Chapter Text
“KARL. WAKE UP. IT’S MARRIAGE TIME, BABY, GET UUUUUUP! I love you, heart emoji, mwah mwah mwah.”
Karl shoots a hand out from under the covers and fumbles for his phone, nearly dropping it into the space between his bed and the nightstand. With clumsy fingers, he cuts off Sapnap’s dulcet screams right as the alarm begins to repeat.
Blissful silence, save for a lark chirping outside the window. He checks the time. Eight a.m. A notification fills the screen: WEDDINGGGG!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!11!!1!!!!!
Oh boy.
Truthfully, the alarm wasn’t even necessary. It was a nice thought on Sapnap’s part, and ultimately not his fault that it had been rendered useless. He couldn’t have known Karl wouldn’t fall asleep.
It’s not like he had planned to stay awake all night. In fact, it was one o’clock when he’d crawled under his sheets, much better than his average bedtime. But by two, his eyes are still glued to the mushroom-patterned ceiling, because if he closes them, he might forget why tomorrow is so important.
At three, he memorizes the shape of his lips and the placement of his tongue as he whispers names into the air: Quackity, Sapnap, George, Bad, Foolish, Tina. Everyone he can think of. When he can’t think of any more, he starts again. Quackity, Sapnap, George—
Four a.m. comes around and he’s watching himself walk down the aisle in his head. He sees his friends sitting on either side, Bad at the altar, Quackity and Sapnap with easy smiles. Then he trips over the lace of his shoes, and he drops his bouquet, and a million other things go wrong. He goes back to repeating names before the thought can continue.
Four o’clock turns to five, five to six, then seven, and now tomorrow has turned into today. And Karl is still awake.
Mornings have never really been Karl’s thing. Of course, they’ve never not been his thing. He’s always thought Kinoko Kingdom is at its best right as the sun breaks the horizon to drip shimmering dawn into each crack and crevice. That the universe coaxes him from warm sleep to witness the welcoming of a new day is a rare gift, however. So no, mornings aren’t really his thing.
This morning, though? It’s difficult to gauge.
On one hand, it’s his wedding day. The happiest day of his life. When everything is perfect and nothing bad happens.
On the other hand, it’s his wedding day. The day that’s been literal years in the making. The day that will split his life into two distinct eras: Before Marriage and After Marriage. If Before Marriage was complicated and messy, that must mean that After Marriage will be easy-going, right? Their lives will finally be simple, peaceful, without the tension that had plagued them for so long.
Eight a.m. ticks to eight-ten. The wedding will be over if he stays hiding underneath his covers all day, so both the blankets and his feet hit the cool floor.
“Morning, guys,” he says to his framed photo of the Kinoko Kingdom citizens hanging on the wall. “Hello, my special handsome boys,” to the second snapshot of Sapnap, Quackity, and himself. He kisses his index finger and gives both of his soon-to-be husbands a loving tap on their printed foreheads before heading to the bathroom.
Steam and sticky condensation cloud Karl’s vision as he turns on the showerhead. If Sapnap were here, he would chide Karl for using so much hot water and insist that a cold shower would be much more efficient in waking him up. Alas, Sapnap had spent the night with his dads, so Karl will have to settle for imagining his affectionate teasing.
(It’s here that we must take a small pause and discuss a topic that, at first, seems totally unrelated to the subject at hand, but rest assured, is extremely important in the context of this wedding in particular.
There is a very famous concept called the Butterfly Effect— the idea that even the smallest action can have an enormous impact on the future. The flap of a butterfly’s wings at just the right moment could determine whether or not a certain event will come to pass. A single drop of water rolling on the waxy surface of a leaf could have devastating consequences on the world as we know it. These are drastic examples, of course, but all entirely possible under the principles of Chaos Theory.
With that in mind, we turn our focus back to Karl’s shower. More specifically, his decision to turn the temperature up to such a high degree. This, my dear audience, is our butterfly; the inconsequential choice that sets in motion a chain reaction of events that will influence the fate of Karl’s wedding. One could argue that the inciting incident was Sapnap choosing to stay with his parents and therefore not being present to convince Karl to use a cooler temperature, but I digress.
Without the condensation from the shower, the note on Karl’s arm wouldn’t smudge to the point of illegibility. He wouldn’t shrug and scrub the ink from his skin, wondering what the words used to say as the soap drips onto the floor. Without the vapor slicking the bathroom mirror, the glue on the back of a yellow Post-It wouldn’t lose its adhesive properties and flutter, almost ironically, into the trash can beside the sink. Without the comforting warmth of the water, Karl wouldn’t linger a few moments too long, daydreaming of his fingers entwined with his loved ones’ and humming a processional tune.
It is this one fatal mistake that causes Karl Jacobs— ex-time traveler —to be late.)
(Although, to be fair, punctuality has never been his strongest trait.)
Hair still damp, tugging on his clothes, Karl sends a text to the others with one thumb.
(8:53) :] karl: hey guys!! Got caught up doing sometjing super improtant but i am on my way now!!! LOVE U
(8:53) sappynappy: r u ok?
(8:54) :] karl: yep just getting ready to see my favorite boys :]
(8:55) sappynappy: did u oversleep
(8:56) :] karl: i overslept at your moms house LMAOOOOOO
(8:56) sappynappy: i dont have a mom stupid
(8:57) quackmeister: im going to kiss you both directly on the mouth if you dont stfu
Seeing the clock tick so close to nine sends Karl into a near panic. Quackity will already be at the venue, probably sticking his nose in the chapel to go over everything one last time against Niki’s wishes. Karl is meant to arrive second (i.e. right now) to check on Tina and the other best men, then Sapnap will escort Bad, who insists on spending every moment he can with his little boy before he has to give him away.
This staggered schedule was done on purpose. The old superstition that a marriage will be cursed with bad luck if the bride and groom see each other too soon lives at the forefront of their minds. After a three-year engagement, Karl’s deteriorating memory, what might have been a temporary break-up, and a server-wide effort to get rid of the source of all conflict complicating their relationship, they aren’t taking any more chances with bad luck. It’s good vibes only from here on out, but if Karl messes up the timing, that could change very quickly.
His stomach groans in protest as he skids towards the door. Right. Breakfast. Karl spins on his heels and takes a detour through the kitchen. There isn’t nearly enough time to cook anything, and there will be plenty to eat at the reception, so he settles for grabbing a plain bagel (yes, plain) and leaves through the back door instead of the front like he’d planned.
This is another important detail— the fact that he had specifically planned on leaving through the front. He can’t remember now why he had been so intent on doing so, but he doesn’t have a second to stop and consider it. He has a wedding to go to, two special handsome boys to smooch, and he’ll be damned if it isn’t the best day this server has ever seen.
A wedding march plays in the back of his head.
Hours later, in the desert chill of Las Nevadas, the march sings for all to hear, pouring out of the chapel’s open walls. Everything is flawless— the venue, the weather, the music. It’s going exactly as they’d hoped.
Karl had managed to arrive only a few minutes off-schedule, which accidentally led him to cross paths with Quackity for a brief moment. Fortunately, Tina was able to slap her palms over Karl’s eyes and guide him away, screaming “NO PEEKING!” before either of them could see the other. Truly, she is the best of men. Other than that slight setback, everything else has miraculously gone without a hitch. And now, the moment of truth is upon them.
Karl rocks on his heels, trying to get a good look at the crowd. The whole server has congregated under this white roof in celebration of the most anticipated event of the last three years (or, most of the server. A select few were left out of the guest list due to safety concerns and the desire to not start a fistfight in the middle of the ceremony— although looking at the seating arrangements, there might be some bloodshed at the reception. And of course, Dream isn’t there for obvious reasons. R.I.P. to that guy.) Some have even traveled from off-server to join the festivities. A tall man in a long-sleeved tee with a logo of a blue tiger shooting pink lightning from its eye catches his attention, flashing him a big thumbs-up.
The two people who matter most aren’t among the crowd, though. They’re right where they’re meant to be at Karl’s side. Quackity and Sapnap wait with him outside the entrance for their cue, fluttering wings and twisting ties respectfully. Neither meet his gaze, set on respecting the ‘no-looking’ superstition to avoid whatever horrible curse might befall them otherwise. Even Karl fixes his eyes over their shoulders.
He finds Sapnap’s hands and guides them away from his tie. “It’ll get all wrinkled if you keep messing with it, dummy.”
Sapnap glides his thumb across Karl’s knuckles, staring straight up at the sky. “Sorry,” he says. Karl takes note of a slight wobble in his voice. “I need to move, you know? Gotta have something to do.”
“We’ll go out soon,” Karl promises. “It’s one little speech, a couple of I do’s, and then boom. Married.”
“Then it’s party time,” Quackity adds, eyes glued to the ground.
A noise that’s part laugh, part stressed groan comes from Sapnap’s mouth. “I just— if anyone cries, or thinks about crying, I’ll cry too.”
“Save the tears for the altar, pretty boy.”
Karl reaches up and pulls Sapnap’s face to his, planting the smallest of kisses below his cheekbone. “You’re such a big sap, Sap.”
Quackity flicks Karl’s arm. “Hey, sharing is caring.”
A wedding march floats into the air with a delicate melody, pulling the guests to their feet and turning their heads expectantly. “You’ll get your turn in a minute,” Karl whispers, taking up his position near the front of the line. “See you when we’re married.”
“See you when I’m married to your mom,” Sapnap says back.
Quackity puffs out a breath. “Start walking, Karl.”
Giggles flit through the crowd when the flower girl steps out at the lead. Or rather, flower girls. Foolish, all dolled up in a suit and tie, carries a woven basket in his grip, filled to the brim with pastel flowers. And a dog. Rat, also dolled up with a sparkly pink bow on her collar, gracefully digs her nose under the petals and flicks them onto the floor. Her little tail wags as guests coo at her from their seats.
Karl is next, squeezing his bouquet in his palms so no one can see his fingers shaking. His grooms are following close behind, he knows. He can almost feel Quackity’s grin, and Sapnap’s sniffling cuts through the music. Each step brings them closer to an easy life, closer to being together at last. Each step is riddled with anticipation and anxiety and excitement. Each step is absolutely perfect.
And then Rat bites Foolish.
It’s difficult to see exactly what happened from Karl’s perspective, but he had seen Foolish’s hand disappear into the basket, presumably to take a few petals to sprinkle for himself, and then abruptly return empty handed. Foolish draws in a loud hiss and a barely-concealed “Ow!” A forced smile appears on his face. He shifts the basket and reaches in again, this time with the other arm. Same result. Rat lets out a low growl.
“Stop that, you little—” Foolish cuts himself off with another fake grin, as if he remembered where he is. “Haha, I mean—” He starts humming aloud with the music.
Karl pokes a finger into his back. “Stop fighting with the dog,” he mutters through smiling teeth.
“Tell her to quit biting me,” Foolish mumbles back.
“She’s the flower girl, Foolish.”
“She’s a diva, is what she is.”
There’s a tap on Karl’s spine. “Keep going,” Quackity whispers.
The procession continues, Karl delivering a swift kick to Foolish’s ankle when he tries grabbing a fistful of flowers. Perhaps it’s a bit mean, but he would rather step on someone’s heels than have a fight break out between a god and a dog. Luckily, it works, and they make it to the altar unscathed (except for Foolish, who now has a few scratches on his knuckles and a permanent glare fixed on Rat).
The last chord of the march shimmers over them and dances into the sky. Pews creak and rumble as the guests sit. Karl takes his place between his beloveds, stealing a glance at their faces. Quackity’s eyes are brighter than they’ve ever been, full of sunshine and starglow and all the light in the universe. Sapnap is blinking hard, his rugged and unintentionally handsome features making Karl’s flowers seem dull and frail by comparison. Karl thinks they’ve never looked more beautiful.
They’re doing the same, eyes flickering toward one another now that they’ve crossed the aisle. The corners of their mouths creep up their cheeks. Sapnap hooks his arm through Karl’s. Karl interlocks his fingers with Quackity’s.
This is it. Against all odds, they’ve made it. Their happiness, their future, can finally begin without obstruction. Karl takes a deep breath to still his hummingbird heart and turns to Bad.
Bad bursts into tears.
Full on weeping— sobs ripping through his throat, tears and snot dripping down his face. The whole shebang.
Sapnap clears his throat pointedly. “Dad,” he mutters. “The ceremony.”
“I know,” Bad blubbers. “I’m sorry, Sappy, I know I said I’d try to keep it together, but now you’re here and you look so grown up and I just—” He breaks off with a wail. “You’re so happy!”
As awkward as this interruption is, Karl can’t help but bite back a laugh. A quick look at Quackity tells him he’s not the only one who finds this at least a little bit amusing. In fact, he hears a few soft chuckles from the crowd, with a sniffle or two mixed in.
Sapnap is tense, eyes closed. Karl can see a few tears of his own welling up from under his lashes. “Dad,” he says again, considerably more choked up this time. “I really, really appreciate it, but can you please try to hold it in until afterward?”
Bad nods, rubbing his eyes dry against the back of his palms and gulping a few lungfuls of air. “Yes, yes, of course! Sorry, Pandas. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
Bad clears his throat and takes a shaky breath. “Welcome, friends and family,” he greets the crowd. “Thank you all for joining us on this wonderful occasion. Today, we are here to witness the union of Quackity, Karl, and—” (Another sob) “And Sapnap. This marriage will not mark the beginning of their relationship, but the next chapter in their lives. It will affirm the love that binds them together formally and publicly. It is a transition that they will make as a unit, and will celebrate the— the love that— that—”
He’s crying again.
Karl shares a glance with his almost-husbands. Sapnap looks like he’s about to follow his father’s lead. With stiff movements, Karl pats Bad’s hand. “Hey man, let’s just skip to the vows, okay?”
Bad curls his fingers around Karl’s and motions for Quackity and Sapnap. Haphazardly holding the three of them, Bad swallows. “Do you, Quackity, take Karl and Sapnap to be your lawfully wedded husbands? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and not so good times, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself unto them for as long as you all shall live?”
Quackity, a bit taken aback by the abrupt change in script, flounders at first, then shifts his gaze to the two men beside him. His irises, dark and vast and glittering as the galaxies, expand to take in their forms. Karl can see his own reflection. Voice thick with emotion, Quackity responds, “I do.” The question is turned to Sapnap, whose identical reply is choked out through hot tears.
When the same is asked of Karl, there is no hesitancy that keeps him from answering. He is reminded of their shared journey on the server: singing on an outdoor stage as the seasons turn, with untrained and loud voices switching out the lyrics for teasing feuds; building a home on untamed land that welcomed far-away visitors, where they egged each other on in silly dares; that grueling stretch of time spent apart that for Karl felt like a thousand lifetimes. Every chapter and page, paragraph and sentence, ellipses and parenthetical that led them to this very moment.
All of it takes shape in Karl’s throat and slips from his tongue in honeyed conviction: “I do.”
This warrants a hiccup from Bad as he struggles to keep his emotions in check. He dabs at his face with a handkerchief and continues the ceremony with a quivering chin. “An exchange of rings is taking the bond that ties you to one another and giving it a physical form. It is an unbroken circle with ends that have been joined together. A representation of infinity, and your infinite love. When you look at them, be reminded of this moment, and the commitment you make by trading these symbols.” (Hiccup.) “Karl, the rings, please.”
(And here it is. This is where our butterfly has brought us. The culminating moment that we have been waiting for since Karl turned the knob on his shower a tick too high. It is in this exact instant that he remembers the messy words that Sapnap had scrawled on his arm the day before, the yellow paper of a sticky note pasted onto his mirror, and the tiny metal bands that still sit on the counter beside his front door in Kinoko Kingdom.)
Right.
The rings.
Fuck.
Bad coughs. “The rings, please,” he repeats.
“Uh…”
Quackity’s elbow connects with his. “Karl, you have them, right?”
“Uh…”
In all his catastrophizing at four in the morning, this is the one scenario he never considered. He desperately wishes that it could have been a different disaster. Let Foolish duke it out with the dog, let Bad cry so much that the commencement has to take a pause. Just not this. God, not this. Time travel powers would be great right about now.
Someone in the crowd coughs. There might be a cricket chirping in the background. A cricket in the middle of a fake desert in mid-afternoon.
“Okay,” Quackity says, his tone tight and pitched two octaves higher than normal. “Okay. This is fine. This is fine! Who needs rings? Fuck ‘em!”
Sapnap leans closer to his father. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Um, exchange something else?”
Quackity plasters on an artificial smile with clenched teeth. “We don’t have anything else, Bad. What do you want us to do, swap shoes? Clothes? Take a couple of flowers and make friendship bracelets?”
“Maybe we can just skip this part, too,” Karl suggests, wanting to contribute and hoping they forget that he’s the reason this wedding has ground to a halt for the third time. “No need to freak out.”
His smile melting into something a little more genuine but still very stressed, Quackity grips both of Karl’s shoulders and begins to rub his arms. “Karl, baby, darling, light of my life. I’m not mad, but we can’t skip the rings.”
“I can run back to Kinoko and—”
“No.”
“Does anyone else have—”
“No.”
Sapnap, who had taken his father’s suggestion and started patting himself down for any spare rings he might have squirreled away, lights up with a sudden realization. “Wait, I’ve got it!” From the pockets of his suit, he produces their saving grace: three loose ribbons of iridescent silk.
He takes Quackity’s hand, gesturing for Karl to take a ribbon. “Quackity,” Sapnap starts. The man’s anxious expression dissipates. “I know that this isn’t going exactly how you wanted it to. It’s not perfect, and there’s been a lot of problems, and it took a shit ton of work to get here. But honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Karl grazes his thumb across Quackity’s wrist. “It’s kind of like us, if you think about it. I mean, when have we not had problems?” Amusement graces his husband-to-be’s face. “And at the end of the day, that’s what marriage is: working through conflict and coming out of it together. We’re like, one step ahead. We’re marriage pros.”
“So even though it hasn’t been, and probably won’t be easy,” Sapnap continues, “we’re going to keep trying until it is. With you.”
The tension falls from their groom’s shoulders, his expression lifting in a soft smile. “Geez,” he says with a breathy laugh. “You guys are a bunch of saps, you know that?”
Karl points to Sapnap. “No, he’s a Sap. I’m a Karl.”
“You—” Quackity nudges him playfully. “Never change, you fuckin’ nimrod.” His cheeks puff up as he lets out an exhale. “Okay, since we’re doing vows now, I guess it’s my turn. Karl, Sapnap, I… god, I had this whole like, speech I was gonna do, and I can’t remember what it was.”
“Wing it, dude,” Sapnap says. “You’ll get used to it.”
Quackity rubs the back of his neck. “Right, um, we’ve been through a lot. Things were rough for a while. There was a good chunk of time we spent apart. And during that time, I realized that what I wanted most was to leave a good mark on this server. I wanted my— my legacy to be something that I could look back on and be proud of. For a long time, I thought that would be Las Nevadas. But all of this, the bright lights and the giant buildings— that’s not my legacy.” His cheeks redden a bit at the vulnerability of his words. “You guys are.”
“Aw,” Karl coos. “That’s gay.”
Sparkling laughter bubbles up from Quackity’s chest. “Yeah, that’s kinda the point, Karl.”
With mirrored movements, Karl and Sapnap gently tie one of the ribbons around Quackity’s ring finger, taking turns to slide the fabric over each of their knuckles. Unprecedented, yes, but then again, so is their relationship.
They tie the knot, and they tie the knot.
Bad (at this point almost inconsolable) leads them through the last vow. “I give you this ring as a symbol of my love with the pledge: to love you today, tomorrow, always, and forever.”
“Before these witnesses, you have pledged to be joined in marriage,” Bad says. “You have now sealed this pledge with your wedding— uh, ribbons. By the authority vested in me, I now pronounce you—” (Another sob) “Married! You may now kiss the grooms!”
They all start toward each other, then the same thought strikes them collectively and they stop. Quackity leans forward on his toes. “Uh, guys? How exactly is this gonna work?”
“I don’t know,” Karl whispers back. “Should we take turns, or…?”
Sapnap raises his arms in a wide shrug. “Fuck it.” He takes them both by the back of their heads and unceremoniously shoves his face into theirs.
A three-person kiss. By all logic, it should not work.
But their noses scrunch up against each other, their lips connect unevenly and break apart from giggles that gush out of them like fountains. It works and it doesn’t, it’s confusing and makes total sense, it’s hard to navigate and like second nature.
It’s them.
And as they pull away and the server erupts into cheers, a wedding march plays in the back of Karl’s head.