A/N: This is an oneshot fill for the theme Platonic Marriage, written as a gift for my best bud. You know I'm a sucker for all thing non-romantic non-sexual, so.

Enjoy.


"What thing?

"Marriage thing."

Emil and Ber would regret that they missed this visit, Matthias thought - that mouthful of tea traveled a record length. He made his coughs into the pillow on his thighs louder than necessary, but Lukas only reacted with one eyebrow.

Judging by the serious look stapled on the bastard's face, he was probably not joking.

Probably.

"Marriage? Marry?" Matthias flattened himself out on the pillow, turned his head to stare at his diamon-precious friend. "Marry what? Marry who? Marry yourself?"

"Not legal." The worst thing about this sentence was that Lukas seemed to actually regret that possibility. But of course Matthias knew only too well his frequent leg-pullings, done just because he liked to or because he didn't want people to get him entirely no one had any idea. Lukas had very extensive control over his own facial muscles comparing to ordinary people - means that more often than not Matthias shouldn't believe in what he saw.

The thing was that Matthias believed in what he saw too easily. Or, to be exact, he didn't really believe his own deductions when couldn't verify them with his own two eyes, no matter how much sense they made. One of the reasons why he ended up taped to this hospital bed: boozes kill slowly.

Lukas handed him the cup along with a plate - closest thing to a caring act anyone was gonna recognize in the lad. Or a too obvious attempt to make him snort tea out of his nose. He took the cup with one hand and the plate with the other, tried to find a way to drink tea in his current position, thought to himself: maybe the dude cared a little.

"So?" He stopped to ask, then continued with the cup.

"Marry you."

Okay. Lukas wanted him to snort tea out of his nose.

Matthias took the hankerchief from Lukas (what a chivalrous act, ten points to you, Lukas), wiped off some of the tea on the pillow and drap, then blew his nose into it. "Hah," he said weakly. "Marry me. Tea, Lukas?"

The lad gave the cup he held out an indifferent look. "The seven days counting from your hospitalisation were too many troubles. Berwald couldn't find a way to cheat the system, Tino was practically sleepless, Emil wasn't a lot of help." Lukas always lightened up things that concerned Emil. "We've had to go through at least nine contacts to find a hag who is somewhat related to you. And we had to pay for her plane ticket."

"Sorry 'bout the costs."

"Tino's the one worrying about the costs. I just don't like the hag."

Matthias sighed. "Me neither. Sorry." He tried to turn without falling off his bed. "But what does that have to do with the marriage thing?"

Lukas looked at him for a silent while. He felt like the lad was getting smaller - shoulders a tiny bit sagged down, back a tiny bit bent forward, posture a tiny bit unkempt.

"Anybody with direct blood relation to you is dead, Matthias." The lad said, almost a little impatiently. "The latest one to die was your pop, three years ago."

"This is not what people say when visit their friend in a hospital," Matthias pointed out.

"I know. You are very conscious about the fact that you're a vagabond. No family, no relatives."

"This is also not what people–"

"I know." Lukas cut him off. "Matthias, you need acquaintances."

Matthias gave up on squirming on his bed and officially flopped down. "I have acquaintances. 'Ve had you for ten years - know each other better than me and my old man when he was alive. Have Ber for a shield, too. Emil, then Tino." He smiled. "I have more than enough."

Lukas stared at him, as if examining a rabbit he just trapped.

"Meanless."

"That means–" Matthias bolted upright, ignoring his spinning head due to sudden motion. "Lukas. You're a dick. You're–"

Now Lukas put both of his hands on Matthias' hospital bed. Matthias stopped dead in his newly-ignited anger, just in time to catch a specially loud cricking noise made by the bed's legs.

"Tell that to the hospital." Lukas' voice filled the uncomfortable silence, his eyes obtained a glaring look without even batting an eyelash. "The hospital doesn't reply to a 'best friend', that I know. I will not be permitted to care for the ill, nor to bury the corpse. No one will tell me any news. Never get to participate in monitoring. Never be able to pay hospital fees for others. You could've been in a critical condition after a few hours - what do you think about getting permission to operate three days late from a person you don't even like?"

The anger extinguished inside Matthias - even though it had been for no real reason from the beginning. He swallowed, didn't dare to blink at the menacing look of the guy sitting very calmly next to his bed. But before he could defend himself in any way, the two hands sunk in the mattress had already retracted, put lightly on the armrests.

Lukas' eyes had returned to their usual mysterious blue, but suddenly it seemed too fragile. "I learn fast from my own experiences." He didn't even look proud of his own quality that he was boasting about. "I've been around you for ten years. Berwald loves Tino. Emil isn't of age yet."

"Uh." Matthias swallowed. "Um. So."

"You don't have a lover. I know you."

"Yeah but."

"At the present moment, divorcing has become very simple. If there is any possibilities that you may want to marry any other person that you love, divorce will always be a ready choice."

"Yeah. But."

Lukas was so close to sighing. The lad put both hands on his thighs, then placed his chin on the laced hands. Something not unlike wariness was starting to appear in his eyes.

"Matthias."

Matthias doubted himself frequently, but this time he believed in that wariness almost instinctively. And was it that Lukas didn't even care to keep up his poker face, or that the lad was intentionally revealing a small piece of his inner thoughts to lure him, he didn't really need to know.

"Yea." He said, weaker and weaker.

"That, or I adopt you."

Matthias was ready to bet that if he was drinking tea this time, his spitting would have broken the record.

Lukas spoke evenly, his eyes now peacefully closed. "Officially, I am older than you by four months. The last possibility is that Tino adopts both of us. I will be the older sibling. The choice is yours. Personally I–"

"Okay, okay, alright, alright." Matthias immediately waved his arms. "Marriage. I choose marriage. We're gonna go for marriage registration right when I'm out of this bed. You want a wedding? You got a wedding. Honeymoon included. I do. Just tell the pastor I do." His arms suddenly stopped mid-air in a moment of enlightenment. "But from now on if we go to a hockey match we're gonna get couple discount–"

Lukas finally let out a sigh, a smile ghosted the edge of his lips, almost nonexistant.

"I'm not watching hockey with you."

"Oh come on Lukas!"