Warnings for this part: mentions of violence and death, descriptions of war zones, hostage situations.

Romano didn't venture outside his room much anymore.

There wasn't anything out there for him. At least, that's what he seemed to think ever since their Great Lord Romulus sent Marie away. If Romano had wilted during the breakup, it was nothing compared to the slump he had fallen into after Marie's disappearance.

He was no more pleased when he learned that his brother Feliciano was now dating, and quite content with his love life.

"Fratello, please," said Feliciano, reaching out a hand to touch Romano's cheek. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

Romano swatted away the offending hand without so much as looking at his brother. He was focused instead on the projection on his wall—an episode of one of his favorite crime dramas was playing.

He had dealt with his mourning by redecorating his room multiple times since Marie's disappearance. At the moment, large swaths of deep red fabric covered his windows and plush, soft cushions littered his bed and chairs. His room was lit by several shaded lamps which gave the room a soft glow as though it were in a perpetual twilight. The bed was king sized and plush enough to swallow a man into its feathery folds.

"What did I do?" Feliciano whined, crawling up into the bed beside Romano despite being shoved and frowned at. He snuggled up into Romano's side, wrapping his arms around his brother's waist. "Did I say something wrong yesterday? I'm sorry about forgetting about whatever it was!"

Romano pried Feliciano's hands off of his waist and shoved him away. "Stop."

"Noooo!"

Romano was, and always had been, a loner in many ways. When they were little, he would prefer to hide behind his father's legs instead of facing a crowded room. Feliciano would tackle that same crowded room with abandon, greeting every person his tiny legs could carry him to. Not Romano, though. For Romano, a crowded room was an obstacle course. A dangerous place. A certifiable executable threat, even. It was only made worse when their parents were killed at a public gathering in Pompeii. The shooter had been mercilessly tortured and publicly executed, but no number of promises and years could ease the bloodstains on Feliciano's poor big brother's mind.

There was a theory that the rebels had put a crime syndicate up to the assassination. Paid them. Bribed them. Threatened them, perhaps. Others said that was preposterous and that for once, the rebels weren't involved with the threat on the Emperor's family. There were no rebels in Pompeii, after all. If there were rebels and they were capable of managing an assassination, Feliciano's parents, no matter how royal their blood, would not have been the prime targets. All subsequent investigation found no trace of rebel intelligence or interference, only a long history connecting the shooter with the mid-planet crime family which had taken the fall.

And they took the fall indeed. They took the fall all the way down to the last child of the last recruit. The resulting power vacuum was never addressed, to Feliciano's knowledge. Pompeii had a war to fight. Wartime was not the time to get involved with internal power disputes as long as no one directly challenged the emperor or his progeny ever again.

The deaths of their parents had further reaching affects, though. For all of Pompeii it had ended with the trails, and for the Emperor, it had ended when the last nail was put in the last coffin and the bodies were hurtled out towards the center of the galaxy and the outskirts of the Empire. For Romano, however, it was the beginning of his Thing.

The thing with the police dramas.

All of the police dramas.

Romano had, in fact, opened up otherwise off limit achieves to plunge their depths for old police dramas from eon past. He could recite law in his sleep. He could tell the history of police procedurals all the way back through every single godforsaken known century. He could lay in bed for hours watching the new shows come on TV and marathoning them, screaming at them and hurtling his pillows sometimes when the TV strayed too far from the actual law code. He could probably die if he kept it up for too long, though, so usually on the third day of isolation, Feliciano intervened.

"I want to spend time together!" Feliciano screeched, rolling on top of Romano. "Come on! You've been in here for days and I've missed youuu. Do you even remember what a sun is like anymore?"

"No," Romano said, rolling and kicking and shoving to get Feliciano off of his chest. He only succeeded in jostling his younger brother. "No, and I don't care, I just want some motherfucking peace and quiet for once and no godforsaken sun is going to keep me from it!"

"You've had peace and quiet for three whole days!" Feliciano made sure to raise his voice while he was right beside Romano's ear, so Romano would be able to tell the difference between peace and quiet and an intervention. "What you need is less peace and quiet. You need loudness and excitement now! And exercise and—" Feliciano almost said 'pretty girls,' but restrained himself, not wanting to see his brother cry, "—a-and sunshine, and flower crowns, and good food! Or at least, you need to go to another room. How long has it been since you pooped?"

"I have a fucking bathroom literally right there," Romano said, not bothering to point. "What kind of fucking question is that? What's wrong with you?"

Feliciano laughed and was finally shoved off the side of the bed. He landed on the floor with a plop and continued to laugh there, instead, rolling about and clutching his sides. Romano sat above him, face ruby red and practically vibrating with anger. But anger was better than passive apathy, so Feliciano continued laughing until Romano jumped off the bed and tried to smother him with one of the many lush red pillows.

"You little shithead!" Romano shouted, struggling to shove his feather pillow down Feliciano's gaping piehole. "This isn't funny. I am going to strangle you one day if you keep being so—soo—"

"Cute?" Feliciano said, beaming at how helpful he was, even as he struggled to hold Romano's pillow at arm's length.

"As if!"

Romano shoved his pillow to the left, sending Feliciano's arms splaying in the same direction. Before Feliciano could pull his arms back in, Romano snatched a second pillow on the bed and proceeded to smack it into his little brother's awful face.

"Waa!" Feliciano flailed. "Fratello, stop that!"

"No," Romano said. He brought the pillow down again with a satisfying whap. "Hell fucking no you shit for brains. If you didn't want this, then you should have stopped a long, long time ago, motherfucker!"

Feliciano shrieked and rolled around on the floor, trying to dodge Romano's swats. They almost didn't hear the knock on the door, but Romano had grown accustomed to certain sounds after living the last three years in a cave of a room, and paused with the pillow hoisted above his head, ready to be brought back down on Feliciano's face at a moment's notice.

"What?" Romano called to the door as Feliciano took the opportunity to peek out through the protective barrier of hand and arm he'd built around his face.

"My Lord," the guard said. "There's a Beilschmidt here to see Feliciano, Sir."

"Send him in," Feliciano said immediately.

"Send him away," Romano said at the same time.

The guard reacted on instinct, mostly, and opened the door immediately at Feliciano's behest. Feliciano technically held more power, as the active heir and better known political face, while Romano had hidden. Even though since the matter concerned Romano's territory, as much as a room could be considered territory, the weight and familiarity of Feliciano's sway had bitten Romano in the ass before, as it always did when they both issued a command at roughly the same time. God help the soldiers who received two contradictory commands and didn't know the apparent pecking order.

This one did though, and the result was a brawny, blond Beilschmidt standing bemusedly blinking in Romano's doorway.

"Get the fuck out of my room," Romano said on instinct.

Ludwig came in, looking around, his eyes darting from side to side. "Ah, sorry, I was just here to, to pick up…"

Feliciano leapt to his feet, almost knocking Romano over in the process, and sprinted into Ludwig's arms.

"Ludovico!" he said, wrapping his arms and legs around Ludwig's. "I didn't know you were coming here.

"I, ah, I was directed here," Ludwig said, blushing and doing his best to stay upright. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I wasn't told this was your brother's room."

"Yeah, so you'd better back the fuck out right now, before I throw you out on your ass instead, bastard," Romano said, plopping back onto the bed and scowling deeply at Ludwig. Feliciano was starting to become increasingly concerned about the future of Romano's face—he was going to get deep wrinkles before either of them hit thirty, at this rate.

"He doesn't mean that," Feliciano said, leaning up to give Ludwig a kiss on the cheek.

"I mean it," Romano said, his voice lowering. "Don't fucking kiss him."

"Why not?" Feliciano's grin grew wicked and he wrapped his arms around Ludwig's neck more securely, hoisting himself up to nuzzle.

"Feliciano," Romano said. "Feliciano, I am going to throw both of you out."

"Nooo you won't." Feliciano wiggled.

"Ah, Feliciano, perhaps we should…." Ludwig began.

Romano cut him by chucking a pillow at their heads. "Get out! No PDA in my room!" Feliciano yelped as another pillow hit him in the ear. "Out! Out!"

Ludwig scooped Feliciano up in both arms and carried him out of the room, cradling him and shielding him from the barrage of feathery decorations. He jogged past the guards in the hall, who began tossing the escaped pillows back inside at twice the rate Romano was tossing them out and slammed the door shut again.

Once they were a whole hall away, Ludwig set Feliciano on the floor again. He stepped out of Ludwig's arms delicately and took a moment to rearrange his rumpled clothing.

"Is everything back in place?" he asked, turning around for Ludwig to see. Ludwig nodded immediately, his face still red. "Good. …I'm sorry about that! I thought he was in a better mood still than he might've actually been!"

"What's wrong?"

"I think I really upset him with the kissing thing," Feliciano said, putting a finger to his mouth and worrying at it. "I was just so excited to see you! You didn't tell me you were coming to the palace to visit. I thought we were both supposed to tell each other before any visit?"

Ludwig's blush deepened and he held his arms up quickly. "We were! I just… that rule was for if I had a meeting with… anyone. But I asked the guards and they told me you weren't busy and directed me to your brother's room. I truly am very sorry for intruding."

"It's okay, I forgive you… but you still should've stuck to your rule!"

Ludwig bowed his head while Feliciano pouted.

"Can I make it up to you somehow?"

"Hmmm," Feliciano crossed his arms and looked away as he pouted.

"Any way?"

"Well," Feliciano said, taking a breath so deep his whole upper body puffed outwards. "I guess there is one thing that might make it up to me…"

"Name it," Ludwig said, looking up again.

"Piggyback."

"…Feliciano."

"Piggyback ride or bust."

"…"

Feliciano climbed up on Ludwig's back and made himself comfortable there and directed him down the halls.

"Romano's still upset about Marie," Feliciano said as they walked. Ludwig shuffled a bit to shift his grip on Feliciano's legs, sliding his hands a little higher up on Feliciano's thighs. Feliciano ignored it and continued to pick at Ludwig's hair as he spoke. "I really wish we could just find out what happened to her so he can have closure, but everything after their breakup went into the classified section that even we can't get into. So he's just really upset. And I probably shouldn't have kissed you in front of him."

Ludwig nodded. "That would be upsetting. But how long has it been since she vanished?"

"Almost three years, I think," Feliciano said with a sigh. "I'm really worried about him… he doesn't come out much anymore and he's been skipping so many of his lessons… what if we have to run the Empire and he's not prepared?"

"I'm sure it will be some time before you have to run anything, Feliciano," Ludwig said. His tone made it clear that he almost couldn't imagine Feliciano in charge of much anything more complicated than a food stand.

"Still," Feliciano said as Ludwig's hands crept higher again, stretching his arms out above his head and almost throwing Ludwig off balance until Ludwig's hands once again tightly gripped his knees as a counterweight instead of his thighs.

"Would you rather he just forgot about her?"

"No!" Again, Feliciano's' sudden movement nearly threw Ludwig off balance and he was forced to stumble about trying to stay safely upright. "Of course not! It's super important to remember things like that! Because you have to take care of people who go through painful things too, and if you understand stuff like death and illness and loneliness, then you can understand them better and help them out better!"

Ludwig nodded slowly. "I suppose…as someone with a medical license, I cannot disagree with your logic."

"I didn't mean it medically," Feliciano said, blinking his large brown eyes slowly.

"I know," Ludwig said. They walked in silence for the rest of the hall. Ludwig paused at the fork, waiting for Feliciano to give him directions and ignoring any raised eyebrows they may have been getting from the guards. "…this is somewhat related, but I did have something to talk to you about, though. That was why I came to visit. I have good news."

"Oh?"

"I'm being promoted."

Feliciano broke into a wide smile. "That's wonderful! What're you going to be doing?"

A frail smile graced Ludwig's face. "Ah, well, that's what's actually wonderful. My research grant is increasing and I've been commissioned to experiment more with the bioelectronics we started developing after the creation of Angel. We're hoping that if we can move along the path we've chosen, we might be able to modify humans to be more sturdy. Stop aging. Destroy illness. Cheat death…"

They fell silent in the halls once again. Ludwig paused. Feliciano wrapped his arms more tightly around Ludwig's neck.

"Wow," he said at last. "Wow. That's really cool!"

Ludwig breathed a sigh of relief as Feliciano's voice returned to him.

"Oh my goodness! That would be really, really, cool! If everyone could get that there would be so many less reasons to be sad! Especially now that we have a whole universe to populate and a bunch of planets to get supplies from and… that would be amazing, if everyone had infinite time…"

Ludwig nodded with him. "It's too expensive right now for that, though. Perhaps even too expensive for the people of Pompeii. Still, I'm very excited at all the possibilities it will open up with—"

"—But wait," Feliciano said, tugging at Ludwig's slicked hair once again to silence him. "What good is it if no one can use it?"

Ludwig cleared his throat slowly and patted Feliciano's knee as they walked. "I'm sure our great Lord will think of something. He's largely in charge of the project—totally in charge, actually. It's a great advantage for me. He's agreed to provide test subject volunteers and pay them, as well as increasing my budget and offering other engineers and surgeons who have far more valuable field experience than I do… it's really up to him what to do with this, once we've perfected the operation."

Feliciano slipped off his back.

000

When Francis was nine, his sister had discovered a wounded rabbit in the woods, its left hind leg destroyed. It lay on the ground shrieking until she lifted it up and cradled it in her arms. Perhaps it was too terrified to speak. She carried it to Francis—she was young at the time and understood her older brother to be wiser than her in certain aspects. Dealing with dying rabbits was certainly one of them.

Francis disagreed. Desperate for advice, called their absent father.

Lord Bonnefoy was a military man away from home. When contact was established, he was in the breakroom of his ship, his uniform unbuttoned, his unwashed hair limply framing his face. There were large bags under his eyes. He said that if Francis wanted to help the rabbit, he would put it out of its misery.

"How? There aren't any sedatives or guns in the house."

"If there aren't any guns or sedatives, go find a hammer or a rock."

Lord Bonnefoy was injured in the final battle of SerenityValley two months later. He drowned in the blood from puncture wounds in his lungs three weeks after Francis first moved into his dorm.

The three months before and after the start of his Academy career set his personality more solidly than any number of years of emotional development. He would sabotage his classmates' camps in Troop Care and Management to spare his own simulated men. He haunted the history section of the library around exam time at the expense of his own health, and left only for fencing, and was forced to allow his fencing team to slip him energy bars and small drinks in the otherwise no-rations-allowed library. In Strategy, he either won his mock battles or fought to the very last man. There were many pyrrhic victories. He was nothing like Arthur.

Arthur Kirkland Focused in Chemical Weaponry, Espionage, and Strategy. They met only in class and in the library, where Kirkland's study of the chemical weapons on Earth That Was left him trapped beside Francis in the ancient history section for days at a time.

They fucked, once, in the old and crumbling stacks of books. It was slow and gentle. It was quiet. It was Arthur's first and—as far as Francis knew—his only time. Francis' memory of it was hazy; he had been sleep deprived already, and the slow fuck had taken the last wind out of him. Francis had known Arthur for five years at the time. They were fifteen and Francis had fucked many people before with a much worse rest afterwards.

They did not date. They did not speak of their tryst afterwards, except to quietly mumble to each other, still naked and huddled on the floor, that they were probably better off as rivals.

Arthur beat Francis in Strategy—he won more battles than anyone. He saved the most number of his troops. He spared the most rebels. He lost the most wars.

He was unwilling to get his hands dirty. He was unwilling to kill unnecessary men. He was unwilling to sabotage and collaborate, and his final dissertation in Chemical Weapons was a blazing tirade against their application.

Arthur had no concept of what it was to decide between to live with guilt or to live with the consequence of choice.

Francis had lived with such options solidly tucked in the back of his mind ever since he was nine years old and picked up a hammer on his father's orders. He had lived with that guilt and ever since told himself that the burden of choice was much easier to bear.

And Francis made many choices for Arthur, now that Arthur was no longer capable of making them himself. He organized their schedule, he argued on Arthur's behalf, he bartered with Ludwig Beilschmidt, he kept the suicide attempts quiet, and he called Matthew Williams into the apartment in the middle of the day while Arthur was undergoing a routine medical and engineering inspection.

The spy was ushered in by the guards mutely, and looked around with his wide eyes before the door closed around him.

"Is Arthur all right, sir?" he said. "I thought he was usually out here waiting for me."

"He's busy at the moment," Francis told him. "We're a little bit off schedule. Do you mind coming with me until he gets here?"

"Of course not," the spy said, quickly following as Francis walked to his own bedroom. He opened the door for the spy and shut the door firmly once they were both inside. Francis had cleaned his room recently; there wasn't much on the floor between his plush bed and the wall. His desk was pushed to the corner. He stood near the entrance where there was the most floorspace clear while the spy went to his bed and sat.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" the spy said, smiling coyly at Francis and folding his legs with a slow carefulness that bordered on inappropriate. A true vixen if Francis had ever seen one, and he laughed at himself in his head. Francis was for the first time thankful for Arthur's natural prudishness; who knows what might have happened if the man sitting on the bed before Francis had successfully slept with Arthur or wormed his way into Arthur's heart. It was already a small wonder nothing worse had befallen Arthur for how long he spent with the false whore.

"I had a few words planned out for you about the rebellion," Francis said.

The spy paled. It was impressive, considering his skin was already bleached from the last three years under capitol's indoor lights. His smile faltered. "Sir, what? I'm sorry? I didn't understand that."

To the spy's credit, he did not run out of the room or shuffle to put his feet more firmly on the floor, which would have been about as damning as a confession. It was clear he hadn't been expecting any sort of confrontation, though. Perhaps he thought he had done nothing he was at risk of being caught from—so the last night's escapades had probably started before Francis had installed the cameras.

Francis circled in front of Matthew like a crow circled a carcass, and locked the door, the only escape route. The spy's shoulders hunched up towards his ears.

"I admit, it's clever." Francis said, returning to stand before Matthew. "With all the screening whores have to go through, no one would be paying much attention to you when searching out a spy. How did you pass the background checks? Or are you really a traitor from my home?"

Matthew swallowed quietly, his eyes wide and mouth parted just so. "Sir, please, I don't understand why you're accusing me of—of—"

"An Angel assault occurred last night," Francis said. "Did you know about it?"

Matthew shook his head frantically.

"Do you know what happened?"

He shook his head even more.

"The rebel forces retreated mere minutes before the assault was put into effect," Francis said, looking idly at his fingernails and the way Matthew's posture slumped very slightly in something that looked like relief. "All over the galaxy, actually. Any significant force of rebel troops in combat fled from their battlefields, all within less than an hour. They pulled off world like their lives depended on it. Did you know? On average, it takes a little more than ten minutes to prepare the Angel to activate, twenty to thirty more for the orders to go to commutations, plus travel time and however long it takes for our troops to execute the orders. The system for conveying information to our troops is the fastest information pathway in existence. Do you understand the implications of that?"

Matthew shook his head once more. He was trembling.

"It means, someone sent a warning to the rebels before the Angel was even hooked up." Francis reached into his pant's pocket and pulled out a small case for transporting memory cards, the cards displayed inside were not much larger than his thumb and as thin as a piece of paper. "And while I can't speak for what your brother may have done, you were caught on tape contacting someone moments after Arthur and I disembarked."

Matthew trembled. His eyes widened and his knuckles gripping the bedsheet had gone white. He lunged. He threw himself from the bed, fists up, only to be sidestepped by Francis and jabbed in the back with an elbow. He tumbled to the ground, narrowly missing a bedpost. He scrambled to stand again as Francis reached down and dragged him upright by the hair only to bash his head against the wall.

"Ach!"

While the spy was reeling, Francis jabbed him in the guts with his elbow. Matthew doubled over with a gasp.

"Stop that and I won't hurt you again." Francis stood much taller when Matthew was on the floor. His hand went to the back of Matthew's neck, his fingertips trailed lightly, threateningly, over the boy's spine. "They really taught you nothing about how to fight hand to hand, did they?"

To his surprise, Matthew did respond, shaking his head once again.

"A pity. It's a useful skill," Francis said. "Will you cooperate now?"

Matthew took a shuddering breath and crumbled lower into himself. Francis decided to take that as a 'yes' and removed his hand from Matthew's neck.

"You searched through Arthur's room. Multiple times?"

A nod.

"I assume you know his job by now?"

A second nod, slower this time. Matthew's eyes were hidden by his hair.

"Your brother is your accomplice?"

"No," Matthew whispered. Francis's eyebrows went up.

"Really, then? Well. That works out fine for me, anyway." Matthew's head shot up immediately to lock eyes with Francis'. Francis grinned. "Oh, he's coming here, too. I'd say he will be here in about half an hour."

Matthew's breath caught audibly. He glanced around the room, searching for a clock of some kind no doubt. There were none. Francis kept no clocks in the apartment.

"What do you want?" Matthew said in a wheeze, his breath still in the process of coming back to him. His glare was no less venomous for being breathless. If anything, he seemed to be putting even more effort into it.

"I want you to contact your rebel leaders and bargain something with them for me. I will give you two days to do this and resume contact with me about their decision. Consider your brother's wellbeing—and your own—when you contact them. But he won't be leaving my apartment anytime soon."

Matthew was pressing his lips so tightly together they had turned white as well. He clutched his injured stomach and the only thing that seemed to be keeping him on the floor was the lack of air in his lungs and Francis' frown, which promised to do worse than a little bruise on his abdomen if Matthew dared try to fight again.

A long moment passed. "I suggest you contact your leaders quickly," Francis said.

"Fine," the spy whispered. "Fine. Okay. I'll do it. Tell me what you want me to bargain for."

"I want two things," Francis said.

"Yes?"

Francis held up two fingers and folded them down as he spoke. "I want an escort provided for myself and Arthur to smuggle the both of us out of the Empire."

Matthew's glare broke and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"Secondly," Francis said. "I want guaranteed asylum within the rebellion. Again for both Arthur and myself. Neither of us are to be harmed in any manner regardless of our previous affiliation with the Empire, regardless of what we have or may not have done, regardless of anything. There will be no medical examinations that are not explicitly agreed to. There will be no testing or screenings of any sort."

"Wait," Matthew said, leaning forward and staring up at Francis again. "Wait, wait, are you asking me for—?"

"To negotiate aiding our escape," Francis said. "We need to get out of this Empire as quickly as humanly possible."

000

NOTES:

While writing this I realized that people who aren't dyrimthespeaker won't recognize that I'm doing a thing in Angel that I do in all of my writing. So this is for all the people who are reading this and haven't read my other stuff: I have a thing that I do. It's a sibling thing. People have noticed I'm doing a lot more with brotherliness than romance so far. That's me doing my Sibling Thing. I do it a lot. If you read my stuff you're gonna get a lot of it. My sibling thing. It's actually really bad.

- in canonverse, Arthur would be the dirtiest fighter ever, but considering the extremes that the Angel takes him to I ask everything sigh and just mutter "AU creative liberties" under their breaths while shaking their heads slowly from side to side.

-Francis in this is a very interesting character for me. He makes all the choices opposite of what I would do or have done, but for the exact same reasons.

-dang man germany speaks like a literal translation of a polite character from an anime with the words put in an order that makes sense in English like that's it that's the way he talks

-yo guess what, Arthur's demisexual in this AU hell yeah