[A/N: At this point, I'm going to be uploading chapters in ~500 word chunks. I'd say sorry, but I'd rather update a bunch of little times rather than one big time. Just my preference. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions. Thanks - AP.]
"I'm not going to call you 'Dad'." A petulant voice pipes up from the backseat of your car. You check the rearview mirror and notice that the poor kid's got his eyes covered up.
"Alright," you shrug, reaching for your spare pair of shades. You grab them a toss them into the back seat. "If I let you keep these, will you call me 'Bro'?" He puts them on, amazed. He ponders the idea, his shaded glare burning into the back of your neck. He makes eye contact with you through the rearview mirror and nods.
Beside him, Terezi licks a hardcover book systematically. You don't understand it why, but you'll talk to her about it when you get back to the apartment.
An hour later you pull into the designated parking space for your apartment and help everyone out of the car. The apartment only has two bedrooms, so everything is going to be a little cramped for a few months, but Latula is already looking into renting one of those suburban cookie cutter monstrosities.
You pick up Terezi, and your wife grabs Dave's hand as you start up the stairs. Inside, you take the few belongings the kids had and place them in the second bedroom.
"Here's your new room, guys. What do you think?" You ask, surveying the neatest room in the house, complete with a bunk bed and a giant toy chest. Terezi toddles in, followed closely by Dave, who doesn't trust anyone but himself to keep his little sister safe. She sits down in the middle of the room and takes a big whiff of her surroundings.
"It smells like oranges. I like it!" She pronounces, her description of the room's smell eerily close to color paint you used on the walls. You give her the stuffed dragon you'd bought earlier in the week, and she happily slobbers all over it.
Latula walks in and crouches next to the happy toddler.
"Hey, Terezi. Why do you lick everything?" She asks, and you aren't sure whether or not to point out that, as a toddler, she probably doesn't know why. The toddler looks up, her blank stare piercing Latula's.
"I like how the colors taste." She can taste colors? No way. No freaking way. This requires some immediate in-depth experimentation.
"Really?" Your hear your moirail ask while you gather up some objects of different colors. "What color is your dragon?"
"Cherry red," you can practically hear her licking the poor toy's snout. The dragon was, indeed, a bright red color. You hand her the sample card you used when you painted the room. After carefully slobbering all over it, she pronounces the color to be orange. She also correctly guesses the color of her bedspread (blue), the toy box (purple), and Dave's hair (yellow). Bored with the guessing game, she picks up her dragon, which she names Pyralsprite, and attacks Dave with it. The boy plays along and she chases him around the room. Smiling, you sit on the bottom bunk, reflecting on the fact that your life was never going to be quiet after this.