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"No," Karl said.
"Come on," Sapnap whined. "You said you wanted to, you literally said that you wanted to."
"Yeah, I say a lot of things on stream Sapnap," Karl sighed. "But that's like what, 120 thousand dollars?"
"Well, technically you only lost like, 25 thousand because that's the total money you lost-" Sapnap said. "It's fun, you know it's fun."
"My mother is very angry," Karl told him.
It's another meet-up. Due in about three weeks time, Sapnap is going to visit Karl again. As a long-standing tradition, there comes the question of another Pokémon stream. You know, the infamous stream where two grown men bet an outrageous amount of money for a stack of cards.
And yeah, Karl made a whole big show about wanting to keep doing it just to spite Sapnap, but honestly, he was going to make some excuse about why he couldn't do it. Oh, there weren't any good boxes, or oh, we bought it a little too late and it won't be here for Sapnap's stay, or something along the lines of I really want to do this, but I can't, the universe won't let me.
This is obviously a lie, by the way.
And Karl told Sapnap about as much.
"Please don't bring it up to the stream, I don't want them asking questions," Karl pleaded.
"Really Karl? Come on," Sapnap tried his best to coax his boyfriend.
Oh yeah, that finally happened.
"No, please," It was Karl's turn to beg. "My mom actually called me after the last time we did it and she was so upset."
"Oh I remember that," Sapnap laughed.
"Okay, go on, take enjoyment in me being yelled at by my mother, that's fine," Sapnap could hear Karl's eye roll from over the phone.
"Karl," Sapnap said seriously. "Baby."
"No," Karl was adamant about his decision.
"Karl we're literally dating," Sapnap said. "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine."
"That's only hypothetically you nimrod," Karl hissed. "I'm not about to lose another like 100 thousand dollars."
"I'll split the cards evenly," Sapnap offered. "If you win you get to keep all the cards, but if I win, we'll split it halfway."
"You already have so many cards," Karl said. "I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but don't you think you have too many cards?"
"If you win you get to keep all the cards, and your picks from my old cards," Sapnap said. "Come on baby, steal those cards you want so bad from me."
Sapnap waited nervously on his side of the call. He was sitting on his couch, legs fidgeting, fingers tapping on his knees, biting his lip as he looked up at Dream. Dream just waited, watching for Sapnap's next move and reaction.
"No?" Dream whispered.
Sapnap just shrugged, still waiting on the silence coming from Karl's side of the call.
"But I get to pick the box," Karl said after a while. "And I get to pick the packs."
"Anything for you," Sapnap wanted to laugh, his heart was so light. He did actually, laugh out a sense of pure relief that he couldn't stop grinning. Of course, Karl would pass it off as normal giddiness or even a bit of cockiness over the whole 2/2 Pokémon stream wins.
"Then yeah," Karl resigned. "Sure, whatever."
"Oh don't be like that," Sapnap said. "You don't have to sound so disappointed."
"I'm not disappointed, I'm just not completely excited," Karl mumbled.
"I don't know, I have a good feeling about this one," Sapnap assured him.
"Yeah well if you have a good feeling, then it's bad news for me right?" Karl laughed softly.
"No, I think it might be good for the both of us," Sapnap smirked. He looked back up at a very excited-looking Dream who bounced on his feet.
"That's not possible," Karl said.
"Trust me, just trust me on this," Sapnap said.
"Says the man who stole 120 thousand dollars from me," Karl yelled out.
"Alright listen," Sapnap started to tread carefully with his next words. "Let me know which box you pick and tell me, I'll pay for the box alright? You paid the last two times, plus, I have a feeling you might win this time."
The words sounded fake because it totally was. Sapnap had rehearsed this excuse about a thousand times before he made this proposition to Karl and wrote it so that it sounded as realistic as possible. Still, there was a chance that Karl could reject the idea, or that Karl could find it awfully suspicious due to the nature of it. Both he and Dream were holding eye contact and their breaths as they waited for Karl to respond.
"Yeah sounds good," Karl answered and they exhaled.
"Alright perfect," Sapnap grinned. "I gotta go now, talk to you later?"
"Yep," Karl replied shortly. "Love you."
"I love you too," Sapnap professed.
His fingers were absolutely shaking when he pressed the little red button on his phone. He stared at the screen for an extra few seconds to make sure that he's disconnected from the call before tossing his phone onto the coffee table. He collapsed back onto the couch and let out a deep breath.
"Are we a go?" Dream asked.
"We're a go," Sapnap laughed out loud.
Sapnap got off the couch and walked over to give Dream a hug. They were laughing and Sapnap most definitely was already crying.
"I'm so happy for you," Dream told him. "I'm so excited for you, oh my god."
"I am-" Sapnap's eyes were wide. "I am terrified, I can't believe I'm doing this."
"The first hard part is over," Dream said. "The next part until the day is easy."
"Dream, I can't believe I'm going to ask him," Sapnap gushed.
"Well I can," Dream smirked. "You're gonna do great."
"Oh god, I hope so," Sapnap gulped.
Three weeks is barely enough time for the surprise. It didn't help that Karl took close to a week to pick a box of cards that he wanted, giving Sapnap only two weeks for preparation. He was thankful that Karl didn't ask too many questions when Sapnap accidentally had the card sent to his house instead of Karl's. It was an honest mistake, Sapnap's just gonna have to bring the cards with him when he flies over.
It also feels like he's doing a fourth-grade project with Dream helping him. There were pieces of styrofoam that were cut precisely to the dimension of the box with a little smaller square hole in the middle. There was talk about arranging it so that its weight distribution isn't super sketchy to Karl, whether or not they needed to put some of the cards inside to mimic the movement of the cards if Karl decides to shake the box. They tried their best to make sure the all-around weight of the box stayed the same while putting the remaining cards that didn't make the cut into a different box because Karl would still probably want those.
Dream even had to borrow a curling iron from his mother to wrap the plastic back up so that it looks as authentic as possible.
There are about 101 ways this could go wrong, about as many ways that he would get exposed, that Karl would find him out and that he would be exposed and fail.
There is also the chance that Sapnap isn't going to get the answer that he wants, the answer that he needs, but he would rather not think about that.
And on the day that he flies out, Dream gave Sapnap the biggest hug that he could muster at that moment in time and wished him the best of luck. And if either of them were crying when they said goodbye, that was something that would stay between them.
Sapnap was probably the worst person to sit next to on that flight that day. Any other flight he was probably courteous and quiet, but this time, his legs bouncing alone could rival the turbulence the plane might go through.
His palms were sweaty, his heart beating a thousand miles an hour the whole way through. Even the flight attendant asked him if he wanted a sick bag and he didn't know how to tell her that it wasn't plane sickness, no, it was a box he'd stowed in the overhead cabin.
And it didn't get any better when he got the luggage, or when he walked out of the airport, or even when he saw Karl smile at him from across the airport, absolutely beaming as he ran and threw his arms around Sapnap's shoulders.
That box grew a little heavier in Sapnap's bag.
"Hi handsome," Karl's voice brought Sapnap home right there and then. "Missed you."
"Hey," Sapnap's voice barely left his throat.
A kiss on the lips meant so much to the both of them having missed each other so much. Sapnap's heart felt every single prick of emotion as Karl slipped his hand onto his, fingers intertwining, hands tugging Sapnap's arm toward the car.
The drive back was easy, quickly falling into the rhythm of singing in the car, hands on each other as they drove back, talking about anything and everything like they haven't seen each other in forever even if they'd just been on the phone the night before.
And Sapnap was incredibly lucky that Karl didn't bring up the box of cards, didn't ask to see it, or examine it when they got back to Karl's place. Karl simply let Sapnap take a shower before the two of them ate some dinner and falling into bed immediately after in a tangle of kisses and whispers of sweet nothings.
Karl didn't even ask to look at the box the day after.
Though, of course, Sapnap isn't as lucky the day of the planned Pokémon stream. Karl took the box straight out of Sapnap's bag, Sapnap nearly yelping just out of surprise, and shift the box slowly.
"Why doesn't it feel like there's a lot of cards in here?" Karl asked innocently as he tried to listen to the card packs shift inside the box.
"Maybe it's just tightly packed, I don't know," Sapnap tried to be smooth with his response.
Karl shrugged and placed the box on the table and Sapnap could finally breathe again. He met Chandler's eyes, who simply stared at him, eyes wide as he wriggled his eyebrows, and Sapnap regretted ever telling that man any of his plans.
The cameras were starting to get set up, Chandler was whispering to Walt about what to do and who to shoot, all this managed to happen behind Karl's back. Sapnap is so very thankful that Karl is very ignorant sometimes.
"Alright, are we ready?" Karl asked.
The clock showed 07:03 PM, and they were technically already late to the stream time they promised. Sapnap only nodded if not only for the fact that he couldn't seem to talk without his voice cracking. And with that Karl clicked a little button that started the stream.
The Starting Soon sequence could not be longer. Sapnap thought back to all the times that he's stalled a stream or queued multiple songs before the start of his own stream and it felt like he was tasting a bit of his own medicine. And with every song that played along with the animation, he was getting more jittery.
Even when Karl finally switched them over to face cam, Sapnap barely registered that it happened. If you go into that VOD right now, you can see Sapnap's spaced-out face trying to understand Karl's excited movements though he was a bit stuck in his own head.
"Sapnap," Karl called.
"Huh?" Sapnap snapped out of his little trance.
"I said, are you ready? The people are waiting," Karl laughed. "You asked for this, you nimrod, you should be more excited."
"I am, I am," Sapnap said softly. "I'm ready."
And he really was. For the rest of his life.
"Okay, I've got the scale, we know what to do," Karl said. "We've only done this twice already."
"You mean you've only lost twice already," Sapnap said teasingly.
"Stop," Karl laughed, bumping his shoulder against Sapnap. "That's mean."
"Open the box then, let's get this show started," Sapnap urged.
Karl didn't need to be asked twice. It made sense that because Sapnap opened the last one, Karl got to open this one. He was very careful with the wrapper, and Sapnap was glad that he and Dream's work on the plastic was flawless. Or at least not that discernable to the naked eye.
Sapnap's eyes were moving back and forth from the box, to Karl's face, and to Chandler and in tangent, the camera. It didn't escape his vision either that chat was flying about 10 times faster and he could read them, and it's about to get so much worse.
Maybe he shouldn't have decided to do it in front of a live audience of 150K somewhat people but he's done worse things in his life. And Dream gave him the seal of approval so it couldn't be all that bad, right?
"Look at that, the packs look so cool," Karl gushed. "I'm almost scared to touch them."
"We should take them all out and weigh them right?" Sapnap asked.
"Give me a minute, let me appreciate it first," Karl shot back.
Sapnap wanted to die.
"Alright, alright," Karl said. "Let's take these out and weigh them."
Karl took one pack off the right side and placed it on the scale.
"20.68? 67?" Karl measured. "That's gotta be the lighter one right?"
Sapnap heard voices replying and conversing but he was too focused on chewing the inside of his cheek to notice. Then when Karl placed it away in its respective category, Sapnap tuned back in. There were only two layers of cards at the top. If Karl had picked up another one from the right, he would've gotten to the surprise. But Karl did not.
Karl picked up a second card pack from the left side and Sapnap bit his own tongue to stop himself from screaming.
"20.73," Karl said. "Is that like a medium pack or would that be like the lighter pack?"
"Just put it with the lighter pack," Sapnap was a little snippy.
"Okay, okay," Karl replied. "God, you're so excited for this huh? Couldn't even be patient for the-"
Everything stopped.
Karl had lifted another back and was now staring at what was beneath it. The overhead camera revealed that it was most certainly not another pack of cards.
"What?" Karl whispered softly.
Karl placed the pack of cards down on the tabled and took the last one out as well, exposing the full contents of the box beneath the cards that Sapnap placed. Sapnap looked up to the camera with a little smile before looking back at Karl's confused face.
It wasn't the most luxurious box, he had to admit. It was just styrofoam, cut to the best of their abilities, trimmed as cleanly as possible, that neatly housed a little velvet box in the center so as to stop it from rattling inside a card box.
"Sapnap, what is this?" Karl muttered, though his eyes were still fixated on the box.
"Why don't you find out?" Sapnap replied fondly.
"No, I'm scared," Karl blurted out.
"Open it, it's not gonna bite you," Sapnap urged with a little bit of laughter in his voice.
"No, wait-" Karl finally turned to look at Sapnap, his eyes filled with tears to the brim. "No, Sapnap-"
"Open the box, Karl," Sapnap smiled. "It's an unboxing stream."
"No, Sapnap, no," Karl moaned, backing further away from the box. "No, I'm going to cry."
"I mean, it looks like you already are," Chandler commented from behind the camera.
"Stop it, this isn't-" Karl was at a loss for words. "Where are the cards?"
"They're in my bag," Sapnap laughed, deciding that maybe it was enough time spent on this, that he decided to take it into his own hands.
Sapnap carefully removed the velvet box from the styrofoam surrounding it, before walking over to Karl, who had managed to back himself all the way to the other end of the couch.
"Come back," Sapnap called him over and Karl shook his head, his hands over his face. "Karl, come here, I gotta ask you something."
Sapnap took Karl's hand and pulled him back into the frame and sat him down on the couch. Karl was most definitely crying at this point, repeatedly wiping away tears from his eyes. And Sapnap wasn't too far behind. Sapnap held the box in his hand and held it up just in front of Karl.
"Are you sure you don't want to open it?" Sapnap asked jokingly.
"Stop," Karl whined. "Sapnap, be serious right now."
"I am serious," Sapnap said defensively. "So I'm gonna open it for you, alright?"
"Sapna-"
And Sapnap did.
Inside is a very plain silver band with a little woven pattern engraved across the center. It was simplistic, it looked like any normal jewelry that Karl would wear on a daily basis, but the sight of this one alone made his heart explode. Karl didn't move, he didn't even breathe. Sapnap took the ring out of the box and turned it around slightly.
No one else saw it, but Karl certainly did. Both their names were engraved on the inside of the ring with the word I love you that looked too much like Sapnap's handwriting. Probably because it was.
"You know there's a lot of things-" Sapnap started. "-that I," he exhaled a deep breath to try and steady his shaking voice. "There's a lot of things that I wanna say."
Sapnap looked up to Karl, and for that moment no one else in the world existed. Not their friends watching in the room, nor through the phone that Chandler was holding though Sapnap knew Dream, George, and Quackity were on the other end of a video call. Not even the outrageous amount of people pushing 750K views on Karl's stream right now.
It was only Karl, and Karl alone. And to Sapnap, from the second they met, the second he'd realized that he was in love with him, Karl is the only person that mattered.
"I don't think words can show you how much you mean to me," Sapnap said slowly. "And all those things I need to tell you don't even come close to how I feel about you."
The room was deafeningly silent other than Karl and Sapnap's shaky breaths.
"You are the most important person in my life," Sapnap said. "You're my best friend. You're my everything. And I love you- so, so much. More than I can say."
"I love you too," Karl managed to choke out.
"You're my fiancé," Sapnap let out a sob and a laugh, looking at Karl like he's hung the stars themselves. "But for real this time."
"Oh god," Karl breathed out.
Sapnap raised his hand to tug Karl's hand away from his face, holding it in front of him while showing him the ring one more time.
"So," Sapnap said. "Karl Jacobs, love of my life."
"Yes," Karl replied.
Sapnap broke out into a grin. It wasn't clear if Karl was responding to the statement that Sapnap has said or the question he's yet to answer. But it didn't look like it mattered.
"Will you marry me?" The rest of his question left his lips in a peal of laughter.
"Yes," Karl repeated. "Oh my god, yes. Yes, of course."
The ring slipped into Karl's finger before Karl's hands immediately went to Sapnap's face, pulling him into a kiss. Tears were rolling down their face but the widest smiles breaking their kiss were undeniable. It was a lot of giggling mixed with declarations of love whispered so carefully that their mics barely picked it up.
"My fiancé," Sapnap mumbled through the kiss.
"I love you," Karl said, gazing into Sapnap's eyes.
Their friend cheered in the room and not in the room. Multiple phones were ringing all at once from people who weren't witnessing it live. It was the screaming heard through cracked speakerphones, and the clapping, and the utmost joyous celebration that caught their attention. They pulled away, all red and flushed but feeling like they were on top of the world.
"You wanna show the chat?" Sapnap asked softly.
"Oh, oh!" Karl exclaimed, climbing off the couch and placing his hand just under the hand cam. "Chat, chat, look at the ring. It's absolutely gorgeous."
"Oh yeah, your chat broke like five minutes ago," Chandler said. "There were way too many people."
"You're also trending," Dream yelled from over the phone.
"Of course we are," Sapnap rolled his eyes though he was still smiling.
"Hang on, I'll try to fix your stream, it overloaded," Chandler volunteered. "We might need to restart it."
Sapnap went to Karl's side, neither of them caring much about the stream even though yeah, it's technically their job. Chandler can figure it out though, right? For the time being, Sapnap simply pulled Karl closer to him and gave him another kiss.
"I told you," Sapnap said smugly.
"What?" Karl looked up at him like he was still dreaming.
"I got a good feeling about this box," Sapnap mumbled.
"Does this mean I win?" Karl asked softly. "Do I get the Dark Charizard?" He asked jokingly.
Sapnap laughed, looking down back at Karl with a love bursting at every seam. He pressed their foreheads together, eyes gazing deep into each other, still trying to come down from the high they're both feeling right now.
"What's mine is yours, Karl," Sapnap vowed, pressing a soft kiss on his lips. "My cards, my heart, my life, and my future. Everything is yours."
"That's the best thing I've ever won," Karl smiled.