Chapter Text
They met at a party: raging bass, red solo cups, and alcohol seeped into the walls.
Parties had always felt stifled to Sapnap, stunted and awkward like a badly paced anime: all-flash at the beginning only to drag in the middle until every fun aspect was reduced to meandering nothingness as music became louder than thoughts. That’s not to say he didn’t like parties in their entirety though, sometimes predictable is good. He liked being stupid, jumping off house party roofs, and drinking too much. Being tipped into a tantalizing caricature thrilled him. Still, he hadn’t wanted to go at first that night— a frat party didn’t seem the least bit interesting, they are too loud, too festered in passivity and dudebro energy.
But, unfortunately for him, George is one persuasive motherfucker.
As they were closing up the 7/11, his manager had smiled at him in the way only George can, utterly hopeful and disastrously devious; citing Sapnap’s last high school summer as a reason to go to a college party.
He had never stood a chance to say no. No one ever really stands a chance to say no to George, it’s like one of Isaac Newton’s laws: Apples will always fall from trees, everyone will say yes to George and the rest of us will have to deal with it.
The party was fine, average by all means. He’d won a game of beer pong, and danced with faceless people, but he was still desperately searching for fun, for the one factor that would push the average into the extraordinary.
That’s when he saw him: a man nestled in the corner, color block hoodie hanging off a thin frame, and white claw placed in between painted fingertips.
The first thing that struck Sapnap when he landed eyes on the boy was how nothing came to mind. Granted, his mind was slowed, absorbing details in full seconds, but he didn't think it would have made a difference. There were so many details: the sharp canines yet soft smile, the nervous energy smothered by giddy demeanor, and gray eyes that fell into red cheeks. But when Sapnap tried to pick past the surface, scramble his brain to find the minute lingerings of personality, he found none. Absolutely nothing and even his blitzed mind knew that was something.
His whole life Sapnap’s mind had a weird way of perceiving people, assigning them little characteristics before he fully knew who they were. It’s in the way someone moves and looks, tiny details that comprise a personality and his brain picks them up subconsciously. In Layman’s terms, Sapnap is a master of the vibe check. Observations would flood his mind like an unconscious stream: sometimes funny, sometimes minor, sometimes major-- always unwelcomed.
He hated thinking, assigning, assuming, and sometimes he wished his head could shut the fuck up, hence the joint placed in between his fingers.
Maybe that’s what attracted him to Karl in the first place, the promise of silence and fun, how open Karl was, and how he exposed absolutely nothing in that openness, as though a void meant to lull him inward and suffocate. Sapnap had always liked mysteries; curiosity, a teeming wound he’d never seemed to staunch, and so as the bass from some random pop song pounded into his head like a hammer bro (dinging his already dented brain) he walked up to the boy he couldn’t figure anything out about.
He can still faintly remember his first words, joint heady in his hand, Marijuana-dulled senses, muttering, “Do you smoke?”
Karl's eyes had widened and then crinkled. The can of Whiteclaw in his hand seemed so big, “Who doesn’t?”
They shared a smile, canines without any threat flashing, and Sapnap held up the joint to Karl’s lips. His fingertips sat near pink cupid’s bow buzzing when Karl choked on the first breath, cough sputtering between his lips like a novice.
Sapnap laughed at his misery, throwing his head back, “You’re such a liar.”
Karl lowered his head, a tiny smile on his face despite the coughs raking through him. Sapnap sort of admired that in a way: to be able to be coughing and yet smiling. “I’ve heard lying makes things more interesting.”
The strange sentence made Sapnap pause at once, laughter stilling into slanted breaths. That might’ve been an innocuous phrase if he was sober, but he was high so it weighed on his tongue and coated his mind like mercury. There was one thing that phrase did solidify in his head though, seared into the edges with brandishing flames: Karl was nothing if not interesting and Sapnap was nothing if not interested.
A girl jostled against his back pushing him closer. He did not complain. Karl’s eyes are gray even in the dark. Stormed oceans. Sapnap could drown in them if he desired. Maybe he does. He gestured towards the joint, lifted it the tiniest amount, “You want to learn?”
He wasn’t sure if he was asking Karl or himself.
Eyes flickered down his short frame, capturing every detail with owl-like precision, and it made Sapnap squirm. What are you looking at? “Sure.”
Me too.
“Well first, Hold it, don’t huff it,” Sapnap instructed, “It’s not glue.” He brought the joint to his lips, inhaling. Karl chased the motion. The smoke cooled in Sapnap’s mouth for a moment before being swept up in the sticky air.
Upturned dimples festered in Karl’s cheeks like blooming flowers, “What type of a pickup line is ‘its not glue?’”
The music flooded into Sapnap’s body, merged with his rabid heartbeat, and he liked that feeling— the thrill, found it mirrored in burning embers. “Who said I was picking you up? I think that’s some projection there.”
To be clear: Sapnap was 100% trying to pick Karl up.
Karl rolled his lips inward, hidden smile dotted in the edges, and ignored the question in favor of his own. Head tilted just so, angled lower so Sapnap could kiss him if he wanted, “Do I look like the type to have huffed glue?”
Sapnap shrugged, mouth silent where his brain had screeched at him to press on, You don’t look like the type for anything. Certainly not the type to talk to boys with joints in their hands and go to Frat parties.
Another attempt led Karl’s mouth back on the joint, mere centimeters from Sapnap’s fingers. He leaned closer, his torso brushing against Karl’s arm. Eyes had fluttered open and Sapnap stared up at him-- close, knowing what exactly he was waiting for: a sign, a signal, a flashing light screaming ‘go.’ Karl stared at him back, gray eyes burning deeper than any joint, inhaled a breath of pungent smoke, and gave a nod answering the unasked question.
Sapnap’s not sure if Karl would’ve coughed on that one because he was too busy replacing the joint with his mouth to notice, slotting their lips together in a mix-mashed pattern as he hooked his free arm around Karl’s neck. It was the type of kiss you fall into, lose semblance of yourself in, and he was all too greedy for the motion to overwhelm him. Karl kissed eager and ambitious, reaching out to him with each movement, weed not yet fully slowing his pace.
Sapnap pulled back. Heat lingered against his cheeks, “You’re good with this, right?”
Karl laughed, smile buzzed, pressed his forehead against Sapnap’s, “Not feeling..” he paused as if scared to say the word, “You know tonight, but I’m good with making out.” He looked up, watery eyes, “And you?”
The bluntness was a contrast against Karl’s soft eyes. A dichotomy so tantalizing, the remnants were jaded, so sharp they could cut.
Jagged edges dug under Sapnap’s skin and his breath stuttered, “I only want what you want.”
Karl nodded, then giggled, and it sounded like a melody. The type of thing that would’ve inspired Beethoven to write Twinkle Twinkle little star. The type of thing that Sapnap would never experience except for in others despite how high his brain was. The giggle faded into words, “Not every night you meet a gentleman at a Frat party.”
Sapnap twisted his free hand in Karl's hoodie and smiled, the smile that hooked people: slightly shy and earnest. “Does every gentleman offer you a joint?”
A blush crept at the edge of Karl’s cheek and dripped onto his neck. Sapnap seldom noticed the people edging around them, too preoccupied with watching the color bloom.
“Haven’t you heard?” Karl smiled, slight bliss tinged edges peeking through, “Chivalry is dead,” and then he was pulling the collar of Sapnap’s Hawaiian shirt up, pressing his mouth back and holding him like he was trying to dissolve into him.
Each movement was a silent plea, a mere dashing of personality seeped in escapism, which left the unanswered question: What does Karl Jacobs have to escape from?
They met at a party— something Sapnap saw as an escape from reality in sporadic moments fueled by alcohol and highs— surrounded by vapid obstacles as they swayed and danced together, laughing and peppering hot kisses on pale flesh in between gasps of high and sips of Whiteclaw.
Sapnap would, likewise, come to see parties as a metaphor for their relationship entirely.
________________
Accepting invites to George’s Frat parties became a regular occurrence where they were once occasional; showing up in hopes of catching glimpses of a boy he was desperate to find the puzzle pieces for. Karl would almost always be there, in the corner of some room away from music, head already angled downward as though he was waiting for a joint or a kiss.
Sapnap never did figure out which one. It didn’t matter, not then.
Sapnap doesn’t much think of his actions holistically, tries not to dig into each decision until he’s left with the blue prints of his brain, and so he goes with the flow of things. Karl is pretty, and funny, and stupid, and Sapnap likes that, and tries his best to be fully hedonistic, to abide by his own wants instead of festering in them.
They fell into the pattern of each other seamlessly, he can’t recount why or how. It’s one of those things that happens— perhaps fate or chance or both— a cobbled together mash of opportunity like the time he decided to watch one episode of AOT and got hooked.
More often than not it would end in hot breath, daring kisses, and blank canvases of skin being stained under the guise of tainted mindsets.
But sometimes, and only sometimes, it would end up with muttered phrases and details Sapnap couldn’t decipher himself, puzzle pieces being unraveled with baited inhales and perfected exhales pressed against his pointer finger and thumb.
Secretly, Sapnap preferred the latter.
________________
He learns Karl likes nail polish. It’s something he could have assumed on his own, a myriad of chipped colors splayed across Karl's fingernails, but he likes the way Karl tells it to him, so earnest and honest in the waning moonlight.
“Nail polish? it makes me more confident,” Karl giggles as he peppers kisses onto Sapnap’s neck, hands intertwined around a bottle of vodka mixed with orange juice (because Sapnap will go down with the ship that Orange juice is the best.) He couldn’t tell the difference between the burn caused by alcohol and the burn caused by pink lips ghosting over the expanse of his throat. Both felt similarly disorienting.
“Yeah?” He gasps as Karl blisters a kiss under his ear and bit at it teasingly. His body quivers. Head amiss. 2+2 equals 5, and Gravity is a fallacy. He slurs, only half-joking, “If you keep doing that I’m going to drop this bottle on the floor.”
Karl bites at the space again. Sapnap’s grip on the glass bottle slips and causes it to crash with a shattering of noise (Smooth.) A laugh ghosts against his neck, and Karl pulls back marveling at the shattered glass, “I thought you were kidding.”
“I thought you knew I take make-out sessions very seriously.” Sapnap maneuvers himself out of the puddle of seeping Orange juice (It's a frat house, he's sure there have been worse sticky substances on the carpet) and drags Karl throw the cesspit of bodies to George’s room upstairs despite the protests of ‘we should really clean that up.’
Karl giggles as Sapnap nearly misses a step on the stairs and grabs his hand, “You’re way too drunk for stairs.”
“No way, ” Sapnap giggles (or echoes) and he places his foot more carefully on the treacherous staircase, “no such thing as too drunk.”
Karl hums, “I think that's what people say before they die of alcohol poisoning.”
Sapnap ignores him and continues his path to George’s room, only rejoicing when he gets his key to work (after 10 tries, and he takes mental notes to hate on George for installing a lock on his door like a loser) and finds the room unoccupied, a union jack lazily hung on the wall and PC set up that is far too expensive. As if the union jack on the wall wasn't enough of an indicator that George was British, the same emblem is on his bedspread (Sapnap given it to him as a joke for Christmas next to a fake Supreme hoodie. The real joke was on him because George loved both of them.)
Karl's breath quiets when he sees the room, eyes narrowing on the bed. “oh.”
“Oh,” Sapnap mimics back and drawls his hands under the hem of Karl’s jumper, dancing across the edges of the material. He hums as he presses a kiss on the edge of Karl’s neck, “Good oh or bad oh?”
Karl pushes him away gently, “That's a You’re-drunk-oh.”
“I’m not that drunk,” Sapnap refutes (and it only sounds slightly like an immature three year old.) “Trust me I've had way more than that before.”
Karl quirks an eyebrow, “Ok, didn't realize liver cancer was on your bucket list.”
“Hey, what's that saying?” Sapnap asks crawling into the Union Jack covers of George’s bed (because honestly fuck George. He sleeps too much already). “Shoot for the moon and you’ll land amongst the stars?”
“Are the stars an alcohol addiction in this metaphor?”
“Depends, ” Sapnap murmurs from the bed, “Are you into the damaged type or clean-cut?”
Karl only laughs, “You're such a nimrod.”
Sapnap cozies into the bed, wrapping himself on the sheets. Karl stands in the doorframe, leaned so casually with a hoodie pooled around his shoulders, and lips pursed inwards. Karl looks like a vision, slim shoulders, and long legs.
“So no sex?”
Karl laughs, leaning into the door frame in a way that looks like a halfway flight or fight response. “Why’d you have to say it like that?”
And Sapnap likes that, that Karl takes his abrasive personality and finds it funny rather than off putting.
“How am I supposed to say it?” Sapnap rolls in the covers, feeling the cotton swish on his feet, “‘Thou will not have sex with me; will thou?”
“Ok...” Karl drawls, “that’s certainly the weirdest proposition I’ve heard.”
“Proposition?” Sapnap snorts and he’s not exactly sure where he’s going with this, but, then again, he’s never been particularly sure about anything. “Holy shit, what are you? Straight out of a Shakespeare play?”
“Something tells me you’ve never read Shakespeare.”
Sapnap laughs because it’s true (come on, it was so boring, did you actually think he would’ve read that in highschool?) “I can’t believe I came here to get laid and now I’m getting insulted.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Only you would apologize for not having sex.” And then his tone melts into something halfway serious, “I’m really not disappointed, we can just talk. I like talking with you.”
“Yeah?” Karl asks, still lingering in the doorway, and it’s then Sapnap realizes how stupidly awkwardly their positioning is Karl pressed against the doorframe and Sapnap lazing in George’s bed. Karl looks pretty, nails painted and light mascara fluttering his eyelashes, and Sapnap wants nothing more than for him to stay.
“Yeah,” He holds his hands out, “If I'm too drunk, let’s at least cuddle like bros.”
And Karl giggles again, all fight or flight melted in an instant. “Just cuddling?”
“Yeah,” Sapnap assures, eyes half-closed, “I'm tired as shit, anyways.”
Despite the poor answer, some of it must be sufficient because Karl falls into his arms landing on George’s queen mattress with a satisfying noise.
Karl laughs as he wraps his arms around Sapnap’s waist, “Just cuddling with the homies.”
Sapnap hums, “Five centimeters apart cause we're gay.”
Karl rests his lips on the juncture of Sapnap’s neck, “You know that original vine was made by Anthony Padilla?”
Karl has random knowledge, pop culture facts that somewhat offset Sapnap’s lack of knowledge on anything, and in that way he thinks they complete each other— at least when they’re high.
Sapnap blinks, his eyes feeling like lead, “That's somehow the gayest shit I've heard you say, Jacobs.”
“Even gayer than the nail polish?”
Sapnaps murmurs, half-asleep and hefts Karl’s hand towards his lips; kisses the thumb bed and then each nail on an unnamed path, and in a brief snippet of honesty: “I kinda like nail polish on you.”
“Good because,” Karl says before pressing a kiss onto his neck, giggling all the same, and Sapnap swears the notes match to a dozen lullabies perfectly, “I don’t change myself for nimrods who drop glass bottles.”
________________
Weed and alcohol are predictable unpredictable things. They’re the faintest step into the unknown without full immersion. They dull Sapnap’s head in a way that makes it manageable to exist without folding inwards, not fully taking away his personality, but making him unthinking. Control and knowledge had always been something he lusted over, but he found himself finding solace in the opposite, the way they give him deniability and courage. He’s always been afraid of being alone, lost in his thoughts, and so the freedom in not thinking and being stupid without rationale is exhilarating.
His favorite kisses are ones made on the briddles of joints and alcohol before it passes the stage of too much because they are much in the same, slightly slowed, less of himself, full of deniability and courage he can’t muster sober.
His favorite person to kiss while a remnant of himself is Karl because he’s a faint step into an unknown Sapnap can’t grasp, predictable in the most unpredictable way.
________________
George wanders around the shop, 7/11 vest hanging off his shoulders and similar memorabilia garishly glinting on every countertop. Distilled sunlight flits through the windows, and a fleck of rain drops onto the glass. It’s a small thing, a simple dribble of rain in an otherwise rubble-ridden landscape. More raindrops start to accumulate, and Sapnap watches a smile rise on George’s lips. George has always been excitable by the most feeble of details. Whenever rain pours down, his entire mood is lifted in an instance because it reminds him of home-- sentimental in a way Sapnap could never fully understand. He thinks it’s a little lame of George, to be so easily controlled by such a small detail.
Over the sound of fickle rain, the buzz of old Fluorescent lights is overpowering as desert and red rocks stretch outside. The 7/11, in all its orange, green, and sticky glory, reminds Sapnap of the type of place where they’d shoot indie movie scenes to emphasize age and feeling lost, some girl having an epiphany on Icees of childhood.
Sapnap himself had never liked Icees. If he’s being super honest, he never liked his childhood in general much. There was nothing wrong with it, he’s by all terms of the word privileged (even despite his parents divorce), and yet he felt left out. He was surrounded by a life he had not worked for, one he had no understanding for the sacrifices required, and that tension between the life he desired, one forged from his own skills and aptitudes, and the life he was given tainted much of the suburbia experience. Simply put, he wanted to capture the world within his hands and morph it, which conflicted with those around him who the world was already perfectly curated for. Choosing to get a job at 7/11 three years ago after moving from Texas was more of a practical choice to get away from home, so he didn’t lose his shit rather than for saving money. Meeting George, the strange boy who had moved from Britain for college, had been an added bonus. The two found themselves bonding over desert sand while making fun of the way the town seems to sit still in contrast to glittering London or sweltering Austin.
Keeping the job beyond high school days was more of a clinging to the past than it was practical, the gas station wasn’t exactly the closest to the college, (George himself had only gotten the job citing he wanted the “Proper American experience”), but it sometimes felt like home, and he’d drive the extra fifteen minutes for the feeling of comfort it gave him.
George draws a finger on the countertop, pressing and watching as his finger turns white slowly, mirroring the drop of the rain, “You and Karl then?”
The words are punctuated with a still there British accent despite George not having visited home in years. Sapnap admires it in a way: being so steadfast in your identity it refuses to break even when an ocean away.
He shrugs, and because everyone agrees with George: “Yeah.”
George hums, still entranced in watching his finger lose color against the counter, “Interesting.”
“Are you really doing this now?”
“Are you really doing the denial thing?” George asks, snapping his eyes to meet Sapnap’s.
“Denial?” Sapnap laughs. George tends to over-dramatize; to see what never exists. George concocts fascinating images in his head until he convinces himself that the version of reality he sees is the objective one. George believes in what he wants to believe and sees what he wants to see (except colors, because the world had to nerf him with something.) “This isn’t high school, Gogy.”
“I still hate that nickname,” George adds, leaning his hip against the countertop, “makes me sound like a cartoon character.”
“You’d be one boring ass cartoon character.”
“I would not,” George squawks (he definitely would). “Also you’re changing the subject.”
“There’s nothing more to say on it,” his eyes blink lazily up at the screen displaying the Powerball prize: $100,000,000. What could someone even do with all that money? He thinks he would travel, pick up his bags, and leave until any roots are worn rotten. That or become some super evil genius. One could surely take over the world with that much, right? Then again Sapnap has always been bad at judging how far money can go. (He felt the real world sucker punch him when he realized beef jerky costs an hour of work, which he thought was Weimar level inflation, but was decidedly normal.)
George brings him back to the topic at hand. The very topic Sapnap is trying to forget with every ounce of his being (Sober Sapnap doesn’t think about Karl. Sober Sapnap isn’t really meant to think at all, not of consequences.)
“Karl doesn’t do that type of thing,” George insists, because he never knows when to drop topics. He has the personality of a desperate housewife, always trying to understand gossip before anyone else, always pushing for the next morsel, which is deeply ironic considering how private he is. Sapnap’s known George for three years and yet if you asked, he couldn’t even tell you George’s middle name. That may sound sad on the surface, but the secret to life is that those are the best friendships, the ones where you know someone without knowing them at all.
He shrugs without any real response and watches as the sun breaks through the rain.
The little smile lingers across George’s lips nonetheless, “Just don’t hurt him, yeah?”
“Why would you assume I’d hurt him?”
Truth to be told, Sapnap can’t see either of them caring enough to hurt the other. They’re simple. Karl may be fascinating and a mystery he wants to unravel, but when put together? The two are straightforward, predictable, stupidly simplistic. Nothing like romance movies. Karl is always laughing, constantly vibrant in a way people like Sapnap are simply meant to observe rather than try to capture. Karl is pretty, and contrasting every single personality trait Sapnap has— more with someone like Karl? It’s a fools errand in his head to even conceptualize. He does think of it sometimes, though, wonders what Karl looks like with sunlight bleaching his hair, sees Karl in random anime characters.
But he’s not meant to care. He’s not. He can’t. He doesn’t. Sapnap lives in the moment, doesn’t think in terms of futures or more.
Even so, even if he did like Karl, Karl is unaffected by everything (he has a higher tolerance for weed and alcohol than Sapnap, which is just unfair. Being a stoner is supposed to his thing, goddamnit.)
George smiles, the one that promises mischief and knowingness. It’s a faint reminder that George is a senior in college and not merely another starry-eyed freshman. “Because I know both of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
George shrugs, lazing back against the counter, “You’re a fire, and fire consumes.”
George speaks in riddles sometimes— analogies drifting in conversations that should be normal. Instead, George speaks in what seems like binary: strange comparisons that rarely form coherent thoughts unless you know the precise language.
And even though Sapnap knows what that means (has learned George’s distorted dictionary thoroughly) and knows he can be too much— raging, roaring, a Phoenix incarnate— he’d rather pretend to not get it all; that George is simply crazy because reality being formed from George (the habitually belligerent British idiot) is a reality that should never exist.
Sapnap blinks, “Sometimes you don’t make sense, George.”
“Language barrier, innit?” George laughs like he hadn’t implied that Sapnap scorches and destroys, (and maybe they gloss over it because George is right, and neither of them cares to linger in proving reality.) “You know Karl has straight A’s. Last year I saw him cramming for his Freshman finals in the library like crazy.”
“He’s a nerd?” Sapnap thinks of how that contrasts the Karl he knows, or maybe it doesn’t. He hadn’t even known Karl was a sophomore honestly, but he can almost imagine it: Karl twirling a pencil between his fingers instead of a joint, alone instead of with him. He half hates himself for thinking Karl would be better off like that.
“He cares about things,” George corrects, “Some people aren’t as apathetic as you.”
“I care about things.”
George rolls his eyes. It’s times like these that he misses George’s clout googles phase, where the dark rims would hide the smug expression. “Like what?”
His mind comes up blank, and so he diverts, “I could get straight A’s if I wanted. You know I got 4’s and 5’s on my AP tests and those are what matter anyways.”
“But you don’t care about your grades. You don't like caring about things for more than a week. You're flakey.” George enunciates.
He shrugs, “I could, and I'm not even that flakey. I've held this job for three years, you know?”
“Hm,” George hums, crossing his arms, and smiles that same smile, disastrously devious, pressing his finger deeper into the counter, “interesting.”
________________
Sapnap brings the Whiteclaw to his lips, “Cinematography? Really?”
Karl hums before stealing the drink away from Sapnap’s grasp and taking a swig. His hand lingers around Sapnap’s waist, and it burns (who’s the consuming fire now George? Huh? Stupid British fuck.) “Did I not strike you as the type?”
Sapnap swallows, the answer on his throat silent, I don’t know you, instead, “Honestly no, I thought you’d be too much of an attention whore for background work.”
Karl rolls his eyes, giggling, “Call me a whore again and I’ll fuck your mom.”
A faint smile curls around Sapnap’s lips and takes up permanent residence, it seems to be a side effect of Karl Jacobs. He half-thinks it could be a new Newton’s Law: An object in motion will stay in motion, everyone always says yes to George, and Karl makes Sapnap smile. He says, “Sure you will.”
Karl smiles back because of course, he does (Truly a Goldfish cracker of a human being.) He holds the can up to Sapnap’s lips offering a sip. Karl always has a Whiteclaw, the beverage seems to gravitate towards him as a permanent fixture, like magnets calibrated specifically for him have been plunked into each Aluminum foil.
Sapnap can understand gravitating towards Karl, thinks Newton’s first law may be right just this once because he’s on a downward trajectory and he’s not quite sure what will stop him.
He needs something to stop him. It’s easy to deny when he’s talking to George and not Karl. Karl makes him forget himself, makes him feel like he’s 7 watching Danny Phantom on TV, and while he loves forgetting himself he can’t. He can’t. Because people like Karl are fleeting. He’s not the type of person that can make people like Karl— everlasting happiness spliced with mystery— stay.
But Sapnap doesn’t think of the future like that, is trying so hard to not think of the inevitable fallout. Live in the present. Don’t overthink. He's so tired if overthinking.
He takes another sip of the Whiteclaw and looks at it with a sympathy he rarely feels.
________________
George likes to say Sapnap consumes: that his laugh is made of fire and promises to scorch the world, that he meets people halfway and then derails them into a world that is full of him. Loud, boisterous, too much.
So in short, George sees him like fucking Disney World.
But no, Sapnap isn’t like that at all. Not really, he doesn’t consume more than he loses himself in people. He thinks he replaces his personality with theirs— is too much so they don’t think he’s too little. It’s an exhausting act, but it’s what makes him like himself. In all honesty, he's less a fire and more a match dwindling because of a single spark.
He likes messy people because part of him likes not having to lose himself within someone to grapple their personality— they’re everywhere, nowhere, and Sapnap knows best how to be everything and nothing.
But what he knows better than anything is to have fun and god does he intend to have it.
Fun. Fun. Fun.
Nothing more.
________________
One party has gone a little too late. They find themselves in George’s room, wrapped together, but no want for more bursting forth. Sleep and munchies claw at their edges and Sapnap hopes George won't mind the Dorito crumbs getting in his bed. Faint music plays from Karl’s phone, techno-pop so light Sapnap could almost miss it. The noise wraps itself into the sheets and gets muffled until nothing remains but them. They're content to mutter into each other’s ear until the sun rises framed by pink dusted clouds and dew crusted grass.
“I-“ Karl pauses glances away, gold-tinged lips creased into a firm line, “Have you— You've never asked about um.. you know.”
The corners of Sapnap’s lips lift. He watches the sunrise wash over Karl with a tempered beauty. Red, Orange, Yellow. “I know… what?”
“You’ve never asked why I don’t—“ Karl breaks himself off again, shifts the sheets around himself, and finishes lamely, “You’ve never wanted more.”
This talk so soon? The gold streaks turn into a festering glare from the window like an egg yolk that accidentally broke. Sapnap’s mouth goes dry. He shoves a Dorito into it before answering. “Listen you’re great and all, but I’m not made for-“
Hurriedly, Karl’s hands smother Sapnap’s mouth, “No I’m not—“ Karl breaks off, redrawing his hands sheepishly, in a silent apology, “I’m not talking about that more, but the…” he pauses, whispers scandalously, “physical more.”
“Oh,” Sapnap nods, head empty “like sex?” He raises a Dorito to his mouth, relishing in how it bursts against his taste buds. Nothing tops Doritos while high. He amends himself, Maybe cliff bars.
Karl squeaks like the word sex is not to be named. It’s almost cute. “Are you scared of the word sex Karl?” He teases.
“Um…” Karl drawls, pulls the sheet above his mouth, “Anyways, I wanted to… talk to you about that..?”
Nervousness emanates from Karl in buzzing unharnessed energy, so close he can almost reach out and grasp it. It’s a stark difference from the confident mask Karl usually wears and undoubtedly messy. The type of mess Sapnap understands far too well. He nods. Karl’s gaze flits about the room: Avoidance.
“I don’t-“ Karl swallows, throat bobbing through the white sheet, before sitting up rapidly. “I’m not like…” he tugs a hand through his hair, blue and white nails flashing, rings catching on the strands, “How do I say this?” He looks back at Sapnap, gray eyes shining in yellow haze, “I don’t like sex. Like anything having to do with below the belt just... is a no for me.”
Crunch. The Dorito splinters in Sapnap’s mouth. Sharp edges poking the fleshy mesh of his tongue. Karl looks embarrassed, mouth pursed and eyes wandering about the room. This is a different side of Karl, mystery changed into reasoning, but even still he can’t help but notice how Karl shines with no lights on, and it seems so unfair.
His breath stutters, “So you’re ace?”
Karl’s eyes narrow on a point on the wall right next to a sloppily hung Union Jack. His voice is rapid, “I don’t— I guess, but I still like the endorphins from making out, and kissing, and hickeys. It’s nice, almost comforting..? I’ve always liked being close to people: hugging, kissing, wrapped around someone. I don’t think Ace people are supposed to like that, but I can’t…” His eyes move to the window, ”sex is just gross to me, I guess labels can’t explain it better than that, right?” His voice quiets, less rapid, but all the more tortured, “And I’m sorry if I made you waste your time. I don’t mean to be a tease, that’s just what happens when you’re...different.”
With a dull thud, Sapnap swings his hand onto Karl’s shoulder in what’s supposed to be a comforting gesture but is far too limp and he thinks he might have rubbed Dorito dust across Karl’s sweater like little constellations, “That’s good for you dude.”
Silence encompasses the room for a moment too long, and Sapnap awkwardly shoves his hand back into the bag of Doritos.
“That’s it?” Karl marvels, mouth gaping, ”You’re not… upset?”
Sapnap thinks on it for a moment, and imagines Karl and him being more in that way, he tries to imagine someone else in Karl’s spot, but it feels wrong. He finds himself perfectly content with this— the quiet conversations, and shrugs to himself. His muddled brain tries not to think about the why too much.
He tosses a chip as high as he can in the air and catches it in his mouth, which would’ve looked pretty cool if didn’t proceed to choke on it, coughs sputtering between his lips. New lesson learned: Do not try to look cool while eating Doritos, it is not a good idea.
“Are you alright?” Karl taps his back a bit harder than necessary, adding somewhat seriously, “Please don't die after I just came out. If you’re angry I can just leave I get it—”
His eyes start watering, coughing out a hushed, “Angry?”
“Oh,” Karl scratches the back of his neck. Sapnap is still hacking up a lung and he thinks his body chose a really bad time to decide to be stupid. “Yeah, some people are… when I- um spring it on them,” Karl trails off weakly, “They usually stop talking to me.”
Karl looks soft, the type of softness meant to be carved and implanted into statues.
Finally, the coughs in his chest teeter out, leaving a pang deep in his ribs for a fact other than almost dying via a Dorito, “Some people sound like assholes.”
Karl laughs a little weakly, “Yeah.”
Dorito dust is smeared across Karl’s sweater, the tiny flecks look like a scattered cloud. Orange. Sunrise. “It’s not like you owe me-- er I mean anyone-- anything. I honestly feel bad that you felt you had to tell me,” He quickly corrects, “I mean them-- had to tell them-- because that’s not— Whatever decision you make I’ll-- I mean they-- should respect,” Orange flickers into gray. “Sex is cool, I guess, but it’s honestly overhyped-- like I can see why it's not your thing, it's all awkward and it’s not essential and its cool for like 10 minutes at most, and then you have to do the whole ‘oh do I leave now or spend the night?’ thing, and being naked with other people is weird and honestly… Fuck I'm ranting.”
Sapnap isn’t good with feelings, and wording things, but despite the rant Karl doesn’t seem to mind, and looks at him with a smile.
“Yeah, you really are,” Karl giggles, and it’s the one that sounds like a lullaby and in Sapnap’s bleary head he tries to jot down the notes to play it later. Karl rests a thumb on his cheek, ““You're…ok with it?”
It. He thinks Karl deserves to have more confidence in himself than to call his sexuality ‘it’ like Voldemort. He nods, head bobbing up and down far too excitedly, “We’re just having fun, right? Having fun is a lot less fun when only one person is having fun.”
A small giggle smothers Karl’s techno-pop music, light and unburdened, “That made no sense.”
Sapnap laughs back and stumbles in his dulled head to imitate Karl’s little splutter of laughter (is that an A or A sharp?). “Weed is a gift to linguistics,” he shifts lower in the bed feeling drowsiness catching up to him, blearily lifting the chips upward which Karl grabs. “Also you didn’t waste my time,” his blissed-out lips smear, “I always have fun with you, sex or not.”
Karl cards his hand through Sapnap’s hair, making pathways in the nape of his neck like a cartographer charting new swaths of land, rings tugging, “Thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“Just for being you.”
Sapnap laughs, eyes drooping, “That’s sappy as shit, Jacobs.”
“Not as sappy as this,” Karl murmurs before pulling Sapnap’s hand into his and cleanly licking off the Dorito dust on one of his fingers.
Sapnap laughs, the wet pop vaguely obscene, but far too comical, “You're so bad at trying to be hot.”
“Who said I was trying to be hot?” Karl pauses, shifts the sheets around him, “What if I was trying to be cool?”
Sapnap drifts closer to sleep, his head miming lullabies on violin strings.
“Get it, ” Karl adds, “Like cool ranch Doritos?”
“You’re so lame.” Sapnap is undoubtedly fond, “It’s so unfair you have a higher tolerance than me; I'd kick you out of the bed if I had enough energy.”
Karl has a high tolerance for everything: Weed, bullshit, Sapnap. He must have some strong ass antibodies. Karl laughs, snuggles into his side, “Where would I sleep? The bathtub?”
“Sure,” Sapnap presses a kiss into Karl’s hair because he’s high, “Anywhere, but here.” He squeezes his arms around the slim waist, thoughts melting into dream-like fantasies. His lips rest on the crown of Karl’s head in an unspoken prayer. He mouths voiceless words into the hair between the colors of Oak and peaches.
Karl wiggles his face away, a smile hidden as a frown traced in the darkness, “You're getting Dorito dust in my hair.”
“You can wash it off in your bathtub bed.”
They fall asleep like that, and it's different, less rushed, and more honest, but Sapnap likes it. Or maybe he just likes Karl with all his contradictory perfections.
That thought digs at his dreams.
________________
Instead of catching up on the latest chapter of Attack on Titan on his graveyard shift, Sapnap scrolls through long-abandoned Tumblr posts about asexuality, brightness on the lowest setting.
He flicks across the screen absorbing words he’d never even heard before, searching across different types of attraction he’d never thought of. There’s something in learning more about Karl that makes him feel closer to him, unraveling the mystery that coasts across his skin, and digging into his mind in a way makeout sessions can’t allow. He loves that feeling, understanding an unknown that dances across his mind. Somehow, Karl being ace (or unlabeled, whatever he wants it to be) makes sense. Karl is a plethora of contradictions: Willing yet anxious, touchy yet not into sex, lover of limelight yet wanting to go into cinematography, sharp canines, and soft smile. Almost as though the more Sapnap learns about Karl the less the pieces fit together. Strangely, Sapnap, whose brain always sought to understand everything, is ok with not getting it; with leaving scattered puzzle pieces on a table and appreciating the beauty each piece has rather than figuring out which pieces click together. It’s a new feeling for him, but he likes it, the change festering and burning.
It also scares the shit out of him.
A lot of things are starting to scare him. Sapnap actually started studying for his tests, which would’ve been something he’d laugh at in high school, but now he spends little hours crowded around books in an imitation of studying because George once let it slip that Karl was the type of person that got straight A’s, and so Sapnap foolishly saw it as a challenge.
He starts smiling more because he envies Karl’s vivacity and wants to meet it in every way, capture Karl’s joy, and imitate it enough to where he could retrace the steps by memory.
It’s in times like these that he remembers all the small things he does now because of Karl that he starts to hate himself. He wonders if Karl first saw smoking as a challenge. Karl had been a newbie the first time they smoked, he knew that, but sometimes he let his brain wander. Was it merely a habit Karl had picked up from him? He didn’t want to think about that too much in-depth. Sapnap studied and smiled because of Karl and Karl smoked because of Sapnap.
He could deduce which one of them was ruining the other.
________________
He sucks a hickey onto Karl’s neck, letting his teeth scrape each edge, feeling the way Karl goes boneless and grabs his hair like a safety net.
Sometimes he sees Karl walking across campus, sweaters always dancing on the edge of hickeys like they're a trophy meant to be displayed, the sun obscenely glistening on purple. Karl always walks with rapt passion between marbled pillars and under trees, languidly, but hurried like he is chasing something— perhaps a dream just on the cusp of his fingertips he seeks to overtake. Sapnap had wondered if he could imitate the candor, walk and sidle up beside Karl, and press on the bruise teasingly. He had brushed the thought off in the next moment though, it is too weird, awkward, so entirely unlike either of them that it would be a step into some middle space filled with clouds made of something other than smoke.
This— the hurried press of kisses on necks ciphered between murmurs and secrets is them, little moments he savors is them, not foolish wishes of more.
Karl moans, dragging Sapnap’s head out of useless thoughts, voice whiny and floating. The sound buries itself under Sapnap’s skin, drags across his ribs, and stamps on his heart. Karl kisses the same as he walks, feverishly but with a poise so coy it makes Sapnap weak. Karl moans the same as he walks like he is chasing something, so utterly driven and devoted to unsaid goals; wants some force that compels him to breath against Sapnap’s lips harder and pants with a rapture that is magnetic. He can as easily imagine walking next to Karl as he can kissing him, slipping between the two as though they’re both natural. He shakes the thought off, pulls off with a pop, and grabs Karl by the head, tilting it just above his pulse point, “Your turn.”
Lips downturned, Karl whines, “I hate chivalry.” He kisses the spot, sucks it raw, and paints stars in Sapnap’s eyes. Sapnap really fucking loves whatever Karl’s definition of chivalry is.
This is them.
And yet, the next time he sees Karl on campus he yearns all the same.
It’s starting to become a bad habit, changing the laws of the universe from Karl makes Sapnap smile to Karl makes Sapnap yearn. But if he squints just right he can pretend there’s no change at all and pretend that he isn’t getting used to clinging around Karl like a needy Whiteclaw can.
________________
In the corner of Sapnap's dorm is a tiny dent where there should be plaster-- it's a circular shape, maybe from a previous occupant throwing a baseball at the corner. His room is littered with objects: a Texas Flag that's upside down, anime posters, dirty laundry spilling out of the hamper, a PC set up that's nothing compared to George's, and yet his eyes rest on the one remnant of personality in the room that's not his. He wonders if the person who lived in the dorm before him was different, better, made the space bright where all his items douse light into nothing but a distant midday dream.
Even though every object is crowded around him, poured and clinging at the edges of his skin, his eyes only focus on the crack in the corner. He stays transfixed to it, watching as though it will leap from the wall and the tiny chunk of plaster will fall on top of his head. He stares up at the only aspect of the room that isn't drenched in himself and wonders if all his misery is wrapped in the very thing the room can't escape from. If he could get rid of everything he owns, would he like himself better? If he was a different person? If he didn't insist on getting a stupid single dorm even though it means he'll have to take out more student loans? He could've lived at home, withered away with his mother, and instead of wondering who the previous person that lived in his room was, would've known exactly where the dents on the wall came from. Known that it was a boy who was scared of the future and of the past-- who still was. And maybe that's why he decided to make terrible financial decisions because he thought he could change, that college could change him, and maybe it has in some ways, because he smokes more and drinks more, but despite all of that, he's still unsure. He compares himself to Narcissus in his head, a figure staring with no rationale for some semblance of sense. He wonders what is the true crime of the world: To stare at someone’s reflection so long they starve or to starve to make it worth more than a glance— To marvel his personality until it grows far beyond his means or to deprive himself of personality until he’s reduced to a crippling version of himself.
Minutes pass. Perhaps even hours, and he comes to the startling conclusion that the dent in the corner of his room looks a little bit like the shape of Texas, if you squint in the right way, and tilt weary eyes laced with his own vision. But it doesn't. Not really. Only people like him would think it looks just a little bit like Texas.
And this is what he always does isn't it? Takes every person, place, thing (All the types of nouns-- abstract and concrete) he's confronted with and looks at it till his eyes have worn it raw, and the only vision crafted is his own where there was once something else. In that way, he's so full of himself it makes his palms ache-- he wants to be clinging to something else, holding something else, be someone else.
There is a bird where his heart should be-- and it's pecking, thrashing, tearing each ligament. And yet, he can't move. All his problems could be solved if he just moved his fucking eyes, took a walk, ate a meal. But he can't. But he doesn't. Why? Because his heart is a thrashing bird and his limbs are like lead, and the two meet on the precipice of ideals, leaving him stuck and frozen, dejected and demotivated.
This is what he always does. This is his problem. This is why he hates being alone.
And so if he stares at the ceiling instead of staring at his professor, and wonders just what the fuck he's doing with his life, it's the same thing in a different place, really.
________________
Karl wants to be a time traveler, which would be way more hilarious if Sapnap was certain he was joking.
“Imagine how cool it would be?” Karl inclines his head to the tiniest degree, dimpled cheeks moving with the motion. Blue nails flashing, Sapnap presses a joint up against Karl’s lips. He hates that it’s starting to look natural there. Some generic Top 100 song buzzes in the background as people cheer around them.
“Time travel?” Sapnap feels Karl’s lips brush against his fingers before eventually taking the joint: it’s a dance they do, brushing their fingers against the other, so close to the edge of undoing. Sapnap’s hand moves to sink a ball in the red solo cup on the other end of the table, but his hand follows the motion far too slowly. The ball completely misses the cup, but it hits George in the head, so it is a victory.
Karl nods, blowing out the huff of smoke, giggling like always, bowed over and face scrunched up, “Think of all the stuff I could mess up, like bringing bananas to America early or something, people would go crazy. I could be like a god.”
“You as a God? Huh.” He thinks Karl could halfway pull it off.
From the other half of the table, George sinks a shot, the man gloating like a child as Sapnap downs the minute amount of beer in the cup. You think as a Fratboy he’d be used to this, he notes dryly, watching George jump up and down flailing his arms everywhere like an overexcited toddler. Then again George was always a poor excuse of a Fratboy, only rushing to meet people and joining so he didn’t have to live in dorms.
The liquid burns down Sapnap’s throat, “Don’t people usually want to time travel to fix things?”
Karl hands him the joint before taking the small ping-pong ball. He rolls the ball in between his fingers and with barely a cursory glance, the ball lands straight in a cup on the other end of the counter with a thud. For someone so bubbly and stoned, Karl’s surprisingly good at Fratboy party games. It seems against his nature and he wonders if it’s yet another hallmark of Sapnap’s escapism that has transferred to Karl.
Complaints about American alcohol can be beard over the dull buzz of music and seriously, who let the awkward Comp Sci major into a fraternity? The wonders of pretty privilege.
“I feel like that would just mess things up more,” Karl looks down, “I’d want to change something minor, but ultimately funny.”
Sapnap shrugs. “I guess,” he pauses, voice slurring “but you don't know if bananas could have affected something,“ he trails off, vague thoughts, “Like would the US still have fucked with Central America to get cheaper bananas if there was already banana infrastructure here?”
Karl laughs, lowering his voice into a mocking giggle, “Banana infrastructure.” His mellowed eyes crinkle, “Since when did stoners care about history?”
In return, Sapnap pushes Karl’s shoulder teasingly, and wants to say since I met you but instead: “Some of it’s interesting, man.”
He knows he’s ruining Karl, but he forgets when they’re like this: having fun, being stupid, excelling in every area Sapnap wished he embodied, and so he clings to it, and maybe that’s stupid and a terrible idea, but he’s never prided himself on being smart.
George’s partner throws the ball which lands in a cup. He hands it to Karl silently and watches him chug it, and thinks that could be a metaphor for their whole relationship: Sapnap watching as Karl loses himself on gifted alcohol because he doesn’t want to be the only one lost.
That was the last cup, but he doesn’t find himself caring much.
A burp pops out of Karl’s throat, and he tangles his hand around Sapnap's, pulling the joint to his mouth, “And you call me lame?”
“Well, that’s because you are.”
“Hm,” Karl smiles, lips rolled inward. He’s so close Sapnap can smell his cologne more than the scent of marijuana, and that terrifies him. When did he get so used to the scent of weed? “Didn’t you tell me you liked to read manga?”
“That’s not lame,” Sapnap argues, too focused on counting Karl’s eyelashes to make a proper rebuttal, “That just makes me cool.”
Karl giggles and fuck Sapnap loves the sound. He wraps an arm around Sapnap’s waist, chases him when he moves, “False confidence too? What a piece of work you are.”
Sapnap sticks his tongue out. The words Didn't you say moments ago you wanted to be a God? about to come out of his lips, but then his eyes catch on gray again. Brain trailing, the retort dying on his lips, “You have really pretty eyes.”
Red clashes on Karl’s cheeks, a war against the pale sheen, “I know.”
He wipes the thought from his face, “Who has false confidence now?” He nudges his nose against Karl’s. Karl’s face is broken in half, the personification of everlasting happiness and that digs at him, because he’ll never have that, but in moments like these he can hold it in his hands and pretend.
“You’re such a nimrod.”
A voice rips between them. “Ok,” the British jumps out against the other American accents, “I was hyped to win, but you two make me want to stab my eyes out.”
“George,” Karl smiles at him, “Nice to see you.”
Sapnap has a different reaction. “No,” he squeezes his eyes shut, “If I can’t see you, you’re not there.”
“Nice three-year-old logic,” George snatches the joint out of Sapnap’s hand, “I’ll be taking this.”
George’s whole face is already red, but no one can be sure if that’s from the alcohol rushing through his system or just a symptom of being George. George always seems perpetually drunk: ruddy cheeks, exaggerated movements, and eyes with a gleam for the joy of life you seldom see. Sapnap halfway envies that George seems drunk even when sober. What a way to live.
“Gogy, you can’t just-“
“I’ll take it as my reward for the beer pong, since only half of you tried,” George says pointedly, before taking a puff from the joint.
Sapnap opens his mouth to argue.
“Don’t even bother,” George shushes him, and places the joint in his lips like it’s a toothpick, and Sapnap decides to drop the topic, it’s almost burnt out anyways. George loosely looks like a disappointed mother from an old 60s movie: hands on his hips and dissatisfaction pulling at the edges of his skin. “My room is open now if you two want it for the night, but if you don’t, do me a favor and lock it. I don’t feel like having stuff stolen again.”
Remind me to never live at a Frat house.
Karl winces and nods, “Will do, thanks, George.”
“Where are you sleeping?” Sapnap directs the question at George, concern lacing the edges of his voice. George may be a bit of a bitch, but he’s Sapnap’s main bitch.
A small puff of smoke falls out of George's lips, and he disappears into the crowd with it like a stupid magician, “I'm thinking it's a no sleep type of night.”
George does that sometimes. Decides when to stay awake and when to crash into sleep. It's one of those things George excels at: fighting against his own body in a stupid tug of war. It's a weird thing; he sleeps the right amount of hours, but stockpiles them into one. Sapnap’s not sure if it's healthy, but he's not sure what college student’s sleeping pattern is. George is most succinctly summarized by saying whatever a normal person does, he does the inverse: he acts more sober drunk, acts more drunk sober, and sleeps in package deals.
They watch him go, the music vibrating the house as George leaves, a loud shout of ‘Let’s go’ trailing behind him. Karl squeezes his hand around Sapnap’s hip, “I will never understand him.”
“Me neither,” Sapnap agrees, he pulls Karl away from the Beerpong table towards the stairs because he’s tired as fuck. Exhaustion blurs his edges, makes stranger’s faces drip into wax calamities, but Karl’s is still clear as day. It feels like a taunt from God. “The worst mistake of my life was getting that job at 7/11 when I was 16.”
“And yet you still work there,” Karl muses, using his arm around Sapnap’s waist to help him up the stairs.
“Bad habits die hard.” He pokes the hickey on Karl’s neck and his mouth dries. Really hard.
The two fall into a familiar pattern (if you ignore Sapnap tripping on the stairs this time) and change into some spare clothes before falling on the bed. They whisper into each other’s ears, the party below still going, but neither of them wants to particularly enjoy the festivities. The sheets beckon Sapnap’s name, pulling him closer and closer to sleep.
“You know what you said about the-” Karl pauses, barely concealed laughter, “the banana infrastructure?”
“Shut up,” Sapnap groans, throwing his hands across his face, “You’re going to make me hungry if you don’t stop.”
“In the mood for eating bananas are we?”
Is that a..? Sapnap’s mind takes a second to catch up to words, amusement flitting in between gaps of incredulity. “Dirty jokes should be removed from your vocab,” he stares up at the ceiling between his hands, “I swear it’s against your whole vibe.”
Karl hums, pecking Sapnaps hair, “I do have PG Kermit the frog energy.”
He thinks of Karl’s big eyes and round face— yeah, definite Kermit the frog energy, but, “Is Kermit not PG already?”
“You know, he canonically inadvertently caused 9/11.” Karl presses his face deeper into the pillow, “There was a montage of what the world would be like if he was never born in one of the muppet movies and boom twin towers are still there.”
Sapnap stares at him for a moment before covering his face in embarrassment, groans deeply into his fingers, “You know fucking muppet trivia.”
Karl laughs tossing an arm around his waist, “In my defense, it’s cool muppet trivia.”
Sapnap laughs despite himself, “That’s an oxymoron, you moron.”
“You know the word oxymoron?” Karl quips, lips against his collarbone, “My you’re full of surprises tonight.”
“I’m the one full of surprises?” Sapnap says, digging his palms into his eyes, “You brought up the fact that Kermit canonically caused 9/11 and had the facts to back it up.”
“Anyways,” Karl laughs, but grabs Sapnap’s hands from where they’re thrown over his face, lacing their fingers together, ”The banana infrastructure thing,” he pauses, adds thoughtfully, “and I guess the Kermit thing too, it just got me thinking about the Butterfly effect right? And how there’s no way to know if a small detail would impact something in the future.” Karl’s eyes are gray, flashes of lightning in the darkness, “That’s insane to me.”
Sapnap looks at the newly presented flaking nail polish on Karl’s fingernails. Purple. The hands right in front of his eyes and the sight is sobering to him for some reason. The reason. He swallows.
“Yeah,” he looks at Karl’s eyes, “No way to know.”
Even as he says it he thinks it's bullshit. Sometimes things are written so plainly into the future, you can see their effects from light-years away. Purple nail polish and gray eyes. He wants to laugh at himself.
The mystery has unraveled and he doesn't quite know what to do with the pieces except to wrap them in thick coats of denial. Thoughts climb into his brain and burrow home despite how bad he wants to send an eviction notice. It seeps into every moment, every possible second slithers into his brain. Why does his head even remember this much?
He knows. He knows. He knows.
There is a revolt within Sapnap that seeks to reject all notions of reality and purely live within a fantasy— and that’s fine for him. It’s fine for him to reject what he does not like, to tell himself little lies to bide his life, to live constantly on the edge of falling in utter self-destruction. But to involve someone else in that? To goad someone into his mismanaged paradise? Sapnap thinks of his reality as tinted by hell fire and warped in misconceptions. But despite all of that— it’s a paradise built upon lies that would topple under pressure from someone like Karl— who’s real and tangible and there.
Karl smiles and chases, while Sapnap yearns and withers. And now they’re starting to clash in the middle. Sapnap is chasing and smiling. Karl is yearning and withering. That haunts him. Dilutes him. Drowns him.
People like Karl aren’t supposed to meet people like Sapnap in the middle. Because eventually Karl will meet Sapnap in the halfway press of escapism and have nothing left to prove.
He should've learned to stop solving mysteries a long time ago.