"Paris?"

Matthew could only stare out his window, watch the birds flutter and dance outside, and let his coffee spill all over the counter as it overflowed from his cup.

"Yeah! Didn't you say you always wanted to go to Paris?" Laughed Alfred, and Matthew cursed, burning his hand on the spilt coffee and moving the phone away from his mouth. "And now you've got the chance! Come on, Mattie! What ever happen to following your dreams?! To believing in who you are-!!"

Matthew heard, in the background, someone asking, 'what does that have to do with-?' but Alfred quickly silenced them with a, 'hey, shut up.'

Sighing into the phone, the Canadian set down his cup of coffee and nervously adjusted his glasses. "Alfred… Don't you think that's a little much? I mean, really? Paris? I'd get lost in a heartbeat-"

"No you wouldn't!" Interjected his brother. "You'd have me and Artie! Wouldn't that be a fun little trip, Matt? You've always wanted to go to Paris! You've been telling me that forever! With all this money they're giving you, Matt, they're practically asking you to go!"

Matthew Williams did not claim to be the best writer in the world. He was perfectly content to go to college, go to the library, do his work, and later write little children's books. That was great for him. He wouldn't be famous, no one would really know his name, but some little kid would ask their mom to read them HIS book on night… he hoped.

But he had still obtained this wonderful scholarship. When Arthur was more than prepared to pay for all of his expenses. It was a big mistake to include this in one of his emails to his brother in America, as Alfred had immediately called him at 5:14 in the morning – which was why he was making coffee right now, because he knew there would be no way in hell that he was going to get back to bed after this conversation. It was Alfred, after all.

Alfred had a knack for turning Matthew's words around so that he was agreeing with the American.

"Al, this sounds like you just wanna get outta your house and go on a vacation," he admitted, leaning against the counter. Upon doing this, his coffee spilt all over him and he moved the phone away from him again so he could whisper a shrill 'shit!'

"No, no-that's the beauty of this Mattie. Listen to me-you know how much I hate it here. And how much you hate it there-"

"Alfred, I happen to like Canada. I told you it was the way to go but you-"

"Ah, ah, ah, I'm not done, Matt! You gotta listen! Now… What if… I told you… you could just… got to paris and blow a whole lot of money and have the time of your fucking life?! Doesn't that sound awesome!? Fucking Paris, Matt! Everyone wants to go to Paris, don't act like you don't."

"Al, it's not that I don't want to it's just-"

"Aha! I know what it is!" Matthew could just see his brother bouncing around the room as he talked, and he rolled his eyes, letting the American humor him. "You're scared to live a little! Come on, Matt, you're acting like this sort of opportunity happens everyday! You gotta take some chances! Up, hold on, gotta click a button."

Matthew opened his mouth to counter that statement, but quickly closed it and furrowed his small blond eyebrows, a bit perplexed by that last statement.

Alfred was quiet for just a moment (which was a rare occurrence, for him to be quiet for anything under a quarter of a second), and then he whispered, as if excited into the phone, "Hey. Hey Matt. Guess what I just did?"

Sighing, Matthew picked up his coffee cup, which he was finally going to drink. Tiredly (and maybe out of boredom), he let his eyes flutter and falter for just a moment before rising the cup to his lips to take a sip. "What, Al? What did you do?"

"Bought us some plane tickets to France."

Matthew's promptly spurted from his mouth, scaring his white dog away with a yip, and Matthew again lowered the phone away from him so he could yell, "Oh, Kuma, I'm sorry!"

"Bonjour, et bienvenue vers Paris," Francis greeted, twirling around as he walked. The women he addressed giggle in response, waving to him kindly and walking down the streets.

Francis watched them walk around, smiled as they left, then frowned. Tourists. To hell with the lot of them. Tourists made business terrible because there was always so many of them. They were everywhere. You couldn't turn a corner without hearing god awful French asking you how to get to the Eiffel Tower. Which had happened to him before, and he had stared at the woman before him in complete and total shock. He then raved about how the Tower's 'Right bloody there, you can't miss it.'

He groaned softly to himself. He was really tired of walking around everywhere constantly to avoid being seen at any given place. He had no time to relax. But then again, he supposed he had sort of accepted (and expected) that when he agreed to step up with Antonio and become the Mafia's sub-boss.

Poor Antonio had it worse than him. The man couldn't leave headquarters. But Francis… Francis had been spotted – Francis was a wanted man, albeit a sneaky one. He barely remembered the days Antonio and him had been roped into joining in the first place, and here they were running the joint when they didn't even want to. They planned to leave some day soon, leave like Gilbert had, wherever he was.

At that moment, Francis was moseying around the airport. He had been up and down the city countless times, and he figured he would just sit down and watch all the pretty faces come in. Though only one in ten were… well, pretty.

"Ah, Mademoiselle, welcome to Paris," he cooed at a young lady walking by. "Enjoy your stay." As he winked, the girl flushed a brilliant red, clung to the arm of her friend, who started laughing at her, and shyly ran away.

Pretty… But Francis had seen Prettier.

"Alfred! Stop moving so fast! I-I can't carry all this by myself!"

Francis's ears perked, and he looked up, searching the crowd for the voice he heard. Although there were many others, that worried tone had perked his interest, and it's owner had to be the prettiest thing he'd see for a while. Had to be, by the sound of that voice.

He wasn't tall, but he wasn't short either. His hair wasn't straight or curly, but a little wavy, almost like Francis's own. His glasses were sliding off his face, and he was hurriedly and worriedly running after someone in front of him. He was carrying several bags and suitcases, and seemed to be having a terrible time with keeping them in his arms. So Francis decided to intervene.

"Ici, permettez-moi vous aider avec cela," he said, his voice light and warm, as he picked the bags from the boys arms. In turn, the pretty tourist turned as red as the hoodie was wearing, and went completely stiff. "Vous parlez français?" Francis asked, casually.

The poor thing looked completely mesmerized. His glasses were still a bit crooked on his face, and his bright blue eyes were wide with… with some emotion the Frenchman couldn't identify. "Er," He murmured, furrowing his eyebrows at the boy and setting his bags down. "Do you speak French?"

"…Oh! Oh, no, I mean-I understood you I just… I'm a little… Uh…"

Francis smiled. He was even cuter when he was nervous. "Jetlag?"

"Um… Maybe." His nimble fingers slicked some of his hair behind his ear, and he smiled the single sweetest smile Francis had ever seen. His rosy cheeks glinted down to a light shade of pink, and in one quick motion, he adjusted his glasses onto his face.

Francis could only stare at him. As adorable as he was, he had better learn to not be so sweet to every stranger he saw.

"Hey, Mattie!" called a voice from somewhere in the bustling crowd. Francis continued to stare into the eyes of this boy, who amiably smiled back, until he – apparently – heard his name and jumped up.

"Oh, that-That's my brother, I-"

"Don't let me keep you, chéri," The older man purred, moving some hair out of Matthew's face. "Have fun."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked away, waving at Matthew from behind. The Canadian stared at him, his glasses falling down his nose again, in complete and total awe. When he looked down, he realized all of things he had been carrying her laying neatly at his feet, arranged in a way Matthew could easily pick up. This only made him blush more.

"Mattie," cried Alfred, looking stern and serious (or, as stern as Alfred could be). He literally slid to a stop next to his brother, and suspiciously watched the Frenchman walk away, his hands in his coat packets. "The hell was that? You know that creepy bastard? Matt, you can't just let any old French guy go up to you and start talking to you! They're French! They're suave and sweet-talking, but in the end they just wanna get into your pants, you know that-"

At this, Matthew snapped out of his trance and looked at his brother sideways. "Alfred, that's very stereotypical and-"

"Next time anybody comes walking up to you, scream and flail and call for your brother, Me!" Here, Matthew resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I'll swoop down and be your hero!"

"Alfred! Matthew! What the bloody hell is taking you so long?"

Matthew looked behind Alfred, who simply looked over his shoulder, and withheld the presence of Arthur Kirkland, in all of his glory. He had his thin arms crossed over his chest, and his (rather large) eyebrows furrowed down in agitation as they always were. His bright green eyes, as pretty as they were, always found a way to look aggravated and tired. How he and Alfred had maintained such a wonderful friendship was always beyond Matthew.

"Just teachin' my little bro not to talk to strangers," chirped Alfred with his usual shining smile, as he slapped his brother on the back, making him flinch slightly. "You ready to get going, Artie?"

Arthur scoffed at the nickname, but Matthew noted he never objected to being called by it. He turned his nose up at the brothers, 'hmph'-ing audibly. "Yes, yes. Let's get going now, shall we? I'd rather not have to cart you around the city like a couple of 5 year olds."

As usual, Alfred closed his eyes, smiled cheerily and said (just as Matthew knew he would), "You're so cute, Artie." He made a habit out of saying this whenever Arthur said something unnervingly cruel or sarcastic, and Matthew didn't know if he did this to pick on the stoic Briton, but he knew that his brother was sure to say it every time.

Arthur, as he always did, blushed a light shade of pink, furrowed his eyebrows down further, and deepened the scowl he always wore. Then he zipped around and murmured something about what a sodding imbecile Alfred was and stomped off. And, following their nice little routine, Alfred just continued to laugh and walked after his friend.

Matthew groaned loudly. "Guuuuys," he whined, as his voice broke the teensiest bit. "I said I can't carry this by myself!"

"So, Artie," smiled Alfred. "Where do you wanna go first? I told you I'd let you pick the hotel and the restaurant so go on and pick one! Do you wanna go shopping? I know that sounds kinda… gay and girly but… Hell, it's Paris, so we might as well, you know? Damn, I bet everything's really expensive though. Ha, but we've got money to spend, don't we?"

With every word that came out of Alfred's mouth, Arthur felt a few brain cells of his explode. It was at times like this, wandering the busy streets of fucking Paris, knowing, feeling, that they were going to get lost, he asked himself why. He asked himself why he had kept himself in Alfred's company for so long?

He asked himself that question every other day. And usually it was when he was feeling solemn and when he was sitting in that chair in their apartment Alfred had spilt tea on that one time when he was bringing it to Arthur while on the phone with his brother. But anyway. The question usually evaporated into thin air when his roommate would walk up to him and smile that same breathtaking smile, asking him what was up.

In all of his years (and Alfred like to remind Arthur that he was boring an old man), Arthur would never, ever imagine that out of all the beautiful people out there, out of all the wonderful people he knew that were so sensible and calm and collected, he had fallen in love with his roommate Alfred.

He shuddered just admitting it to himself. When thinking of that sort of thing, his affections would sneak into his mind, making him flustered. Or well, more so than usual.

One day, he promised himself. He would get over this stupid… erm… c-crush.

Him admitting his feelings to Alfred was out of the question. So Arthur devoted his attention on making the feeling go away. Lord knows how many times he had tried moving out. Tried. He could never do it. He'd pack his bags, having not told his roommate, and then Alfred would slide into his room on the hardwood floor with his socks on, his hair a mess and his eyes wide and glowing like a child, ask Arthur how he felt about getting a dog. And Arthur would sigh, hide his bags out of Alfred's view and remind him that the apartment building didn't allow animals, and then Alfred would hang his head and Arthur would have to go and console him. What was he talking about again? Oh yes. He couldn't move out.

"Artie? Are you listening to me?" Arthur looked over his shoulder to find Alfred's lips pursed together tightly, so like a child's, and he gave his friend a rare little genuine smile.

"Honestly? No. What did you say?"

Alfred sighed tiredly, almost groaning, then smiled his usual one. "Ah, nothing. Matt, you've been quiet – You want me to take some more of your ba-- …Matt?"

Arthur turned around, and joined Alfred in gaping at the air, where Matthew should have been.

"…A-Al?"

Oh geez. Oh man, oh geez, oh man, oh geez, oh God. He was lost. Lost in Paris. Lost in one of the biggest, most complex cities in the world. He gripped the shoulder strap of the messenger bag his brother had given to him (because Alfred had insisted on carrying fucking everything, leaving Matthew with the tiniest bag they had).

"Al?" echoed a voice, gruff and low, and Matthew jumped, pursing his lips together so he wouldn't audibly squeak. "Hey, Alfonse. Think he's lookin' for you."

"Oh," rasped Matthew, his voice suddenly leaving him. "N-No, n-not you-M-My brother Alfred. I-I'm just-It's OK, I'll just be-be on my way and-"

"Hey," Came another voice, presumably Alfonse. What's in the bag? S'it really that heavy or are you arms just shit?" A chorus of odd, rough laughter erupted lightly between the two strangers, and Matthew shivered.

Don't talk to strangers, he reminded himself, and he bypassed the two quickly, taking a little shortcut through an alleyway. One of them was quickly in front of him, making him yelp and jump back, which caused more amused laughs from the two.

"Lemme guess, tourist? How ya likin' the city? You know… And I think you'll agree with me here, Ray… Tourists are just bad for business, ya know? I mean, I can't go anywhere without havin' 'em as witnesses. Aggravating, don't you think?"

Matthew backed away from the two of them, gripping onto the strap of the shoulder bag, before bumping into the chest of a third man, and his face became white.

He was far too scared to make another shriek as a warm hand placed itself on his shoulder, and he didn't know whether to be relieved or frightened when he heard from behind him, "When I told you to have fun, chéri, this wasn't what I had in mind."