Chapter Text
It’s too early in the day for someone to be knocking on the door. As a matter of fact, it’s 7:26, according to the clock on the kitchen stove, which is outrageous on most days, and absolutely cruel on a Saturday morning. If Karl had a shotgun, he thinks he’d probably commit a murder. He hasn’t had coffee yet.
Still, he shuffles towards the front door, tripping over Sapnap’s scattered boxes, half-unpacked, and almost knocking a nearly dead potted fern off the windowsill. The knocker knocks again. “Coming!” Karl shouts, and then remembers that Sap’s still asleep and makes a face. “Coming, coming.”
He swings open the door and does a double take.
He’s not sure what he was expecting. The landlord, a salesman in a nifty suit, or Mormons in niftier suits. Someone crazy enough to be going door-to-fucking-door before ten in the morning. Instead he’s presented with two figures. One, with dark eyes and a fringe of black hair falling out of a blue beanie, gives him a winning smile. He’s sharp, but not nifty-suit-sharp. He’s got a rumpled white button-up, and a neckerchief, and looks nothing like a salesman-- except for that smile.
His companion, however, looks more like a mafia bodyguard; he’s got a full-on cloth mask that hides his mouth and nose, revealing nothing but an aggressive stare. He’s fucking huge too, towering behind beanie-boy. If beanie-boy is magnetic because he’s got enough charisma in that smile to charm an army, his friend is magnetic because he’s large enough to produce his own gravity. The only thing throwing off the I-could-murder-you picture is the long, elaborate pink braid curled over his shoulder. Karl’s half tempted to ask what kind of shampoo he uses.
“Excuse me,” beanie-boy says, “we’re sorry to disturb you so early. Are you Nick Pandas?”
“Uh,” Karl says. “I’m his roommate, Karl.”
Something changes; he can’t put a name to it, except tall-guy looks taller, and beanie-boy’s smile gets sharper. “Ah.” he says. “Could you tell him we’re asking after him?”
Karl suddenly gets the feelings he’s fucked up. Badly. “He’s not here right now,” he says cautiously. Beanie-boy and tall-guy exchange a look. Karl shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and tugs at his sweater, trying to look like he’s not lying. Or scared. “Actually, could you guys give me a moment?”
He doesn’t wait for them to answer, just shuts the door on them and leans back against it. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. What the honk.
Behind him he can hear them arguing. “Quackity,” a voice is saying, presumably tall-guys’. “You’ve freaked him out, man.”
“Relax,” beanie-boy says. “I’ve got this man, I’ve got this. If anyone’s freaked him out it’s you with your fucking obscene height.”
“It’s not my fault you’re short, noob.”
“Motherfuc--”
Karl swings open the door with enough violence that they both jump. “Who should I say wants to talk with him?”
“Ah,” Beanie-boy says, and rummages through the pockets of his grey dress pants. Like the shirt, they look like they used to be nice, but haven’t been ironed in about two years. He produces a rectangle of paper and hands it over with a flourish that makes Karl think about a magician asking is this your card?
Taking it with cautious fingers, Karl turns it over. It’s a business card. The front simply has the words The Syndicate in blocky silver lettering. The back has a phone number written in the same blocky font, and a note, written with a clumsy hand in pen.
“Thanks,” Karl says. “Uh. I’ll give this to him.”
“Tell him to give me a call, as soon as he can,” beanie-boy tells him and stretches out a hand. Karl shakes it out of habit, watching tall-guy out of the corner of his eye. “I’m Quackity, by the way. And this is my assistant, Techno.”
“I’m not his assistant,” Techno says flatly.
Karl forces a laugh. “Bye,” he tells them and shuts the door without any grace. He stays there, with his hand on the doorknob until he hears them take the elevator down.
He ends up putting the card on the kitchen table and doing his best to forget about the whole encounter. And he does succeed for the entirety of two minutes, while he puts k-cups into their tiny coffee-maker and changes out of the clothes he fell asleep in last night into clothes he fell asleep in two days ago. He’s got to fix his sleep schedule.
But as soon as the coffee is done, and a new sweater acquired, he finds himself circling the table again, feeling like a nervous rodent. It takes him another forty seconds to work up the courage, and then he’s turning the card over in his hand again, noting the carefully embossed name-- The Syndicate, whatever the hell that is, before trying to decipher the note on the back. It’s clumsy cursive, and something tells him with frightening certainty that it’s not the handwriting of either Quackity or Techno. This is a third party, someone else looking for Sapnap.
You were more human than the rest of them, the note says, and there’s a dash with a name attached, like it’s a powerful quote.
-Tubbo
Okay. What the actual honk. As if this entire encounter hadn’t already been cryptic enough. You were more human than the rest of them.
Technically, Karl knows that Sapnap left behind troubling stuff. Up until recently, he’d been living with his boss; two of his bosses, actually. Karl had known George in a casual, we-have-a-mutual-friend-and-play-the-same-video-games kind of way, but he hadn’t known Dream well. That is, beyond the fact that Sapnap hero-worshipped the guy, and the guy in question was paying for Sapnap’s education, as well as giving him a place to live in the oversized penthouse the three of them had shared.
He’d seen things turning sour though, even before anyone else had. Nick had gotten quieter. He’d talked about Dream and George less, about his job at DreamTech less. He’d started staying over at Karl’s house more.
And then one night in spring he’d shown up at Karl’s house, eyes rimmed in red, and said with deceiving casualness “hey man can I crash here for a bit?” a week later Karl had asked if he wanted to move in permanently.
There’d been that photo on the news. One of the DreamTech buildings going up in smoke, broken windows like empty eyes staring down at the streets, flashing emergency lights reflected in the glassy front.
He doesn’t think Dream’s dead. Or George. He’s pretty sure Sapnap would say something. But he’s never been confrontational, and Sap seemed like he needed his space, so that kind of thing never came up. He helped Sapnap move his stuff over from a strangely empty modern apartment, and they didn’t talk.
And now there are two weirdos from The Syndicate. With a minimalist business card and You were more human than the rest of them.
He doesn’t know what to do.
In the end, he makes another cup of coffee and lets Sapnap sleep.
Nick does not emerge until nearly noon, time enough for Karl to anxiously stew, watch several youtube videos and click on and off several more, and google every known definition of “syndicate” all while drinking more coffee than is probably healthy for any human.
“Good morning sweetheart,” he says and grins. He and Sapnap aren’t a thing, per-say, but Karl fully believes that A. the world is wonderful, B. you should call it like you see it, and C. Sapnap is one of the sweeter things in this wonderful world.
“Morning,” Sapnap gives him a look of purely disgruntled fondness and makes a beeline for the coffee maker and breakfast cereal.
Karl clears his throat and shuffles his feet. “We had some people come by this morning.”
“People?”
“I didn’t know them,” Karl says cautiously and adds with a bluntness that surprises himself, “they were looking for you.”
Sapnap fumbles with the k-cup and makes a big show of picking it up casually. “Ah. Neat. Cool.”
“They left a card-thing.” He passes it over and watches Sap turn it over and over in his hand, before reading the note on the back. His other hand is clenched in a fist around the k-cup. The sound of a passing bus on the road below is intolerably loud.
“Are you in the mafia?” he asks instead, trying to break the tension, and watches as something in Sapnap’s face changes. He can’t read it, but it’s not laughter. Karl feels something in his stomach drop like he’s freefalling out of the window. Sapnap’s hands are shaking, he notices in a distant way, and then makes a forced effort to pull himself together because something is really, really wrong and he doesn’t know what to do anymore.
“I mean,” he amends hesitantly, “it’s chill if you are. I mean, not that chill, but like--”
“Who was it?” Sapnap asks, hoarse. “Was there a kid? Kind of short, brown hair--”
“Nah they were both adults,” Karl said. “One had a beanie, and this big smile and the other dude was wearing a mask and his hair was pink and like this long,” he demonstrates with his hand. “They asked for you by name.”
“You told them I was here?”
The freefall gets faster. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Fuck,” he says, but there’s no heart in it. “Okay. Okay. Shit.”
“Sap, whatever’s going on--”
Sapnap holds up a finger that means hang on a minute and goes for his phone.
“Nick--”
“Shh,” he’s already dialing the number, and Karl wants to yell, wait, stop, hang on, can we talk about whatever the honk this is but Sapnap’s finger is still waving in his direction and his body is still on a high-speed involuntary elevator ride. He pulls the k-cup out of Sapnap’s hand where it’s pressing lines into his palm, and starts up the coffee-maker for the seventh time that morning.
“Yes, that’s me,” Sapnap says. “I’m fine. Yes. Yes. I know.” Long pause. “I don’t know-- I don’t know if I should.”
Karl holds his breath and stares intently at the coffee machine. It gurgles complaints back at him. Sapnap signs and his voice goes soft, almost dreamy. “Yeah,” he says. “I know you’re right. I know. Look, we can talk, but… look, I don’t want to promise anything. He was my friend. Yeah, I know. But. Still.”
There’s a garbled bit of conversation on the other end, and Sapnap laughs suddenly. “Sure man, it’s your party I guess. Okay, I’ll be there in a few. Okay? Yeah. Bye.”
He sets down the phone on the kitchen counter and scrubs a hand across his face. “Well.”
“Well?” Karl asks. He shouldn’t pry, but he feels kind of responsible for this whole thing, and if Sap’s in trouble he’s not gonna let it go. He’s good at that, but for once he cares enough that he’s not letting his friend slip through his fingers. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going to change out of my pajamas,” Sapnap says, dodging the question altogether, already halfway out of the kitchen, his breakfast cereal abandoned. “And I’m gonna walk to Taco Bell.”
“You’re gonna meet with that guy.”
Sapnap doesn’t look at him.
“Quackity, right? You set up a meeting and now you’re going to meet them.”
He nods.
“Okay. Neat.” Karl grins, “Coincidentally I am also going to Taco Bell.”
“Karl.”
“Look, I have no clue what the honk is happening, but those guys-- they’re dangerous. You didn’t see them. Or do you know them? Are they like old co-workers? Seriously, Sap, I’m not gonna be mad, but are you actually, like in it?”
“In what?”
“The mafia? An evil organization? I don’t know man, you have to tell me. I don’t want you getting hurt, man, I need you to help me pay my rent.”
The joke falls flat again, but something in Sapnap’s face relents. “They’re… a friend of a friend I guess.”
“Tubbo.”
“Yeah.”
“And now they want something from you?”
Sapnap waffles for a minute and then says, “I think they want to talk, honestly.”
“Cool. Well, I’m coming. I want Taco Bell, and you’re not going anywhere alone. Unless you’re like, a secret super-assassin or something, with like, a million guns.”
Finally, Sapnap’s face twists into the next-door neighbor of a grin. “Unfortunately for all of us, I’m not. Fine. But I’m not paying for your food.”
“You can’t say no to me,” Karl says brightly, and goes to put on his shoes.