Chapter Text
Mats is sitting on the sofa-chair with Benni in his lap. Benni is idly twirling Mats’ curls around his fingers as he talks to him. Thomas is running around the room, chasing Louis Podolski, the Klose twins and the Boateng twins. Luan Klose yelps as Thomas lunges forward and manages to grab hold him. Thomas’ cry of victory quickly turns to hysterical laughter as the other kids turn on him and start tickling him. He ends up lying alone on the floor, the children having made their escape. Lisa walks to her husband and leans down to affectionately kiss him on his forehead, laughing as he stands up and continues his chase.
Mesut and Sami are whispering to each other as they walk aimlessly around the house, occasionally bumping into people and things because they’re more focused on each other than their surroundings. Per’s holding his seven-month old baby in his arms while his eldest son, Paul, clings to the hem of his shirt. Per and his wife, Ulrike, are chatting with Sylwia and Miroslav. Paul’s watching the other children, hesitatingly joining them when his father gently pushes him in that direction.
Bastian spots Lukas talking to one of the new interns at ‘Straßen’, Marco Reus. Marco’s talking to Lukas but his eyes are focused on someone across the room. Bastian isn’t surprised to see that Marco’s looking at Mario Götze, the other new intern who’d joined along with him. Mario was fiddling with the music player while Jérôme hovered around him, suggesting songs. Mario was Philipp’s new flatmate and Bastian’s hundred percent sure that Philipp will somehow make sure that Marco and Mario end up together. He never could resist matchmaking and he had a very able accomplice in the form of Miroslav Klose.
Manuel is by the Christmas tree, arguing with Kevin Großreutz, one of Lukas’ high school friends. The amount of tension between the two of them is ridiculous and Bastian has a very good idea where it’s going to go.
Philipp comes over to talk to him, “Bastian, how’s my favourite flatmate?”
“Fips, you met me at work today, why are you asking me that and I’m no longer your flatmate. Mario’s your new flatmate.”
“Mario’s so love-sick and he dismisses it as friendship. It’s highly amusing to see him waiting for Marco to call and you should hear the way he talks about him.”
“Well, he talks a lot about him at work, so I can only imagine what it’s like to live with him.”
“And he eats so much of unhealthy food; the amount of pretzels is insane. I’m waiting for the day he moves out.”
Bastian grins and ruffles Philipp’s hair, “Knowing you, I’m pretty sure that will happen soon enough.”
Philipp smirks and nods, eyes scanning the crowd. “Bastian, did you think that your friends and Lukas’ friends would get along so well?”
It’s a sudden change of topic but Bastian had been thinking about the same thing sometime back and he shakes his head, “Honestly? No, I didn’t expect to see them like this. I mean, my friends and his friends genuinely like each other and they’re joking around and chatting. I expected a little bit of reluctance and aloofness but somehow, there was nothing and they just liked each other immediately. Except maybe, Manu and Kevin but they’re the exceptions.”
“It’s like we already knew each other.”
Bastian groans, “Fips, now is not the time to talk to me about the multiverse and alternate universes and alternate timelines.”
“I never even said anything. But who knows, maybe we all knew each other in another universe.” Philipp tilts his head and narrows his eyes. Bastian knows that Philipp’s actually considering the theory and rolls his eyes. “Maybe we did but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true, so why don’t you just concentrate on this universe?”
Bastian leaves Philipp to his theories and walks over to where Lukas is standing.
Lukas doesn’t really know how he ended up underneath his dining table with his boyfriend but that’s where he is right now. Also, he’s never ever seen his house filled with so many people. Bastian had come up with the brilliant idea of organising an early Christmas party at their house for all their friends. Lukas glanced at the man sitting next to him and smiled, Bastian had moved in three weeks ago and Lukas still felt warm and fuzzy when he called it ‘their’ house’.
“Basti, why are we under a table at a party we’re organising? Are we hiding? If we’re hiding, then this is not a very good hiding place because you see, this is a table. You can see through a table, it has legs.”
“I would say you’re drunk but you don’t drink and there isn’t any alcohol here today because of the children. Manuel isn’t very happy with the lack of beer.”
Lukas laughs and snuggles closer to Bastian, “Manu can go fuck off.” He likes the tall photographer from Bastian’s magazine and so his words hold no seriousness. “I’m drunk on the Christmas magic, baby. Wait, excuse me, why are you calling me drunk? You’re the asshole who dragged me underneath the table. What are we even doing here?”
Bastian shrugs, “I wanted to talk to you private.”
“And below the table is oh-so-very private, right?”
Bastian just grins and cups Lukas’ face, tilting his head to kiss him. Kissing isn’t very comfortable because their heads bump awkwardly against the tabletop but they somehow manage.
“We shouldn’t make out here,” mumbles Lukas against Bastian’s lips, “someone could see us.”
Bastian pulls away from him, a smirk on his lips, “Is that a problem?”
Lukas replies by kissing him again. They break apart, laughing and giggling.
Bastian takes Lukas’ hand in his and gently traces circles on Lukas’ wrist, “Miro gave me the talk ten minutes ago.”
“The talk?”
“You know, the talk, the ‘if you hurt Lukas, I will kill you’ talk? He’s the fourth person to give me the said talk after Per, Mesut and Monika.”
“We’ve been together for a month and 12 days and he gives you the talk now? I’d have expected him to give it much earlier.”
“Apparently, he wanted to assess our relationship first and he thinks we’re stupidly in love and we’re good for each other, we fight about pointless things but we make up and he’s never seen two people more in tune with each other before. He called us soul mates. But he still gave me the talk. He’s fucking scary when he’s being serious and protective.”
Lukas snorts with laughter, Miroslav was basically a meddler and Lukas was glad he was his best friend. “At least, Miro said nice things and called us soul mates. Your brother gave me the talk. Your family was disappointed to know we’d been faking the relationship but they were delighted when they heard all the drama and the details. Tobias gave me this huge lecture about fake feelings and lying and relationships. Basically, he’ll hurt me if I ever do anything to hurt you. And then he hugged me and told me he was happy for us. We’re surrounded by a bunch of over-protective idiots.”
The two of them sit under the table and watch the party play out from there. It’s not the best place in the world to observe a party but it’s good enough. They’re with each other and that’s all that matters.
the end