wait; karl jacobs ✓

four

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just as she initially thought, talia and karl won the challenge. around hour 16, they could hear chandler scream and then someone came by to announce that he had given up. and then around hour 20, nolan gave up due to the fact that he was too scared to pee in front of chris, and was, in his words, "about to explode".

once the shoot was done, talia and karl both went back to his house. with max still being gone for one more night, she asked karl if she could crash there. he happily agreed, knowing that she had a small fear of staying home alone overnight.

in high school, they used to have sleepovers all of the time. it wasn't uncommon for karl's mom to call talia's mom and make sure he was there when he didn't come home late at night. usually the sleepovers were planned on the spot, when they would realize how late it had gotten.

"yeah, talia is here," karl said into his headset. "the guys say hi, tal."

"hey everyone!" she shouted, but couldn't hear any of the responses.

she looked back down at her laptop, getting back to work on trying to make a new youtube layout. it was pretty usual for karl to talk with his friends or stream while talia sat nearby on his bed, working on something. they didn't talk much with each other during this, but they really enjoyed their company.

talia picked up her phone and checked her messages for what felt like the millionth time today.

talia bray
hey! im back from the mr beast shoot!

i hope youre having a great time,
tell your parents i said hi

do you have cell service? i know
it was iffy last time we went

text me when you can

she went to her call logs and finally decided to attempt reaching max with a phone call. after only two rings, the call was sent to voicemail. she stepped into the hall not wanting to interrupt karl's call, but he could still just barely hear her through the cracked door.

"hey, it's me. i was just wanting to check on you and see how it's going. um, just call me when you get the chance, i guess. love you. bye."

without needing to announce his exit, karl muted himself and took off his headphones.

"is everything alright?" he asked as soon as she stepped back in.

"yeah, it's fine. just haven't heard from max today. he's probably just out on the beach or without good cell service." she said, trying to not only justify it to karl, but herself.

at that moment she got two notifications, a text from max and instagram letting her know he posted.

max !!
hey sorry i'll call when i can.
love you

liked by taliab and 2,710 others.
maxwill xx

comments

taliab miss you
random1 when we said we wanted talia content, we didn't mean a sliver of her
avajane no tag?:(

"ava jane?" talia whispered to herself, clicking on the profile of a girl she had never seen or heard of before.

"what was that?" karl asked.

she quickly turned her phone off, throwing it across the bed, saying "nothing. here, let me talk with the guys for a bit, too."

karl handed her the headset, unmuting so she could be heard. he carefully watched her. she was hurt. he knew it had to do with maxwell. he just didn't know what. and he could tell she did not want to talk about it. so if ignoring it and listening to the guys joke around made her feel better, then that's what he would let her do.

"okay, okay. we can figure it out." karl said, giving in.

"YES!" sapnap screamed.

"karl shock stream! karl shock stream!" george chanted, making more noise by hitting his fists on his desk.

"you have to help hold him to this, talia." quackity instructed.

karl turned around for his advice. she had been laying on his bed, talking with the group. and even though just two minutes ago, she was joining in with everyone asking karl to do the idea, she was now passed out asleep.

"oh shoot," karl quickly plugged in his headphones to keep from waking her up with the loud voices. "she is knocked out cold, you guys."

"i'm probably gonna head on to bed too," dream yawned. "hey, is she alright? she seemed a bit off."

"just her boyfriend again," he turned to make sure she was still asleep. "normally she talks to me when stuff happens but she's just been kind of short about it lately."

"it'll be okay, man. i'm gonna go ahead and head out too." sapnap reassured.

while the other guys had their assumptions, karl had only confided in sapnap about his feelings towards talia. when her and maxwell made their relationship official, karl poured out every feeling that he had been keeping in about it to sapnap, who has since then taken it upon himself make sure that he doesn't get too discouraged and also play wingman when the time comes.

"looks like its just me and you big q." karl heard george say before closing out of discord.

karl was exhausted. he got very little sleep the night before with the challenge video, but honestly, he never got a lot of sleep anyways.

when they were in high school, the sleepover layout stayed the same no matter whose house they were at: talia in the bed and karl on a bed of blankets on the floor next to her. talia's dad was always pretty strict about that. after they graduated, he seemed to let up on them, not monitoring that aspect of their friendship anymore. they started sharing the bed together, not thinking too much of it- well, sometimes. but the two hadn't had one of their sleepovers since talia got in a relationship. and while karl hated maxwell with everything in him, he loved talia, and didn't want to do anything to potentially overstep a boundary.

karl grabbed all of the extra blankets he could find from his closet and started making his bed. the only thing he did not have extra of was pillows. on his bed he had two pillows, which talia was always quick to criticize him and let him know he needed more. one was under talia's head and the other was under her arm.

ever so carefully, he began trying to wiggle the pillow out from under her arm, but he apparently wasn't careful enough. talia slowly blinked her eyes open, looking around to figure out what was happening.

"what are you doing?" she had only been asleep 10 minutes and already had a slight grogginess to her voice.

"i'm just getting a pillow so i can sleep down here. go back to sleep."

"no," she grabbed the pillow from his hands and laid it back down. "you're not sleeping on the ground in your own house. just get up here."

"are you sure tal? i don't mind." before his sentence even ended, her eyes were already back shut and she was pulling the blanket further up.

"mhm," she hummed. he wondered if she even knew what she had said or if she was absent minded in her sleep. either way, he carefully got into the bed, scooting as close to the edge as he could without falling off.

but he didn't want to.

he wanted to be close. to hold her. to say "you deserve better than him". to say "i can take care of you".

but he couldn't. not now. and he was starting to worry that he never would be able to.