precious || karlnap fluff fanfiction

hope you know that you were precious to me

"Hey, uh, sorry to bother you but, are you Karl Jacobs?" a feminine voice spoke from behind him over the loud commotion of the crowded airport.

Karl instantly spun around, a bit caught off guard by the unexpected question.

"Yeah," he coughed, attempting to disguise the slight shake in his voice. He quickly adjusted to his "streamer voice", as his friends called it. "Yeah, it's me! Do you want a picture?"

"Yes please, if it's not inconvenient," they said, quickly pulling up their phone camera.

"Not at all!" He put his hand up in a peace sign, leaning into the selfie frame, as they took a photo.

"Thanks, it was nice meeting you!"

"You too!" he said, giving them a quick hug before they skipped off to their parents.

Karl let out a deep breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in, as he thought back on anything he could've done before the fan interaction that they could've seen. He pulled up the handle on his rolling suitcase and started trudging through the crowd to sit down on an airport bench, pulling out his phone as soon as he sat down. Of course, he immediately thought to text Sapnap as he usually did when in a stressful situation.

karl
hey are you free to call my flight got delayed and I have no one to talk to lmao

sapnap
yeah give me a minute

Karl bounced his leg as he nervously fidgeted, a bit self-conscious to be at an unfamiliar airport hundreds of miles from his home. He felt like crying, but of course, especially after the fan interaction, he couldn't just burst into tears in a public setting. He had been traveling all week and was exhausted and uncomfortable and all he wanted was to curl up in a ball on his bed with his cats. But of course, if he wanted to do that, he'd have to wait until he could board his plane, be in an uncomfortable seat for 4-5 hours, and then take another hour to get home from the airport.

His unreasonably loud ringtone interrupted his train of thought, Sapnap was calling him. He eagerly accepted the call, a smile breaking through his borderline pout.

"Karl?"

"Hi, Sapnap, oh I missed ur voice."

Sapnap laughed. "You did?" Part of him was wondering if it was true, or if Karl was just trying to make conversation. He always would say things like that when he didn't talk to Sapnap for a while, but it always left him questioning if he actually felt that way or if he said that to everyone.

"Of course I did, I could listen to your voice for hours," he said quietly, not laughing this time. Usually, when he said these kinds of things to Sapnap, it was in a lighthearted way, or at least laughed off. Maybe it was a combination of the stress and.. other things that had made him sound so serious. Whatever it was, it was doing numbers on Sapnap's heartbeat.

After a few seconds of silence, Sapnap spoke up. "Are you okay?"

"Never been better," Karl grumbled, sarcastically.

"How long was your flight delayed?"

"Like three hours. It's fine, I'm fine, just kinda freaking out a little bit but it's okay."

"You're going back to North Carolina, right? Aren't you supposed to be coming to Florida too, in like, a week? Cause you've been traveling a lot lately and if it's too stressful, we could push the date back-"

"I need- I want to be able to see you. It's been too long." What he actually meant was, I've spent too long grieving the content warmth of your arms wrapped around me as we fall asleep, but that felt a little bit too strong.

Sapnap sighed. "It has been too long," he said, though Karl would never know he really meant that, I've been watching you be affectionate with too many other people wishing it with me for far too long because he would never tell him.

"What if I drove to you?" Sapnap suggested, breaking the thoughtful silence.

"What- that's like fifty hours you idiot-"

"No, I mean what if I drove to North Carolina, right now, and we could road trip back to Florida together."

".. you're really gonna drive ten hours, right now?"

"Guess I am."

"No, you can't do that."

"And why's that?" Sapnap asked.

Karl went quiet for a moment. Why didn't he want Sapnap to drive there? He'd been so insistent on seeing him again a second ago. In all honesty, he was kinda scared to. After everything that had been on his mind lately, maybe he thought seeing Sapnap in person would confuse him all over again. But then again, he felt the least confused when he was with Sapnap, the most understood. The safest.

"I.. I don't know. How much sleep have you gotten, when did you wake up?"

"Like an hour ago, c'mon Karl, I'll drive there and you can sleep when you get home and you'll wake up to me!"

"Very tempting offer, I dunno, I'll think about it. Where are you going-" Karl asked, confused over the noise from the other end of the call.

"You won't be.. mad.. if I come, right?" Sapnap whispered, slowly closing the car door.

"I could never be mad at you, moron. I just don't want you to feel like you have to." Karl reassured him.

"Good," he replied, pulling up the GPS on his phone.

"So I take it that you're driving there?"

"Yep."

"What did I do to deserve you," Karl muttered, sighing. Sapnap typed Karl's address into the GPS, propping his phone up in his car.

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not just driving there for you, you know."

"I know, I just love you, a lot."

Sapnap's response got stuck in his throat as he started the car.

"I-.. I love you too, man."

"In a dude bro homie way," Karl laughed, teasing him on the sudden slang he'd used.

"Totally, dude." Sapnap smiled, happy they could still be lighthearted like this.

"I'm excited to see you again."

1025 words. idk sounds pretty gay to me...