In this installment: finally, humor! Lots of it. Italy shows up, as do Prussia and Francis. It's getting trippy.

Note: "So said the actress to the bishop" is an early English version of "that's what she said." Basically, in case you live under a rock, it means "IN BED!"

Solidarność

Chapter 2: Tennyson and Prada

"In December 1740, Frederick II of Prussia invaded the Habsburg provice of Silesia in eastern Germany. Maria Theresa had to fight for her inheritance."

-Kagan, Ozment, and Turner. Also known as "God".

"As if some lesser god had made the world / But had not force to shape it as he would / Till the High God behold it from beyond / And enter it, and make it beautiful?" The green-eyed Brit read with the intonation of one naturally prone to drama, grinning past the text to his partner-in-crime. "So said the actress to the bishop."

"Young man! Lord Alfred Tennyson did not write that!"

"Huh-what?" Alfred turned around in his seat. He had apparently been ogling a suspicious magazine beneath his desk and was not being suitably appreciative of Arthur's antics. Arthur's bountiful brows furrowed in annoyance.

"Not you. The Brit who is defiling his own heritage by inserting crude remarks!" Their literature teacher was a young Scottish woman who seemed to despise Arthur despite his gift for drama. "If we could please, please, dear Lord, have a different volunteer to read the next passage?"

Feliks bit his lip in intense concentration as his pen scritch-scratched a very, very important plan. This could be the make-it-or-break-it, salvation or damnation, absolutely everything.

Vash. No - €35 – YesGilbert. No - €50 – NoFrancis. Yes - ? – . Maybe - ¥90 – Yes.

"Hey, Feliks, what are you writing so diligently? Is it notes, eh?" A friendly, nondescript face peered at the very absorbed Polish boy from the seat in front of him.

"Oh, hey…uh…" He should know this name. He really, really should know this. They had only been going to school together for, like, eight years! But somehow the other boy looked only vaguely familiar. Feliks gave up. "It's like, a list of my prospects. The first column is, like, whether they'd do it or not, and then the price I'd like totally expect them to demand, and the last is whether it'd be, like, worth it to me."

"Eh? Feliks…I never believed the rumors…"

"What the hell are you on about? I'm, like, making a list of, like, who I'm going to pay to write up my lab report for biology."

"Ohhh," the other boy sighed, pushing back a silky lock of golden brown hair. He adjusted his glasses self-consciously. "Well…I guess I could write up your lab for you. It doesn't sound too hard…I don't know if it'll be good though, eh?"

Feliks wasn't listening. "Hey, I, like, totally have a question to ask you."

"Eh?" The brunette blushed, his glasses sliding down his nose again. He glanced around quickly, as though fearing that the A's would mock him for speaking nicely to the oft-bullied Feliks. In truth, that boy was immune to roughly every from of social cruelty, since no one ever noticed him.

"What's your name, again?"

Sigh. He got that a lot. "I'm Matthew. But you'll probably forget it…maybe I should wear a nametag, eh?"

Feliks turned away, immediately bored. He inspected his fingernails until the bell, when it was time to brave the hallway once again…at least Gilbert, once so easily defeated by the dynamic duo, was no longer bothering him. Somehow, that Gilbert had really grown up recently, gotten a lot stronger…but in the end he was still defeated by his own arrogance. For some reason, he was never at school anymore…

Present day

A really janky detention center, Janksville

Ok, this shithole in no way deserves my awesomeness, thought Gilbert. His nose took its customary position stuck high into the air, his arms crossed angrily across his chest. Just because I gave that pansy piano boy a black eye…little son of a bitch deserved it! They haven't even heard what I've done to that dirty Pollack!

He sighed, observing the limp noodles that passed as lunch in this detention center. The low-class gang members clustered around him, obviously in awe of his total awesomeness. They were stupid little rats, these ordinary criminals. They didn't fight for honor or principle – for example, the principle of giving piano-boy a knuckle sandwich because the little virtuoso didn't think it was "proper" for Gilbert to flirt with his very, very attractive mother, Maria. Gilbert flirts with who he wants to flirt with! Especially the beautiful Maria, always playing hard-to-get! I'll invade her Habsburg empire! Gilbert thought. She knows she likes me.

But everyone else here was for petty crimes, like vandalism. Vandalism was fun – Gilbert had done his fair share of it – but he wasn't stupid enough to "tag". Not with his actual name anyway – who would be able to trace "His Awesomeness" to the completely innocuous Gilbert Weillscmidt? It wasn't like he wrote it as his legal name on all official documents or anything. Not usually, anyway.

But. Oh, dear God. If that voice was who he thought it was…

"I mean, come on! So I was working at the grocery store and this super cute little Italian comes up to me, asks for help carrying out his groceries. Well, I carried HIM out. Bridal style, you know. So apparently not exactly having the firmest grip in the world is an offense! Yes, hands do occasionally slip between legs and where I come from we call that a COMPLIMENT!"

Gilbert tried to make himself very, very small.

"Heyyy, what do we have here?"

A gentle, well-educated hand entangled itself in his silver hair as the scent of roses filled him with dread. Warm breath on the back of his neck whispered, "My God, I really like your hair. Would you like to do big brother Francis a favor?"

This penance-for-sins thing is total shit.

Feliks was not suited well to sulking. He couldn't wait for the last bell to ring, so that he could become the real Feliks, the sunshine-bright and hopelessly irrelevant teenager, the boy who was a dramatic and headstrong human being rather than merely an object to be kicked, the real Feliks who went straight home after school to switch school-required blazer and slacks for a super-cute tank top and fluffy skirt. When that last bell rang, he could be the real Feliks.

But today there was an object impeding his flight.

"Ve ~? I think I saw you at Mass today…?"

The blonde's eyes widened, then quickly averted, fixing upon his own (very stylish) shoes. A flush spread across his face. He could feel his own hands quivering and wished desperately that the uniform had pockets to hide in. Feliks had never been good with strangers, after all. He closed his eyes, praying that when he opened them there would be a protective figure in front of him, a resigned Liet who knew about his silly quirks and still thought it was worth comforting him.

When Feliks did raise his lids, there was nothing between him and the opponent. If the opponent was still there – all the boy could see at the moment were his own (very stylish) shoes. He allowed his gaze to travel slowly, cautiously, to ascertain the presence of the stranger.

The Pole's eyes passed over the all-too-familiar hideously flecked tile of the floor until the lighted upon a foreign pair of (very, very stylish) shoes. Prada. Suddenly, this stranger didn't seem so unfamiliar after all.

"Oh my gawd! I like, totally, love your shoes!" Feliks all-but-squealed. The boy opposite him smiled, tilting his head sleepily to the side.

"Thanks. I'm Feliciano. I go to this school now! I was homeschooled before, but I couldn't transfer at the beginning of the term because a traumatic experience happened to me! Now I'm recovered, though, ve~!"

"That, like, totally sucks. I'm Feliks, and," he extended a strangely confident hand to shake Feliciano's. Somehow, it seemed like though they had only just met, they had a lot in common: shoes, trauma, and Roman Catholicism. "we should totally go shoe-shopping together sometime!"

They did. Feliks's back twinged as he threw the extremely heavy shopping bag full of well-earned treasures onto his bedspread. It had been a fruitful, if exhausting, afternoon. Feliciano, for some reason, looked utterly unperturbed. He was as chipper as ever, sporting that gleeful eyes-closed grin, though his pile of shoes was not as limited by budget as Feliks's.

"Oh, Holy Mary," Feliks complained, feeling his back crack as he straightened. "I totally wish Liet was here to, like, carry my crap like he used to."

"Ve~? Liet?"

"Do you, like, know him already? His name's really Toris, but I totally call him Liet. Cuz that's where he's from."

"Oh, sì, he is always staring you down in class!" Feliciano paused, a hand confusedly going to his temple. "I can't quite tell what for, though."

"He, like, totally hates my guts," Feliks sighed, reclining onto his fluffy magenta pillows and motioning for Feliciano to take a seat. Toris used to hate sitting in that lovely lavender-striped bean bag chair, claiming it was bad for his back. You're, like, such an old man, Liet! "We used to, like, be total BFFs though."

"Hmmm…" Feliciano crossed his legs, resting his chin on one upturned palm, Thinker-esque. "I wonder, though…he is always staring at you…"

"Yeah, I, like, totes don't understand it either."

"You know what my friend Kiku told me?" Feliciano asked. Feliks shook his head, brightening at the change of topic. He reached for a bottle of silvery nail polish to apply as he listened– after all, the Pole's attention span was not the most prolific in the world. "Toris may hate you, but at least you share something in common."

"Hn?" What could they share? Height? History? None of that mattered in the here and now.

The Italian smiled, tilting his head to the side. "Your faith."

Feliks's eyes widened. "I guess that's true…"

"But Kiku, most of his antagonists don't share his faith! They don't even have that one point of connection! The boys at school can make fun of your clothes and your speech but they can't condemn your God. That is one place that is safe from them."

Feliks sighed. "I don't see that it makes much of a difference. Even Christians argue among themselves…and we do it all the time." Ivan and Ludwig. The dissenters.

They sat in silence until all ten nails were suitably shiny. Feliciano was fine, he was nice, but he wasn't…well, it wasn't hard to talk to him, but somehow he didn't make words tumble out of Feliks's mouth unbidden…he didn't ignite that little spark of happy-to-see-you, he didn't have that slow, golden smile…

"BRB. I'm, like, going to get something to drink," Feliks said offhandedly. He trotted downstairs to fetch a nice, refrigerated bottle of lemon-lime soda and poured two glasses. Liet always hated colas, so Feliks never had them on hand…how it stayed with him, those quirks that no longer mattered in daily life. Hah. I'm so pathetic.

He took a little longer than necessary to carry the glasses back upstairs, if only to ponder Feliciano's point. He wasn't totally convinced that religion mattered when everyone was ready to kick his ass anyway, but Feliciano was a guest and a new friend, so he would have to find something nice to say.

"I, like, guess you kind of have a point," Feliks finally conceded, putting down the glasses to hold up his newly-iced nails to the light. They were undamaged by the (very strenuous) pouring. "This one chick, Yael, she's, like, totes alone if we're talking religion. Except Alfred's always trying to get into her pants. Like, my sister Elizaveta is totally on rocky terms with her."

"See?" Feliciano grinned again. Feliks took a swig of soda, satisfied that he had been suitably polite to his guest. "Say, that Ludwig guy is really cute, ve~?"

"Pfff-?" Citrus soda went aching through the air as Feliks spluttered for breath. Perhaps he and his new friend had less in common than he'd originally thought.

Coming Soon! Ivan goes Russian on that little sucker, Feliks practices his "obliging maid" act in the mirror, and It's a Mystery! Feliciano Goes Missing!