Work Text:
Karl sniffled as his phone camera shuttered, the sophisticated mirror selfie landing down in the bottom left corner, a miniature peek into his camera roll.
Cheeks wet and dripping, he did his best to wipe his eyes before clicking off the camera app. Twitter was opened and a tweet was sent to his private, photo attached.
@THEHONKBOY
New nails, stummy hurt so taking a bath to c if that helps then if it does I’ll stream!
In seconds the replies rolled in, half of them wishing him to recover, and the others calling him fruity for the pastel version of the bisexual flag plastered on his nails.
He hated crying over something so dumb, but his stomach hurt badly. He wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t anything major or bathroom-related. It probably was a cause and effect of the awful Monster to food ratio he had in the past twenty-four hours. All he knew for sure is that it hurt like a bitch.
But the annoying pain was making his head go fuzzy in the one way it could, but he was fighting it. He stumbled to turn the faucet on and get out of his clothes but got caught in the buttons on his shirt.
Sapnap had been lazily scrolling his feed when the new tweet came in. He (did) not have notifications on, just happened to be online when it popped up. He recognized the barely visible but desperate look on Karl’s face in the selfie, Sapnap wanted to go check on the boy. Especially if he was tweeting something while not in the right headspace.
Knocking gently on the bathroom door before entering, Sapnap was greeted with the amusing sight of Karl stuck in his shirt.
“Hey baby,” he laughed, “need some help?”
“Please,” Karl whined. That’s when Sapnap saw the tear stains and red eyes, he felt bad for not checking on the boy earlier.
He helped Karl get untangled and then fully out of his shirt. Sapnap had asked if he wanted more help, to which Karl again very politely said yes. They worked together to get the little’s clothes all off, Sapnap let him step into the tub while he found the bubbles Dream had bought a while back.
“Are you alright, bug?” Sapnap hummed as he turned off the faucet. Karl whimpered.
“T-tummy hurts…”
“You got a tummy ache baby? I figured, I saw your tweet.” Karl just nodded and poked at a bubble. Sapnap gave him some time to just chill out and relax. While Karl was doing that, Sapnap found his phone and deleted the tweet. Even if nothing was obvious, Karl would be embarrassed tweeting something while he was little. Plus, most of Twitter had probably seen it by now.
Eventually, Karl had asked Sapnap to help him out of the bath so he did. They went through the routine; Towel, clothes, drain the tub.
“Sap?” Karl sniffled. He had followed Sapnap silently back to the bathroom. “Tummy still hurts.”
“Okay bug, come on.” Sapnap took the little’s hand and led them to the kitchen. He dug around in the medicine cabinet until he found the mockingly pink bottle. “Take these, baby. I’ll get you some juice.”
Karl held onto the two tablets while Sapnap got him a sippy. Once he had his apple juice he took them, cringing at the disgusting taste and quickly washing it down.
“Cuddles, Sap?”
“Of course.” The Texan laughed, “Go sit on the couch, I’ll be right there.”
Sapnap shuffled around in the cabinets until he found what he was looking for. It was one of those children’s heating packs, the ones that smelled like lavender and was shaped into a chubby stuffed animal. Dream’s mom had bought it, insisting the elephant would come in handy, (apparently she was right).
He read the instructions and stuffed it into the microwave, waiting until it obnoxiously beeped at him to free it.
Returning to Karl, Sapnap sat down on the couch and let him get comfy. Karl sat in Sapnap’s lap with his back pressed to the shorter boy’s chest, allowing Sapnap to settle the heating pad over his tummy.
Karl sighed with content, silently playing with the elephant’s trunk while some odd show was playing on the tv.
The two were happy to snuggle up together, and in no time Karl was feeling good (and big) enough to do his stream. Sapnap had lovingly sent him on his way.