old fashioned || karl jacobs x reader

7: woodland

As time went on and December soon began, I started caring less and less about Jay and thought about him hardly at all by the time the new month began. Karl was my comfort the whole way, offering his time to me whenever I needed it and making space in his schedule to talk to me and check-in. Even with his time not purposely devoted to me, I chatted with Karl every chance I got and kept myself updated on his life. Finally, I was beginning to feel like something far more meaningful than a roommate, instead, now we were growing to be good friends. Our time together was filled with laughter and Karl's friendly touches of affection that I had grown to soften to.

Most nights he was streaming, but if he wasn't streaming, he was still playing with friends. This made our nights quite uninvolved besides when he would run into the kitchen to grab a cold Monster and offer me a quick greeting. I wasn't too distraught over not having so much time with Karl at night, I just wished we could sit down together and spend meaningful time together after I got home from work, but it was fine. This was his job, I had told myself, and I had to respect it.

Even if he was streaming, it was made almost paramount that we would eat dinner together, whether it be hamburger helper or takeout. During dinner, Karl would recap his day and tell me about the tweets he saw or the things he had planned. Every other weekend he left to film with Jimmy and he always briefed me on it. He trusted that I wouldn't spill the details on it simply because I had no one to tell, and because I had proven my worth to him countless times.

While trying to decide on dinner one night, we stood in the kitchen, scrolling through Uber eats and calling out restaurants that we were in the mood for.

"Nothing here sounds good," I groaned as I leaned against the counter. I felt like I had had everything over a dozen times, at least what was delivered.

"Hmm," Karl hummed, rubbing his fingers across his chin, "I dunno but I gotta go stream. It's getting late."

My eyes turned to the digital clock on my phone and realized it was nearly 8. "Oh, shit, my bad, Karl," I apologized as I looked up to him from across the counter.

"It's fine, it's just a chill stream," he insisted with a small grin, "you should come on and hang out."

His offer made gears turn in my head. Why would he want me on the stream with him? Did Karl too feel that sense of missing that connection into the night? Otherwise, his smile was inviting and he truly just seemed like he wanted to spend time with me.

I couldn't help but let out a breath of laughter at that, slightly nervous. "I mean, what do I do?"

"Nothing. You can just hang out with me, you'll just be on stream," he explained kindly.

There was no reason to refuse. "Sure. I could go pick something up for dinner, if you wanted," I offered in return, even though it wasn't like Karl was providing a service to me.

The smile on his lips only grew at that, forcing the infectious nature of it onto me. "That sounds great. Should we just do Sonic?"

I nodded and pulled out my phone to write down his order. "That's fine."

Karl told me his order which consisted of cheesy tots, a burger, and a large cherry slush, all of which didn't surprise me in the slightest based on what I had seen him order over the course of the month. Though I knew my order, I still wrote it down and told Karl I'd be back in roughly 20 minutes. I drove down to the Sonic Drive-In, fingers tapping against the steering wheel to the beat of the song playing.

Arriving at the Sonic, I quickly ordered our food and waited patiently in my car. My fingers tapped through my phone while easing the wait before I stumbled upon Twitch. I opened up the purple app curiously, though I only followed Karl's account on the app. I saw he was already live, the stream starting soon screen on with a soft, mellow song playing in the background. While staring at the screen, I suddenly felt a little anxious to join the stream that afternoon. The internet was a vicious place and I wasn't entirely sure how they would take it that Karl had a roommate.