Mutated Ectoplasm

32. Patient Patient's

Here comes the next chapter! Hope I haven't kept anyone waiting. This one wasn't hard to write, but some parts needed smoothing over. Hopefully you appreciate it all the same.

Without further ado, let's head right on in!

Karkat kept thinking every day that his life couldn't get any goddamn weirder. The accident should've been the height of weirdness, but then ghosts started popping up. Then he met Dualscar, show turned out to be a supervillain. Not to mention the weird shit with those biker ghosts and that human that released Fright Knight.

Now he kinda has a grandmother. And two aunts that are barely older than he was.

What the fuck was his life?

To say the least, the living room was pretty awkward after the introduction. Porrim and Kanaya decided to stay upstairs, but Rosa had to go downstairs to make sure that Spectra woman didn't do anything stupid. Spades looked like he wanted to talk more about it too, but he didn't want anyone he didn't trust in the lab alone too long.

Which left him alone with the Maryam's. Along with Sollux and Aradia, who had decided to eavesdrop on the conversation earlier.

He wasn't sure where to begin with all of this, something the two Maryam's seemingly had in common with him. The halfa was ninety percent sure nobody would say anything if somebody decided to interject.

He was thankful, but also completely embarrassed when his friends with horrible social skills decided to break the silence.

"Alright, I'll bite," Sollux steepled his fingers, holding them close to his mouth as he looked at all three of them. "What kind of a family situation is this? Is it going to turn out to be one of those weird marriage situations that'll end up with someone being their own grandpa?"

"No, I think this isn't a biological thing." Aradia joined in, if only to make the situation awkward enough to break the silence. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that only happened in a song. And in Futurama. Either way, probably not something that can actually happen."

"There were ten different ways you could've started this conversation," Karkat pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a deep sigh. "And yet you chose one of the worst ones to pick. Congratulations, this is even worse than that time we met some of dad's old bandmates."

"At least it broke the tension." Kanaya closed the textbook she'd been reading. She wasn't really reading it anyway; it was just to distract her. "Even if it was a bit crude. Or very strange."

"This whole situation has been strange. At least this is funny." Porrim rubbed at her own eyes, trying to think through all of this. "Are you really a Vantas? You know, that's your real last name and everything?"

"Pretty much. Dad never bothered to change it to his own because he wanted me to decide what to do with it." Karkat hadn't bothered because it seemed like a hassle to change it. Maybe there would've been an advantage to it, though. "I think I'm a little more concerned about how your mom is my grandmother. Just what the hell was she talking about?"

"Ah. That. Not a fun story there." Porrim didn't look interested in telling it, though not out of malice. More out of an obvious hesitance. "Really unhappy and generally not a great thing to tell people we just met about."

"Considering he's related to you two, I don't think that's as much of a problem." Aradia blinked before leaning back. "Then again, Sollux and I don't really count as family. Do you want us to leave the room or...?"

"No, that's fine. If we say anything it might be a good thing to have a support system around." Kanaya didn't want to air some dirty laundry in front of anyone, but she did truly believe this. "Unless either of you don't want to figure any of this out."