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The stars flicker. It’s cold here, it’s always cold here, and True XD is tired. He stands- floats- exists at the border between the Inbetween and the Other Side, staring into the fog.
“Karl?” His own voice sounds foreign. He’s unused to talking when it’s just him. The roar of the waterfall through the mists, the distant sound of the stars flaring, the infinity away where the footsteps of all the hollowed out pieces of Karl left behind. They’re just echoes of bad memories, and not anything like the man himself. They can’t even hold conversations.
Silence. He tries again.
“Karl?” Called into the fog, “Are you there?”
There’s a shuffle of movement a few miles away. Ranboo, most likely, backing out away from the roils of fog. Knowing Ranboo, he’s sat by one of the doorways, watching himself in the lifetimes he’s happy.
It leaves True XD lonely, here. It’s been a long time since he last tried to reach out to Karl, the First Karl, distant from him and locked in the Other Side. He doesn’t trust XD with the First Nightmare, and XD doesn’t blame him, if he’s being perfectly honest. So the majority of the time, XD is barred from entering the Other Side, from moving beyond the fog and into the waters of death. It gets lonely. It’s better, so much better, now that Ranboo has escaped the bonds of the third precinct.
Sometimes, XD wonders if Karl really intended to keep him there. There are nine precincts before the Vault and the door to the loom, and though he knows that the logic behind it is that the third precinct is difficult to spend any extended time in, there are plenty of threats beyond it. The Sea of Tears, for one, in the final precinct, where any glance of the sky is enough to send the poor soul straight to the great beyond of oblivion. Though perhaps a final death is more peace than punishment- they are all aware of what happened to Schlatt after being torn apart in the void of the Inbetween in a single universe that rippled outward. That none of them have seen him since is so terribly telling. There is barely even memory of him left.
Still. Somewhere deeper- if Karl truly wanted to keep Ranboo trapped, he had options. The Sea of Tears, hidden in the still depths of the sixth, among the flares of the eighth, suspended under the bridge of the fifth.
“Karl?” He tries a third time. He does this sometimes, stands here and calls out for the only person that could ever truly understand him. He has never gotten a response before, and he does not expect anything to change, really.
Karl- the Karl beyond the fog bank- hasn’t been seen in a material form in millennia. Not since shortly after the rewriting began, and since his form dissipated, he has been seen only as auroras of light by those beyond the first precinct. XD recalls the Dream from Aracanus saying that Karl is only a voice now, but he also recalls that his own Ranboo mentioned streaks of jade light in the sky the day they first loosened his chains, when a version of himself chose to forget to keep the happiness he had fought and died for. XD knows that world is one of his favourites to watch, where he sees himself with his son, with his family, they had watched his wedding together from beyond the veil.
Karl has not appeared to him in forever. So what makes this moment special is a question that XD will have for years.
In the fog, a shadow forms. It grows closer, brighter, more vivid and colorful.
The First Page does not wear a hoodie like near every iteration of him since does. He’s dressed in trailing robes, similar to Ranboo’s, with the translucent chromatic aberration of clockwork like wings flaring behind him at the nadir of every step. XD is sure that his form must flicker, too, a hundred eyes bursting open in surprise and hands materialising, pressing against a shimmering pane of mist and nothingness.
“Karl,” he breathes, stunned. Karl, or as he truly is, the First Page, steps up face-to-face with him. He sets a palm to one of True XD’s, and it feels icy cold, in the same way as a last conversation with an ex-friend is cold. Impersonal, lonely, but pressed to his.
He doesn’t look the same. Between the sparks and swirls of colors, there’s sparking black and white paneling, there’s gears and cogs and the sound of ticking that seems to go where Karl does. He has lost all of what he used to be, but that smile below unnaturally golden clockwork eyes is the same as it always used to be. Sad, hurt, a little angry in the corners of it.
“Hi,” Karl greets, a little awkwardly. XD swallows. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t have a throat, but it feels human so he does it. Karl’s eyes trace the bob of his illusory Adam’s apple.
“I- you- you’ve never come when I called for you before,” XD says, it comes out as a whisper, rough and rasping, “Why now?”
Karl looks sheepish. It’s a strange look on divine features, a little too strange and angular to be natural anymore, and the flush that colors his cheeks is gold, not pink.
“I’ve been… I’ve been busy.”
“Every time I called?” XD says, disbelieving, “Really?”
“I’ve barely stopped working since it all began, Dee.” Karl replies with a frown, “The only time I have stopped, it was because I had to. Say, when a stray came through the precincts.”
It’s… it’s teasing. He’s making a joke.
“It’s been years since I heard you joke,” XD replies, quiet, “Before we lost everything, I think. I think you were still in Kinoko, and I was still with George.”
Karl pulls his hand back. There was never any real contact, a thin layer of mist crystallising to ice and melting at once between their palms, but it still feels like he’s just stepped a hundred miles away.
“I haven’t had much of a chance to joke,” he says, bitter, “And I haven’t spoken to you since… since we separated you.”
There is silence for a few seconds. XD pushes against the mist barrier like it’ll give way and he will be able to get closer to Karl. He says nothing, just blinks with every watering eye haloed around him, all trained on Karl.
Karl blinks back, stares back, doesn’t move, and they play a game of chicken. Who will flinch first. Who will give in.
It is XD. Karl cannot afford to give in to the softness still at the core of his heart. XD doesn’t blame him, but he does beg,
“Karl,” not quite desperate, but a little broken, “Let me in. Please. I miss you.”
He sees Karl tremble, body shifting in almost-human ways as he tenses and shakes, doesn’t look his way for a few long seconds. XD presses on the barrier.
It disappears, and he stumbles forward, feeling the waters of Death begin to swim coldly around the bottom of his cloak where he would have feet in him humanoid form. It seeps up the cotton, chills him all across the body he doesn’t have right now, but it’s all offset by the crushing hug that he pulls Karl into, burying his masked face in his shoulder. He knows he’s crying, he can hear the clockwork sobs and the sound of rivers of tears from the halos of eyes hitting the water below, and he doesn’t care. It takes a few seconds- days- years for Karl to hug him back, but he does hug back.
“It’s so lonely,” he says, quietly, “I don’t think I can fix our world anymore.”
“I don’t think you ever could,” XD tells him quietly, mask still pressed to his shoulder, “I think- I think the best we can do is try to make it better for the pieces of us that survived.”
“I know this isn’t what you wanted.” Karl says.
“I’m okay with what it’s become,” XD replies, “It’s not what I wanted, but- it’s okay. Dream is happy, you are happy, they all get to be free.”
“Except for you,” Karl curls tighter to him, “that isn’t fair.”
“None of it was. I’m at peace with it just being me. It could be so much worse.” A sigh. XD squeezes, releases. “So… why now? Why only now, not before?”
“I don’t know,” Karl is being honest. XD knows when he’s lying, and he isn’t lying, “I saw another one of you come through so recently and I realised it’s just- it’s always you I’m seeing. I rarely see deaths take to any of the others. I don’t know why, it just made me think… what am I doing this for? If I could bring back the first world, would it erase everything that exists now? Isn’t that exactly what Dream is trying to stop you from doing?”
“It is.” XD replies, gentle, “So… what now?”
“I think… I think I just keep watch over the Other Side. I think I just… do what you do. Help people. Maybe I come here more often. To the edge.”
“I would love to see you more,” XD takes hold of him by the shoulders, “Just- careful with Ranboo. Not when he’s close. He will never forgive you for chaining him there.”
Karl’s face screws up like he’s going to cry, but he nods.
“I don’t deserve his forgiveness. I think staying away when he’s here is the best thing I can do for him.”
“But don’t stay away always,” XD insists. “I miss you. I- I want to see you more.”
There’s quiet. Karl blinks at him, and sighs.
“Okay.” Quiet. “I miss you, too. Is it really okay to let go? How does that even work? How do I let go of everything I died for?”
“I don’t have an answer for you. I don't know.” XD shrugs, not dismissive, but gentle, “But I’m going to be right here to figure it out with you. Okay?”
Karl exhales. It shakes.
“Okay,” he says. It sounds like a promise. Over XD’s shoulder, he sees a distant blur of white. “I think Ranboo wants you. I- I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
XD looks over his shoulder. Ranboo waves a long sleeved hand.
“Okay,” XD turns back, “Soon.”
They part. It feels colder in the distance than it did touching him.
“Soon.” Karl whispers, and steps back, and back, and back, and disappears into the mists.