Hola Francis!

(I hope it really is you, if not, sorry for this odd note stranger)

Francis, please don't try to search for us yet amigo. I know you will want to after reading this but we still don't know if it's safe for Gil. We will come to you when the time is right.

How have you been amigo? I hope you don't feel lonely without us. Has Arthur been keeping you company? Gil and I sure have missed you these past years. Ludwig had to restrain Gil inside the hide-out quite a few times just to prevent him from going after you. (Since originally you were supposed to have come with us, he insisted that someone had to go after you too to keep you safe. Ludwig had a hard time trying to convince him that you would be ok.) He sure will be happy to know from you after all this time.

Ok, I have to end this note quickly, Lovi is coming back and he thinks it's too dangerous to contact you yet. Oh yea, Lovi is my boyfriend, he is helping us out and he is so cute! I bet you would like him. I hope you two can meet someday.

Muchos besos,

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo

I read it once more. How many times had I read this note already? Twenty? Thirty times? Every time I read it I felt something sting inside my chest and yet I refused to let go of it. Antonio, my precious Antonio, my dear friend Antonio had been at the same place as me and I had not seen him. I had not recognized him. And yet he had seen me. He had blessed me with this note, this tiny piece of information that guaranteed me that they were safe, that they had escaped and that they still remembered me. But at the same time this tiny blessing cursed me to remember that I was trapped in hell. That I would not be able too see my dear friends for yet a long time. How long would it take for them to come back for me? How long would I have to wait? Would they even want me back after all these years? After All I had done? Would we still be able to be like we were before?

I felt the bed shifting under me and then arms wrapping around me, Matthew's soft kisses on the back of my neck. "Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes."

"Forgive me mon chou. I didn't mean to wake you." I shifted my body around to kiss him. His lips easily found mine and I felt the tension of my body dissolving away with his sweetness. He took the chance to pull me from the edge of the bed where I sat back to the middle of the bed, pressing our naked bodies together firmly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked with his whispering voice. His hand softly stroking my hair as I laid down over his chest.

No, I did not want to talk about this with him. It would be unfair to him. One day perhaps I would tell him everything, one day I would explain why I was so unworthy of his love and kindness. But I was still too selfish and too emotionally weak to do that now. So I remained quite, letting the hand stroking my head to easy my problems away for now.

We remained quite, listening each others soft breathing. Matthew was the one to once again break the comforting silence. "I'm sorry Francis."

I shifted my weight to look up to him. "What are you sorry for mon cher?" Why would he be sorry? What had he to be sorry for? If anything I should be the one begging for forgiveness.

"It's just… I…I feel like I took advantage of you." He took a deep breath while his arms wrapped themselves more strongly around me. "If it had been me, I would probably have read the note the second it was given to me. But you tucked it in your pocket and pretended like nothing had happened. I would have understood if you had asked to reschedule. Yet you insisted that we went along with our date. And when I insisted to accompany you back to your place, just to make sure you would be ok, you didn't brush me off." He took another deep breath. "I kind of realized by then that you would let me get away with anything tonight. And I feel like I took advantage of that."

I smiled back as I kissed him for that. Such a sweet innocent angel, feeling guilty for sins he had not committed. I had been the one that hadn't wanted to come back and sleep alone tonight. I had been the one that had tempted him until he couldn't hold himself back. It had been my fault that he had fallen, my poor, sweet, angelical boy, my adorable and innocent Matthew. I had tricked and seduced him for my own gain and he had not even realized that.

When I pulled away from the kiss, Matthew's cheeks where flushed red and he was panting for breath. I could feel his erection growing hard against my thigh. I didn't hesitate when I pulled him back atop me. Moving my hands against his skin in a way I knew would incite him even more. The way he whispered my name against my ear as he started to ask for more, to ask for control, was all I needed to give myself to him once again, to lose myself in his need and lust, to forget myself and the world around me, to let myself go blank.

I let myself go as he hastily filled me with his heat. Chanted his name as a mantra with each thrust, moaned and screamed for him to love me faster, love me harder, clung on to him as if my life depended on him. He would moan my name, tangle his fingers with mine, and suck on my neck as his thrust became faster and rougher. He was doing everything I wanted, everything I needed. And as I arched up my back with white in my vision screaming his name to the night, he kept on thrusting wildly, moaning my name, confessing his love for me, and worshiping me, until he finally collapsed above me.

We were silent once again. Breathing heavily, stinking of sweat and cum. We did nothing but look into each others eyes, letting the moment erase everything else. We belonged only to each other now, free of past and future, just us, these where the moments I had always loved best, when everything felt perfect and nothing else matters.

But of course these moments where always scarce and easily broken, such was the case when my angel's phone started ringing some superhero's theme song.

Matthew grumbled annoyed as he started to rise from the bed and go search for his phone in the middle of the discarded clothes on the floor. I was quite satisfied remaining where I was watching him bend over to search for the phone. It was quite a view if I could say so myself. And when Matthew triumphantly came back with his phone in hand, he sat at the edge of the bed, close enough to me so he could still stretch his arm to stoke my hair.

"Yes." Matthew's voice was so curious when he was annoyed. I pulled myself up just enough to crawl to him and lay my head on his lap. His hand kept stoking my head softly. I loved feeling as if I was being spoiled by him.

"No Alfred I was not kidnapped by a super villain. I'm fine." I smiled listening to him. Alfred was just too adorable being protective of my angel.

"No Al, I told you I had a date tonight." I look up to Matthew just in time to see him flushing and silently wording for me that he had not told him with who this date was. I was also very amused to see Matthew turn into a brighter shade of red by whatever Alfred said afterwards.

"That is none of your business." Alfred must have been speaking some very embarrassing things for Matthew to be turning into that kind of red. I had to contain my sniggering just to prevent from flustering him more. He was just too cute.

Matthew took a peek at me and flushed brighter. "Fine! Twice! And I topped both. Can you please stop talking like that now?" Oh I had to give some credit to Alfred's interrogation skills. Apparently he had picked up something useful with Arthur's teaching.

"I don't know Al. I'll probably pass by in the morning. Ok, bye." Matthew shut his phone off and slumped back into the bed. I smiled and crawled back on top of him, softly kissing him as I made my way up to kiss his lips again.

"Allez mon chou, lets go back to sleep." Matthew's smiled glowed back at me.

"Oui." So we cuddled up again under the blankets, Matthew's head safely tucked under my chin and our arms wrapped around each other. I was being lulled to sleep by his warmth and soft breathing, feeling somehow safer having him besides me after all that had happened today. Matthew's bright presence was chasing away the shadows of my nightmares and fears. He was my angel, my shinning star, my love.

I was nearly asleep when I heard Matthew softly whisper my name. "Oui?" I wrapped myself tighter to his body on instinct. "What is it mon chou?"

"Will you ever tell me what you keep on hiding someday?" My heart clenched and I think he felt the way I flinched away. Yet I tried to ease myself before speaking again. I didn't want him to keep on thinking about that.

"I'm not hiding anything mon cher, you don't need to worry about something like that." I kissed the top of his head, hoping that the subject was done with. Sadly he wasn't done with it yet.

"You're not such a good liar as you think you are Francis. People with nothing to hide don't have odd phone calls at the end of the day that keeps them awake all night, or suspicious people visiting them at odd hours. They don't panic at random things we casually tell them or demand odd promises from us." He took a deep breath as I did my best to refrain from shaking him off in anger. It wasn't his fault, it was mine, but he was leading this conversation to a place where I wouldn't be able to answer him.

"Where are you going with this?" I might have sounded angrier then I wanted to. But if too many questions where to be asked I would have to end this before we took it too far.

"Arthur said you changed since your friends disappeared. He won't give me the details but he said you are not the man you used to be. I…I've never met that Francis, and he is not the man I fell in love with, but…But I still worry about it. I just want to be there for you Francis." He drew closer to me, and I lifted one of my hands to stoke his hair. My sweet innocent angel, trying to save a life already condemned to hell.

"One day Matthew. Maybe one day I'll tell you." We were silent then. The subject was finally dropped and I went back to trying to fall asleep with Matthew around my arms.

I knew it was a dream. Yet, I also knew that I couldn't stop dreaming it. I was running to Gilbert's apartment in panic. I had just left the hospital where Antonio had been recovering from the shooting, the nurse saying that some angry Italian man with a weird curl coming out of his head had forced the doctors to release Antonio early and had took him away. I needed to find Gilbert. He would help me find Antonio and we would save him. It was Gil's fault that Tony had been shot at the first place. Gilbert would know how to solve this mess.

I didn't want to arrive at the door. But the dream kept going on against my will. I was finally facing his apartment and my heart clenched. The door was smashed open. Broken pieces of wood littered the floor. I pushed what was left of the door open. The apartment had been torn upside down. I would have laughed myself off thinking of how Ludwig would react when he saw it, the neat freak would surely have a heart attack. But I needed to find Gilbert. I didn't know what was going on, all I knew was that it had been Gilberts fault, that he was the only one to know how to fix this.

I yelled "Gilbert". No answer came back from the torn apartment. I walked inside to search for him, for anyone. I ran from room to room, screaming for help, for anyone. And then I walked into Gil's room. Scent of blood was everywhere. The room, like all the other chambers of the apartment, had been torn upside down. But I could see next to the open window, the spatters of blood and bullet holes.

I walked slowly to the window. Fearing each step I took. When I was finally next to the window I looked outside. The fire escape was dotted with little spatters of blood all the way down to the street. Tire marks where burnt into the concrete of the alley next to Gilbert's apartment. And that's when my heart finally sank and I lost the ability to stand.

Something had happened to them. Someone had been after them and took them away. I needed to find someone, find help. And then Arthur's memory popped up into my head. Yes, I needed to call Arthur. Arthur was a police officer, he would know what to do. My hands trembled as they dug thru my pockets to search for my phone. But I never managed to find it, everything turned black all of the sudden and I couldn't move.

I had hoped the dream had ended, that I would wake up. But then the voices came, weird voices that spoke in a language I didn't understand. And there was music somewhere. Fast beating club music was at the background. The voices seemed to be arguing, to be yelling at each other. I tried to open my eyes to see but everything kept black. I tried moving then, but something was holding me back. I spoke up. And then the voices turned quiet. Someone came over to me and uncovered my face. My eyes hurt from the sudden brightness.

"Where is the albino?" Was the first thing they asked. They had an odd accent I didn't recognize. A light was pointed straight to my face blinding me and I finally recognized I had been tied up to a chair.

"Where am I?" I asked. One of them punched me hard. Even in the dream I felt the blood flowing to my mouth.

"We ask the questions. Now, where is the albino named Gilbert Beilschmidt." I didn't know how to answer that so I kept quiet. They punched me again.

"Where is Beilschmidt?"

"I don't know" I gasped. I got another punch.

"Where did Beilschmidt go?"

"I don't know" Another punch. I spat blood this time.

"Where did he run off to? Where is he hiding? Who is helping him?" They kept asking me. And weather I answered of kept quiet they punched me, unsatisfied with my answers. I was half conscious when a different voice spoke up. Speaking in a language I did not understand, the voices started arguing again.

I heard the music in the background grow louder and then back, the sound of a door slamming shut. And then a different voice spoke up.

"Don't worry, I do not wish to hurt you. But understand, your friend just made a lot of dangerous people angry. And we need to find him to settle the debt he left."

I stood silent. I knew that, I knew they were after Gilbert. "The Russian mob." I whispered to myself. But he had heard me.

"Yes. You should understand then that if we don't settle the debt, your friend is going to keep being hunted down until the debt is paid or he is dead." I nodded.

"Good, now, unfortunately you seem to know absolutely nothing about your friend's disappearance. Yet, I can not release you just like that. So I am going to offer you a way out."

"A way out?" I was scared.

"Yes. I am offering you a way out of this where you get to stay alive and even, perhaps, save your friend's life in the process."

"What are you suggesting?" I gulped. I was scared, tired, injured, and had just been threatened to death by the mob. Antonio and Gilbert had disappeared right before my eyes and I had nothing else to lose.

"How would you feel about working for us?"