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Sitting in Nomi’s living room, with the sun shining through the massive windows, all together was probably the most content the sensates had been in a while. All 8 of them- plus Amanita, Hernando and Felix- were spread around the sitting room in almost silence.
“Do you ever wear anything other than black?”
The sudden question came from Will and was directed at Wolfgang, who was sprawled on the floor by one of the couches- which seated Kala, Felix, Sun and Capheus- as he claimed “Everyone else needs a seat more than me; The floor is just as comfortable”. Wolfgang looked up from his place, shrugged and then looked back down at the book he was reading.
“Oooo! Wolfie we should show them the pictures!” Felix spoke up sounding a lot like Capheus.
“No Felix. We should not show them the pictures.”
He was promptly ignored by his best friend who pulled out Wolfgang’s phone and told them all to “gather round”.
Once everyone had gotten into a position where they could see the phone screen Felix scrolled down to an album called ‘Wolfie and Felix’s fantastic Christmases’ (Obviously named by Felix himself), it was right under another album named ‘Wolfgang and Felix through the ages’, again probably named by Felix.
Felix then chose the Christmas album and everyone was momentarily blinded by all the garish colours coming from every single photograph.
Felix then selected the most recent photo, which- when enlarged- showed Wolfgang half scowling, half grinning (no one really understood how he managed that look) wearing a very bright green t-shirt with a cartoon wolf on the front. Underneath the wolf there was writing saying ‘What does the wolf say?’ several blank lines the, ‘…’.
Felix continued to swipe through the pictures, some of which were of him with a lot of random stuff, like fake tattoos of Care Bears and a paper iron man mask. The others, however, were all of Wolfgang wearing the very colourful t-shirts with silly little cartoons, drawings and text puns. These included; a purple t-shirt with two white unicorns on their hind legs with their horn crossings and in the middle there was a pink heart and a rainbow, a white t-shirt with ‘Your Name’ in a light blue typewriter text and a pink t-shirt with ‘I’d rather be watching kitten videos on the internet’ with a fluffy tabby cat picture underneath.
Their favourite t-shirt (and picture) was the oldest. It had a 10-year-old Wolfgang (which got an “aw” out of most of the people there) with a black eye and busted lip (which made everyone angry) wearing a too big white t-shirt covered in scribbles. One of these scribbles vaguely resembled a wolf and above it written in a messy scrawl was ‘I ain’t a lone wolf! I am a Wolf Gang!’.
“Shame my dad ripped that one,” Wolfgang said walking by with a mug of coffee.
Everyone looked up to where he was now situated on an armchair previously occupied by Will and Riley with shocked expressions.
He finished a sip of his coffee, saw all of his friends’ faces, chuckled and said, “I was only joking.”
This was when they noticed he was wearing a new t-shirt. This one had a pink back and on the front was a full picture of San Francisco with a wolf strolling in the street, the caption above in white said ‘Wolfgang in San Fran’. At this everyone’s grin returned.
“I thought you only got t-shirts for Christmas,” Lito questioned and stated.
Wolfgang stared at him with a completely blank expression and in a deadpan voice said, “We follow the pagan traditions.”
Felix laughed so hard he fell to the floor in tears.
Three days later marked their first Christmas as sensates.
Unsurprisingly it was Capheus who was up first and – as the excited child he is- woke everyone else up.
As they filed into the living room wearing their dressing gowns, pajamas and slippers they saw Wolfgang making a pot of coffee in his San Fran t-shirt and grey boxers, which across his butt said ‘I am NOT a morning person’. He then took his coffee and sat beside the Christmas tree and the pile of presents, which had magically grown overnight.
Kala smiled happily and joined her boyfriend on the floor. Capheus then bounced over to the two.
“I think it’s time for presents!” He declared and started to pick up the ones wrapped in numerous layers of greaseproof paper and tin foil patched together with masking tape.
“Leave those ones ‘til last Capheus,” Wolfgang said in a deadpan voice (with slight fondness) sipping his steaming hot strong black coffee in the mug he had claimed as his own.
“Ok!” Capheus said still very brightly putting down those presents and picking up the ones that were ‘wrapped properly’ in wrapping paper passing them to the assembled crowd on the floor after calling out the name on the tag.
Surprise thrummed through the bond every time a present was passed to Wolfgang. When the sensates looked at him they saw him staring at his presents with a confused, fased out expression.
The walls in his mind were up as strong as they had ever been, locking them out of whatever memories he was reliving.
Felix, who had also apparently seen this look, lay a gentle hand on Wolfgang’s shoulder and whispered something into his ear, to which Wolfgang- still looking down- nodded, looking younger than they had ever seen.
Once all the present (void the ‘badly wrapped’ ones) everyone simultaneously unwrapped them.
Wrapping paper was haphazardly chucked everywhere making th3e floor very festive. Roars of laughter broke out from everyone ad they opened the presents, which consisted of:
- Stuffed Toy Zebras in numerous colours from Capheus
- Geeky DVD’s from Nomi and Amanita because apparently no one “watches enough of them.”
- Strange arty abstract ornaments from Lito and Hernando
- Silk patterned blankets from Kala
- Korean soft toys from Sun
- And Christmas Jumpers and Santo hats from Will and Riley.
Well those were the main presents; Wolfgang’s deviated a little. Instead of a Santa hat from Will and Riley he got reindeer antlers, which played Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer when a specific point was pressed, and a light up red nose- both of which were being forced upon him by a gleeful Kala and Felix (who was still half cuddling a massive pink toy wolf given to him by Wolfgang himself). Once on him Felix snapped a picture and quickly added it to a new album called ‘Sense8’s being great!’ with a lot of emojis after it on Wolfgang’s phone. In addition to the blanket from Kala her also got a pack of brightly coloured boxers and from sun he also got Hello Kitty bandages and plasters, to which he barked out a laugh.
Capheus, still smiling like an over exited puppy, looked to Wolfgang and asked, “Would you like to do the honors?”
Wolfgang nodded anxiously, small smile on his face- this was the most emotion anyone had ever seen from him in one day- and moved towards the pile of remaining presents.
He picked one up, “Lito,” he said still not looking anyone in the eye.
Lito took the present, opening it carefully revealing a purple t-shirt. He unfolded it and saw on the front a hand written message and hand drawn cartoon drawing.
It said ‘I lost my flip flop!’ with a cartoon flip-flop underneath.
Lito started to laugh uncontrollably joined quickly by Hernando and the sensates.
Wolfgang passed out the remaining presents holding back Amanita’s.
The many t-shirt were as follows:
- Nomi got a white t-shirt with rainbow writing saying ‘I’d hack that ass’ with a multi-coloured cartoon laptop beneath
- Will got a blue t-shirt. On the front it said ‘Anything you say can and will be held against you’ with a cartoon police car underneath and on the back it stated ‘(so only say my name)’ with an emoji winky face beneath
- Riley also got a blue t-shirt (the same shade as Will’s) with ‘I’ll spin your disks’ written on it with cartoon DJ decks under the caption
- And Hernando got a purple t-shirt (the same shade as Lito’s) with ‘Speak art to me’ and a carton paintbrush.
Others were topics for discussion. Kala’s t-shirt, which was pink with ‘Wolf tamer’ written on it and a cartoon wolf in boxers underneath, had everyone looking towards Wolfgang with amused expressions.
“Felix forced me to,” he said in way of explanation.
Sun’s similarly confused everyone. It was black with white text that said on the front ‘The spirit of Van Damme’ with a little cartoon of the van damn bus and on the back stated ‘aka BAMF’. In explanation Wolfgang just pointed to Capheus who then opened his present. It was a bright (almost luminous) yellow. Written on it in black was ‘Literal ray of sunshine’ with an outline of a cartoon sun.
A chorus of oh’s were heard at various points in the room.
Once everyone had finished unwrapping (and putting on their t-shirts) Amanita looked up at Wolfgang with a slightly hurt expression.
“Where’s mine?”
“Here,” Wolfgang pulled out a present from behind his back, “I wouldn’t forget. I promise. Just thought it would be best to save it ‘til last,” he offered Amanita a small smile and shared a look with Nomi.
Amanita took the present and opened it slowly to reveal a white t-shirt with ‘#lifegoals #wifegoals’ in rainbow text with 2 rainbow ring beneath.
She looked back up to Wolfgang even more confused than before. He smiled at her and then turned towards Nomi, who at some point had produced a ring from somewhere.
“Amanita, you are beautiful and amazing and a thousand million more words that I can’t even think of at the moment. Will you make me even happier than you already have and be my wife?”
Nomi looked up at Amanita hopefully who looked back down at her with a mixture of shock and happiness.
After a minute of silence Amanita finally spoke up with, “Of course I will! Yes! Definitely!”
Nomi got up and kissed her passionately amidst the cheers of all their friends and whispered, “I love you,” to each other.
“Did they all know about this?” Amanita asked her now fiancé.
“No. Only Wolfgang,” Nomi replied still grinning.
Amanita then turned around to Wolfgang and hugged him tightly. His eyes went comically wide and he flinched slightly before he chuckled, relaxed and wrapped his arms around her.
Wolfgang was slowly opening up to physical contact from all of them. No one fully knew the reason why he was so bad before apart from with Felix (even though Felix himself didn’t know the whole story of Wolfgang’s past), but they let that subject go as soon as it became apparent that he really didn’t want to talk about it. He was, however, getting a lot better with touching and opening up emotionally.
All the way through the present opening session Felix had been taking photographs and adding filters to a lot of them.
“Well those are going on Instagram!” He declared, Kala nodding along beside him, “That one especially. Great shot of Wolfie we got there!” He turned around the phone to show them a picture of a grumpy Wolfgang in a Christmas jumper with the lit red reindeer nose and reindeer antlers. Everyone smiled at the picture no doubt planning to make that Wolfgang’s profile picture on every social network they could get their hands on, which meant every social network seeing as they had Nomi. Wolfgang sighed at this thought.
“So when’s the wedding?” Will asked.
Everyone shared a look. Whenever it was it meant they would all be back in San Francisco again.
Epilogue (of sorts)
The hand made t-shirts from Wolfgang- which everyone found out had been hand done by Wolfgang in the few days before Christmas after him and Felix had ran to the only open shops at that time of year (which happened to be a supermarket, an art shop and Primark)- officially started what the sensates now call (thanks to Felix) ‘The T-shirt Wars’. They all ended up with 50 or more t-shirts which most of them- except Kala, Riley and Capheus- say they hate.
They don’t.