"Master Ludwig!" The little servant shouted through the house. Because her mother had worked for Ludwig's parents, He had decided that he should do the same thing for their young son. Ludwig always wore a black suit, wanting to be professional like his father, but Feliciano had only his mother after the plague of all things to kill someone in the modern age had taken his father. So he put on a tiny version of her dress, and she didn't seem to mind. As such, Ludwig thought him a girl, and one that was quite pretty.

" I told you that you don't have to call me master. We're friends, so you can just use my name." He assured her for the hundredth time, but still she refused to break the character she had created for herself.

"I painted you a picture." She said, ignoring him and holding up the small canvas. He was surprised to see a picture of them, holding hands upon a hill. The part that shocked him was that, in spite of the fact that he almost never smiled, she had captured the expression perfectly in the artwork, in spite of the fact that they were only ten.

"It's so pretty. You'll be a great artist one day. When I take over father's company, I'll buy all your paintings, so that no one else can take the beauty from me." He promised, and the cross-dressing servant smiled from ear to ear.

"That makes me happy. We can live together, and I'll paint you anything you want. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Yeah. Hey, Felicia, do you think that we could get married one day?" The blonde said, his blue eyes full of hopeful question.

"Of course. We already spend all our time together, and the butterflies in my belly are like love, right?"

"I think so. Besides, there's no one I'd rather be with than you. So it makes sense that we should get married." Even in the childish promise, one could clearly see their perspectives. Feliciano saw the whimsical romance of it, while Ludwig was all about logic; what made sense was what was inevitably right.

"When we get older then."

"Hold out your pinky, so we can swear on it." He said, holding out his little finger to the person he had come to love in the way that only children can. Love without limits; without complications; without pain.

"Of course." Feliciano reciprocated the gesture, and they both smiled as they looked into each other's eyes.

"In Italy, where my mama is from, they make promises with a kiss." The servant said. Ludwig nodded, and placed his shaking lips lightly against hers. After but a brief, chaste brush, Ludwig's father called for him. They had to go to one meeting or another, as was the story of the corporate boys life.

"Goodbye. Have a nice day, master Ludwig." Feliciano said, bowing slightly.

"Call me Ludwig." He called back as he rushed down to meet his family.

…

Ludwig was ecstatic. He was allowed to ride in the front seat of the car that his father was driving. A well built SUV from their home country of Germany. He had always been confined to the backseat, even having to stay in one of those demeaning booster seats for a year after his little Felicia. And that thought made him even happier. She had promised to marry him when they got older. She was really his, and she was far more valuable than this car, or even the mansion he lived in.

But this was perhaps the worst possible day to let the young boy into the front seat, for the back is much more secure. And there just happened to be a man in a pickup truck who wasn't watching where he was going. And he just happened to slam into the driver side of the vehicle, killing Ludwig's father instantly and slamming Ludwig's still developing head into the glass of his side, knocking him out cold and spraying blood everywhere. The boy held on to the image of Felicia smiling at him with her pinky extended toward him, as the rest seemed to fade away. Fade into the dark pit of circumstance, where even the innocent were torn apart by the hungry lions that were fate.

When Feliciano heard the news, he rushed to the hospital as fast as his mother would drive him. Only to be told that in all likely hood his friend would never wake up, and that if he did he would do so as an orphan. It would be Ludwig's uncle, Gilbert who would take over the company unless a miracle happened and Ludwig awoke competent and able to do so.

Soon after, he was informed that master Gilbert would be firing his mother, but because he did have a heart, he'd be sending them to work for his friend Francis, a wine tycoon from France. But Feliciano cared little about money, or where he was working. He cared only about the fact that this new place of employment was too far away for him to sneak away and see Ludwig, and his mother was convinced that for him to see him would be bad for the boy. That it would bring up bad memories and never let her son get over the effectual death of his best and only friend.

"Well, aren't you the cute little one." The Frenchman said, patting Feliciano on the head, now wearing the male clothing that was appropriate. Without Ludwig, there was no character to maintain, and so there was no reason to wear the dress that was quite uncomfortable in his opinion.

"Thank you sir. My name is Feliciano." He said, bowing accordingly. He acted with the same formality as he had at Ludwig's house, but his heart wasn't in it. In fact, the boy was thoroughly convinced that his heart wasn't inside himself, either, but rather still in the hospital beating next to the boy who had stolen it and gotten away without a hitch.

"And wonderful manners as well. And you must be his mother…" They went along to talk business, and Feliciano simply sat in the large foyer looking out of one of the huge windows, as if he could see his love if he looked hard enough. The house was nice, even bigger than his old one. There were plenty of pretty girls running around, even offering to get him things, as if he wasn't just another servant. But in spite of this, or the wonderful garden in the back that normally would have screamed at him to paint it, or even the fact that this master would allow him to go to school, rather than being home schooled, he was still gloomy. The cheerful, always smiling Felicia was sleeping with her friend. Submissive, but unemotional Feliciano was awake.

….

"Feliciano, would you come here for a moment?" Francis said as the boy went to deliver him his evening tea.

"Yes sir?" He asked, placing the silver tray down and looking into the blue eyes of his new master. Not the wonderful sky blue of Ludwig, but more of a deep sea tone. Blonde hair fell over them, but not like the short and well kept style of Ludwig's angel colored locks. It seemed to be purposefully disheveled, but that seemed strange to the Italian boy.

"I understand that you were good friends with Ludwig, huh?"

"Yeah. We even said that we would get married when we were older." The boy said, but then wondered if he had done something wrong when the small grin became a scary smile coming from the Frenchman.

"Well, I hope that you can one day become good friends with me as well." The blonde said.

"Um…I think I hear Mama calling me…" He said, feeling weird as large cold hands were placed on his chest.

"Your mother is out fro groceries. She isn't anywhere near here." He said, unbuttoning the jacket to the boy's suit.

"W-what are you doing, master Francis?" Feliciano exclaimed, every red flag in his mind raised.

"I find that there is a sure fire way to get over someone you loved before, and I'm showing you that way." He said, as if he was simply being kind.

" I don't Wanna get over Ludwig. And I don't like this kind of touching, so I would very much like for you to stop." He said, but didn't move, more than knowing he wasn't the one in charge here. He was shy and submissive, much like Matthew, the son that Francis had taken away from him after a hushed child molestation case.

"But you aren't who gets to decide, and I very much do like this touching." This was followed by his creepy laugh, and tears started to form in Feliciano's eyes and the rest of his clothing was removed. His mother had been sent all over town, and wouldn't be back for at least an hour. That left Francis at least an hour to do whatever he wanted with his new toy.

….

After forty five minutes, the small boy had been told to replace his clothing and report back for another round the next day. He had also been told that if he told anyone, not only would nothing happen to him, but that his mother would be the one to take the fall. People would say she was a bad mother, and he'd fire her. They'd be homeless, and his mother would starve to death. Not wanting anything to happen to the only thing he had left, he did as instructed and limped back to the room he had so graciously been given all to himself. He now found out that it was likely just so that he had a place to clean the evidence of his master's sin from his body, and cry. Tears that tried in vain to wash the taint that he felt had entered his body away. But it was useless. He would never become clean. Never regain the childish innocence that had been robbed from him at the same time as the one he loved. The only one he could have seen gently caressing that innocence away from him and cherishing it like it was the largest diamond in the world, and then some.

But love was of little consequence. Nor was virtue, or even honesty. All that mattered was doing as he was told, and hoping and praying that one day his sleeping Prince would wake up and rescue him from the dragon that was his new life, breathing scorching flames into his very soul and leaving him with little left to save. This was the new life of Feliciano Vargas. This was what happened behind the closed doors of the Bonnefoy house, when his mother was away. A life of pain, and a life of guilt. For, even though it was not he who was doing this horrid thing, it was he who did nothing to stop it. It was he who allowed the desecration of the body and should he had since promised to someone who deserved it so much more. But now, Feliciano felt he deserved nothing. Over time, he began to hope that Ludwig would never wake up, so that way he didn't have to decide whether or not he wanted something so foul as what his sweet little Felicia had become, without heart soul, and slowly loosing his mind. He hoped that Ludwig would die, and go to heaven where he would never have to deal with anything like this again. And then he started hoping that he himself would die, and be taken from this earthly hell, for not even Satan could think of something worse for him. But these were all prayers from a distraught child, and God either didn't listen, or knew better than to answer, for nothing happened for nine long years.

A/N- So this is fairly angsty, as most of my stories are. In case you haven't noticed, Feliciano is being raped by France, and it's only gonna get more explicit. Anyway, hope you enjoyed and will review.