dad.”
Slick glanced over to the coffee machine and, finding it empty, shot his ward a glare. “Get in the car.”
-()-
(1) Karkat had learned very young that this was due to something called a ‘hangover’, and that it was just best to stay out of the line to the coffee machine in those circumstances.
-()-
Karkat hadn’t really expected a tearful goodbye. Spades Slick didn’t do tearful anything, except that one time they’d rented that movie about the dog and he’d gone curiously hoarse and told Karkat to sit down on the floor and look at the fucking screen for the next ten minutes or so-help-him he’d be sorry.
But Droog had shown uncharacteristic mercy and stopped at a café for coffee on the way, so rather than being hostile the goodbye almost passed for friendly, which was good enough for Karkat.
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Yes, Dad.” Slick handed the kid his backpack and stood back from him, arms crossed.
“Learn to read.”
“I already know how to read, Dad.”
The gangster’s eyebrows shot up. “When’d you learn that?”
“I dunno. I just did. Thanks for noticing.”
“Alright well. Whatever.” He looked to the building. “If they make you make macaroni pictures, what are you going to do?”
“‘Bring the macaroni home because it’s a fucking waste of food’, Dad.”
“There you go.” The pair looked around at the other children and their parents, embracing and in some cases crying, and Slick and Karkat exchanged a look. “Uh.” He patted the little troll awkwardly on the head while Karkat closed his eyes and tried to flinch away. “Have fun.”
“You don’t have to pretend to be upset, Dad.” Karkat sneered at Hearts and Tavros. The other troll was crying while his guardian knelt next to him, one hand on the kid’s shoulder. “It’s only four hours.”
“Good, because I wasn’t going to.”
Karkat steeled himself for the next question, but despite himself his tough demeanor wobbled. “Are you gonna be here when we’re done?”
“I don’t know, it’s four fucking hours from now. Someone will.”
“Fine.” Karkat shrugged and looked away. Slick heard the sniffle, even over the rest of the kids and their parents or whatever. He rolled his eyes.
“Probably, kid, I had shit to do in the office today anyway.”
“Whatever.” Karkat didn’t look back, instead walking off toward the conservative, pale woman that had appeared at the door to the kindergarten. “See you later.” One by one, the kids were peeled off of their parents, and finally the door closed behind them all. The Crew assembled around Slick, looking at the closed door.
“They grow up so fast,” Deuce sniffled. “It seems like hardly any time ago –”
“Shut the hell up, Deuce.”
“I do hope she doesn’t make them fingerpaint.” Droog sniffed, not tearfully, but out of distaste.
“That goes for you too, Droog.” The four continued to look to the door, Deuce’s eyes glistening with tearful pride, Droog’s expression neutral as always, and Hearts smiling faintly. Slick just glowered.
“Excuse me, would any of you gentlemen care for a cupcake?” The pipe-smoking interloper thrust forth a tray of the confections. Slick would have been tempted to punch him in the face, maybe, if his hat weren’t so damn stylish. The man clearly had some redeeming characteristics. “My son insisted he couldn’t eat an entire tray in four hours. Sometimes I wonder about that boy.”
Hearts shook his head as he took a baked confection, still managing a little smile. “Kids these days.”
-()-
It was traditional, Karkat was told, that the teacher would have a short conference with each parent at the end of the first day. Sollux told him this, because somehow that fucking kid always knew everything. Probably, Karkat thought darkly, because between him and his dad someone had to know everything, and it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be Deuce.
Nevertheless, the Pedagogical Mentor had spoken lightly with all the other parents, smiling and laughing and praising his classmates’ performance on their first day, and that had not escaped Karkat’s notice. He was pretty sure his would not go the same. He found himself wishing Slick hadn’t shown up, just to save himself the embarrassment.
“Karkat did . . . well,” she told Slick diplomatically, while Karkat munched gloomily on a cupcake that weird Egbert kid’s dad had given him. “Sometimes he has trouble using his indoor voice –” Slick’s grip on his shoulder got a little bit tighter “– and perhaps, well, he’s a bit direct with his classmates.” The teacher glanced to Karkat and managed to muster up a thin smile. “He’s quite the leader, though – naturally, it appears.” She lowered her voice, operating on the false assumption that Karkat could not hear her. “I do have concerns about his language.”
“He’s a foul-mouthed little shit,” Slick grumbled. When he realized what he’d said, he didn’t look embarrassed – Karkat doubted the man even possessed such an expression – but his scowl did intensify.
The Mentor blinked and then nodded, smiling widely, as if the world suddenly made sense. “Nevertheless, Mr. Slick, I look forward to teaching young Karkat for the remainder of the year. He’s a very bright boy.” Slick’s grip on his shoulder loosened a little. He thanked the woman – Karkat was pretty sure it was the first time he’d ever heard Slick thank anybody for anything – and steered Karkat out the door. Sollux stuck his tongue out at him as they walked by, the putrid ooze of frog snot. Karkat resolved to yell at him tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself.
Slick’s car was parked out on the curb. Karkat climbed in on the passenger side and sat there, head hung, waiting for the oncoming storm of verbal chastisement. Not that he couldn’t take it, just that it was always so fucking unpleasant.
“I told you to watch your language,” was the first thing. The car started, Slick jammed it into first, and they pulled away. Karkat waited for the second point and was surprised, after two minutes, to find it never came. He sat back in the seat, a little surprised.
“Is that all?”
“The fuck else do you want me to say?” Slick looked askance to his ward and then shrugged. “Did you, uh, make friends or whatever?”
Karkat thought. He weighed the pros. Then he considered the cons. And then, because there was a part of him that did genuinely enjoy getting his dad pissed off about stuff that was work-related, he grinned widely. “Did you know Snowman’s kids are in my class?”
Slick would be furious for the next few hours, and convincing the mobster to order a pizza for dinner was probably out of the question at this point, but the screeching of the tires as the man stepped on the brakes was totally worth it. Karkat beamed as his dad took a breath, steering wheel clenched in his hands – it was amazing the thing wasn’t warped, his grip was that white-knuckled – and turned on Karkat. “Whose fucking kids?”