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Sapnap wakes up after midnight to find Karl gone.
This isn’t exactly strange within itself - Karl is a night owl, and lately he’s been spending less time with everyone and more time working on a ‘private project’, as he’d claimed a month or so ago, eyes shining with pride, ‘something that’s gonna blow you away’. That’s all he’d say about the matter, but Sapnap knows his partner spends hours, if not days, slaving away at it, not coming back sometimes for weeks on end. He’s not troubled that Karl is away. Karl’s a big boy, he tells himself, he can take care of himself.
What troubles him is that Karl had fallen asleep with him and Quackity last night, there is blood on the ground, and Karl is nowhere to be seen.
Snapping from drowsiness to a sudden aching awareness, Sapnap tumbles out of bed in a flurry of limbs, still careful not to wake Quackity, who’s sleeping soundly beside him. He looks peaceful for the first time in a long time, but Sapnap has no time to admire him; his heart is beating a sickening rhythm between his ribs and his mind is a dichotomy between whirling thoughts and a thumping KarlKarlKarl Karl in the back of his head, because Karl could be in danger, Karl could be dead, while Sapnap has been sleeping through it.
He hadn’t been able to save one of his best friends. The least he can do now is to save his fiancé. Heading towards the door, trying not to look at the scrape of blood on the wall and doing his best to pretend his hands aren’t shaking, Sapnap stiffens. A noise, from next door.
“Karl?” He whispers uncertainly, hand curling into a fist by his side. “‘S that you?”
Silence. And then the unmistakable sound of something shattering.
Heart rising into his mouth, Sapnap heads in the direction of the noise, searching wildly through his inventory for a weapon, a shield, something to use to protect Karl if it comes down to it. He lands on an axe, feeling marginally safer with it in his grip, and promptly shoves open the door to the living room, axe raised, ready to fight.
There’s no need. It’s just Karl, standing limply in the middle of the room with a broken clock in his hands.
Sapnap lowers the axe, beyond relieved. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes, “you scared the living shit out of me, Karl.”
Karl doesn’t respond for a second, which is- weird, Sapnap thinks, because usually Karl would be teasing him in between relieving him of his concerns, usually he’d giggle something about being a damsel in distress, and Sapnap would roll his eyes and they’d both go back to bed, end of story, full stop. But Karl barely moves, grey grey eyes lifting to meet his behind a haze.
For a frightening moment, Karl looks at him, and it’s clear he doesn’t recognize him.
For a more frightening moment, Sapnap looks back at Karl, and doesn’t recognize him either.
“James?” Karl asks, voice cracking. “You’re alive?”
And then Sapnap has his arms filled with Karl crushing him in the tightest hug he’s ever had, the clock cracking further on the floor between their feet, and he can smell dust in his hair and wine on his breath, and for a second, he’s reminded impossibly of a boy with a multicolored hoodie and a mask and a sword between his ribs as he takes his last breath. Shaken, he can only cling to Karl, arms coming up to embrace him gently. “That’s not-” He begins, before stopping, unsure. “Who’s James, Karl?”
But Karl is already pulling away, that same grey look in his eyes, and he’s pulling Sapnap in the direction of their bedroom, talking in a soft, hushed voice. “We have to save him, James,” he says, like Sapnap has any fucking clue who he’s talking about, like he has any idea who ‘James’ is, “we can’t let him… I can’t let him die again. He dies every time I try to save him. Every single time?”
“Who does?” Sapnap asks, lost. “Karl, Jesus, you’re not making any sense.”
And then he stops, because Karl does, and when he turns to his fiancé in question, he finds him staring at the sleeping Quackity with heartbreak in his gaze, and suddenly Sapnap thinks he might know who he’s talking about.
“I don’t want him to die again.” Karl’s voice cracks. He doesn’t need to be looking at him for Sapnap to sense the tears in his eyes. “I can’t watch him die again.”
He grabs hold of Sapnap suddenly, oddly urgent, oddly desperate.
“Promise me,” Karl says, “he’ll stay alive. Promise me you’ll keep him safe, James.”
Sapnap can only stare at him, a mixture of alarmed and bewildered. Has Karl been drinking? There’s alcohol on his breath, but he’s not one for drinking - and not to mention, he doesn’t seem drunk. Out of it, yes, distraught, absolutely; briefly, Sapnap entertains the idea that Karl’s taken drugs or lost his mind, but dismisses both of them, too. Quackity is doing enough of both of those for the three of them.
But Karl is still holding onto him, expression pleading, dazed, and so Sapnap swallows down his questions, ducks his head in acceptance. “Yeah,” he says, quietly, “yeah, I’ll keep Q safe for us, Karl. I promise.”
Karl’s face evens out in relief. “Good,” he replies, and then his legs buckle, and Sapnap staggers to catch him, guiding him into bed, “good.” He’s still in his hoodie and the rest of his clothes, but they can worry about that in the morning. What Karl needs, Sapnap decides, is rest, and comfort. They can talk tomorrow, maybe, though none of them have ever been very good at talking about feelings. “Thanks, James.”
“No problem.” Sapnap swallows down his questions, his worries, everything, and presses a kiss to Karl’s forehead. It does the job; Karl’s face relaxes, and he lets his eyes close, breathing beginning to even out already. “Try and get some sleep. I’ll watch over both of you, I promise.”
“‘Kay.” Karl’s head droops. “Love you.”
“Love you,” he echoes softly, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as Karl falls asleep next to him, and it’s the truth. Even if he’s upset Karl is keeping secrets from him, even if he and Quackity fight more than usual, even if the rest of the world is crumbling around him with Dream gone and George missing, Sapnap loves Karl and Quackity, more than he cares to admit.
He rolls over in bed, stares up at the ceiling restlessly. It’s hard to dismiss the fear in Karl’s eyes, the panic over losing his loved ones. A chill runs over his spine, and he does his best to pretend he’s just cold, like he’s capable of being cold with his lava affinities.
“Sapnap?” Quackity’s voice is slurred with sleep. Peering over, Sapnap sees his fiancé blink at him, exhausted and half-coherent. “Somethin’ happen?”
“No, nothing happened,” Sapnap says, lying through his teeth, “go back to sleep, Q.”
“What about you?”
He glances down at the sleeping Karl sprawled in between them. His features are pale, grey in the dim lighting of the room. “I’ll sit up a little longer,” he says, and watches Quackity yawn, turn over so he’s closer to Karl, and promptly pass back out. A faint smile touches his face. It’s scary, he thinks, how much he’d give for these two. It’s scary, how much he’d deteriorate if he lost them.
Never again, he thinks, and then wonders why that comes to his mind when he’s never lost either of them before.
It’s dawn before Sapnap falls asleep again, when he knows the sun creeping across the sky will look out for his fiancés while he rests. When he finally dreams, he dreams of him and Karl in a ballroom, dancing to piano music and playing children’s games well into the night.