Small TW: mention of blood!
---------
You race around the corner from you kitchen and into your hallway, almost slipping straight into the wall with your fuzzy socks on. I can't wait to see his face when I beat him! You sprint into your room, not even bothering to close the door behind you, and plop down in your chair, almost falling over in the process. Panting from the bust of activity, you look up at your screen and watch as Karl yanks his door open with his arms piled high with monster energy drinks, popcorn, and various other junk food. You take in his oversized vintage sweater, different muted colored stripes crisscross his body, ending at his neck in a dark green collar. His black pants as he runs to his chair. His soft, light brown hair flopping with each bounding step he takes. This smile gracing his soft, pink lips. His round cheeks bunching up to his eyes. His eyes. His light gray eyes sparkling with joy and excitement, even if it is quite literally 12 am and he's about to start watching a children's show. So childish. But god is it in the best way possible.
"I beat you!" You shout out, laughing, as soon as he places his headphones back atop the dent in his fluffy hair. He mocks a long and dramatic gasps and lets out a groan of faux frustration, but he can't hold up his act for long. He looks at you dead in the eyes, acting as if he was immensely frustrated and annoyed over his loss, but upon eye contact he begins to giggle his dorky giggle all over again. You cant help but smile even bigger, listening to the pure joy in his laugh. He radiates the color purple. Not indigo, but like a nice lavender. "Nimrod," you murmur as your face flushes a soft shade of pink.
"What'd you say?" Karl looks up and asks, in the middle of lining up a total of 5 cans of monster energy drinks into the shape of a flower. He smiles up and you and shifts his hair out of his eyes.
"I called you a nimrod! You said the last one back was a nimrod," you explain, giggling at his pile of snack foods on his desk.
"I mean hey, I like to come prepared to a watch party. Come on y/n, we're talking about Gravity falls here, get serious!" He rolls his eyes at you, grinning. You can't help but laugh at him, just as you do at every little thing he says or does. It's as if you're under a spell, enchanted by him. Enchanted by those eyes. Or is it his sweet smile, or perhaps the way he smiles with his eyes? Or is it his laugh, his voice dripping with honey and kindness? Whatever it is, it's making me fall. Hard.
"Oh of course I'm taking this seriously! Did you even get to see what snacks I've brought or were you too slow?" You smirk at him as you open you arms and begin placing junk food onto your desk.
"I took so long because of how many snacks I brought! I bet I'm still faster than you!" He points at you through the screen, wiggling his finger.
"I highly doubt that," you chuckle and open the bag of popcorn, allowing the aroma of warm salt and butter fill your nose.
"Hey, you're forgetting that I was quite literally on my high school's varsity soccer team." He raises his eyebrows at you and giggles.
"What! No way," you gasp. You never took him to be involved in sports all that much, but soccer is fitting. You smile, thinking of him running around on the playing field. Varsity? Wow.
"Yes way! I would destroy you y/n!"
"No chance, I'd win anyways!" You defend yourself, knowing that you would most definitely lose.
"Okay do you want to stream it from Discord or do you want me to?" he asks, making eye contact with you once again through the screen and your heart flutters.
"Either or, it doesn't matter to me," you give him a bright smile as he begins to share his screen with you.
"Okay do you want to start from the beginning or do you have a favorite episode you wanted to watch?"
"The beginning! I forget what even happens at the beginning, it's been so long since I've last watched," you admit.
"Cool, maybe we can make this a thing? Like every night that we're available or not too tired from streaming and such we could watch an episode or two?"
"Make it five!" You giggle, heat rising to your cheeks. He wants to spend more time with me! Karl actually wants to spend more time with me!
"Sounds like a deal y/n!" He laughs and makes eye contact, smiling at you through the screen. You give him a big toothy grin back, trying to hide the obvious blush that's blotting your cheeks like ink spilling onto paper.
You took the chance to admire him though the discord call as he clacked on his keyboard, bringing up episode one of Gravity Falls. He had a cheeky grin on his face, and you admired how he slightly bounced in his chair with pure energy. You accidentally let out a sigh, and he looked over at you, catching you staring.
"Whatcha lookin at y/n huh?" He giggled at the smudges of red that spread across your face as you stuttered, fumbling for an answer. "I'm just messin with you, are you ready to start?" You couldn't trust yourself to form any comprehensible sentences in a reply, so you just nodded vigorously as a big smile spread across your face. He clicked play and the show began.
"Ugh, I missed this show! Especially the intro!" Karl just giggles and nods in response to your excitement, still hopping in his chair. There was something so addicting about his boyish charm, his silly little giggle and carefree attitude. I just hope I don't mess this up. This is such an incredible opportunity to begin with, this is all so crazy. You sigh silently to yourself and looked back to Karl. He was fully immersed in the show, his legs pressed against his chest and a blanket draped around his shoulders. You rested your chin on your hand and leaned onto your desk. Karl picked up on the little bit of noise you made and looked back at you with a glimmer in his eyes. You gave him a smile back, and he turned away to the show, humming in content.
------
You let out a sigh, gazing at him through discord. You bring your legs to your chest, resting your cheek on your knee. "Are you tired y/n? Like I said earlier, we can always do this another night," he offers up, a soft and comforting look on his face. At this point, you had watched 3 episodes and you could feel your eyelids growing heavy, but if anything, your heart kept growing lighter.
"No chance!" You shout. You reach over and grab the can of monster, opening it and chugging half of it.
"All the way! You can't just stop halfway you nimrod, down it all and smash it over your head!" He shouts, laughing. You bring the can back to your lips, draining out every last drop and smashing it against your forehead and throwing it behind you. You let out a shout of energy and start laughing along with Karl. You make eye contact with him through the screen yet again, and give him a big smile, showing him you're ready to stay up for at least another hour. "Oh my god y/n you're bleeding!" Karl shouts, jumping out of his chair and pointing. You suddenly feel a rush of pain from where you smashed the can on your forehead. A wave of embarrassment makes your cheeks flush as you bring your hand to your forehead. You feel a small trickle of blood flow down your nose. I didn't think I hit myself that hard!
"I'm sorry!" You instinctively shout as you get up and run to the bathroom. Small drops of blood drip onto your shirt. How am I bleeding this much? It was just an aluminum can! When you reach the bathroom you see it, a small but deep gash right above your right eyebrow. Of course, clumsy and childish as ever. You sigh and take your stained shirt off, grabbing a nearby towel and running it under the faucet. God what'll Karl think now? Your eyes sting as tears threaten to fall down your face. Fuck it hurts. You look at your reflection in the mirror, a light blue towel held up to your face. You let out a deep breath. Just take deep breaths, you don't want him to see you cry. With shaky hands you pull the towel away from the gash. Droplets of blood continue to rush down your face. Shit. You wash off the towel and place it back against your forehead with a heavy sigh. Begrudgingly, you walk back down the hallway and avoid looking back up at your screen. You don't even want to see Karl's face, think of what he thinks of you now. Hurt by an aluminum can? Come on y/n get it together.
"Are you okay y/n? That looked like a big cut," he says, his voice interlaced with worry.
"I'm fine, really, it was just a stupid..."
"Y/n are you okay?" His soft voice seeps into your head, making everything go all warm and soft. You feel like you're melting. His voice is laced with soft concern and sympathy. It feels like a warm hug. You drag your eyes back to the screen, almost dropping back down in embarrassment towards the image of yourself in the corner. It's his face, however, that saves you from breaking down into tears in mortification for this whole situation.
"I'm so sorry, it was just an aluminum can, I have no idea how it made such a deep cut..."
"I don't care about that y/n, it doesn't matter, I know it was an accident. I just need to know if you're okay right now." Karl interrupts your jumbled rambling. You make eye contact with him through the screen after avoiding his eyes for so long. His eyebrows are knotted together in concern, worry.
"I think I'm okay," you murmur, embarrassment setting in.
"Can I see?" You gently take the towel away from your forehead, wincing as a wave of pain sets in once again. "Y/n I don't want to upset you or like alarm you, but I think you're going to need stitches, it's still bleeding." A groan escapes your lips and you bow your head.
"But Gravity falls...I wanted to spend more time with you," you protest. "I really don't think it's that bad, it was just the dumb monster can," you sigh.
"Y/n..." he mumbled at you. This night truly couldn't get any worse. You bit down onto your lip as you felt hot tears threatening to spill out again. "Oh y/n, please don't cry, what's the matter?"
"I don't know, this is so embarrassing, and I wanted to spend more time with you because when I'm with you I feel happy and light, like a kid again." You look up at him through the gaps of your fingers and you see him trying to cover up a smile. "Hey, what are you laughing at?"
"Oh! I'm not laughing at you, It's just...I don't know, you're just really sweet and this is such a crazy situation. I think I'm just laughing because if this had happened to anyone else they'd be either gone already or I would have left in second-hand embarrassment. With you though, everything is an adventure and just so much fun, even when you probably have to make a trip to an urgent care at 2 am," he giggles, giving you a big, toothy smile. You can't help but smile back at him. Even through all this he's still complimenting you and sticking with you. You hum softly, laying back into your chair with a hand towel still covering your forehead. Even though it still hurts, he was able to calm you down enough to focus.
"Ugh, I don't even feel like driving all the way out somewhere though," you pouted at him. He hummed, deep in thought.
"I'll cut a deal with you y/n," Karl wiggled his eyebrows at you and you perked up. "I'll stay on FaceTime with you the entire drive to urgent care and the whole time you're in there. I'll even stay on the call afterwards when you go get something to eat, because I'm almost 100% sure you haven't eaten enough today." You nearly melted at his words, his soft words filled with compassion and care. He understood.
"Sounds great to me!"
And so you left, you went to the urgent care, chattering away with Karl on FaceTime, often falling into a comfortable silence with one another. You arrive and upon arrival it's apparent that you'll be needing stitches, and Karl comforts you and "holds your hand" through the screen as he liked to call it. Afterwards you drive to a nearby fast food place and grab a meal, eating it in the parking lot, talking to Karl the whole time. It's only when the sun rises at 6 am that both you and Karl realize that you had gotten no sleep at all, and you dive home. After you settle back in your bed, Karl stays on the call with you for a little while longer until you both agree that you both need to get some sleep.
It was the best sleep you've had in a while.
----------
I'm so sorry the end was a bit rushed! The word count was already at 2465 and I didn't want to keep making it longer and longer.
This was a little more dramatic chapter, but I just wanted to show the bond that the reader (you!) and Karl (his hypothetical character in this fanfic) have and how it's growing in so many different ways.