When Matthew woke up in his bedroom, he knew something was off, something wasn't right. He was alone, which wasn't unusual, but he found that he wasn't wearing the same thing he had been wearing when he first went to sleep. Now he had on a black hoodie with an eagle across the chest. Confused, he sat up and looked around his room. Everything looked the same, though he still didn't know where the hoodie came from. It wasn't his, and it definitely wasn't his twin brother's. His hands unconsciously reached into the pockets, and he was surprised to find something in there. When he pulled his hand out, he produced a small dandelion.

Suddenly, his dream came flooding back;

Matthew sat in the middle of a small meadow with a boy who had pale skin, messy white hair, and dangerous ruby eyes. The two sat beside one another, laughing at some joke the albino had told the blond. Matthew was wearing the hoodie to block out the slight chill in the air.

"Y-you're too… too funny." Matthew gasped between breaths, his violet eyes for once not filled with an endless sorrow. "Seriously, you should be a comedian."

"Naw." The albino replied with a small shrug. "I'd never make it. I'd be away from you for too long."

The Canadian blushed, looking away. However, a hand on his chin turned his face back towards the other boy.

"Why do you look away from me?" He asked curiously, head tilted to the side.

"I don't know." Matthew shrugged, earning a raised eyebrow. "Gil, I seriously don't know."

"Really?" Gilbert leaned in closer, his lips close to Matthew's. So close. Too close…

However, things got fuzzy suddenly, and he was yanked roughly from his dream before Gilbert's lips could meet his.

"Arg!" Matthew groaned, rolling over onto his stomach. He had been having those same dreams for almost three months with the same boy each time, in the same meadow. It always felt so real, but each time, Matthew would awake alone, and feel emptier.

"Mathieu!" His papa called up the stairs. "Breakfast!"

"Coming Papa!" Matthew quickly dressed in a pair of jeans and the hoodie, before bouncing down the stairs to meet up with the rest of his family.

Alfred, his twin brother, sat at the table wolfing down some weird sandwich-looking thing that involved eggs, bacon, and three pancakes, all topped with syrup and what looked like whipped cream. His hair fell haphazardly into his face—and ultimately, his food. All in all, he looked like a mess. Their father Arthur stood at the stove, bushy eyebrows knotted up in concentration as his hair stuck up every which way. Their other father Francis stood beside Arthur, hair back in a ponytail as he smiled at Arthur lovingly, trying to help him cook eggs without failing.

"Good job, mon cherie!" Francis exclaimed as he quickly pulled the eggs off the stove to prevent any burning. Arthur's face lit up in a brilliant smile, as it so often did now-a-days, since Francis began to compliment him more. For a while, Francis had been caught up in a bad life, cheating on Arthur, and getting into drugs. It put the entire family in a dark place, except Alfred. Everyone tried not to let him know, because he was always a sensitive person when it came to his family.

"So, has anything interesting happen lately, boys?" Arthur turned and smile brightly at them. Both shook their heads, and Matthew put a few pancakes on his plate.

"Why, Mathieu, where did you get that ratty old thing?" Francis asked as he picked at the shoulder of Matthew's hoodie.

Matthew looked down at the sweatshirt. "I found it in my closet." He shrugged to seem nonchalant, but he could feel the heat begin to rise in his cheeks.

"Mattie's got a boyfriend!" Alfred yelled suddenly, only deepening the blush. "Mattie's got a boyfriend!"

"I do not!" Matthew shot back, throwing a pancake at his brother.

"Liar~" His brother sang with an evil grin. "What's his name, what's he liiiiiike?"

"I do not have a boyfriend." Matthew huffed, glaring at his brother. "I found it in my closet, end of story."

"At least you came out of the closet." Arthur said with a smirk as he poked Alfred with a wooden spoon. "Alfie still needs to."

"Dad!" Alfred pouted, and Matthew took this as his cue to slip away.

"I'm going to go back to sleep for a while, until I have to go to work." He shot out of the kitchen before anyone could utter a word, and up the stairs. He curled up on his bed, face buried in his pillow. Sleep came quickly, and like he wanted, he dreamed.

"Hey, Birdie." Gilbert greeted cheerfully, grinning widely when Matthew entered the clearing they always met up in. "Took you long enough! I was beginning to think I had run you off the last time."

"I wouldn't dream of running from you." Matthew replied, and the pair laughed at the weak joke. The blond's tense muscles relaxed at the sight of his friend. "I do have one question, though.'

"What's that?" He asked, patting the ground next to him. Matthew sat down.

"Is this all a dream?" He looked into Gilbert's eyes. "I don't know if this is real, or understand anything."

Gilbert chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment before answering. "Yes, it's a dream. Does that mean it has to be any less real?"

Matthew turned his head to the side, and thought about it. It really was just a dream, wasn't it? So did it matter what happened in it?

Suddenly, before Matthew had time to process anything, Gilbert rolled over and pinned him down, hands on either side of his head, grinning wickedly.

"Let's say you and me finish what we started?"

Gilbert's lips met Matthew's, but it wasn't like he expected; he thought Gilbert would be gentle, calculating as though had had done this a million times before, but this kiss was hungry as though he needed this salvation as much as Matthew.

"Oh, I love you." He whispered in Matthew's ear, playing with the curl that Matthew despised. Surely, Gilbert didn't know what the curl did… though he was proven wrong when the albino tugged on it roughly, eliciting a small moan from the blond.

"Damn it, Gil…" Matthew squeaked out, shoving him off with some effort. "What the hell was that for?"

Gilbert blinked at him for a few moments, before sitting up and wiping the edge of his mouth with the back of his hand. "I just felt like it." He replied with an indifferent shrug. "Anything wrong with that?"

"No, I just don't understand… Why me?" Matthew asked curiously, staring up at the sky, the trees, anything but Gil's face. "I don't get it."

Gilbert shrugged again in the corner of Matthew's eyes. "I honestly can't tell you, Birdie."

Matthew sighed, before turning back to look at Gilbert, only to feel the familiar punch of reality as the edges of his dream faded in and out.

"I'll be back later!" Matthew yelled as he slipped back into the real world.

Inwardly, he cursed himself for using that as his escape—the world of his dreams—to avoid the pain of his life as he sat up to get ready for work.

Matthew just went through the motions, checking people out at the grocery store he had gotten a job at to try and find a way to keep his mind off the pain that he was put through each and every day. He wanted so badly to go back to sleep, to escape back into the world he lived in when he was unconscious.

"Hello, Alfred." An icy voice cracked through Matthew's fluid motions, and he froze, daring to lift his gaze. Standing before him was the very reason he didn't want to stay out; a sandy blond with a child-like smile, though the dangerous glint of his eyes threw them off.

"Hi Ivan." Matthew said quietly, not willing to correct the Russian.

"Whose hoodie is that?" He asked curiously, though Matthew could hear the threat in his voice.

"Mine," came the almost inaudible response.

Ivan seemed to accept this and grabbed his bag of what appeared to be apples, before turning back to Matthew. "I'll see you again, soon." With that, he was gone, leaving Matthew shaking in fear.

That night, Mathew didn't dream.

One Month Later

Matthew sat on the floor beside his window, looking out at the moonlit forest beside his house—the one that he had fallen victim to a crime of the most horrid nature in. However, tonight he found his thoughts not on the world before him, but the one in his head.

The dreams had stopped coming since his encounter with Ivan. It was strange, relying on a man whom he had never met before, and didn't even know to comfort him, even though he was surely nonexistent.

"Come and save me, Gilbert…" Matthew whispered, leaning his head against the fame of the window. Tears slipped down his cheeks, hitting the floor with quiet little splashes. Exhaustion slowly overwhelmed him, and eventually, he slipped under.

When Matthew opened his eyes, he was on a sandy beach instead of the usual meadow alone. The waves crashed against the shore, calling to the Canadian softly. His stuffed polar bear, Kumajirou sat beside him, staring at him with unblinking eyes.

"Kumaru, what are you doing here?" He asked the white bear as he pulled it into his lap.

His toes were bare, as where most of his legs as he was wearing shorts, but the sweatshirt was still on. He never took it off, unless it was being cleaned. It was his most prized possession, the only thing proving that the encounters with the albino he had fallen in love with could even possibly be true.

"You called for me." Gilbert's voice came from behind the blond, just as arms wrapped around his waist, a body sliding up behind him. Pale legs spread out on either side of Matthew's, a chin resting on his shoulder.

"I missed you." Matthew confessed quietly, leaning back against Gilbert's chest. "You haven't visited in a month."

"Things have been busy." Gilbert replied, stroking Matthew's arm with his hands as though to ward off everything that was bothering him. "My brother's been hounding me to finish some house work, and it's just gotten really stressful, y'know?"

Matthew didn't respond for a moment; they had never spoken of reality, save when they told one another about their bedrooms—a perverted joke gone slightly off from its original purpose.

"You have a brother." He asked finally, after Gilbert had squeezed his hand gently as he waited for a response.

"Yeah." Gilbert pressed a soft kiss to his neck lovingly. "His name is Ludwig. He's pretty lame, as far as younger brothers go. You'd think he's the older brother, the way he acts!"

"I have a brother, too." Matthew said after a bit, deciding to relinquish part of his life, too. "His name is Alfred. He's way more popular than I am…"

"Why?" Gilbert asked, his nose snuggling into the base of Matthew's neck where the hoodie began.

"Everyone remembers him, and the ones who hate him always mistake me for him." Matthew whimpered slightly, curling in on himself.

"What's wrong?" Gilbert kissed his neck again as though to invite him to go on.

There was an impregnated silence for a while. Neither spoke, one not wanting to interrupt the other, one afraid to tell something so horrible.

"There was this guy, named Ivan," he finally began, "and he had a thing for Alfred. When he saw me in the forest out behind our house, alone, he assumed I was my brother. Ivan has a thing for getting whatever he wants by any means necessary. He didn't believe me when I said I wasn't Alfred, and… He did t-things to me… things I don't want to admit out loud. Things that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy." He shuddered, remembering that night. "I don't know why I told you that. I shouldn't have thought you'd want to hear anything of it. I'm just so-"

"Hush." Gilbert whispered, wrapping his arms around Matthew's waist tighter, pulling him as close as he could. His lips ghosted over Matthew's neck, his jaw, his temple. "You're safe now."

Matthew let out a sigh, as Gilbert's lips kissed away the pain. The two just sat there after a while, watching the dream sun-set, relishing in the other's company as long as possible.

"I have to go. I think Ludwig's trying to wake me." Gilbert whispered after what seemed like hours, as the corners of his body began to fade in and out. Matthew wondered faintly if that was what happened when he left.

"Goodbye." Matthew called, reaching out to touch his arm, but the albino was already gone. Soon after, reality called to Matthew as well.

"Mattie, wake up!" Alfred was bouncing up and down on Matthew's bed. "Wake up, it's time for school!"

Matthew groaned, rolling over onto his stomach to bury his face in his pillow. That would mean less time with Gilbert, now that Winter Break was over. Sure, he enjoyed school, when he wasn't having his face bashed in, or other… unpleasant things.

Suddenly, Alfred ripped the blanket off the Canadian, who let out a loud yelp; "the hell, Alfred?"

"Get dressed!" Alfred chirped, before dashing off to go eat.

Matthew yawned and got up, pulling on a pair of torn grey jeans that didn't smell like they had been worn yet, and the black hoodie. Shouldering his backpack, he walked downstairs and out the door, ignoring his brother's calls of 'what up!'

"What's wrong with you, Mattie?" Alfred asked when he finally caught up, nudging his brother lightly. The wheat-blond only scowled and continued walking, pretending he never heard Alfred. He made it to the school, and settled into a long day of pretending to care in the world where the only one who would ever care didn't exist.

I really hope you like this edited version. I plan on adding another little section to make it a little better. I won't spoil it for you guys, though! My kitty cat says hi to all of you, cause he kind of just sat on my keyboard... But yeah, enjoy and review?(: