Sup :D How ya'll doin'?

I've officially finished school and now preparing for exams for the next 2 weeks and University interviews but other than that, FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOMMMMM!

I should be studying but I'm a master in the delicate art of procrastination...no one take after my example.

Chapter Seven

The piercing sound of screaming was what woke the Strider household at five o'clock in the morning. The screaming was clearly Karkat, he's the only baby he knew who had such a strong set of lungs on him. Unfortunately the screaming woke up Dave who began crying as well.

Oh god, not only was it way too early for this shit, it was also way too much effort getting out of bed… Urgh, they're not going to stop until he quiets them down. With a groan, Dirk slowly (and struggled) getting out of bed, stumbling a little as he stood on a smuppet on the floor. Tending to Dave first, Dirk dragged himself to the crib and picked up his crying baby bother. This is something that occasionally happens; one of them would start crying and would startle the other, triggering them to cry as well.

"Shhhhh, it's okay little man, I'm here." Dirk said soothingly as he began to bounce and rock the baby in his arms in his attempt to calm Dave down. It had taken a couple of minutes but eventually Dave quietened down, looking up at his guardian with tired eyes. Dirk couldn't help but smile as he laid Dave back into the crib; he grabbed the dummy that sat on the table next to the cot and placed the pacifier in his brother's mouth, which the baby sucked on slowly until he drifted back to sleep.

Now to take care of Karkat.

The little guy was just getting louder and louder (which was a miracle that Dave was now sleeping through it) and was probably the loudest he's ever been. In the corner of the room was now a large yellow tub that the grub was using as a bed, Karkat was wailing and screaming, and thrashing about violently. Dirk picked up the grub with a towel that was next to the tub and gave him a good clean before holding the grub in his arms.

There was definitely something wrong, his body wasn't normal; in fact it was hard, lumpy, expanded in size and there were small cuts and cracks that were secreting a transparent red ooze. Dirk scratched Karkat's special spot on the crown of his head that usually calmed the grub down, but unfortunately the pain was too intense for the wiggler to pay attention to.

"Shit." It was pretty clear that this is what Aranea told Dirk about a few weeks ago but he wasn't expecting this to happen for a few more months; even if he had no clue how old Karkat actually was.

Now what did she say to do when this started?...that's right, sit him in sopor slime or water. Seeing how the grub was in immense pain in the sopor slime, water was the next option.

With that idea in mind, Dirk walked to the bathroom and started running the taps on in the bathtub.

"Shhhh, it'll be okay buddy, just hold on."

The grub let out a particularly loud scream, rolled over and clung tightly onto Dirk's arm. Dirk could feel the tears fall onto his arm and the strange body fluid oozing out of the bright red body. With a sigh, Dirk squatted down to test the water; it was a nice warm temperature that shouldn't burn the grub.

"Alright Karkat, you're gonna need to let go," Dirk said as he tried to gently remove the grub, to no avail. The grub just seemed to cling on tighter and whimpered loudly. "Oi, c'mon, you're gonna have to let go. The sooner you get in, the easier this is going to be."

There was a loud cracking sound as the right side of the grub's body split open, Karkat let out his loudest screech yet. Fuck, the little guy was in a lot of pain and he's pretty sure if he didn't quieten him down, the neighbours are going to complain. There was only one option left that Dirk could come up with and that was to sit in the tub with Karkat.

With that in mind, he stepped into the bath and sat down, not caring that his boxers got wet, it's not like he didn't have others to change into when this was over. With his free arm, the adult splashed water onto his face to wake himself up a bit more before turning off the taps, and rested Karkat in his other arm against his stomach, keeping the grub's body sitting underneath the warm water.

Karkat eventually let go of Dirk's arm after several minutes and settled down enough to quietened down to loud whimpers. Occasionally Dirk would pour small amounts of water over the wigglers head, which helped tone down the noises, and would pick off any loose bits of the now hardened shell of the grub body, revealing soft, squishy grey flesh underneath, coated in a faint red plasma that diluted in the bathwater, turning the clear liquid slightly pink.

Dirk let out a yawn, starting to feel tired again from the lack of sleep and the warm water keeping him somewhat relaxed wasn't helping. Picking off a particularly large piece of shell which caused Karkat to yelp but seemed to calm down tremendously as the whimpers had started to get slightly quieter as time passed, or maybe that was just Dirk who was slowly nodding off and eventually falling asleep.

There was something lightly patting Dirks cheek, causing him to jump awake, wide-eyed and alert. It took a couple of seconds to realise that he fell asleep in the bath tub. There was another pat on his face, causing him to look down and see a familiar mop of messy black hair and large grey and yellow eye's staring up at him curiously.

"Karkat?" Dirk said before yawning, which in response, the now baby troll buried his face into the humans neck. Grabbing hold of the tiny troll, Dirk pulled himself up, legs weak from lying in the water for god knows how long and hissed when he stepped on a sharp piece of shell as he stepped out of the tub. Once Dirk was able to get his grounding with his week legs, Dirk held Karkat under the armpits and with a little difficulty, pried the troll off for an inspection.

He certainly looked like a troll now, with his yellow sclera, humanoid body (with the exception of the two strange growths on each side of his body where his middle grub legs were) and tiny yellow fingernails. He was actually kind of cute when he looked at out with his large, confused doe-like eyes but Dirk was a little concerned. He didn't look like he was at the age of 13-15 months, judging from his experience with Dave, he looked like he was only 11 months due to his size, and he was incredibly scrawny, not chubby like other babies are.

There was a pretty good chance that Dirk was going to give Aranea a call later today for a bit of advice.

Sorry this is short, this was one of those times where I was dead tired but inspired late at night...

So, I figured out how to create side accounts on Tumblr, so I've been posting up the chapters on there. I'm going to be posting all the chapters on there first before and AO3, just to get in the habit of it (I'm trying to do that with my artworks before posting on DeviantART).

It would be great if you guys could support me through this blog, it's under the same username - Feral Fighter (I would post the link but this website has something against URLS...FFFFFFF!) Not forcing anyone, It's up to you but it would be awesome of you guys :)

anyway's, I'll shut up now

Hope you guys enjoyed!