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The Welcome to North Carolina state line sign is on the right side of the i-95. Sapnap passes it in a blur, hands numb from where they grip the steering wheel.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to drive nine hours when he was sick. But in his defense, he didn’t know that it’d escalate this much. And he wasn’t going to pass on a visit to Karl’s house just because of a stupid runny nose. No way in hell.
The thing is, it's not just a runny nose. It started with that, sure, but then he just knew from the pain firing down his lungs that it would only get worse.
It’s fine. He’s fine. He’ll get to North Carolina and everything will be okay.
His finger twitches slightly. He’s not sure if he believes in himself, because the thought of getting to North Carolina makes him feel even more nauseous.
Not North Carolina itself, but what it stands for— who it stands for. Who will be the one to welcome him, pull him into a hug, tell him over and over again how much he missed him. The image in his head is clear as day, every meticulous detail jarringly graphic right in front of bleary eyes.
Karl.
Everything, in some hauntingly persistent way, goes back to Karl.
They haven’t seen each other in quite a while. 52 days, give or take. He isn’t sure. It’s not like he has been counting the days, the minutes, and the seconds — definitely not.
They’ve called and streamed, occasionally, but it’s been, undeniably, different than usual. Different from how they used to be before Sapnap’s last visit to Karl’s house.
He tries not to think too much about it, or else, he thinks he won’t be able to think about anything else. He likes to keep it in the back of his mind, where it’s hidden away, even though it always somehow manages to pervade through the edges.
God, who the hell is he trying to fool? He hasn’t stopped thinking about Karl for the last two months. The hands that cupped his cheek, barely audible footsteps as they slipped into his room the night before he left, the door creaking, the weight on the mattress as Karl laid next to him.
Wish you didn’t have to leave, echoes in his mind, like a subdued pastel dream, fleeting and short-lived. I’ve gotten so used to having you around, still in the dead of night. Promise me you’ll come back soon.
Sapnap’s hold on the wheel becomes tighter. He focuses on the shimmer of the road, and lifts his leg slightly from the gas pedal to slow down, watching the pointer move down.
__________
Greenville is warm, Sapnap notices when he parks his car and heads towards Karl’s porch. Sunlight pours through the veranda, soft breeze rustling the leaves of the trees as he rings the doorbell, steps heavy against the wood. His hands are noticeably shaky from where they rest, and he pulls the black duffel bag closer to his stomach to try to hide it.
He doesn’t think too much about how nervous he is, despite the hundreds of times that he had seen Karl before. His throat still tightens, and he still fidgets as he waits, because he never knows what to truly expect.
Okay, realistically, he knows what to expect. He knows it very well. He knows Karl very well, down to his very bones, inside and out. He knows the jokes that he finds so funny that he starts to feel lightheaded from laughing, the things that stress him out and how the corner of his mouth tugs down when he keeps thinking about it.
In a twisted way, he hates that he knows. He doesn’t know how to cope with the fact that he knows him so ridiculously well, yet still doesn’t quite know what to expect from himself.
His train of thought is interrupted when the door is opened, revealing a guy who Sapnap assumes to be a newer member of the crew, peering intently at him from where he stands.
“Uh, hey?” Sapnap clears his throat, dusting himself down with one hand in an attempt to appear collected. “I’m Sapnap. Karl’s friend?”
“Oh, you’re Sapnap,” he says his name with a hidden edge to it, and his mouth twists into a huge grin. He turns around in a rush, one hand placed on the panel of the door to keep it open. “Karl! Look who’s here!”
Not even a minute later, footsteps are moving towards him with urgency, and all he sees is a blur of brown locks before he’s pulled into the most soul-crushing hug.
“You fucking idiot,” Karl whispers, nestling him in between his arms. Sapnap’s hands float in suspended caution, and after a tentative moment to grasp the reality of the situation, tugs him into a tight embrace. They fit together like puzzle pieces meant to find one another in every universe. “I missed you.”
Sapnap lets out a breath, something like relief and distress, something like I shouldn’t have come here, and I missed you so much I thought it’d kill me at the same time.
Nausea pools in his stomach again, like the urge to let something he’d been holding in for so long. His chest cleaves in two as he parts his lips to take in air.
“Hey,” he says, the insides of his fingers rubbing against Karl’s lilac sweater. His cologne is everywhere, and Sapnap is breathing him in, closing his eyes and just maybe pretending they could stay here like this forever.
It drives him insane just to see Karl like this, in his arms, pulling him in. Sapnap knows he’s touchy. He found out from the first day they met up, when he came over to his house, and was immediately pulled into his arms. Karl kissed his cheek too, feather soft, like the fingertips of a barely-there presence, prickling in every single cell.
It had caught Sapnap off-guard at first, gaping in his place for a solid minute before he finally got out of his trance. He remembers how his cheek tingled for hours after that, tinted with the faintest shade of pink that he brushed off with the excuse of how warm the house was.
And yet, he somehow still isn’t used to it. Every meeting, in lieu of teaching him, sends him further below surface level. Karl hooks his chin over his shoulder, and he goes back to zero, or maybe even below zero. He feels like a stupid high schooler with a crush that he can’t manage to get over, smiling at his ceiling for hours, daydreaming, before sense is inevitably knocked back into him.
“Are you alright?” Karl is looking at him when Sapnap’s gaze focuses back on him.
“Yeah, of course,” he smiles, bringing one hand to sling an arm around Karl, casual. This is casual. Friends do this. It’s normal.
It’s normal that he feels the warmth of his skin, on his own, like he’s claiming it, like it belongs to him.
“Come on, let’s go inside. The guys ordered pizza.”
__________
It only gets worse after that.
Sapnap tries, so hard, to try to suppress the shivers on his spine. But he can’t stop shaking against the table, the slice of pizza left uneaten on his plate, words muffled in his ringing ears.
When he looks across the table, his eyes meet Karl’s, mouth pulled into a frown. He isn’t listening to the conversation either, he notices. And he has to look away before his gaze tears right through him.
“I think I’m gonna head upstairs,” Sapnap announces, unsure of who he’s saying it to, because none of them—except for Karl—seem to pay attention.
The rear leg of the chair slides back and scrapes the floor as he stands up. He sighs, heads back upstairs to the room he always stays in when he visits Karl, and immediately throws himself on the king-sized bed with neatly folded blankets.
God, his head is spinning. The specks on the ceiling tiles are moving, the room tilting around him, and it gets so overwhelming that he has to stand up on weakened knees just to stop feeling so dizzy.
He spends a few minutes on his phone, and sometime in between, he gets a phone call from George — who asks him how he is, and proceeds to inform him that Dream caught the flu back in Florida. There’s an apologetic tone to his words, because he knows in no time, Sapnap will show symptoms too (and Sapnap makes sure to inform him that it’s already too late).
Then, there’s quiet padding of footsteps from outside his ajar door that turns wide open in a matter of seconds.
“Sap?” A voice, Karl’s, gets him to turn to his side frantically. Karl is looking at him, with more worry this time, like he’s trying to read him from a distance. Much to Sapnap’s dismay, he always seems to succeed. It’s so hard to lie, or even withdraw the truth, when Karl works it out like it’s child’s play.
“Hey,” he uses every ounce of strength left in his body to make sure his voice comes out measured. He adjusts himself on the bed, pulling his knees closer to his chest, fingers tapping the slightly wrinkled sheet. “What’s up?”
“Are you sure you’re good?” Karl takes a step closer to him, sits on the edge of the bed where there’s still a little distance between them, bouncing his leg up and down. He’s worried about me, Sapnap thinks. He doesn’t understand why he cares so much.
He swallows heavily. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just — you seemed off tonight.”
“It was just a little hectic. I’m a little tired from the road, I think. I just need to sleep it off.”
Karl knits his eyebrows together questioningly. “Are you sick?”
“What?” Sapnap scowls. “No, no I’m not sick.”
“Sapnap,” Karl scoffs, and god, it’s that same tone again. It’s so knowing, so familiar, the way it rolls off his tongue.
Sapnap, as stubborn as he is, doesn’t want to admit that he might’ve happened to catch the flu. And Karl, as on guard and attentive as he is, knows something is off from the first glance anyway.
“Let me feel your forehead,” Karl steps closer, bringing his hand to his forehead. Sapnap tries so hard to not jerk at the touch. They’re close, so close that Sapnap can feel his breath against his neck. He shudders silently, watches Karl as his pupils dilate. “Oh my god. Sap, you’re burning up.”
Sapnap tilts his head to the side, as if it’s somehow going to prompt Karl to move his hand away. “I’m fine, Karl,” he whispers, voice way too coarse to pass for fine.
It’ll take a lot more than that to convince him, for sure, because he’s already cupping his jaw to examine him, feeling the heat on both of his cheeks with urgency. “I need to get you medicine. You have a fever.”
“Karl. Don’t worry about me,” Sapnap reaches to touch his upper arm, head pounding with every word. “Just go back downstairs to your friends. I promise I’m okay.”
Karl scoffs, fingertips pressing into his flesh, spilling out warmth and coating every one of his nerves. “Do you really think I’ll move a muscle when you’re feeling like this? I thought you of all people knew me better than that.”
Sapnap meets his eyes, nose searing. His chest expands rapidly as he asks before even a shred of doubt can be cast upon him and intercept, “you’ll stay with me?”
“Of course I will,” he smiles from the insides of his eyes, and Sapnap thinks that he only ever wants to feel like this when Karl is by his side. Because, really, he doesn’t feel all that bad — not when Karl is here to soothe it away, the ache in his limbs and the chills that traverse down his spine.
He melts more and more when he thinks about it. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Karl smiles, fond. “You’re so cute. If you weren’t sick, I’d so kiss you right now.”
He goes red, chokes on his own spit. “What?”
Karl chuckles, walks over to him. “I’m joking, idiot. Come on, you need to get rid of those clothes and get in bed.”
Sapnap nods, rubbing his eyes. His hand lingers in the air for a moment, because Karl’s eyes are still on him, and he isn't sure whether he's aware that he's about to change. In front of him.
“Oh,” Karl clears his throat in realization only a few seconds after. “I can step out if you want me to.”
Sapnap swallows. He doesn’t want him to. “No,” he responds, grabbing onto his hand instinctively. For some reason, he needs Karl closer than ever now. He can't take even a few seconds apart. “Don’t leave.”
He takes his hoodie off, slips the t-shirt over his head and ignores the way he sees Karl swallow thickly, trying desperately hard to avoid his gaze. There’s something there, beneath his features, and god, it’s messing with Sapnap the more that he thinks about it. He has got to be making it up. Surely, he’s just putting too much focus on Karl, as he always does, and it’s misdirecting his judgment.
Karl pulls the comforter towards his chest when they lay down. Sapnap rests his limbs against the sheets, trying to ease his breathing.
“Will you hold me?” He asks, the edges of his voice trembling. He’s not really thinking this through. He’s braver when he’s sick. The prospect of Karl’s touch, the smell of vanilla-scented cologne sprayed all over his neck, the brown curls that barely graze against his skin, prompts him to bite the bullet without any hesitation.
Karl doesn’t respond, moves toward him immediately. The headboard creaks slightly when his neck falls to his chest.
“Love you,” Karl whispers, placing a soft kiss on his cheek. Sapnap knows how he means it, but he still feels that hollow pit in his stomach.
He knows he loves him. It’s not a surprise to hear him say it. Karl is vocal with his feelings, and Sapnap is used to so much transparency from his side. I love you and I miss you and I want to see you, are things that he’s used to hearing every day, from calls with casual indulgence, from text messages that sometimes he just can’t bring himself to answer.
Sapnap has a bad day, and almost like he can sense it, Karl calls him — honeyed tone and stupid jokes that never cease to make him smile despite the circumstance. He’s always there for him, presence thick in whatever form.
And Sapnap loves him too — he knows that like he knows his own name. Everything rests in his palms, nothing matters except for him. Every single time they meet, and Karl hugs the life out of him and gives him all the life he ever needed at the same time.
But the thing is, he loves him differently. He doesn’t love Karl the way Karl loves him. Karl loves him like every other one of his friends, like Quackity and George and Dream, wraps an arm around them and presses a palm against their back and just looks into their eyes with a grin.
In the end, Sapnap will take what he can get. He’ll take being friends, shitty movies and inside jokes, causal touches and wandering gazes that he’ll have to learn how to hide better. He’ll take having to stop reading too much into reciprocating looks that clearly do not mean the same.
“I love you too,” he says, inches closer even if there’s barely any space left between the two of them as it is. Regret pools in his stomach. “I hate that I ruined the trip. I know you were excited about it.”
It was true, before Sapnap agreed to come, Karl had meticulously planned the trip — mini golf and bowling and all sorts of bars across town. Now, Sapnap will have to mope around miserably in bed.
“Hey,” Karl tilts his head towards him. “You didn’t ruin anything. It’s perfect as it is. We’ll just have to adjust some stuff. We can still make it a good weekend.”
“I don’t want you to stay behind because of me. Your friends are going to think I’m a dick.”
Karl shoots him a look of compassionate rebuke.“They won’t. And since when do you care about what people think? It’s not your fault that you got sick.”
“Well, it’s definitely not my fault. It’s Dream’s, actually. He keeps the air conditioning at 60 degrees because George likes it cold, apparently. He’s insane. I swear to god, he forgets anything else when it comes to George.”
Karl chuckles fondly. “You’ll be fine. You just need to sleep it off, yeah?”
Sapnap nods, tilts his head sideways on his pillow to face Karl. Karl brings a hand to brush his hair away from his forehead, thumb pressing into his forehead before trailing down to trace his eyebrow.
“I like your eyebrows,” he whispers. “Don’t know if I’ve ever told you.”
I like your lips, he thinks. I want to kiss them, if you’d let me.
He lets out a breath, pupils widening slightly. It drives him wild, the way he points things like this out like a casual remark. He’s thankful it’s dark, or he would probably die from embarrassment on the spot. “You haven’t, actually.”
Then, they’re looking at each other, eyes and nose and face. Then, Sapnap is looking at Karl’s lips, thinking of how it would feel to run a finger through the edges of it, to move closer until he feels his breath against his skin, to kiss him until he’s breathless.
“I should’ve,” Karl smiles. “I like your eyes, too. They make me feel safe.”
He swallows, raises his eyebrows out of instinct. “They do?”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “You make me feel safe.”
Holy fuck, Sapnap curses inside. He wonders if Karl has the slightest idea what he’s doing to Sapnap when he says things like that. He wonders if Karl knows how a single word or a single touch can send him spiraling, how seeing his smile, or meeting his eyes for even a few unparalleled seconds stays with him for hours, and the rest of his life.
Karl’s strokes Sapnap’s hair gently, and he can’t keep himself from leaning into it, from closing his eyes and indulging in craving something like this. Not just for one night — every night.
Their bed, instead of his. Their sheets and their blankets and their pillows. And Karl, next to him, safe and sound and unquestionably his. Even the prospect sends him off the deep end, shoulder blades twitching with a pang of guilt.
Karl isn’t his. Karl is his friend, his best friend. There’s a mutual agreement there, and Karl is touchy, but it’s just the way he is. It’s Sapnap’s fault for letting himself fall for his best friend. It’s his fault for letting himself think that the things Karl does mean more than they actually do.
Still, it’s too late. Because if there was some kind of a way for him to forget it, he would. He would stay here with Karl, and he wouldn’t dare to think about anything more, would wrap his arms around him without feeling an aching knock against his ribs.
He feels Karl tense next to him slightly. “Enough talking. You need to get some sleep.”
Sapnap hums, wrapping an arm around Karl’s waist. Karl buries his head into Sapnap’s neck, and Sapnap can swear he feels a kiss against his skin, but he’s way too dizzy to know for sure. Eventually, drowsiness overcomes him, and he falls asleep like that.
__________
He wakes up to the sound of his phone vibrating on the edge of the bed, and from his peripherals he sees Karl shifting in his place. He’s quick to unplug it from the charger and grab it without waking Karl. Dream, reads the contact name. He picks up and makes his way to the door silently.
His muscle is aching as he tiptoes around, arms clutching his stomach, as if it’s somehow going to soothe his nausea away.
“Hey,” Sapnap whispers as he leaves the room, carefully shutting the door, wincing at the way it creaks slightly.
Dream scoffs. “Dude, why are you so quiet?” His voice comes out slightly raspy.
“Uh, Karl is still asleep. I just left the room.”
He hears a chuckle from the other end of the line, subtle but with an irritating intention of teasing. “You guys slept on the same bed?”
“Yeah, kinda?” Sapnap swallows as he strolls through the hallway. “It wasn’t— It wasn't like that, though. I think I kinda caught the flu from you? And you know how I get when I’m sick. I asked him to stay with me, and he did. I’m sure he just felt bad, or something.”
“Come on, Sapnap,” Dream tsks. “You know friends don’t do that. Would you have slept on the same bed as me?”
Sapnap scoffs. “Yeah, dude, hell no. I wouldn’t sleep on the same bed as you if we were the last two people on earth.”
Dream scoffs in confirmation. “Told you.”
“Okay, but you totally would with George. You’d literally do anything George asked you to do.”
“George is my boyfriend, you idiot. Of course I would. The fact that you’re giving that as an example only further proves my point.”
“Dude, shut up,” Sapnap goes red. “You’re not helping. I’m already losing my mind here.”
Dream wheezes. “You’re losing your mind?”
“I don’t… I don’t even know,” he sighs. “Karl— he confuses me. He keeps looking at me, right? Like in these random moments. I catch him just staring at me. And I know he’s touchy, but he touches me like it actually means something. And then he just says the craziest things when I least expect. Like last night, he literally told me that my eyes make him feel safe. I just… I have no idea what to make out of it.”
“Sapnap,” Dream’s tone shifts, and Sapnap knows he’s about to be serious. “You remember before George and I started to date? You kept teasing us about how we were so touchy. I was confused too. I didn’t know if it meant the same as it did to me. And when I finally talked to him, I found out it wasn’t just in my head.”
“But that’s different,” he sighs. “You two have always been like that with each other. Karl is—he's like that with everyone. I’m worried I’m reading it all wrong.”
“I don’t think there’s a world in which you can read your eyes make me feel safe wrong, dude. Like, come on, that’s cheesy rom-com level in love. Even George and I aren’t that bad.”
Sapnap rolls his eyes, rubbing his temples in frustration. “Okay, whatever, I’m hanging up. I need to go back to Karl.”
“Of course you do,” he teases.
Sapnap scoffs him off, hangs up the phone and then goes back to the room. When he opens the door, Karl is awake, sitting on the bed with disheveled hair and a blanket pulled over him. Sapnap sits on the corner of the bed, glances softly at him, hand resting on his knee.
“Hi,” Karl smiles, leans forward and brushes his nose to his collar. Holy fuck, you’re going to kill me, Sapnap thinks.
“Good morning,” he manages to let out, even if it sounds more like a shaky breath than a phrase. “Did I wake you up?
“It’s alright. I was just wondering where you went,” Karl smiles with a drowsy twist of his mouth. “How’re you feeling, baby?”
The beat of his heart stutters uncontrollably. Fucking baby. It’s his weakness, especially when it comes out of Karl’s mouth. Not that he has heard it before, because he hasn’t. He might’ve fantasized about it every now and then.
Still, as much as he relishes it, something like confusion churns in his chest. They’ve never spoken about it, never drew the lines of what’s allowed and what’s off the table. It’s gray when he thinks about it, bleeds red when Karl touches him.
“Sap?”
“Uh—what?” A breath quivers through his throat.
“Are you okay? Did I—“ Karl presses his lips into a thin line. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no you didn’t,” Sapnap rushes to say, fumbling for words. “‘m still just feeling a little under the weather, I guess. My throat feels scratchy.”
“Oh,” Karl goes small, almost. His lashes flutter a few times, and he reaches to cup his cheek again. “Is there anything I can do? I can brew you some jasmine tea? I know you don’t like it, but it might help your throat?”
“I’ll be alright. Thank you, though.”
“Hey,” Karl pinches his eyebrows together. “Something is wrong with you. I know you’re sick, but it’s…more than that. You seem weird.”
“I’m not weird, Karl,” he snaps. “Will you stop pestering me now?”
Karl scowls. “You are being weird. Can you just tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it?”
Do you call everyone baby? Do you touch them like you touch me? Do you look at them the way you look at me?
Karl is stretched everywhere, poignant across the edges of his brain, and he’s a part of all of the thoughts that can’t be tossed away. He’s every part of his life. He can’t be free of him, even when he’s away, even when he’s with others, and there are hours between them, but somehow nothing is enough
Karl notices the change in his expression instantly. “I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” He wraps a delicate hand on his arm. “Come on, lay down.”
Sapnap instinctively grabs the blankets in an attempt to warm up, but Karl stops him. “You have a fever. No blankets,” he says as he strokes his cheek. “I’ll be back. Don’t move.”
__________
Sometime while he’s waiting, Sapnap falls asleep, and wakes up to traces of soft circles on his arm.
“Sorry,” Karl apologizes, eyebrows lowered. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just—I made chicken soup. Or at least, tried. I heard it’s one of the best remedies.”
Sapnap’s mind goes blank for a second that stretches to eternity. Karl, in the kitchen, fumbling around with dishes and ingredients. He doesn’t even know how to slice a lemon, Sapnap knows, because he knows every little thing about Karl. But, still, he tried for him. Just the fact that he’d be willing to do that coats his nerves with solicitous warmth.
“Can you straighten up for me?” He asks, one hand steadily gripping the bowl.
Sapnap swallows the butterflies in his stomach and holds on to his shoulder to straighten up, putting his back against the headboard of the bed. Karl brings the bowl down, handing it to him, hands brushing for a brief moment. Something like electric current courses through him. He coughs it away and takes a spoonful of the soup.
“Wow,” he says, throat bobbing up and down as he swallows it down. “I’m impressed.”
“Fuck off,” Karl scoffs. “I went all out and called my mom to ask for her recipe. I wasn’t about to disappoint you.”
“You certainly didn’t,” Sapnap smiles, watching Karl as he scoots a little closer.
“You’re still so hot,” Karl sighs, thumb tracing his hairline, pushing back the dampened locks away from his forehead. He knows it must be sweaty and gross, but for some reason, Karl doesn’t seem to mind.
He smirks. “Thanks.”
Karl scoffs, nudges him towards the pillow softly, feigning irritation. The huge smile on his face betrays him, like the sun shining through clouds, irresistibly bright. “Idiot. You know that’s not what I meant. Though I’m not exactly denying that, either.”
Sapnap’s eyes widen, the porcelain bowl trembles in his hand, and his grip tightens on the searing underside to not drop it.
“Careful,” Karl chuckles, and he takes the bowl from his hands. “Here,” he whispers, and he grabs the spoon, bringing it to parted lips.
Karl blinks against the yellow light from the bedside table, lashes fluttering. His hand is on the back of Sapnap’s head, helping him up, and he’s so close that Sapnap forgets how to breathe. He tries, incredibly hard, to not physically react to the proximity.
“I feel useless,” Sapnap says after a beat of silence. “This fucking sucks. I’m gonna have to spend the entire weekend moping in bed.”
“Hey,” he lowers the bowl. “You’re going to get better in no time. And at least we get to see each other a little, don’t we?”
Sapnap nods, weakly. I want to see you all the time. I want you right in front of my eyes, tattooed behind my eyelids, he wants to say.
“Thanks for this — for taking care of me,” he says instead, throat burning with a cough. “You know, you really didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” Karl retorts, one hand on his clothed thigh, rubbing soothing circles. “I’d choose this over going to that stupid bowling competition without you any day.”
Sapnap smiles. “You know I’d have beaten your ass.”
“I know,” Karl agrees, surprisingly so, maybe because he thinks he deserves to boost his ego a little as consolation. And Sapnap is surely not going to call him out on it.
It’s quiet for a while after that. Karl rests his head on his chest, listens to him breathe, listens to the beat of his heart. He’s fairly sure Karl notices how fast it is, but he doesn’t say anything, drags his nails across his skin. The silence is alleviating.
Karl takes care of him like he does everything else, with so much love that it overflows from the gaps of his fingers. He’s so careful with him, so much gentleness beneath his gaze, like he’s eternally afraid of harming a single strand of Sapnap’s hair. Sapnap finds nothing easier than resting at his side, mind lifted with gentle caresses of marginally calloused hands, whispers of sweet nothings that he thinks he’ll remember for years.
He rubs his back when Sapnap is hunched over the toilet, when his chest is heaving up and down with labored breaths. After, he massages his shoulders, rubs white knuckles and presses soft fingertips into ice-cold skin as he sips his freshly-brewed chamomile tea. He kisses his forehead once after pained whimpers take over coherent words, and Sapnap goes tense, commits gentle lips on forehead lines to his memory.
Somehow, he’s coping with more than just red knees against the tile and clammy hands gripping the edge and used tissues piling up on the floor. Somehow, it’s the most strenuous task to try and figure out when or how it began. When Sapnap thinks back, he thinks he has always felt this way, thinks his breath always got caught in his throat at the briefest contact of eyes that dance around aimlessly (or maybe not too aimlessly, when he thinks about the purposeful stride of looking at him, and finding out that he’s looking back).
The morning fades into the night. And it feels so painfully slow because Sapnap feels so horribly bad, but in some sickening way, he doesn’t want it to end. He wants to hold onto this, Karl not leaving his side like he lives for him, the light weight of his touch on his body, squeezing to let him know he’s here for him. Just for him.
For me. Only for me, his brain supplies despite how irrational it is. He feels selfish — he is selfish. So unapologetically selfish, concerned chiefly with how good it feels to pretend, how he can’t even bring himself to act like he cares about the fact that he’s not supposed to feel this way towards his best friend.
__________
Sapnap wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty and gasping for breath. He wipes the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. It’s dark now, dim light of streetlamps streaming through the window.
Karl is asleep next to him, chest moving up and down rhythmically. He looks so peaceful like this, dull yellow lighting up his side. Sapnap’s elbow holds his body up, a lump in his throat as he thinks and thinks and thinks.
He’s going to leave tomorrow. He’s going to stuff his clothes back into the duffel back, where they came from, and eventually back to his closet. Karl is probably going to look at him like he wants to capture him in his memory as he walks out of the door, and Sapnap is going to fucking break down as he drives back to Florida with shaky hands. He’s going to slam his door shut, short-winded against the floor. In Karl’s absence, he’s going to accidentally buy White Monster, taste the citrus on his tongue, and just maybe think about whether Karl would taste the same against his lips. Just like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.
He can’t learn no matter how many times he steps foot into North Carolina, into Karl’s arms, into his bed with Karl by his side. He doesn’t know how to keep himself from wanting too much, when too much is right by his side, within reach. If he inched even a tiny bit closer, he could close the distance, he could count his freckles and press their foreheads together and say I need you to know that I’m so in love with you that I’m losing my goddamn mind.
It’s an unlikely scenario, because nothing about them is easy. It’s been months, and Sapnap still doesn’t know what they’re doing, still doesn’t know if the beat of Karl’s heart mimics his own against the mattress where they lay close.
With Karl, he needs to hit the nail on the head. He needs to get it right. He can’t make a leap of faith, despite how tempted he gets sometimes. He’d rather settle on staying silent and loving wordlessly, because it’s safer and it’s a guarantee that he won’t lose him.
As much as Sapnap wishes them to be, they’re not like Dream and George. They don’t overflow with clarity and certainty the way they do.
When George finally got his visa and landed in Orlando, it was an instant click between the two of them, so much love that’s been radiating off computer screens finally palpable from where their bodies were pressed together. Sapnap was there for all of it — there when they smeared the lines of friendship and more, when they hugged for the first time, when they knew everything there ever was to know.
He watched them fall in love deeper every day, pinkies linked under the blanket as they watched Better Call Saul, head resting on his shoulder in deep slumber. Soon, it wasn’t hidden at all. Soon, it was baby and darling, of all things. Soon, it was soft kisses against lips, unforgiving crimson on cheeks, prolonged gazes that really meant I’d die for you, if you asked me to.
Quickly, George became Dream’s world. Sapnap teased them for it. Inside, he felt a pit in his stomach over the ache of wanting to be someone’s world. To have what they have with someone he can’t stop thinking about, someone 500 miles away up the Atlantic coast, someone that makes the world spin around him when he laughs.
Karl shuffles next to him, sheets pressing against his skin as his eyes open and meets with his own through the dark. He looks heavenly, Sapnap thinks, shadows tracing his jawline, hair messy. There’s something so intimate about it, how Sapnap sees him like this, and how Karl grants, wants it, how he lets him see him in full transparency. He grips the edge of the blanket to keep the thought from spilling.
He brings a hand to his upper arm, right beneath his sleeve, where his skin is exposed. “Why are you up?”
“I’m thinking,” Sapnap smiles weakly, walking on eggshells.
“What are you thinking about?” Karl knits his eyebrows. “Is there something wrong?”
Wrong, Everything is wrong. Sapnap is sick and vulnerable and he thinks he’s about to tell Karl that he’s so in love with him that it physically hurts. And it’s wrong, because he knows he’ll ruin them when he eventually says it, that he won’t be able to take it back. God, he’s so close to just taking that risk and spilling it all in one breath.
“Nothing,” he shrugs, tearing his eyes away because he doesn’t know how much of this he can take under Karl’s gaze.
Karl’s eyes flick worriedly towards him. “Do you—do you not want this?”
His heart drops. “What?”
Karl’s forehead creases, eyes fixed on him. Sapnap hates seeing him like this. “Am I too much?”
Too much, Sapnap considers for a second, in a trance, and he can’t stop thinking about how ridiculous the question is. You’re everything and more, I can’t get enough.
“You’ve been acting distant,” Karl speaks again when Sapnap remains silent. “It doesn’t matter if you deny it. I can tell,” his jaw clenches, lip trembling as he speaks.
“You’re never too much,” he whispers, reaching forward to touch the velvety tips of Karl’s fingers, careful and slow, throwing caution to the wind. “I think that…I’m the one who’s too much.”
His eyebrows draw together for a tense moment. He connects their hands, close to his thighs, takes initiative the way he always does, curling his fingers to wrap around his palm. “What does that mean?”
“Karl,” Sapnap exhales. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m not sure if we should get into this right now.”
“Don’t do that,” he bites the insides of his cheek, Sapnap notices. He looks at him so intently that nothing else will ever come close to comparing. Nervous lines appear on the edges of his eyes “Don’t push me away. Just, please, tell me what you need to tell me.”
“Hey,” he’s so scared of losing it when it comes to Karl, so scared of making the slightest mistake and messing it all up. The likelihood itself is enough to pit the world against him. Sapnap cups his cheek, gentle, and Karl leans into his touch almost instantly. “Come here.”
He pulls him closer, into his body, into his hesitation and love and everything that falls in between. Karl melts against him, clinging firmly, hurling himself into his arms.
“You say things that confuse me,” Sapnap admits. He can’t hold it in anymore. Not when Karl is this close, ready to give his all, ready to take anything that he offers. “I can’t stop thinking about the things you say.”
“Sap,” Karl says beneath his shaky breath.
“I just—” He interrupts. “I keep thinking about all the things I want to say. The things I want to do.”
Karl’s shoulders tighten as what he says reaches his ears. “What—what do you want to do?”
His heart clenches in his chest. This is where everything falls apart, he thinks. He walks right through the line anyway. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes,” Karl bites his bottom lip, and comes closer. “I need to know if you want to do the same thing I want to do.”
A rush washes over him, quivers through a barely-there exhale. He thinks whatever will happen after this, he is ready to face it. He will let it happen, because he can’t stand not knowing for one more second. He can’t stand being away from him, and wondering about what ifs for one more second.
He inches closer to what he wants, grabs Karl’s hand and fiddles with his thumb, eyes on his lips because it feels easier to admit like that. “I want to kiss you,” he swallows. “I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to for months.”
Karl lets out a small sound. “For months? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Sapnap meets his eyes carefully. “Yeah, Karl. And if you hate me for that, or if you don’t want to see me again, I understand. I just needed you to know. I needed you to know what’s going through my head every single time you look at me.”
“Sap,” Karl’s eyes dance around his face. “What the hell are you doing then?”
“What?”
“Why haven’t you kissed me already?”
Sapnap goes pale. “You—you want me to?”
“You’re so stupid. Of course I want you to. Haven’t I made that clear already? I’ve been trying to give you signs for so long. I was convinced you didn’t feel the same way at one point.”
“Are you—Are you being real right now?” Sapnap scoffs. “I thought you didn’t feel the same way. You were so—I thought you were just like that with everyone.”
“With everyone? God, you’re so blind. I don’t touch anybody the way I touch you.”
Relief breaks across his features. “Good,” he says after a moment of realization. “I don’t want you touching anybody else.”
“I fucking love you, idiot,” Karl scoffs, and Sapnap kisses into his mouth, lips heavy against his own. They move smoothly together, because they know each other like the back of their hands. They’ve mapped each other out, and there’s nothing that feels easier when they’re exploring through unclaimed territories.
“You mean everything to me. I love you so much,” Sapnap says when they breathlessly pull away, just because he can. “God, I’ve wanted to say that for so long.”
Karl smiles again, warm with a sigh, burying his head in his neck. “Will you stay for a few more days?” Will you let me have you like this, now that I finally can? He means.
Sapnap’s mouth twists sideways, forehead pressed against his. “What the hell are you talking about it? I’m not going anywhere.”
He chuckles, and Sapnap kisses his cheekbone. Again and again and again, just because he can. Karl caresses his face. “Your fever is breaking,” he notes, and Sapnap almost laughs, because he almost can’t remember ever being sick. He hasn’t felt this good in years.