Chapter Text
"Oh my God."
"Karkat, it's something we need to talk about!"
"No. No a thousand times no."
"Karkat!"
"A thousand angels of denial break through the clouds of never-will and never-be, descending into the world of nope, and the nation of not having this conversation. They light upon your shoulders, pat your head, and tell you to stop, for the sake of the sanity of your poor, unfortunate matesprite."
"Stop being a baby! We need to talk about this- Rose and Kanaya came over the other day- don't roll your eyes at me!"
"Who cares what they're doing!? I for one, do not need the acidic mental image of my moirail fornicating with the Lalonde."
"Karkat! Stop! We need to talk about this, we are not putting it off for any longer! Kanaya decided the Mothergrub is mature enough to start taking... buckets." Jade said, sticking out her tongue and grimacing in a half-genuine, half-playful sign of disgust for Troll reproduction.
"Wh- seriously?"
"Yeah."
Her husband remained uncharacteristically quiet for a few moments, his eyes wide in simple surprise. "So..."
"Yeah. We need to talk about it."
"...Yeah, okay. Maybe we should talk about it." Karkat groaned slightly, resting himself in a nearby chair and rubbing the ever-present bags under his eyes. "So. What the fuck. What do we talk about about it? Grubs. Grubs are now in the picture."
"And I was thinking, if there's going to trollbabies waddling around-"
"Wiggling."
"Wiggling around, then maybe its time to consider the human race as well."
"Wait what- nope. Nope we are not talking about your mammalian spawning right now."
"Karkat, it's all-"
"We are talking about my disgusting troll spawning right now, we will talk about the disgusting human spawning never."
"It's all part of the same conversation!"
"No it isn't. It's not the same thing at all, your species-"
"Anyways!" Jade interrupted, before Karkat could elaborate. "Kanaya wanted everyone to talk about it. About what we're doing with the grubs."
"Well... the same thing as on Alternia, I guess." He held up his hands before Jade could protest. "Jade, it's natural. I understand how you humans have this strange affection for wigglers, most likely because of your own parasitic relationship with your own freaky miniaturized apes. But its natural. Trolls don't raise trolls. Lusii raise trolls, or if none will take them, trolls fucking raise themselves. Terezi turned out fine, and her dragonmom was asleep or dead for 100% of her life."
"Terezi's a psychopath." Jade replied flatly. "I don't hold that against her, but she is."
"Jade you know that's not true. Terezi's just a bit-"
"What did I say about using that word?" Jade said, narrowing her eyes.
Karkat rolled his own in response. "I apologize, my matesprite who is both an excessively bossy woman, and a female with dog DNA."
"Ugh. We're getting sidetracked." Jade began. "Kanaya and Rose have been talking about this for a while. I know that trolls don't traditionally raise their own young, but there are no lusii on Earth! The animals here just don't have that relationship. So Kanaya's been thinking... maybe the humans should raise the trolls, or at least be like Lusii to them. Or try."
"You're fucking kidding me. You are yanking my chains. You'd be a terrible lusus!"
"Shut up! I'd be a great mom, if that was on the table, but-" she raised a hand, "-like you said, we'll talk about that later. What Kanaya means is, humans would be responsible for a group of... wigglers. Like, just making sure they got food and were kept safe and learned what they need to and all that. She made it sound... pretty impersonal. Like taking care of pets."
"Ugh." Karkat wiped his face. "The great and noble troll race, the pets of humans. Of course. How could I have not seen it. It was always meant to be, it's not as if we're not better than humans in literally every possible physical way. Or you know, created humanity?"
"I don't know! We're talking about our options here."
"uuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhhh" he lamented, sinking out of his chair and sitting on the ground.
"Well, we only have three options! We either let the trolls take care of themselves in the wilderness, which none of us are going to stand for-"
"Because of you humans' bizarre need to force your mammalian-based reproductive psychology on troll offspring."
"Yes, because of that, or the trolls raise the trolls-"
"Which isn't going to fucking happen."
"-or the humans raise the trolls!"
"I pick option one. Honestly, Jade, you're underestimating the abilities of wigglers. On Alternia, every wiggler had to face the trials in the caves before they were even picked up by a Lusus! Against animals as pathetic as the ones on Earth, which, I may remind you, is still 95% seadweller paradise, and the other 5% is currently recovering from the apocalypse, the wigglers will have no threats in the wild. None of the surviving Earth animals have a hope of denting the wiggler population if they were let out to fend for their selves. The only real problem would be the wigglers eating everything, and forcing all the Earth animals into extinction, before they begin preying on each other."
"Karkat that's terrible!"
"...Yeah, it is. Alright. Fine. We'll talk with Kanaya and the others about it more."
"And?"
"And goddamn what?"
"What about babies?"
"What about them?" Karkat said, dreading the familiar talk that would come next.
"We're going to start having troll babies all over the place, so what about ours?"
"No. Nopenono."
"Karkat."
"Jade, I will not make horrific freaks of nature and crimes against ectobiology with you only to satisfy your perverse mammalian need to raise stupid parasites. Stupid, both in the nature of their existence, and in literal mental capacity."
"Karkat!" Jade said, flopping on top of him.
"Get off me!"
"Come onnnn, Rose and Kanaya are going to-"
"OH GOD."
"-and John and Roxy have been planning to have one for months-"
"NOT THE EGBERT TOO."
"-and Jake and Dirk have been considering ectobabies too-"
"Do I look like I care what any of them do?!"
"Yes!"
"I'm not!"
Jade sighed, flopping herself off her husband. "...will you be filling a bucket for the Mothergrub?"
"....I don't know." His eyes widened, "and I'd never fill a matesprite bucket with anyone but you-"
"Karkat, I'm not worried about you cheating. You know the specific buckets are just formalities right? They all just get dumped in the slurry."
"Wha- 'just get dumped' -and you think me critiquing you humans' disgusting 'methods' is disrespectful?!"
Jade sighed. "...If I were a troll... you'd fill a bucket with me?"
Karkat rolled his eyes. "Of course. We've been doing that anyway, regardless of your being a troll."
"No, no, I mean, the Matesprite bucket. Not just the for fun stuff."
"Of course! You are my Matesprite, why wouldn't I?!"
"You'd be willing to make 'descendants' with me, but not a baby?"
"I-" he realized the trap he fell into, and immediately called her out on it."You know they aren't the goddamn same thing, Harley. Not at all."
"How?"
"Because a descendant would be a troll!"
"So it's because I'm a human?"
"Jade. You're being cruel about this. You know that's not true. It's just a different set of circumstances... fulfilling a Matespritship with the passing of a bucket filled with you and your partner's slurry, giving it to the drone to appease its wrath... it's completing a ritual. Bonding you and your Matesprite together. A right of passage and loyalty. It's the promise that in the future, if you believe in any of that shit, you and your Matesprite would exist in one troll.... there's no.... no, that's not the right word..."
Jade sighed. "...I know, I'm sorry... it's just... frustrating, you know?"
"...responsibility?" Karkat continued, almost to himself. "No. That's not the right word either, there's responsibility it's just..."
"Karkat."
"Huh?"
"I'm sorry. I don't want to... pressure you into it. I just want to- I dunno."
"Yeah. Apology accepted. Or whatever. But seriously, Jade, it's not the same at all. With a descendant, they'll exist in the far future, unless you're near the top of the Highbloods, you won't ever meet them, and if you do, it'll be as rivals. It's not the same for trolls, we're not... fond of them? I mean, Kankri was an asshole, but he's... an okay guy? But it's not the same as what you and your grandpa have. Or what you and Jake and Jane have. Or even what you and John have. Trolls don't have 'families', okay? We're just not built for it."
"Okay... but you know these wigglers won't be some far-off uncertainty. They'd be born in just a few months after you put in the buckets, the slurry would be too small. It's just you, Kanaya, Vriska, Terezi, Gamzee, Sollux, and Aradia. All the others are sprites or dead."
He was quiet for a short time, thinking about it.
"We would have dozens of little wiggler Karkat near-clones walking around irregardless." Jade said. "If you are going to add to the slurry."
"I can't without-"
"Karkat, I know how you feel about it, but it is possible to just fill one on your own and add it. We could... y'know, do all the other stuff associated with it, but you don't need two trolls per bucket."
"...I'll think about it. But even if I do, that doesn't mean I'm agreeing to... raising hybrids."
"Okay."
"But I will think about it!"
"I know." She said smiling.
"Even though every aspect of it as a mere concept is made of horrible."
"I get it."
"The most horrifying nightmare creature possible."
"I get it Karkat."
"Would it have horns? Could it even survive? Is troll and human blood even compatible? We could be dooming it to a short, hopeless life of pain, almost poetic for such a mutated creature-"
"I get it Karkat."
"But I will think about it."