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The admiration and extensive amounts of love for his taller companion over the span of the decade they'd known eachother and the more decent 2 years of dating had resulted in a long awaited idea. Proposal.

It was a little scary at first, he didn't really ever expect to have such strong feelings for another person. Nor did he expect this to happen only after 2 years of dating. But it was he Junkyard and his wife walking past a ring shop one day with Ze. They were meant to be buying some food for dinner tonight but whilst walking towards the grocery store Ze stops to look through a window.

Back at him on a small shelf is a ring, it's not what he'd call masculine in the slightest but he immediately is drawn to it. It's probably silver, a gray metal at the least and has a small circle of diamonds with one bigger diamond in the middle. Ze watches it for a moment, eyes flicking from the small carvings in the silver to the diamonds to the price. Then there's a hand on his shoulder and he jumps. "Ze?" Junkyard asks with a small smile behind him. He turns around and is immediately embarrassed, caught fawning over a ring. Junkyard's grin lights up a bit more but he doesn't mention anything. "We're going to go grab some chips for lunch. Is that fine with you?" Ze nods a little shakily.
"I'll come with you," and Junkyard just shrugs and walks with Ze. Neither mention the ordeal for the next month, but when they get home and Anthony asks what they got up to Junkyard can't help but giggle and give Ze a glance.

---

It's sporadic when Ze finally convinces himself to go back to that store. He can buy the ring and at least put it in his streaming room under the couch cushions or something so that Chilled doesn't have to know. But he at least has to have it and his boyfriend doesn't have to know. When Chilled's doing his Kingdom Heart's stream Ze slips out of the house knowing he'll be too distracted to snoop about too much, maybe a text here or there. He makes sure to use his card so that Chilled won't see the purchase and he also makes sure to put the payment down as PS5 instead of a ring. It'll be easier to explain anyway. He walks into the store and tried to compose himself, suddenly it feels like everyone in the store is staring at him (even though they're not) and he nearly screams when he's asked if he needs any help.

He nods slightly and the lady at the desk only smiles and walks out from her counter to help. Ze tries to be casual, but there's no way this lady won't assume it's a engagement ring– Which it's not. Ze glances through the glass walls this build has out to the rest of the center, what if a fan walked through? What if Tom happened to be shopping and saw Ze? What if literally anything went wrong. "So, what were you looking for?" The woman asks with a small smile. Ze composes himself.
"There's a uh- a ring I saw on your displays that I want to get," the lady nods and allows Ze to walk her to the shelf. He knows where it is as everytime he and Anthony walk past he glances at it before breaking eye contact. Anthony doesn't know, and won't until he's ready.

"Who's the lucky lady?" The lady smiles as she begins to open the glass back with a key. Ze tenses and looks away slightly. Maybe he can tell this random lady he'll never see again.
"U-Uh, my-" he clears his throat "my boyfriend," he breaks eye contact as she raises her eyebrows slightly in surprise but hums a happy tone.
"Is this going to be your ring or his?" She asks. Steven looks back up to her eyes.
"Umm,"
"We need to consider ring size is all,"
"Oh yeah, of course," he rubs his thumb over the inside of his ring finger. "I have no idea his ring size," he mutters. She nods slightly.

"We have this issue all the time don't worry about it. Basically, we're going to buy you a ring that's one size bigger then what you think is right, then after you propose-" Ze's face scrunches up "Sorry, after you do whatever you're going to do with it, if the size is off, you bring him back with the recipe and we'll adjust it, free of course,"

The transaction is very easy after that, she doesn't bring up anything else to do with Chilled. One of her coworkers jokes around about how nervous Ze is and it makes him smile slightly but as soon as he can, he gets the ring and goes home.

Anthony is still playing Kingdom Hearts but he drops in out of frame to give him a coffee, Chilled thanks him, and the chat is still none the wiser to who the mystery girlfriend is. Or rather, mystery boyfriend.. or er, Ze. Ze sits at his own desk and stares at the ring for a moment before sliding the case it's in beside his tower where Chilled won't be looking.

Every day before streaming, when he knows Anthony is at his own desk already, even sometimes locking his door he looks at the ring for a few minutes.

---

Chilled invites Cheesy to stay over one time. He is a nice house guest, he's chill with the dating thing, as expected from the man and Ze isn't completely nervous to show affection to Anthony around him. Zach can't come into Ze's stream and Ze can't come into Cheesy's but Anthony and Zach spend the better part of the sessions annoying each other irl. Maybe at some point Anthony forgets this though.

They're playing Mysterium. The ghost game with visions and whatnot. Kara is the ghost currently and she's trying to tell them about their murderers and such. Anthony throughout the session, who is not playing today (as Ze's getting nervous that someone will notice they've been playing together too many times) has been annoying Cheesy by entering his recording room (which Zach is using) and messing around with him.

Ze at some point recognizes the sound of his door being opened and he turns to see nothing. Probably Rex, and he probably forgot to lock the door, luckily his camera cuts off the door to his room just ever so slightly. He mutes himself in the discord and gets up to lock the door. Upon entering the doorway, he sees Chilled holding a cup of coffee for him. He laughs slightly. "You need to stop feeling my caffeine addiction," he mumbles as he takes the coffee mug from the other. Chilled shrugs slightly.
"If I can't be on stream I may as well pamper my beloved boyfriend who's slaving away entertaining the millions," he smiles. Puts the coffee down on a side desk and hugs the taller, who follows him over to said side table. Chilled then leaves with a small wave. Ze collects his coffee and returns to his desk and glanced at the rapid scrolling chat. He quizzically wonders if something happened whilst he was gone. His eyes glance over to the clips being posted along with people @-ing him in thr chat.

Then it hits him. He pales, eyes go wide and he doesn't unmute. He just cuts stream, because, what the hell. He deafens and puts his head in his hands. It's takes him about three minutes before Chilled enters again. "Ze?" He asks slowly, entering as if he knew what happened.
"I- They know,"
"Who does?" He asks slowly, though he probably already knows.
"Chat," he nods slightly and glances at the pc.
"I'll deal with it," he nods once more and simply leaves the room and heads to his bedroom.

He sees the clips the next day, in bed with earpods in watching it on his phone, on twitter. There's the first one of Chilled entering the room, hugging him then leaving, followed by the end stream popping up. The second clip Ze has not seen, it's from Platy's perspective and Max's expression is frowning as he looks at his monitor solemnly, no one is really saying anything except for Jeremy and Kat who are talking about something.
"Hey guys," it's Ze's Discord but Chilled's voice which is slightly weird.
"What's up Chilled?" Max asks slowly looking over at his other screen.
"Ze's done for the night, you're welcome to continue though," they all say goodbyes as if Ze's with Chilled before he leaves the call.

Then there's another clip from Jeremy talking about how if anyone talks about it in his chat he'll ban them, and a similar one from Greg who wasn't even there when it happened. There's a clip from Tom who just shrugs and says it was probably a secret trip, even though he knows the truth, which Ze appreciates and gets a bitter taste in his mouth. There's one from Tay where she literally just bans the chatter and tells chat to "Shut the fuck up about it,".

"You okay?" Comes a quiet murmur from behind him. Ze hums slightly and backs out of the thread, continuing to scroll through any mentions of the word Chilled or Ze, or both of their names. He sees some fanart obviously, a lot of threads, people saying they hope it is what they think it is, people asking others not to talk about it, there's a tweet from Zach who says something similar to Greg about now wanting people to tall about it until someone says something. Chilled hugs Ze a bit tighter against him and Ze sighs. "Put your phone down," he grumbles slightly. Ze glances at the time; 7am. Then follows through with the request, taking out his earbuds as well.

"Are you okay?" Ze asks Chilled who's got his eyes shut next to him, but still awake and holding him nearby.
"I'm fine," he admits, eyes still closed "if you want to say something then go ahead," Ze thinks it over in his head "we could take a break until your ready?" He offers and Steven instantly panics, sitting upright and giving Chilled a sad gaze. Anthony has to process the issue for a minute or two. "No No! I mean a break from the internet!" He sits upright as well with hands raised in a way that screams NO. It looks a little silly with his bed head and lack of glasses. Steven sighs in relief and lays back down.
"You're such a pain," he shakes his head before opening his arms for a hug. Chilled takes the offer and snuggles up against him.
"I'm not sure I can sleep now," he jokes easily. Ze pauses for a moment, listening to the others gentle snores.
"I'm going to say something," Chilled squeezes his hand.

-

Ze
@ZeRoyalViking:
So yeah, Chilled and I are dating and currently live together. This has been ongoing for two years now upcoming on three. If this is something you don't like feel free to get the fuck out now. I'm not sure how open we're going to be about this seeing as how secretive we've kept it already.

Greg
@thetrueBigBoss:
What're your thoughts on the chat policies a bunch of us pulled last night lol

Ze
@ZeRoyalViking:
Chat can talk about it, but obviously they need to be normal around the subject

Junkyard
@Junkyard219:
Congrats on coming out Ze!!!@

Ze
@ZeRoyalViking:
That's not really what this tweet is about but thank you Junk

Junkyard
@Junkyard219:
Whatever! We all love you guys lots ♥️

---

"What's that?" Ze fumbles with the box hard, nearly dropping it into his cup of coffee, and also nearly dropping it onto the floor. He quickly recovers by stashing the box into his pocket. He turns to look at Tom who leans awkwardly in the doorway. "You okay there buddy?" Ze nods quickly and straightens himself up, he's tense. Tom definitely saw the very proposal-shaped box. Not for proposing though. Just for cool decorative purposes. "Steven?"
"Yeah. Sorry. You're here for Yu-Gi-Oh right?- Is uh, Zach's joining too right?" Tom nods slowly before entering the room and shutting the door behind him. Ze's stomach drops.

"You planning on proposing?" Ze shuts his eyes hard and his heart is in his throat and he can feel it beating in his head.
"N- I- I don't know," he admits with clenched hands. Tom stays quiet. "Our three year anniversary is coming up, but like, is that too soon? Am I being crazy? What if he doesn't want to get married? How do you even propose? What if he doesn't like the ring or-" Tom shushes him gently before walking over to his desk.
"May I see it?" He pulls the box from his pocket and embarrassingly hands it over to him. Tom opens the box and his eyes skim over it. "I don't know why you're worried," he mumbles still looking at the ring. His eyes flash up to Ze's before he hands it back to him. "It's Anthony," Ze shakes his head
"That's exactly it," he sighs "it's Anthony,"

---

When their three year anniversary rolled around they had spent the entire day enjoying themselves. They stayed in for homemade breakfast from Ze, went out for Lunch at an arcade courtesy of Chilled then went home for a bit, then when Ze thought they were going to order something Anthony dragged him out to a perfect dinner. "You look very handsome tonight," Chilled insisted over his plate of steak. Ze smiles lightly. The man had been sacrificing eating meat a lot to help compromise with Steven's eating, tonight however he had deserved the finest steak a man could buy.
"Thank you," Ze smiles "you look even better," he reaches into his pocket and once again secures the small box. He's hyping himself up mentally to be able to do this.
"Must be something in the water," he smiled picking up his glass and inspecting its contents playfully. Steven shakes his head. "I love you," he mumbles with a shake of his head dismissively as if everytime he even thought Ze wouldn't care. Ze hung onto every word.

He clutches the box and begins to back up on his chair slightly to get ready to get up. As soon as he's about to kneel or whatever his body decides is the right plan, a waiter interrupts shattering Ze's plans. The Canadian tries to play off the movement as if was stretching, which Chilled doesn't seem to even bat an eye at. "May I get you two anything for dessert?" Chilled orders them something, and Ze decides he can just wait until next year to propose.

So the pair go home and spend the rest of the night enjoying their anniversary, ring box forgotten in Ze's pocket.

---

It's a particularly bad day Ze decides. One of those days where you die first every round in among us, and when you don't die first you're being ignored. Chat is relatively slow today as well as his back hurting today from nothing else particular. Mods are normally good with banning anyone who steps out of line, but for a second he hears a donation message that has him riled up. He keeps his cool, calmly tries to defuse the statement whilst chat defends Ze and the mods do their job. At some point Chilled comes in and gives him a bottle of water to hydrate on, probably not wanting to give Ze caffeine. He hugs him almost goes for a kiss but can see the hesitancy of doing so on stream, to which Chilled simply covers the camera with his hand and gives him a small peck on the lips. Chat thinks its cute and funny and Ze is in a slightly better mood from it.

Some YouTuber or Streamer brings up said clip and suddenly Ze's outside his own audience. Floods of support or floods or hate coming at him and he just can't keep up like he normally can. He's never had to think about having to label himself as anything, Chilled quite similarly, but people call him a gay icon and a bi icon. People draw him with different pride flags, and draw ship art. The fan fiction booms back to how it was in 2015 because even Ze got curious and had to check that.

Thankfully it dies down after a few days, and ultimately he's come away with more fans then haters, and blocking and banning gets him to a good place. Chilled makes a statement on his end fully addressing the whole situation which is something he usually doesn't do, at least on Twitter, but Ze's grateful he does. Then there's a reply of something not particularly kind to the pair, and Anthony's angry response. Anthony never mentions it and Ze loves him so much more for it.

---

"You ever think I could beat Junk at chess?" Zach asks as he and Max vs each other. He, Cheesy, Platy and Kara are sitting in a vc together, Kara being bored, Ze doing some editing and the other two playing random games together. It's around 10pm so they're being casual and a little tired.
"You always beat me," Max replies with a huff. Ze glances at his other screen where Platy is live streaming the game to Discord for Kara and him to view. He's down three pawns, two bishops and a knight.
"Yeah but you don't know how to play," Zach and Kara laugh back and Steven smiles.
"Well then why are we fucking playing?" He asks with an upset voice
"No one else wants to vs me,"
"Let's just play Spelunky!" Max exclaims with a groan as Zach takes his castle.
"I'll play!" Kara pipes up.
"Kara will play!" Max insists.

"Hey Steven?" The mentioned cocks his head to the door where the taller stands with a smile "I know it's late, but would you like me to order you some food?"
"What're you getting?" He asks pulling his headphones down so he can't hear the others.
"Whatever you are," he says proudly. Ze huffs and nods before turning back to his computer and opening chrome, typing in the name of a local pasta store. "Oooo!" Chilled exclaims walking closer and leaning on Ze's chair. "Can I get Fettuccine?"
"Sure thing love," he replied without missing a beat.

"Are you muted?" Chilled asks quietly. He glances up at the man confused before pressing the corresponding keybind to mute himself. Having forgot to earlier and realizing that no one had pinged him or yelled at him... Those guys probably wanted to overhear them!
"What's up?" Anthony shrugs and rubs Ze's shoulders whilst he orders himself two pastas as well as a bottle of pepsi.
"Just thinking," he mutters with a slight undertone in his voice. Ze glances at him after he places the order.
"About what?" Chilled shrugs again. Ze pulls his hands away from the keyboard and mouse to place a hand on Anthony's. He sighs slightly with a frown, but his eyes scream
"I love you,"

---

"You've proposed to people, right Platy?" Tom asks on discord. A small group he's pulled together is in a vc trying to help Ze. It almost feels like a therapy group with the way Tom is interacting with everyone.
"What the fuck do you mean *to people*, dude?" He asks with a laugh in his tone
"Jesus, wording got you there pretty bad," Jeremy teases Tom as well.
"Hey! I'm just trying to help Ze!" He grumbles out
"And what have we learnt?" Kat asks
"Nothing! So spill the beans!" He urges. Ze huffs out a laugh as he continues to drive back to his house. Discord phone calls whilst driving were always memorable.

"I think proposal just sort of happens when it happens? No planning, y'know? You just walk around with the ring until it feels right," Platy insists, Tom hums in following.
"What?" Jeremy asks with an incredulous tone "I think you should plan it out, at least have a goal in mind. If you get cold feet easy, then forcing a timezone to do it in will make it easier on yourself,"
"Yeah I guess," Platy trails off "but when you want to do it, then you do it, right?"
"You are crazy," Jeremy laughs to himself "I guess?" He adds

"It shouldn't be this hard..." Ze grumbles
"That's exactly what I said!" Jeremy adds on "but it all worked out!"
"Heck yeah it did!" Kat cheers
"I should just like," Ze grumbles and the grumble slowly turns into angry dog noises.
"Oh no way dude," Platy sniggers "that's crazy,"
"I'll just go home and fucking propose on the couch or something," Ze sighs. Junk joins the call at this point
"What's this about proposals on the couch?" He asks with a yawn
"Proposing on the couch, how romantic," Kat teases
"You try proposing!" Ze adds. Jeremy panics briefly
"Try with who?!-"
"Hey Junkyard! We're helping Ze propose,"
"Oh! Are you proposing tonight?" Junk asks with a happy tone. "I remember when you saw that rin—"
"Thank you Junkyard!" Ze flounders quickly trying to get the old man to shut up.
"You'll have to save it for the speeches, bud," Platy says and Junk laughs a hardy laugh.

"You guys aren't helping," he decides as he pulls into the driveway, sitting in his heated car and waiting for this conversation to end so he can get out.
"What do you want us to say?" Jeremy asks genuinely sounding interested
"I don't know," he groans laying his face down on the steering wheel and jumping when the horn goes off

---

"I'm thinking we renovate the bedroom next," Ze says as he turns on build mode in the Sims. Anthony, who is laying on the couch with head resting on top of Ze, glances up and tilts his head to the side.
"What are you proposing Steven?" Ze immediately chokes on air and begins hacking on his own spit, placing the controlled down to go get a drink from the kitchen, the Italian watching him with wide eyes "you okay, dude?" Ze takes a moment to clear his throat after he stops.
"Don't call your boyfriend *dude*," Anthony rolls his eyes
"What even happened? Find a low costing sims bed or some shit?" Ze laughs slightly and shakes his head, then begins to lie through his teeth
"Just swallowed my spit down the wrong tube or something," Anthony doesn't push it. Never has. But watches with a silent "I know you're lying" expression, then shrugs and leans up to allow Ze to sit back down beneath him. He lays back and goes back to Twitter whilst Ze continues renovating Sims versions of his friends' houses.

The reason Ze actually began choking was a simple human error, though something he would of course over react about. Rather then associating Chilled saying "what are you proposing Steven?" To a new sims bedroom, Ze had associated the question with a very real, and not sims mentality; "what are you proposing Steven?" As in reference to his ring.

Obviously his partner still didn't know about the ring in his office. Ze rubs over his knuckles absently and looks down at his best friend for a moment. "I love you," the Italian glances up further, almost appearing upsidedown, his smile bright as usual
"Love you too," and hopefully the words are perceived as more then an apology to his lie. Anthony could always tell when he was lying.

---

"Steven," Ze's eyes flick up to the taller man who's standing in his office. Behind him, solemnly stiff and not at all wearing the bright expression he normally does. Ze tenses slightly as he notices Anthony's expression. Confused, sad, maybe angry. "You know I um, I love you and I know you love me- I think-"
"Sorry?" Ze asks with a skeptical tone. Was Chilled... Doubting him or something?
"It's just- I mean I'm pretty sure you love me. Everything you do with me is much more intimate then you do with... Well anyone I hope," the man fidgets, hands fiddling with one another, glasses slightly ascew, hair messy. He looks like he's been in bed all day. "Are you lying to me?"

"What?" Steven asks quicker, blubbering out a response.
"Well— you're just acting weird and it might be my paranoia and I think I trust you too much, which is still probably my paranoia but I- I don't know Ze! If I've got my heart in your hands I don't want to doubt you, because I trust you with my heart, but like- what- I know when you're lying! And if you *are* which I'm pretty sure you are, then can you tell me why it feels so weird and tense whenever we avoid the tension?"
"I-I'm not-"
"C'mon that's bullshit," he barks back with a red face, mad or scared or perhaps winded from the long rant "stop leaving me on strings. You're meant to trust me," Anthony all but mumbles. Ze bundles his hands up in his pants before releasing them and walking over to his partner.

"I love you," Steven says with a soft voice. Anthony tenses up more at the tone, he doesn't move or talk however and just waits. "I'm sorry I've been keeping this from you. Sorry that its made you uncomfortable, that's not my intention," Ze looks down slightly. "I'm sorry that this went so fast,"
"And..?" He asks with a frown, arms still and breath held.
"I want you to marry me,"

The other physically jolts back, as if he's been psychically thrown. His eyes search frantically around Ze's face, and eyes desperately searching for a lie. "Are you joking?!" He asks in a way Steven can't tell if it's upset or surprise.
"I've never been more serious. I've known you for like twelve years, been with you for two. I could probably list dumb memories and stuff about yourself from years ago you wouldn't remember," he shakes his head slightly
"You're not joking? Seriously?" Anthony asks again. Steven unpockets the ring case, and kneels down "Holy shit— fuck, I feel stupid now," the other laughs at himself "sorry," he apologizes picking up the ring. Steven frowns. "— No shit wait wait wait! Yeah- yes- of course, totally,"
"Totally?" Steven asks smiling slightly.
"Probably the first person to say totally to an engagement, huh?" He laughs softly and puts the ring on. Unfortunately it's a little too large, but this was an intended mistake.

"What I'm trying to say is; sorry I made you propose to me here in your office. Probably ruined a surprise, huh?" Ze glances down at the carpet
"It was probably a good push. I was getting cold feet,"
"About marrying me?"
"About your thoughts on the mater,"
"Right," he glances towards the doorway. "Well, how about we go and celebrate or some shit. What do engaged people do?"
"Have sex?"
"We already do that," he snorts and let's his fiance lead him away.

---

ChilledChaos:
Hey guys
Ze and I are engaged

TomFawkes:
SINCE WHEN

CheesyBlueNips:
Congrats!! 🎉

APlatypussTV:
Let's go!!!!

Junkyard219:
Took you long enough Ze!

ChilledChaos:
You knew Junk????

JeremyDooley:
We all knew.

JeremyDooley:
Congrats btw

ChilledChaos:
:(

KaraCorvus:
Yeah it was extremely obvious Lol

APlatypussTV:
FR

ZeRoyalViking:
Gee. Thanks guys.

ChilledChaos:
❤️❤️❤️

JeremyDooley:
Kat says congrats as well! Her phone is dead ATM

BonsaiBroz:
Omg congratulations

BonsaiBroz:
Can we see the ring? 😁

BonsaiBros:
Oooo yeah! Please? 🥺

TomFawkes:
Relax guys lol

Junkyard:
Don't show em

Junkyard:
Make em suffer

Speedy:
Why are we being so mean to Em, Junkyard, that's awfully mean

SideArms:
Yeah what the hell Junk smh

Junkyard:
I hate you guys

ZeRoyalViking:
Chilled has it

ZeRoyalViking:
It was very weird to type Chilled instead of Anthony but I committed to it

ChilledChaos:
You better be committed to it! You're marrying it!