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There is something unsettlingly still about the room that Karl wakes up in.
It’s cold. The gentle hum of the air conditioning unit explains the icy blast he feels wafting his hair into his face, but he’s sure he never usually runs it so cold. He hates to feel chilly, especially in the morning, yet it’s to quivering shivers that he finds himself slowly regaining consciousness. There’s a warmth on his hip, and as awareness slowly ebbs across his weary form, the heat seems to spread across his skin.
A deep, aching groan slips through his lips as he wakes enough to become aware of a throbbing in his head. It’s a dry, persistent sort of pain, irritatingly insistent on grating against his temples every time he sucks in a breath. Karl squeezes his eyes together with more vigour as he flops over onto his other side, shoving his skull further into the pillow as if the cool sheets will grant him relief. It works for a little while, and he’s just starting to grow tired enough to drift back off to sleep when he’s interrupted by a presence beside him.
“What… the hell.”
The voice is scratchy, worn. It cracks down the middle, splitting between octaves in a way that’s unfamiliar. The stranger follows it up with a hearty cough, and Karl feels a hand release his waist. His eyes snap open as he feels the further disentanglement of a strange figure from around him, legs falling away as he finds hair no longer pressed against the nape of his neck. Blearily, he realises he was being spooned, but it only comes when he’s rolled towards the figure.
Karl’s eyes finally open, and he yelps. On the other side of the mattress is an incredibly handsome stranger. Painted in shades of morning gold and emerald, the man has tousled blond hair, freckled skin and deep green eyes. As Karl turns to face him completely, the man stares back, eyes sharp with inquisition as they catch on his nose, his lips, then his neck. A small, smirking smile flutters over the guy’s mouth as Karl blushes.
“You good?” Karl manages, trying to ignore the way his voice shakes. He feels a little unbalanced. This guy is by far the most attractive person he’s ever managed to hook up with. Now, he can’t be certain that that’s what happened—his brain feels like it’s been steeped in tequila—but his body aches in all the right places to suggest as much, at least.
Green eyes simmer down, relaxing as if they’ve finished assessing a threat. “Uh— yeah. Sorry.” A slender hand appears from beneath the duvet, and the stranger chuckles as he reaches up to push his hair from his face. From the angle, Karl becomes aware of the impressive swoop of his nose and jaw, carved and steady. He can’t stop staring. “I just— didn’t recognise where we were.” The man laughs shortly, then lets his hand flop on top of the bed, tanned skin meeting crisp white sheets. “Sorry,” he adds, tsking a little. “I just— I am usually more smooth than this, I—”
“Are you married?”
The moment his eyes catch on the slender metal band wrapped around the man’s fourth finger, Karl bolts upright. It’s as if his body wakes up all at once, panic dripping into his skull as recollection and memory reappear, blurry in the distance but familiar enough to recall. A sick sense of vindication crawls across his skin. He knew Vegas was a bad idea. Hell, he’d told George and Sapnap that only idiots would choose somewhere so risky for a bachelor party. They’d just laughed at him, but here he is, beside his hookup, who he can’t even feel proud of for seducing anymore because he’s wearing a wedding ring.
Oh god. Does this make him a homewrecker?
The stranger startles. “No?” he mutters, and it’s imbued with confusion. “Why would you— think that?”
Karl’s eyes bulge. He points. “You have a wedding ring on?”
“So do you?”
His eyebrows knit together. “No, I don’t. What are you talking about?”
Warm fingers envelop his left hand, shaking in suspension in the air. The man’s rough thumb smoothes across his fourth finger, and he feels faint when there’s a tug on a ring. One glance confirms it. A matching band sits prettily above his knuckle, in the same shade of gold as his companion’s.
“Dear heavens,” he exhales. “Oh god.”
The stranger arches a brow. “You don’t think that…”
“What?”
“Did we get married last night?”
His blood goes cold. “Don’t— don’t say that,” Karl mutters, voice trailing off as the man turns around. He’s met with the flat expanse of a muscled back, shoulder blades flexing as strong arms reach for something he can’t see. When the man turns back, there’s a piece of paper held in his hands. “What’s that?”
“Uh… I think it’s a marriage certificate? It was just laying out on the table.”
Karl snatches it from his hands. “S’rry,” he murmurs, but he isn’t. “What the hell. What the hell.”
His eyes skim the document. Between the scrawl of incomprehensible signatures and the text at the top that reads The Little Vegas Chapel, he can connect the dots. He hates the shape that they form.
“Well,” the stranger says, and his voice tilts between shock and amusement, “I guess it’s, uh, nice to meet you. Sorry I don’t remember anything about our wedding.”
Heat rushes to his face. “Oh, god,” he mutters. “Oh god.”
“What?”
Karl blinks. “What do you mean, what?” Frazzled hands bury into his hair, and he tugs. “I got married to a stranger! Oh, god. My mom is gonna kill me. She’s gonna kill me. I’m gonna— I’m gonna have to change my name ‘n move across the ocean, and— and— and—”
A hot palm crosses over his mouth, muffling his words. “Dude,” the man coos, and there’s a hint of amusement on his face. “Calm down.”
Karl tries to speak, but the words come out garbled against the hand. For a second, he considers biting. “Wha’ ‘re you doin’?”
“I’m calming you down. Just take a second, okay? Breathe.” The hand disappears, and the man stares at him pointedly until he starts to inhale again. His eyes are so green. They’re so pretty. “There. Good job.”
Pink joins the red tint of his cheeks. Karl feels it blister. “We’re still totally fucked, though. Like, unironically fucked.”
The stranger muffles a laugh. “Maybe, maybe not… We can just get it annulled, or whatever. You don’t need to run away, uh…”
“Karl.”
He nods. “Dream.”
“Dream?”
“It’s a nickname.”
“Oh. Well, uh… Nice to meet you, I guess.” Karl posits his hand in the air. It hangs there, open and waiting, relaxing only when fingers slot around it. Dream has a strong squeeze, and it sends him hurtling backwards, the scenes playing out from the night before painted in tones of biting scarlet and bruising blue. There isn’t much drifting through his mind in terms of details, but he certainly remembers those hands. Grabbing at his waist, tangled in his hair.
He drops Dream’s fingers as his blush deepens.
“I’m gonna get a shower,” he mutters. “We can figure this out after.”
“Sure,” Dream says. He seems to make himself comfortable in the sheets, a smirk twitching the tips of his mouth upwards. He cups his hands behind his head. “Bye, Karl.”
There are hickeys on his neck. Karl scrubs at them until the skin around the marks are pink and sore, but even then, they stay. When he emerges from the bathroom with a cloud of wet fog blooming behind him, it’s with a frown on his face and a pulsing pain between his eyes.
Dream offers him some advil, and he almost cries again.
“So,” Karl murmurs, words slurred as he chews into a bit of plain toast. His… partner had apparently had the foresight to get room service delivered whilst he was in the shower. Karl’s already decided to get Sapnap to cover the costs of the continental spread and also any other fees associated with the whole accidental marriage thing. It isn’t obvious yet how he’s involved, but Karl’s sure he must be. Sapnap always seems to be embroiled in schemes like this. “What are we, like… Going to do?”
“About…?”
Karl blinks. He shakes his hand in the air until the wedding ring shines. “Are you serious?”
A funny chuckle slips into the air. Dream lets his spoon rest in his bowl before stretching his arms above his head, tan neck stretching proudly as he stifles a yawn. “I’m teasing you,” he says, then adds, “I don’t know. Uh… Go back to the chapel? See if they can cancel it or something.”
“Cancel the marriage,” he utters. “How are you so calm about this?”
Dream scoffs. “I’m not. You’re just more freaked out than me so I’m trying to stay calm so you don’t spiral.” He pauses. “Anyway, we’ll just get it cancelled, if it’s even legit to begin with. It might all just be fake, anyway.”
The lump in the back of his throat hurts. “True. Like, some tourist trap or something?”
“Exactly.” Dream strokes at his chin. “Like— you see it in movies all the time. People get married with, like, the Elvis impersonators.”
Suddenly, Karl feels his stomach flip. “God,” he mutters. He stands from the small table set and strides towards the bed, searching for his phone. “If we got married by an Elvis, I’m gonna…”
“What? Get a divorce?”
“Shut up,” he murmurs, barely able to conceal the smile that flickers over his lips. “You’re a lot better when you just sit there ‘n look handsome.”
“You think I’m handsome?”
He rolls his eyes then releases a sigh of relief when he finds his phone lying between two pillows. It’s on 16%. As the screen flickers to life, he takes in a sheet of ever-mounting notifications. “Crap,” he mutters, more to himself than Dream. He clears them all before opening his camera roll. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Hmm?”
“Look at this.”
With his hands resting on the back of Dream’s chair, he peers over the blond’s shoulder and watches as nimble fingers scroll through images of the night before. It’s an embarrassing slideshow, and the further the photos progress, the more Karl finds himself wishing he’d had the foresight to go through and delete some of the worst offenders.
It starts with them together, in the club he recognises as being Sapnap’s choice. The man of the hour is at the forefront, posing with a stack of shots balanced on the palms of his hands as he grins at the flashing camera. Karl and Dream are behind him, their middle arms linked together as they point at the man in awe.
Then, the photo shifts. It’s them, still together but now without Sapnap, skipping along the Vegas strip, a blurry shake to the image. Them, taking a selfie with matching sparkly pink cowboy hats. Them, standing in front of an Elvis impersonator at the top of an aisle. Them, kissing passionately with Karl showing off his ringed hand to the camera.
The show ends with an image of Karl cradled close to Dream’s chest, being held up completely by the handsome stranger as he’s carried across the threshold of a vibrant Vegas chapel.
“Well,” Dream drawls, a slight wobble to his voice, “I guess that fills in some of the gaps.” He scrolls back until he’s at the opening photos, then scoffs. “Sapnap,” he mutters, thumbing at the image of the messy-haired groom. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“You know Sap?”
Curious green eyes turn to meet him. After a moment of hesitation, Dream passes back the phone. “Yeah,” he says, “we work now, but we also went to high school together. He’s my best friend.”
Karl’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says. “So you know George, too?”
“Yeah. Nice guy.”
He purses his lips. “Well,” he hums, “yeah..? They’re… usually good people. I roomed with George in college.”
“Ahhh.” Dream’s brows crease. “Wait, you’re Karl?”
“Yes?”
“I know you. Like— not know you, but Sapnap talks about you all the time. You’re gonna be George’s best man, right?”
Something in the back of his mind finally clicks into place. “That’s me,” he mutters dejectedly, “and you’re gonna be Sapnap’s, right?” Dream, Dream. With such a unique name, he should’ve clicked earlier. His only defence is that his brain is still all fuzzy, and all of Sapnap’s friends are named weird things. This weekend alone, he’s already met a Punz, a Skeppy, and an Antfrost.
The blond nods. “Apparently.”
With firm fingers, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Good god,” he whines, “not only did we accidentally get married, but now we’re gonna have to run a wedding together, so I can’t even pretend this never—”
“Never happened?” Dream teases. Relief pours over Karl as he realises he’s just toying with him, betrayed by the teasing light in his eyes. “Wow, Karl. I kinda thought we had something special going on.”
“Dream,” he says, and he feels inclined to press a hand to his shoulder. “It’s been an honour getting to know you, but I think I’m gonna have to ask for a divorce.”
Dream sucks on his lower lip. “That hurts my feelings, Karl, but I understand where you’re coming from.” He pretends to wipe a couple tears from his eyes before laughing. “But hey! At least I’m not a stranger. You don’t have to worry that, like— I’m gonna kill you, or something.”
He smiles wryly. “That was possibly the most creepy thing you could’ve said. You do know that, right?”
There’s a shrug. “Whatever.” Dream stands from his chair and stretches. Karl tries really hard not to stare. “Can I shower?”
“Of course. I think there’s a spare towel in there.” Karl finally sits into his chair again, curling up with his knees against his chest. He stifles a yawn and grimaces as the action brings a dry pain to his temples. “God,” he whines, smashing tired palms into his forehead. “I’m never drinking again.”
The tips of Dream’s canines choose that moment to present themselves. “Sure, Karl. Just gimme ten minutes. Can I borrow some of your clothes, by the way?”
Karl is glad when Dream emerges from the shower with a plan. There’s also a flush to his face and a curl to his hair, but he tries not to focus on that. Karl is still trying really hard to act cool about the fact that they hooked up.
As it happens, Dream has a friend that studies law, who, after sending a couple texts to mutual friends, is apparently staying on the floor beneath them. Karl stays at his side as they make their way down the dazzling Vegas hotel hallways, his eyes blurring slightly as they try to take in the faded geometric pattern of the carpet.
Of all the different ways their encounter could begin, Karl isn’t expecting the door to be swung open by a man, shorter than both of them, wrapped up in a full body-length fluffy dressing gown and a pair of sunglasses. He distantly recognises him as one of George’s old friends from the night before. Karl can just about remember watching him taking a couple shots at the first club, but that’s where the memory ends. Everything from last night is still a blur.
“What the hell, Dream? What kinda time do you call this?”
Dream winces. Karl sinks closer to his side, hand absently wrapping around the sleeve of his red sweater where it sits prettily around his companion’s torso.
“Quackity,” Dream begins, and it’s far too soft and far too sweet. “Hi.”
“What do you want? Fuck off.” Quackity—again, what is it with these guys and nicknames…?—digs a hand into his hip. It’s hard to tell with the sunglasses, but Karl’s pretty sure he proceeds to turn his attention to him. “Oh, hey, Karl.”
“Hi?”
Dream sighs. “Could you look at some documents for us?”
“What kind of documents?”
“Legal ones.”
A loud groan fills the air. “Dude,” Quackity laughs, “I’m hungover as hell right now. Aren’t you? You guys went hard last night. Why the— why the hell have you brought contracts to a bachelor party, anyway? Send them to my assistant, and I’ll look at them on Monday.”
“You don’t have an assistant, idiot,” Dream mutters. He manages to push the papers towards the lawyer, who reluctantly accepts them. “Look— I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. It’s… sensitive.” He lowers his voice. “We’d kinda appreciate some discretion on this, man. Please. Just tell us if the contract is legit.”
There’s a small shift in Quackity’s demeanour. “Wait…” Finally, the shades come off. He pushes them up and into his hair before squinting at the papers they’d found spread across the coffee table. Quackity winces as his bloodshot eyes trail the first few lines before releasing the loudest laugh Karl has ever heard in his life. “Holy shit!”
“Q…”
“Oh my fucking god!” Quackity flicks over the page. Mirth envelops his entire face. “You two got married?”
Karl’s face feels hot. “If it’s legit, then yeah,” Dream supplies. He sounds like he wants to die.
“Jesus Christ.” Quackity grins. “Dream,” he murmurs, voice low and teasing, “holy shit. I didn’t expect this from you.” His eyes shift onto Karl, and the smirk widens. “Damn, guys. Okay. Sure, I’ll read this. I’m gonna need coffee, though. And breakfast. And you’re gonna owe me a lot of favours.”
Dream releases a reluctant sigh. “Sure. Anything you want, Quackity.”
They end up downstairs in the bar. There’s a booth in the back corner of the room where it’s dim and quiet, and all three of them seem glad for it. Karl slumps against the wall, Dream sloping in to sit beside him, with Quackity angled across from them. Once the table is laden with coffee cups and plates of greasy food, the lawyer slips in some airpods and gets to work.
It just leaves Karl and Dream, sitting together in silence. Karl presses his hands into the table and glances at his ring through narrowed eyes. For whatever reason, he hasn’t taken it off yet. Neither has Dream.
“So…” Dream murmurs. Karl presses his hands into his chin and blinks up at him. “What do you do normally?”
“What, like, when I’m not getting drunkenly married to strangers?”
“Yeah.”
Karl’s lips twitch into a smile. “I’m a comic book artist,” he says. “I do all the storyboarding stuff. Character design, preliminary sketches. All that.”
“Woah,” Dream murmurs. “That’s... epic.”
Pride blooms in his chest. “It’s actually a dream come true. I work up in North Carolina now, which I guess is why I’ve never met you before, but there’s a whole team of us. It’s really freaking cool.”
“That’s so much more exciting than what I do,” Dream laments. He flashes a lopsided smile as he stretches his arms above his head. “I work at a programming place with Sapnap.”
Karl hums. “That could be pretty cool, though? Do you make anything?”
“Game design. We’re doing this pretty cool block game at the moment.” He fishes around in his pocket for a moment before procuring his phone. “Wait— I’ll show you the preview.”
The sight of a cat set as his lockscreen causes Karl to pause. He reaches out, fingers closing around Dream’s wrist. “Aww!” he coos. “Is that your cat?”
“Yeah.” He tilts the screen closer, and the image of a very soft-looking cat settled on Dream’s lap blinks up at him. “This is Patches.”
“They’re so cute.”
Dream hums. “She’s my girl,” he coos. “Wait— I have more photos. Look. We— uh, me and Sapnap, actually— dressed her up in this little costume we found last week. She looked so silly. Look—”
By the time Quackity looks up from his papers, Karl’s head doesn’t feel so bad. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Dream lets him rest his temple against his shoulder when the conversation dies out and he starts to yawn, but he couldn’t be sure. What he does know is that Dream’s arm feels really cosy wrapped around his size, and he makes incredibly good company for a stranger he’d fully expected to roll away from this morning and never see again.
“Right,” Quackity announces. Karl opens his eyes but stays cuddled into Dream’s side. There’s a warm hand stroking over his hip, and he doesn’t want it to stop. “I hate to tell you guys, but it’s real.”
Dream releases a low grunt. “Thought so.”
“I have some good news, though. If you go back within a week of the paperwork being submitted, you can request that it be withdrawn. So, technically, you guys should be able to get it dissolved before it gets processed by the courts.”
Karl perks up. “Wait—” and he sits up just a little, being careful not to knock Dream’s hand away. “We can get it cancelled?”
Quackity laughs. “Annulled, cancelled… Whatever you wanna call it, yeah. If you want my advice, I’d go back there today and get it processed as soon as possible.”
“Dude.” Dream reaches with his free hand across the table and wraps it around Quackity’s fist. “Thank you so much.”
The lawyer laughs. His genuine smile takes on a more mischievous feel as his eyes shift across a space behind them. “Uh… You might not be thanking me for much longer, but thanks, I guess. As I said, I’ll send you the bill for the costs this contract has taken on me, both physically and emotionally, obviously—”
“Quackity!” Dream hisses, his head craned back into the room. Hearing the urgency, Karl sits up, losing his touch in favour of examining the disturbance. He whines when he sees George and Sapnap slowly approaching them, hands intertwined and expressions too smug to be a coincidence. “You called them?”
Quackity cackles. He drums his fingers over the table as he stands. “What?” he mutters, then he shrugs. “Of course I was gonna tell George. This is funny as hell.” He beams before waving at both of them. “I’m going the hell back to bed. Have a good night, guys! If you need any more help, my rate is $450 an hour!”
Dream quickly looks back around. “Karl,” he complains, voice pitching into a whine. “Please can we leave.”
He immediately nods. “Oh, hell yeah. I’m not doing this today. Not with them.” The couple continues to approach them, whispering and laughing as Sapnap not-so-discreetly points at where Karl’s arm is wrapped around Dream’s.
“Wanna get out of here?”
He looks to Dream, reads the ambition in his eyes. When he nods, it’s the easiest decision he’s ever made, and it’s followed up by Dream procuring a fifty dollar bill, throwing it onto the table, then offering him his free hand.
“Go, go, go, go, go.”
Maybe it’s bad etiquette to run across an expensive hotel’s lobby, Karl doesn’t know. All he can focus on is the dizziness in his head and the rush of Dream’s hand. Giggles slip through his lips as Sapnap’s yells try to chase them, glancing off their backs with ease.
They run until they’re outside, then a little further. The strip is far less glamorous by day, but it doesn’t feel too unfamiliar. Once Dream pulls out his phone and starts navigating the way to the chapel, the journey goes more smoothly. They stay glued together, continuing to talk, and talk, and talk, and, really, it’s kinda stupid how easy it is to just exist around Dream. He eagerly reciprocates every touch Karl tentatively pushes onto him, listens to his ramblings and returns them with musings of his own. Time passes too fast. Way too fast. By the time they reach the chapel, the sun is setting, and they’ve lost the whole day, but it still feels like just a few minutes that Karl had woken up beside him.
It doesn’t take them too long for the paperwork to be resolved. After a brief wait in reception, the process is relatively painless. It’s clearly a process that takes place fairly frequently. There’s even a dedicated room for them to go into. The only downside is the fact that there’s a fee for the whole thing, but Karl manages to slap his card on top of the reader before Dream does, so he takes it as a win. They’re allowed to keep the rings.
It’s with a somewhat sombre slope to his step that Karl finds himself back on Vegas’ strip, Dream trailing just behind him. The rush of it all has worn off, and with his companion no longer Mr Dream Jacobs, Karl doesn’t really know where he stands.
Or, more precisely, he doesn’t appreciate how sad he feels to no longer be married. Or, better yet, doesn’t appreciate that he no longer has a connection to the incredibly handsome stranger, who, as if sensing the plummet in his mood, does a double step and catches up to him. A smooth elbow glides into his side.
“Well,” Dream says, “I guess that’s it?”
Karl sighs. “I guess it is.”
“Divorced at 21. Wow.”
“Sucks to be you, dude.”
“Shut up.” Dream’s quiet for a moment, then slows. Karl glances over his shoulder and finds himself pausing too, trapped by the wistful gaze in Dream’s eyes as they stare at him intensely. His expression is unbearably sad.
“What?”
Pink lips curl into a frown. “I just— I dunno. It’s dumb.”
He walks closer. There’s a fountain just off the main part of the sidewalk, and Karl finds himself looping his arm around Dream’s and tugging him nearer. As the sound of cascading flumes of water fizzles in the evening air, he presses his temple to Dream’s shoulder. “Tell me,” he begs.
“I just… Was happy to spend the day with you, Karl. I... I wasn’t expecting to see you again, ‘n I’m not gonna lie, things last night were good, too, but I had so much fun hanging out with you today. I’m sad that it’s over now.”
Karl feels his own brows furrow. “Crap,” he mutters, “you live in Florida with Sap and George, right?”
“I do.”
“And I’m in North Carolina.”
“You… are.”
Not for the first time today, Karl finds himself wanting to cry. Instead, he just tilts his face until his forehead presses into Dream’s shoulder. “That kinda blows.”
Dream’s arm winds around his waist. “It does.”
They stand in silence and watch the fountain. He keeps his eyes trained on the way small water droplets occasionally fly free from the rest of the mass, stubborn and insistent. Dream smells of honeysuckle and lavender.
“But…” Karl mumbles and his brain starts to move quicker than his mouth, “but we’re both organising this wedding, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So I’m gonna be down in Florida a lot to organise that. Then, like, I’ll be down for a couple weeks for the actual wedding. And again, after that, ‘cus George said he wanted me to house-sit over their honeymoon. And I— And I normally come ‘n visit them every couple months anyway, so…”
Dream hums. It’s hopeful, and it matches the warmth in his chest. “I’ve always liked North Carolina. Always kinda wanted to visit it again.”
Karl smiles into his shoulder before pulling back. The man in front of him is so handsome. He hopes his face doesn’t betray how close to the surface just a few words have managed to drag his giddiness. “Yeah?”
Dream nods. “Yeah.” His hands shift, joining Karl’s waist on the other side. “I’ve also been thinking about kissing you all day.”
Warmth tickles the rounds of Karl’s cheeks. “Isn’t it kinda bad to kiss someone you’ve just divorced?”
“Isn’t it also bad to get drunkenly married to your one night stand?”
“Is that all I am to you, Dream? A one night stand?”
Dream rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”
It’s so easy to smirk back at him. “C’mere and make me, handsome.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he does just that. Dream’s lips are soft and warm, and they feel even better than Karl imagined them being. It’s a kiss that seals the end, and the beginning, and everything in between. It tastes as sweet as he’d thought it would, and Karl finds himself wanting to spend the rest of his life living in it.
(And when Dream pulls back to cup his cheeks and press smaller kisses over the rest of his warming face with nothing but unassuming fondness shining from his eyes, Karl has a feeling that he will.)