𝙇𝙀𝙈𝙊𝙉 𝘿𝙊𝙑𝙀 | karlnapity

Chapter Three

The inside of the wall-room is unlike anything Karl has seen before. It's clearly a club of sorts; bright, loud, and there are so many people he fears he may be trampled were he not desperately clinging on to Sapnap-lookalike's well-toned bicep.

The ravenette laughs at the action, and reaches up to squeeze Karl's shoulder. "Never been to a place like this before?" He has to speak loudly to be heard over the music.

Karl squints up at him through the smoke and LED's. ".. Not really."

He laughs again. "Well this isn't a great first-time place.. In fact, this is a terrible first-time place, why'd you wanna come in so desperately anyway?"

Karl giggles awkwardly, shouting over the music. "You ask a lot of questions."

"Okay." He stares directly into Karl's eyes as he talks, like the idea of looking away may physically wound his pupils, and Karl would be lying if he said it didn't throw him off a tad. The Sapnap-lookalike continues. "well.. I gotta go back to work, but I'll be off in twenty minutes so we can hang out then, huh?"

Karl makes a mental note to finish this part of the mission in less than twenty minutes. "Sure!" He grins, and the other returns it in full force before disappearing into the crowd.

What a weird guy.

Karl huffs out a sigh of relief, then curls into himself when he realizes he doesn't have anyone to cling onto anymore. He takes in a large gulp of confident air—and then immediately coughs it all out as the fake, atmospheric smoke fills his lungs—which makes him feel slightly better, and nods his head to himself. If anyone could traverse this odd party, he tells himself, it would be me.

After a lot of shuffling and people pressing up to him, he manages to make his way to the wall, where there's a table about half his height. After testing its stability, he decides it's definitely sturdy enough for him to stand on to survey the room.

However, as soon as he's able to see over the heads of the many people in the room, his eyes are latched on to one person only.

Quackity's lookalike isn't like Sapnap's, who had been wearing the sort of same things he would wear in Karl's universe, had the same sort of demeanor, and so on. Instead, he's wearing a sparkly, silver shirt with black slacks and a wide smile.

(Karl won't remember until later, but a smile like that was rare for his Quackity, and whenever he did beam at something like that everyone in the room would have no choice but to smile too. Quackity used to have that effect).

What Karl's gaze is focused on however, are the glowing wings sparking from his back. They're golden, and he thinks that they must be fluffy, despite the fact it's quite hard to see from this far away. But Karl knows they are. He knows they'd feel like silk against his hands and when he did touch them, it would be hard to want to stop. That's a fact.

His breath has been stolen from him, he realizes when he starts coughing again, but he can't seem to mind too much as soon as he's done he's on his tip toes trying to get another view. The lookalike is standing in the far corner conversing with someone Karl doesn't care to look at. His grin is from where he had been laughing moments prior, but now he's talking. His hands wave around as he talks, and Karl decides he must be really passionate about whatever he's saying. He looks, very simply put, beautiful. Karl thinks he could watch him talk like that forever.

Quackity surveys the room as his companion starts talking in response, nodding along, until he catches sight of the brunette's gaze. The two make eye contact. And in a sudden swoop Karl feels absolutely disgusting. Gone is the fond smile that made his dimples shine, gone is the happy-tingling feeling that had been sweeping through him.

That man looks identical to Quackity, and he was.. swooning?

Karl feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over his head. He's finally awake from his trance, sure, but now he's freezing, and all he wants is to be warm again.

He doesn't realise he's gaping at the man until the corner of the lookalike's lips quirk up in amusement. He breaks the intense stare as he turns to his companion to murmur something to him, and then disappears into the crowd as he heads into Karl's direction.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. That's not good. Karl is definitely not in the right state of mind to talk to... Him. To that tyrant. He's not, he can't be. He must be going through one of his muddled moments. Mixing up memories of his fiance with that.. Oh! He can't think of an insult at the moment, that must be another side effect.

As most of Karl's inner turmoils do, an unfortunate turn of events occurs as he's panicking. A drunk crashes into the very table he's standing on. In the midst of Karl's "mini breakdown" he must have let the grasp his fingers had on the bricks of the walls behind him soften, as his hand doesn't do much to help him keep his balance.

With an embarrassing yelp he goes hurtling toward the floor, and the people around him scatter as he falls. He clenches his eyes shut, bracing for impact with the floor that never comes.

Whoever's holding him is really warm.

934 words.