Work Text:
Karl stepped through the portal.
"I'm sorry." The man with the soft smile said. "I tried so hard."
The man with the bandana grabbed him as he fell. "What are you talking about? Where- where have you been?"
The beanied man looked at him with concern, pleading, "Karl, what's up with you? You've been gone for days, we've been looking for you everywhere- and you come back like this?"
The man tilted his head.
'Who's Karl?"
Karl walked through time.
Karl- no, the stranger who looked so much like him but wasn't because his Karl was always smiling, and his Karl wouldn't stare with such an empty look in his eyes, and his Karl wouldn't forget him. Not in a million years.
Karl clutched his only way of returning home.
"I tried so hard, but I-"
"Karl! You need to calm down, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Sapnap asked, gripping Karl's shoulders desperately. But Karl just pulled away and stared with that look he hates oh so much, and with a single word, broke Sapnap's heart.
"Who?"
Karl's thoughts were slowly slipping.
"I tried so hard."
"Karl what- what are you talking about?"
"Dude, are you okay?"
"I tried so hard not to forget but I- I couldn't and I'm sorry and I don't know-" cried Karl, stumbling as he walked. Sapnap ran to him, holding him up with Quackity on his other side, Karl's eyes welling with tears.
"Karl, it's okay! It's no big deal that you forgot something, just tell us and we'll remind you, it's okay," Sapnap reassured him.
"What did you forget?" Quackity asked with a comforting smile.
"Everything."
Karl wrote.
"I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry about? I'm sure it's no big deal!"
"I forgot."
"That's okay! What did you forget?"
"You."
A man stepped through a portal.
"I know. That you were important to him. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that he's gone and that I'm here and I don't know anything and I'm sorry."
A man held a book in his hand.
"He's gone."
Sapnap walked up behind Karl, chuckling. "Dude, what? Who's gone?" He huffed, sitting next to him.
"Whoever wrote this." and as Karl handed him a messily bound journal, the feeling of dread in Sapnap's stomach seemed to grow.
He opened the first page.
His quiet laughter died off.
And as he read, he wept for the man he loved.
The figure trembled.
...
Karl Jacobs was gone.