Chapter Text
The Inn is beautiful, admittedly.
That’s what Karl tries to convince himself as he stands outside of it, that’s what repeats in his head as he takes in the scenery and tries to gain the courage to walk inside. Over and over again, as he breathes in the cold air, he repeats it.
This weekend, this wedding, it’s sure to be the death of him, but at least the inn is spectacular.
Everything is spectacular, really.
Even the drive there: a long drive on a highway barely ploughed, that ran through the mountains over twists and turns with rocky hills on one side and a forest of evergreens lining the other. The branches and leaves and grass underneath the trees are all covered in fresh snow. Fresh snow is beautiful, albeit slippery—Karl almost wished the car would have slipped over the edge.
It didn’t, between the freshly sprinkled sand and Dream’s careful driving, Karl didn’t get lucky and now he’s here; the end destination, a town located in what really seems like the middle of nowhere.
It’s only five o’clock, and the sky has already faded into darkness, a simple consequence of the winter months. Despite that, it’s as bright as daylight outside; the town is lit up in golden light from street lamps that’s carried through the heavy snow falling.
The Inn is located higher above, on the side of a mountain. Karl loves winter, and if it were any other occasion maybe he’d be leaning on the cold metal railings looking over the city, enjoying the view. Instead, he’s stuck staring forward.
Dream insists on calling it a hotel, and the invitations do too, but the sign in front is labelled Inn, and if anything calling it a hotel is disrespectful. It’s only three floors tall, with large windows bordered by vintage wooden frames and walls painted with browns and neutral tones.
It is beautiful, homely, and even just standing outside Karl feels the warmth call to him, flooding through his bones, an urge to get out of the cold winter air.
The sign outside proudly declares that the Inn was built in the early 1900s, and the architecture hints that not much has been renovated. It was built to last, and it did.
Snow collects on the windowsills and the roof and the gardens outside; the first snowfall of the year and it’s only November. It’s destined to stay long after winter and well into the spring, snow doesn’t melt as quickly up north.
Permanency is a pattern; it’s the perfect place to hold a wedding.
Karl’s feet stay planted on the brick sidewalk that leads to the door and snow collects in his hair and on the top of his bags that sit beside him. Dream and George are already inside checking in and getting their room key. They wanted to beat the rush, despite the fact that every room had been assigned long before they had arrived. Karl has chosen to stay back, making an empty claim that he wanted to sit back and admire the scenery.
It isn’t a lie, but it masks the truth all the same.
The scenery is breathtaking, but the snow that fell peacefully in the light of the streetlamps and the humming through the walls from the band playing in the lobby couldn’t possibly prevent the deep sinking feeling that roots itself into Karl’s chest. His feet stay planted on the grey brick, but not of his own choice, instead because he can’t will himself to step any further.
People arrive in taxis and cars and they all move around him and his bags. Those who aren’t paying attention almost walk into him, but other than that everyone else disregards him entirely as if he isn’t even there. Realistically, Karl knows it means nothing, and to anyone else, it’s simply just a coincidence.
However, Karl can’t help but wonder if the people treating him like he isn’t there is a sign that he shouldn't be.
Of course, it’s all in his head. To everyone else, Karl is nearly insignificant to the wedding, just simply one of the many groomsmen who would walk down the aisle with a bridesmaid and stand below the altar as the groom read his vows.
He would pose for photos, the official ones and the ones guests would take at the afterparty, but those would be the only evidence of him at the event. He didn’t need to write a speech, didn’t need to stand up at the rehearsal dinner and say anything nice or anything at all for that matter.
Still, Karl stands outside and wonders if he should even be there. Because, even if nobody else knows, he knows that being at the wedding is a bad idea. He knows that he’s the key to disaster, a ticking time bomb without a determined clock that starts counting down the second he steps inside the doors. So, he stays in the same spot, letting snow collect in his hair, wondering if he will ever step foot inside the building, if he could ever.
After all, there is a very simple rule: no matter the circumstances, never invite an ex to a wedding.
By stepping inside of that building, he is an accomplice to the destruction. He prays that the frostbite will infect him before he has to.
Frostbite never reaches him, George does.
George, who holds his jacket closed with his arms, and who raises his eyebrows in confusion at Karl when he reaches him, and who doesn’t know why Karl is standing out in the cold but knows enough to convince him to go inside. George has always been good at that: saying the thing that people needed to hear, even if he is essentially clueless about the weight of the situation.
Truthfully, George doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why Karl hesitates before grabbing the door handle, or why he tries to use the long line at the front desk as an excuse to go back outside.
George doesn’t know that the warm air burns Karl’s skin, and that the smoke from the fireplace in the lounge infects his lungs and makes him feel like he’s choking. He doesn’t know that the large sign in the center of the lobby, the one of the bride and groom on their engagement night that says “welcome to our wedding” in silver calligraphy, tears apart every piece of Karl.
No one knows, not George, not Dream, not Quackity, no one. Karl plans to keep it that way.
He hopes it will be easier that way.
George doesn’t know, and that’s why he still pushes Karl to get his room key without an ounce of pity, and why Karl finds himself standing in the middle of room number two-sixty-seven staring down at the plastic card; an impermanent record of his commitment to the weekend.
The room is cozy, relaxing, and calm; a perfect juxtaposition to the anxiety that rushes through Karl's veins.
His bags are laid on the ground by the door, one of them standing upright and the other knocked over, and his shoes are still on his feet. He doesn’t care to take them off, nor does he dare to move over to the curtains to open them, or to the chair in the corner to sit down. The remote on the dresser sits untouched and the TV remains silent.
Karl doesn’t dare make a single change to the room. He’s a ticking time bomb, and he’s afraid that the second he touches anything, the second he accepts that he’s here at this wedding, everything will crumble around him into ash and dust.
The only thing he touches is the small gift basket that is perfectly placed on the nightstand. It’s woven intricately, though the sticker on the bottom says it's from the dollar store. It’s filled with wedding favours; champagne and soaps and confetti and souvenirs from the city.
Karl focuses on the card that sits on top.
It’s another picture of the bride and groom with Welcome to Nick and Ava’s wedding. It’s not the same photo from the lobby, and yet it’s burned into the back of Karl’s mind all the same.
It’s the only photo left up on Sapnap’s Instagram. Sapnap has his arms around Ava, the two of them sharing a couch meant for one, white, gold and black balloons floating in the background and glasses of champagne in their hands. Though, none of the extra detail distracts from the gigantic diamond sitting on Ava’s finger, or the caption that read couldn’t keep this secret any longer, soon to be Mrs and Mr.
It was how Karl found out that, not even a year after he and Sapnap broke up, Sapnap had gotten engaged.
He found out over Instagram.
Not a phone call, or even a quick text. It sat at the top of his feed waiting for him the moment he woke up with nothing to cushion the impact.
The card finds its way into the garbage, face down and ripped in two and covered with toilet paper to keep the wreckage hidden. Karl finds his way to the bar.
Though, it’s more appropriate to call it a lounge. Vintage photographs hang on the dark wood walls, and couches line the walls with beautiful tables to match. Waiters carry in plates of beautiful smelling food. There is a bar, with bar stools and that is why Karl supposes it’s still listed as so in the directory. Otherwise, it’s just simply too beautiful to be called a bar. Karl’s eyes fall on the empty stool at the end, a place he’ll no doubt find himself for the rest of the weekend.
Before he can take his refuge, his name is called.
“Karl!”
Karl can barely turn on his feet before George is at his side once again, grabbing onto his arm and leading him over to the converted restaurant booth in the corner. Dream and Quackity are there. Quackity has a fancy drink in his hand that, blue and purple ombre with pineapple on top—it looks like it costs a fortune. Dream is drinking water.
“We’ve been waiting for you, idiot, you didn’t reply to our texts!” George exclaims as he drags Karl around.
“I haven’t looked at my phone, sorry,” Karl mumbles. He takes a sear beside Quackity, and Quackity gives a dissatisfied groan before sliding over to the wall, annoyed at giving up his extra space.
“We were starting to think you got lost,” Quackity says, “Maybe gotten eaten by a bear or something.”
Karl rolls his eyes at him, and Quackity returns the gesture with a shit-eating grin.
Dream picks up one of the menus from where it is wedged between a napkin holder and the wall, and hands it to Karl. “We haven’t ordered our food yet, we were waiting for you.”
A wasted gesture, Karl thinks, because he flips through all the different dishes and options and despite the fact that they’re all beautiful, not a single one looks appetizing.
“Thank you.” Karl forces a smile.
By the time George flags over the waitress, Karl decides on a simple burger and sweet potato chips on the side. It’s not nearly as big of a meal as Quackity orders, but it’s still far more than Karl thinks he can stomach. If he doesn’t eat it all, he’ll say it’s because he never gets hungry after long car rides. It’s another half-lie and a good cover. If he plays his cards right he can use it to excuse all his over actions for the day.
Tomorrow he won’t have such a good fib.
The night goes by easily–easier than Karl expected. Sitting in the booth with his best friends, laughing about stories that they’ve told a million times and ordering drinks that are surely going to cost a fortune, it’s easy enough to pretend that they’re somewhere else.
Of course, Karl gets too comfortable too quickly. He gets ahead of himself. The diamond on George’s left hand catches in the light just as the waitress is delivering the third round of drinks, and of course, she has to ask, and of course, Dream has to tell the proposal story. Dream’s smile lights up the entire booth, reciting the perfect fairytale of an evening, and George blushes crimson red and laughs along, and Karl swirls around the paper straw in his drink and tries to fake a smile.
Dream and George got engaged two weeks ago, and Karl is happy for them. He is, truly. He just wishes he could show it without a bitter taste sitting permanently on his tongue.
He wishes he could be happier, because he loves George and Dream. He’s never questioned that they’d get together, even before they had admitted their feelings for each other, it was obvious. Karl has never believed in the concept of soulmates, but the invisible string that ties the two of them together isn’t that invisible; Dream and George were made for each other and anyone who’s paying attention can see it.
The story is beautiful, but it’s an unintentional and loud reminder that Karl is alone.
He’s alone and attending the wedding of the person he probably should have ended up with; the person who’s tied to the other end of his string. Something that, beyond any doubt, is his fault.
“I have a goal for this weekend,” Quackity loudly declares, a smirk on his face. The waitress had left and the stories had shifted. Quackity is almost three-quarters done with his drink, a hint that his goal is nonsense.
Dream plays along, lips upturned into a smirk, “Get as many people’s numbers as possible?”
“Nope.”
“Try every drink on the menu?” George plays along with the little guessing game, pointing to the glasses discarded in the middle of the table; all of them had held different drinks. It wouldn’t have even been a problem.
“Don't make a fool of yourself?” Karl adds before Quackity can even deny George’s guess. Obviously, it’s not the right answer, but the way that Quackity turns to him: an offended and shocked face, is worth it. For the first time that night, Karl laughs genuinely.
“You shouldn’t be laughing Jacobs,” Quackity warns, and Karl puts his hands up in surrender, “My goal—which none of you were even close to getting by the way—is to finally find you, Karl, a date.”
“Oh, good luck with that one,” Dream says, rolling his eyes, “Last March I tried to set him up with a guy and he wouldn’t even consider going to talk to them.”
“And last May he ran into a girl in a coffee shop he had a crush on from high school when he was on a call with me and he didn’t even seem interested,” George adds.
Because I was dating Sapnap. Karl wishes he could say.
Last March they were talking on discord every single night, making plans to meet up again, for Karl to maybe even move to Orlando. Spending days cursing the states between them, wanting to be as close as possible. Last May, they had started making plans as if they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
Everything was perfect.
Because I thought I had already found the love of my life and I wasn’t going to ruin that.
How things had changed.
Karl bites his tongue. “I’m just not… ready for the whole dating scene yet. And hooking up with someone at a wedding seems pointless.”
It’s a half-truth and a half-lie. Karl has gotten good at those through practice; avoiding discord calls with Sapnap and claiming that he doesn’t have the energy, missing streams and blaming it on work. It’s only consequential that Quackity has gotten good at seeing right through him.
“I know it’s pointless, that’s the fun of it!” Quackity shrugs, “No strings attached unless you want there to be, it’s a win-win situation!”
Karl parted his lips, conjuring up another objection, but Dream barges in.
“What about that girl at the end of the bar?” Dream asks, “The one with the red hair.”
With fingers still curled around his glass, Dream nods his head over to the bar subtly. Karl’s eyes follow, but they don’t land on the person Dream intends. Instead, they get caught on the entrance to the bar; across the room, and Karl feels something catch in his throat.
Sapnap is standing in the entranceway, caught in conversation with an older lady. She says something and he laughs politely, but his attention is focused on looking around the bar, searching for something or someone.
It’s the first time Karl has properly seen Sapnap in months, and yet so much has changed about him.
The winter mouths have caused his hair to fade into a deeper shade of auburn, and he’s finally committed to growing it out just a little bit longer instead of cutting it all off the moment it starts to graze his neck. He’s dressed in a grey button-down with the top buttons loose and the sleeves rolled up neatly to his elbows, dress pants to match.
It’s not something he usually wears, and Karl isn’t sure why but it causes a pit to form in his stomach. He doesn’t look like himself.
It’s only fate that his gaze lands on Karl, and Karl feels the air leave his lungs, suffocating.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Quackity points out with a laugh, dragging Karl back to reality, “Does the thought of talking to a girl scare you that much?”
The girl sitting at the bar.
Karl’s eyes quickly flicker away and back to the conversation in a desperate attempt to look innocent, but the red blush on his cheeks gives everything away.
Dream adds his own comment, but Karl is barely listening to hear it.
He didn’t think it would be this hard, and yet he feels like he’s on fire. The wood of the table is ice cold to the touch and yet still he feels like he might melt through it.
Out of habit, he tries to find distractions. His eyes land on the menu and he thinks about bringing up the idea of ordering dessert, and then to the drink menu where he wonders if he could get away with leaving the table to get another round, and then his eyes land on George, who is staring at him quizzically, eyebrow raised.
Karl looks down at the table to avoid him, and by the time he looks back up, it seems George has already figured it out, head turned towards the entranceway and any ounce of confusion that once sat is replaced with a smile.
George catches Sapnap’s attention and waves him over.
“I figured I’d find you guys here,” Sapnap says as he approaches the table. If he’s feeling any bit remotely similar to how Karl is, he doesn’t show it. George squeezes impossibly closer to Dream, giving Sapnap enough room to sit down at the table too.
The thing is, that even though Sapnap doesn’t show any emotion at all, Karl doesn’t need any confirmation. To Sapnap, their relationship never existed, wiped completely from existence, without a trace. After all, that’s why he’s getting married less than a year after—that’s why he didn’t think it was necessary to warn Karl before the announcement. To Sapnap, Karl is no different than the others sitting at this table.
“Drinks are half off, obviously we're here dumbass,” Quackity says, holding up his glass.
“How long have you guys been here?” Sapnap asks, looking down at the collected plates and glasses at the end.
“We got here at 5,” Dream says, “and to the hotel at like three.”
“Was the flight good?”
“As good as it can be, considering someone put us on Southwest,” George sighs loudly.
“It was the only one that had seats together!” Dream claims, “Would you have rather been on Delta?”
“I would have rather drove, personally,” Quackity says, “It could have been a fun little road trip!”
“We barely survived the drive here!”
The conversation is so normal; mundane and simple like it’s just a regular day. Quackity butts in with jokes, George finds a reason to make fun of Sapnap, Dream tries to find peace. Karl hates it—hates how it feels like nothing ever happened like he’s not attending the wedding of the guy who he was head over heels for less than a year ago.
“Do you like your gift baskets?” Sapnap asks.
No, Karl wants to say. He swallows that remark. Normal, civil. “I thought the little champagne was cute.”
Sapnap smiles at him, “I’m glad.”
Karl wants—needs to know if he truly is, or if it’s just a facade.
He would give anything to know how Sapnap is feeling at that moment; a flicker of his eyes or a falter of his smile, the darkening of his irises or a stumble over his words, anything that resembles even the smallest hint so he knows if this hurts Sapnap just as much as it hurts him.
But Sapnap’s face remains friendly without any double meaning, and Karl looks down at his drink. He supposes it’s for the best. After all, Karl lost every single right to know how Sapnap felt the second he walked out of that room and declared they were over.
Anxiety washes over Karl as he realizes the table has gone impossibly quiet. “It’s snowing— I-uh, I like the snow.”
“I’m just glad that I did snow,” Sapnap laughs. The awkward tension dissolves. “We’re going up to a lake for our photos and if there was no snow it was going to look awful.”
“I never pictured you as the type of person for a winter wedding,” Karl says. It slips out before he can contemplate it, and when Sapnap raises his eyebrows in question Karl regrets ever opening his mouth.
A simple remark, a double meaning everyone else at the table is oblivious to.
“If you were to get married, one day where would it be?” Karl asks, eyes fixated on the little discord bubble that sits on his phone screen. His eyes are heavy with sleep, but between the long blinks he can see the green highlighting around the icon.
“Spring,” Sapnap answers simply. “Like late—definitely not early spring. Maybe late May or early June, you know, when it’s stopped raining every day and the trees have finally sprouted their new leaves.”
“In a garden with tulips and roses and birds singing too?” Karl asks, teasing obvious in his tone.
“Maybe,” Sapnap answers, and his serious tone grabs Karl’s attention. “There’s a few nice gardens around Orlando that I’ve seen, but I think they’re better for a proposal than anything else. I think I’d like to get married on a dock, overlooking the water. A lake—not an ocean though, and lots of trees and maybe a mountain in the background that’s so tall it still has snow covering the peaks.”
“I never knew you thought about weddings this much,” Karl confesses, “I thought you were the type of person to think they were lame.”
“I was,” Sapnap says. “I used to think that it was incredibly stupid to put so much time and effort into planning a single day.”
“Used to?” Karl asks.
“My opinion changed when I met someone I liked enough to consider it.” Sapnap says. Karl can hear the smile in his tone. “That’s you, by the way.”
Karl’s thankful that their cameras are off, because he’s certain his cheeks are tomato red. “You’re such a—”
“—romantic?”
“I was going to say nimrod,” Karl mumbles, rolling his eyes even though he knows Sapnap can’t see him. “But that works too.”
A late-night confession Karl remembers so clearly, and with the way Sapnap’s eyes flicker away from him, Karl knows that he remembers it too.
“I guess I just couldn’t wait any longer,” Sapnap finally says. “And Ava wanted a Winter wedding, so who am I to say no?”
“I guess that’s important,” Karl fakes a smile. “You know what they say—happy wife, happy life!”
“Where is the lovely bride-to-be, anyway?” Dream asks. Karl breathes a sigh of relief.
“Her friends are taking her out for a night on the town—not sure what they’re doing but I was told not to wait up so I guess they’re having fun,” Sapnap explains. There’s a hint of something in his tone that Karl can’t quite distinguish, but it’s impossible to miss.
Sapnap looks up and catches Karl’s eyes. Karl looks away. He tries to convince himself that he’s imagining it, but it seems that Quackity catches on too.
“You told us you didn’t want a bachelor party!” he exclaims, hands up in surrender.
Karl doesn’t stay at the bar much longer after that—conversation becoming background noise as he stares off at a wall and tries to avoid looking at Sapnap at all. He comes up with an easy excuse; he’s feeling tired and wants to get some extra sleep before the chaos of the weekend steals any chance at rest away from him.
When he gets to his room he finds himself sliding down the wood of his door and sinking to the floor, the back of his head hitting it as he leans back.
He hopes to god he doesn’t ruin this wedding.