For this Chapter:

Character(s), Pairing(s): USUK, France, Spain, mentioned: PruCan, Scotland, Sealand, Vargas family

Rating: T

Warnings: Angst. Language: I'm cursing in my notes today, it seems, and the boys are fond of the word 'shit'. Slash: Do I need to keep putting this one here? Uh, also? If you haven't read Life Starts Now, you might want to before you go any further, because there are major spoilers for it in this chapter. There were last chapter as well, but this has the big spoilers in it.

Chapter Summary: The cracks begin to appear, and silence is lost.

A/N: OH MY GOD GUYS, I GOT INTO UNIVERSITY. ONWARDS. Notes at the end! Enjoy my lovelies!

Chapter Four: I'm Not Your Ghost (Christina Perri, Jar of Hearts)

At first, it was silent, and Arthur lay there, thinking to himself, that maybe, just maybe, it'd be a good day. Maybe he could actually get some work done, plot out the next issue of Clairvoyance and watch the curve of Alfred's back as he stretched out muscles cramped from endless drawing. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It was a foolish hope, really.

Beside him, Alfred stirred in his sleep, reacting to the thoughts bouncing off the walls of Arthur's skull, but not yet waking. A hitch of his breath – a pause in Arthur's – had him falling back into sleep.

Hauling himself from their bed, Arthur touched Alfred's hair lightly, combed his fingers through it, rested on his neck and felt the throb of Alfred's pulse under his fingertips, matching the steady drumbeat of his own, trailed down the exposed arm, smiled a little when the fingers twitched, and turned away. Salem, curled into a ball of black fluff at the foot of the bed, blinked open one bright eye at his movement. Her tail twitched when Arthur made a staying motion with his hand, but she too went back to sleep, stretching a little and filling the space his foot had vacated.

The glass panes of the window were cold and fogged, even in the stale heat of encroaching summer as Arthur rested his shoulder and temple against them, arms folded as he looked out over the mists on the cobblestones of the street, on the moon hanging low and full in the night sky. Somewhere, the other side of town, Francis was calling for last orders, telling the younger drinkers to get back to their own homes and their own beds lest he call their mothers – and he would, Saint Hetalia was small enough for that – and the other side of the woods, the Gateway lingered.

Oh, the Asylum had been pulled down, of course, after Arthur had called in about Gilbert's body, and they'd found countless others in there, locked in cupboards, and buried in the floors and walls, rotting under refuge. It made sense, though, Arthur supposed with a sigh, because Matthew had not by any means been the only one to find the demon that lurked there with its jaws wide open, waiting to snag itself another innocent. It was safer for it to be pulled down, they said.

It was going to be dead ground, they said. Nothing was going to be built over the remains, the superstitious bastards that they were. Arthur had to ask himself – and indeed, the people who ran the place – why it hadn't been pulled down when it was closed, but rumour was that they'd planned to turn it into a block of flats.

Great idea, that. Everyone would have been dead within a week.

"Fools," Arthur sighed under his breath, barely speaking over the exhale, and watched the mists some more.

It was going to rain, somewhere between lunchtime and three, maybe a little later than that. The storm had been threatening for days, lingering on the edge of town, but never actually arriving and giving Arthur's garden the watering it was in desperate need of. The roses were suffering, of course, and the ground was bone dry, odd for this time of year. Not that it really mattered if it rained, Arthur had a hosepipe, and he'd done the week's washing already, so it wasn't likely to impact on him either way.

He sighed again, rolled his shoulders against the chill crawling up his spine, and slid his gaze from the street to the woods lurking at the edge of town.

People had died in there, that he knew. Gilbert had died in there, not that he'd realised it at the time, of course, blissful in his ignorance as he was, wrapped up in everything that Matthew was, and Matthew – Matthew had died in the lake, he'd been raped and stabbed and thrown in there like a broken doll. How the boy had kept his head Arthur didn't know, because they all knew what the results of the blood analysis on that knife had been, they all knew what it meant, what the demon had done.

And yet Matthew still loved the East German, still sought him out and clung to him, used him as a springboard into the afterlife, and Arthur envied him, a little, but couldn't begrudge him for it. The boy had died, what did he expect? Life wasn't all sunshine and roses, and neither was death. To be murdered by the one person in the world you loved, to have them not realise it, not know it even after death…

Salem stirred, stretched and arched her back and clawed Alfred's uncovered ankle for a moment before leaping off the bed and pawing at Arthur's foot. Obligingly, he crouched, and she leapt up onto his shoulders, purring in his ear, the vibrations running the length of her body, down his neck and spine.

"What am I going to do?" he whispered, reaching up to run his fingers over the curve of her ears, jingle the bell on her collar. "What can I do?"

Her purring stopped, and she batted at his jaw, nearly falling off him in the process. Giving her a soft, fond smile as he caught her and set her back, Arthur kept his eyes on the forest.

"There's something out there," he told her quietly. "I don't know what, but it's out there, and it's waiting for me to slip up. It's in the woods; I can feel it staring at me."

"Then stop staring back," Alfred grumbled from the bed, and Arthur looked at him, sprawled on his back with an arm slung over his eyes and the other in the crease of the sheets Arthur's body had made. The blankets were twisted over his hips, knotted around one leg, and he looked gorgeous lying there, Adonis in the bed of Aphrodite, but Arthur was not so arrogant as to presume himself to be worthy of such a man. "And come back to bed. Christ, I can hear you thinking from here."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Arthur sniped back, but there was little to no bite in his words. "I didn't mean to wake you by actually using my brain."

Alfred waved his middle finger in his boyfriend's general direction, and twisted to fling his limbs over Arthur the moment the other had settled back into the mattress.

"Love you," he mumbled into the join of Arthur's shoulder and neck, and Arthur chuckled, put a hand in Alfred's hair.

"It was always you," he whispered back, and stroked that wheat-blond hair until Alfred's breaths had evened out again, his limbs turning to dead weight over him, warmth coiling in his chest.

Arthur, of course, didn't go back to sleep, choosing instead to stare at the ceiling, thoughts trailing back to the Gateway, to the Thing in the woods. God only knew what it was, but hadn't Gilbert said that there were worse things out there than the demon that had lurked in the Asylum? Arthur didn't believe for a second that Gilbert had truly paid it off, one soul, no matter how willing (and consequently untouchable, for Alexandrus had informed Arthur of it a few months later, and Arthur found it highly entertaining that even the Otherworld had its own loopholes. Sincerity, apparently, was one of them) could be enough to satisfy the demon's craving for payment. It was still around, locked into the Otherworld, perhaps, where it couldn't infect anyone, but it was still there.

Gilbert had spoken of Perdition, told him of the things that lurked there, of the Gateway and how it needed to be closed again, and really, Arthur should be looking into that, rather than eyeing up his boyfriend under the pretence of work and thinking about the things he could do to him if given half the chance. There were more important things, Arthur knew, than shagging his boyfriend, but what was important anymore? What really mattered now, beyond Alfred?

"You didn't sleep, did you?" Alfred grumbled a few hours later, the sun just beginning to send its first rays through the window, sending dappled, extended shadows across the walls and picking out pencil lines and ink blots on the desk.

Arthur lay there in silence for a few minutes, just listening to Alfred's breaths as they fluttered against his neck, felt the thump of Alfred's heart against his ribs, revelled in the warmness of the cocoon the other's body had encased him in, the tightness of Alfred's hand on his hip.

"Arthur," he warned, and Arthur waved a nonchalant hand.

"I dozed."

"Bullshit," Alfred snorted, but hauled himself upright, swinging out of bed and padding across the landing into the bathroom. Not for the first time, Arthur sent a prayer of thanks to the ceiling, grateful that Timo and Berwald had taken Peter in for the year Arthur had been inside, and supremely grateful that Peter didn't want to come back.

Still, Alfred had a nice arse, so it wasn't like he was complaining. Much.

"What's the plan for today?" Alfred called, and Arthur rolled out of bed and stretched aching limbs.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror as he did so, and hated what he saw.

"I was going to get the next issue planned out," Arthur shrugged. "But if you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

Alfred's laugh echoed across the house. "You're insatiable!"

"You love it."

"I was going to see Feli, actually," Alfred told him after a moment had passed. Arthur heard him spit, then water ran, and Alfred reappeared in the doorway. "I need to ask him about some stuff."

"The people who are calling the landline," Arthur corrected, and then asked, "And what his family has found out?"

Alfred stared at him over his shoulder, underwear in hand. "You know about that?"

"I'm not an idiot." He frowned at his boyfriend for a moment, watching the arch of his back as he staggered, trying to pull his socks on. "I'm not some damsel, Alfred, I don't need rescuing. I can take care of myself."

"Really?" Alfred asked, a bitter, angry note creeping into his voice as his eyebrows lowered into a scowl, directed not at Arthur, but at the pair of tattered, faded jeans he was pulling on. Arthur could feel his heart skittering, and knew Alfred's was doing the same. "Then why am I the one who has to get you out of the Otherworld? Why am I the one who has to drop everything I'm doing to come take care of you when you're sat in the corner sobbing like a little girl 'cause the big bad Ghosts are out to get you?"

Arthur's frown turned into a glare as Alfred finished dressing, and his heart thumped against his ribs, a staccato of anger and fear that sent his brain skittering for a split second. "I never asked you to! I never asked for you to stay! I distinctly remember telling you to piss off when I went inside, and you wouldn't go! No matter how many times I leave you, Alfred, you're always the one who comes back!"

"Because you killed me!" Alfred snapped. "You ripped my heart out of my chest and took with it anything that Matt left!"

"Well excuse me for saving your life! Next time I won't bother!"

"Good!" Alfred snapped, "Because you're the one who has to die to get me killed!"

"Oh, rot in hell!"

"Don't worry! I'm already there!"

The door slammed shut, and Arthur's heart was pounding, blood rushing in his ears, threatening to drown him where he stood, trembling and gasping for breath. He could hear Alfred's heavy footfalls on the stairs, Salem hissing, and then the front door slammed. A moment of stillness passed, and Arthur was staggering his way into the bathroom to vomit nothing but bile into the toilet.


He went to see Francis a few hours later, finding the older man back at the club, working on some paperwork.

"Don't you have kids to tutor?" Arthur asked as he stepped into the cool darkness of the bar.

"Don't you have a fight to work out?" Francis countered, not looking up. "And no, she's ill, so I've got the day off."

"You heard about that?" he mumbled, looking at his feet for a second.

"Of course I heard about it," Francis told him, capping his pen and straightening. "Unfortunately for you, I hear about pretty much everything, including your little escapade in the wheat fields out of town." When Arthur's ears went red, he laughed, and stretched. "Do you really regret saving Alfred's life, Arthur?"

"Of course I don't," Arthur snapped, finally throwing himself onto the chair opposite his best friend. "But – I'm responsible for the boy now, you know? It's just – I saved his life, and tied it to my own. His heart is mine, his very life is mine. I've got to keep myself alive to keep him alive, and no matter what I do to try and make him live his own life, he never listens."

"Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, Alfred wants to be part of your life? And that maybe – I might be wrong here, so don't hold me to it – maybe you need to stop seeing him as the boy you put in a coma, and as the man you fell in love with?" He spread idle hands, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "I mean, really, kitten, what happened to you? To you both? You were the picture of innocence and young love and all that we as human beings long to have in our lives, and yet here you are, again, in the fallout of another fight over the asininity that befalls even the greatest of lovers. Oh, yes, I have fought too."

"Don't talk shit," Arthur chided, picking at a paperclip on the table, not once meeting Francis' eyes. "I – Francis, it's not for lack of trying. But – do you know how hard it is, to love and know you are loved, and yet, nothing you do can measure up to that? I mean, I thought so hard about it, about all that Alfred has done for me over the years, all that I have never done for him, and – I've tried, so hard, to be the man I thought I had to be – I mean – I saved his life, didn't I? When the experts thought he was gone, I pulled him out of the arms of death and breathed life back into him."

Francis chortled. "Why do you have to insist on waxing poetic, Arthur? What you did was what any man with your power would do to save the one he loves. I never got to see you after you went to the Asylum for the last time, but I heard about it. I know that you called the police and went straight to Alfred's room and set up camp there, waiting for him to wake. I heard about how you kissed him and vowed your love unto him. And I saw you the day you told him about Matthew's Ghost, I saw his reaction and I saw how you wanted to touch him, how you wanted to sweep him into your arms and promise him that everything would be okay even as he shattered into a thousand pieces before you, and I saw how it tore you apart. But that is your failing, I think, kitten, you think too much and fail to act. For all your words and all your thoughts, you have never been much of a man of action."

"And you call me poetic."

"Oh, hush, kitten."

Arthur frowned at the paperclip. "I wish you'd stop calling me kitten."

Francis grinned at him, and hummed delightedly, resting his chin on one hand. "I could call you my little rabbit if you prefer."

Arthur kicked him.

"You do that, and I'll nail your balls to the ceiling."

There was an indulgent look on Francis' face. "I know you, Arthur, you don't visit without reason; what are you after?"

"I need a lift," he told the paperclip, now bent into a snail-like shape, in the process of being bent into a tighter coil. "To the Church."

"What a surprise," Francis replied, snarky and even a little bored. "I tell you, it's a good job I no longer have that SUV isn't it? Think of the petrol I used to use up ferrying you around." He hauled himself to his feet and gestured for Arthur to follow.

"Oh, give over, Francis," Arthur chided, a droll look on his face as he stepped outside and waited for the other to unlock the car doors. "You got rid of that SUV years ago because the millage was so bad. That's why you went and bought this piece of junk Peugeot two-oh-six instead."

"Hey," Francis protested, lovingly patting the roof of the car before unlocking the driver's side door and climbing in. After he'd unlocked the door and Arthur had pulled it open, he said, "This car is an absolutely beauty, and much better than that Mini you used to drive."

Arthur snorted and clipped the seatbelt into place. "That Mini was fine until Alfred ruined the suspension. You only like this car because you can race Timo in it."

"That too."

Five hours in a car with Francis was an utter nightmare, Arthur knew that, but since Alfred was now off wherever he was, throwing a tantrum – most likely, he was with Feliciano, blubbing into a cappuccino and whining about how unfair life was, and Feliciano was indulging him as much as the Italian ever indulged anyone – there were few other options available to him. He could, theoretically, drive himself, but he wasn't sure he wouldn't do something dangerous, stupid and possibly even fatal if left alone. Of course, being in the Church meant he was alone, but it was silent there, a place where the Ghosts couldn't touch him.

If he was to drive himself there, he might not make it.

"What are you going to the Church for anyway?" Francis asked after an hour, and for a moment, Arthur ignored him, his attention stuck on the scenery. "Arthur?"

The Englishman made a questioning noise, snapped his gaze to where Francis was frowning at the road and said, "Oh, uh, what?"

Shifting gear, Francis repeated himself. Arthur watched the muscles in the Frenchman's arm, the way the sun glinted off the silver ring on his index finger, the way it caught in the dark blond hair on the back of his arm, a faint criss-cross of straw spun into gold.

"Arthur!"

He jerked a little, blinking at the force put into his name, and mumbled, "I want the quiet."

Francis slammed on the brakes and jerked the handbrake. Paused, both hands on the wheel. Sighed, killed the engine. Shifted in his seat. "The quiet."

"Yes, the quiet. What, am I not allowed?"

Francis raised his hands. "Always so defensive! Really, kitten, I'm not judging you – well, I am judging you, that's the problem – no, what I mean to say is; why do you need the quiet enough to want it?"

"It's noisy without Alfred in here keeping it down," Arthur replied, drawing his legs up to his chest, tapping his temple with a knuckle before burying his nose in his knees.

"Oh, kitten," Francis sighed. He reached out and put a hand on Arthur's hair, tangled his fingers in it, stroked down to rest on the jut of bone sticking out of the back of his neck, and his skin was warm and soft and the pressure was nice, Arthur thought, curling into it, even if it burnt with its warmth, the age in Francis's skin wearing on him. "You think too much, you know that?"

"I know," he mumbled back, staring resolutely at the winding road ahead of them. "That's the problem."

Francis' phone buzzed in his pocket, the bleep friendly; a text message.

"You going to read that?"

"No," Francis replied. "It will wait. You will not. We're going to sort this out, Arthur, between us. Yourself, Alfred and I, we'll sort this out, together. We have already let it go on for far too long."

"I wish I knew what was happening to me." It was a quiet admission, whispered into the heavy denim on his knees, and he wondered if Francis had even heard.

"So do I, kitten. So do I." He rubbed his thumb across a vertebra and squeezed softly. "Now come on, put your feet down – if you've marked the seat, I'll kill you – and let's get you to where you need to be. Unlike you, I have a job that has hours."

Arthur did as asked, and sent a shaky smile Francis's way as the older started the car once more. "Thank you," he whispered.

"You're welcome."

A moment of silence passed, and Arthur settled deeper into the seat, looking out at the sky.

"It's going to rain," he said.

"It always rains," Francis dismissed, absent.

Arthur glanced across at him. "Francis!" he snapped. "Don't text while you're driving! Christ Almighty you're as bad as Feliciano!"

Francis laughed, but didn't put the phone away. "Kitten, there's no one else on the road, it's clear, and I've been driving since before I was legally allowed to. Besides, if you'd care to recall, I wanted to be a stunt driver before I inherited the club."

"As I recall," Arthur told him, turning his chin up, "You got your licence revoked for dangerous driving." There was a minute's silence and then he asked, "What was it?"

"So nosy!" Francis grinned, and he had the audacity to reach across and tap Arthur's nose. Laughing when the Englishman swatted at him, he said, "It was Alfred, asking if you're okay. He's tried ringing your phone, but you're not picking up."

"I left it at home," Arthur said. "I didn't think – I – it doesn't matter, either way."

"And you call me the dangerous one."

"Oh, can it."

Francis laughed again, and they lapsed into silence.

Once again, Arthur was the one to break it. "He's worried about me, isn't he? More than he lets on."

"Of course he's more worried than he lets on. We all are."

Arthur chewed this over for a minute. "Even you?"

"Even me," Francis repeated, glancing across at where Arthur frowned at him. There was a softness in his voice that Arthur hadn't heard for years, and he supposed that it was the voice he used whilst tutoring. It was the voice of a big brother, the big brother Arthur had never had despite the blood in William's veins, the big brother he'd failed to be to Peter.

His phone bleeped again, but the older blond ignored it this time, focusing instead on the road.

"Is that – is that Lily of the Valley I can smell?"

It had been perhaps ten minutes of silence, perhaps, and Arthur had been the one to break it, once again. He wondered if that was why driving with Francis was utter hell – he couldn't keep his trap shut, and Francis just goaded him.

Francis flicked something hanging from the rear-view mirror. "New air freshener. One of the girls I tutor bought it for me. She said it reminded her of home, and when I told her I was born in Chinon, she insisted I have it."

When Arthur looked at it, he said, "It looks like a bird of some kind."

"It's an angel," Francis replied. "The Archangel Michael."

Arthur let go as though burnt and shrank back in his seat. Francis shot him a look.

"What was that?"

"I – I don't know."

"Clearly. If one young girl's religious beliefs upset you that much, I'll take it down."

"No, no, it's not that. It's just – I don't know what it is. I'm sorry," he grit out. "I overreacted."

"You think?"

Arthur smacked the other's arm, and Francis just laughed.


"Will you be alright?"

"I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? I can stay, if you need me. I can call Marie and tell her I'm sick."

Arthur made an amused little noise. "She won't buy it, she never buys it." He shook his head with another low laugh. "Just go, Francis. The Church is hallowed ground. I'm safe there."

"But safe from what? The Ghosts? Or yourself?"

"Both," Arthur replied with a shrug, because what point was there in lying? He raked a hand through his hair, and shrugged again. "I'll be fine – as fine as I can be, anyway – and you know where I am. Not that you'll be able to get in touch, but you know where I am. I just – I need to think, I need to be somewhere where I can't get interrupted, and the Church is the best place to be for that."

"Are you going to think of how to apologise to Alfred?"

"We are both at fault."

Francis blew a stray lock of hair from his face. "Well, at least you admit it now."

"Francis."

"I'm going, I'm going." The older man took a few steps back towards the car, and then paused, looked back. His eyes narrowed for a second into something that vaguely resembled a frown. "I'll tell Alfred you're here," he said, "Just so he knows. He'll probably come to get you in a few hours. You know how he gets."

"Can't stay away."

"Do you think that maybe it's because he loves you?"

"I know he loves me," Arthur whispered. "And one day, that's going to kill him. But it's okay, because it'll kill me, too. We won't have time to miss each other."

"You're a morbid bastard sometimes, kitten."

Arthur waved a hand. "Go on, get going."

"Be careful." Francis caught his jaw with one hand and planted a brotherly kiss on his forehead, a kiss from which Arthur shied with a disgusted noise.

"Always."

And he slipped through the door of the Church of the Martyred Alexandrus without another word.

It was quiet in the Church, a stillness made of faith and prayer, and it was a full silence, a place filled with people without a single heart beating within its walls. Warm without being oppressive, light without being blinding, open without being empty, it had been a well-loved building, and though the first time Arthur had been brought to the Church at the hands of Alexandrus himself, the doors had been chained shut, the Church now stood open to any who chose to enter it.

"Is anybody here?" he called as he stepped into the nave, the chill in the air suggesting that someone – something – was.

He was, of course, met with silence, but he was long since used to being met with silence. The air in the nave was always cold, and there was always the edge of a laugh on his throat, a laugh not entirely his own.

"Gil?"

More silence, but a smile curled his lips, familiar and warm, smug and even a little fond. The laugh that came from him after a second was his own, and the smile morphed into his own grin.

"I thought you weren't staying? The Gateway was open, you said, but it was too dangerous for you and Matthew to stay here. So how have you come back? Or is it this place? Is this place safe?"

He nodded a little, taking a step back and away, back towards the doors. The flagstone was loose as he neared it, and it took only a second to pry it up.

There was a pile of letters underneath, some written in a childish hand obviously a good two decades old, some recent, some newer still. One looked fresh; the ink was still wet.

To the me that reads this,

You won't understand, but you need to know:

It's not safe. Get out. They know. They're coming for you.

They'll kill him – Al – all of them.

To get to you. They want you dead.

Nobody's safe – from them, from you.

Get out – leave and don't come back.

Please. I beg myself to just go and don't look back. Leave them where they're safe and go.

They are looking for you and they will rest at nothing until your corpse lies six feet under on its way to hell. So please.

Go. Now.

Arthur. 24th April.

"Gil?" Arthur whispered, and looked up.

Whether he expected an answer from the younger man, whether he expected the Ghost to have suddenly appeared as he held his cursive, wet scrawl in shaking hands, nothing was forthcoming.

Instead, a trickle of rain rolled down the red stained glass of a rose, held in the delicate hands of an angel. Carved into the billowing robes of the celestial being, scratched into the glass like ancient graffiti, was a circle. Inside that circle was a triangle, and the inside of the triangle held a square. The square had its own circle inside, and it caught in the light, each line of geometry carved several times, built up to form alchemy instead of shapes.

"What do I do?" he whispered, terrified, even as he shoved the flagstone back into place and climbed to his feet. "What do I do?"

Somewhere, a clock chimed midnight.

"Hey, I've found him. Yeah. Yeah, I know, I don't know how we missed him either."

Footsteps, on the ground next to him, keeping pace. A laugh on a warm voice; sea and sand and blistering sunshine, worry on the edge of an accent; bulls and red cloths, fire and faith. His vision swam for a second, and a hand curled around his waist, held him as he staggered, clutched his head. He kept walking, and the footsteps kept stride.

"He looks like he's about to keel over. I don't know, I haven't spoken to him yet. Hey, Arthur? How long have you been walking?"

"Long enough," he whispered back. "Long enough."

"No," the voice said, tone directed at someone that Arthur couldn't see, couldn't hear. "He's not. Alright, I'll bring him your way. See you in five." A sigh. "Come on you, Alfred's waiting."

"I can't," Arthur shook his head vehemently, trying – and failing – to tug himself free of Antonio Fernandez Carriedo's far-too-firm grip. "I can't go back, can't risk him getting hurt. You'll all get hurt, because of me."

"Damn right we'll get hurt 'cause of you!" Antonio snapped, finally forcing Arthur to a halt, but the Englishman refused to meet his eyes, staring off at the white mists curling in on the edge of the woods. "Do you know how many times I've been stung with nettles? How much sleep we've lost looking for you?"

"I never asked you to look for me."

"No, but Alfred did, and since I'm under Vargas payroll, I do as I'm told. Alfred wanted us to look for you, so here we are. Now hold still."

The vague sensation of being lifted, carried, paella and wine, hot chocolate and dough. Warmth and footsteps that matched his stride. Fire and faith and strength honed in a ring.

"How long," Arthur began, whispered into olive skin darkened by the sun of a distant, golden country, and then paused. Started again. "How long have I been gone?"

"Thirty-six hours," Antonio whispered back.

++End Chapter++

NOTES::

Fuck you, Slender Man, fuck you and your trees.

I love Greek myths.

About kitten: I've seen a lot of French endearments used when Francis gets in one of his moods, but I decided against using them in their original French. One of my favourites is mon chaton, meaning my kitten. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I often call people 'kitten' instead of 'lovely', nothing at all. I played with the idea of calling him 'bunny' (Mon lapin) but I also decided against that one, it's weird. (And only suitable for the Author!Anon RP-verse. /shot)

Francis' Peugeot 206 is, of course, one of the WRC cars. For those who don't really follow it (I don't as much as I used to, I should though) The French and the Finns are usually in the top places every year. I just had a look at this year's standings thus far: Seb Loeb (France) is currently in the lead, with Mikko Hirvonen of Finland in second. I'm not surprised if I'm honest. I have a head!canon of those two taking time out of meetings in suitable places to rally drive their way through other nation's houses and getting arrested.

Arthur, what the hell? Apparently, he's been reading Rumpelstiltskin since he's described Francis's arm hair as straw spun into gold. My brain is mush.

William is my human name for Scotland.

I'm wondering if any of you have realised who the girl Francis is tutoring is. How well do you guys know French history and/or have been paying attention to France's storylines?

Fear my knowledge of Spanish cuisine. Also, hot chocolate and dough is a reference to Spain's (un)healthy love for churros, which are often served with hot choc for breakfast. Apparently. Citation: Wikipedia. I also completely ignored how they're big on seafood *gags*

I say I 'now have Twitter' but in reality, I've had it for a year, and just never touch it. Still. Link in profile, feel free to follow me and read my utter fail at anything and everything.

And, lol, whoops, I just spotted a typo (now fixed, just so you know) in chapter 2, in which I say they've been together 7 years, not counting the year Arthur was in prison. That uh, that year does count. Let's all pretend I can do math, shall we? That sounds good to me! Oh, and also? Five hours in a car? Where the hell do they live? I don't know, but let's pretend it's not five hours because that's unrealistic. It takes about two hours to get to my university from where I live, which is at least halfway across England.

ANYWAY. I hope you've enjoyed my lovelies, because I'm having so much fun with this world, you wouldn't believe. The things I have planned! ++Vince++