Mutated Ectoplasm

1. Average Everyday

Karkat Vantas knew immediately it was going to be a fantastic day the exact minute he woke up. Why you might ask?

Was it because he only got four hours of sleep last night because he had to redo a paper because he read the prompt wrong? Maybe.

Maybe it's how he had a crick in his neck after sleeping at his desk after finally finishing the damn thing? Quite possibly.

BOOM

Or could it be that he was woken up from said slumber after another of his dad's experiments decided to go FUBAR and explode at the ungodly hour of six o'clock in the morning? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Karkat jumped, hitting his knee on the bottom of the desk with full force. A slew of curses flew out of his mouth as he slid away from the offending piece of furniture, cradling his leg. He glared at it for several seconds before sighing and putting his foot down on the floor.

"What in the Christ did Dad fuck up this time?" He muttered to himself ruffling his black hair, wishing desperately that he could go back to bed. Hopefully the damage was minor, otherwise he'd have to help clean it up.

Straightening out the bomber jacket he was still wearing from the night before and wiping off his jeans, Karkat got up from his chair, cracking his back slowly. Running his hands through his black hair, red eyes scanning the room, he surveyed the damage.

From the looks of things, nothing was knocked too far out of place. The few band and movie posters remained on the wall, with the strange mix of rom-coms and band names clashing together. Some of the weird inventions his father gave to him as 'gifts' over the years were unharmed as well, though his collection romantic-comedies were scattered all over the place, along with the dusty computer programming books flopped face down on the floor.

"Fuck." Karkat fought the urge to start scrambling to pick his shit up off the floor, otherwise he'd be late for school. Besides, might as well figure out if he needed to take his dad to the hospital for the third time this month.

He got out of his room and stomped downstairs, keeping his eyes and ears open for another explosion. He followed the sounds of rampant cursing coming from the basement, whose door was wide open. "Everything all right down there?"

The response with met with more cursing, which he could only take as a yes. If his dad was cursing, then that means he's breathing.

As Karkat marched down the stairs, mentally preparing himself for the disaster zone, he couldn't help but count the steps where the transition between wood to metal occurred, slowly changing from its welcoming facade. The temperature in the room dropped with each step he took, the cold metal sending shivers down his spine.

It always felt like that when he went into the lab.

The cold feeling only lasted seconds, though, as he could feel the leftover heat of the explosion waft past him. He could already smell the burnt wires and metal, causing his face to wrinkle in disgust. He could also smell something almost chemical too, but not something he could immediately place in his tired mind. The cursing got louder as he finally caught sight of his dad moving through the wreckage of the latest experiment.

Spades Slick was not someone you would consider a scientist judging from his face. He looked too rough for that, with scowl set on his face and a deep scar over one eye. There was also the matter of the eyepatch he decided to wear and the fact he wore pinstripe suits when he wasn't working in the lab.

However, he was one. He had the jumpsuit and lab coat to prove it.

And a degree in physics and astronomy, but that was less important than the lab coat.