A/N:

Wow, I didn't think that I'd get this up today, but look what kind of amazing things happen when you listen to Bad Apple on repeat for three hours! X3

"Mon ami, what has gotten you in such a good mood?" Francis asked from where he hung upside down from a tree branch, watching Antonio as he lazily plucked petals off of the wildflowers he lay in, kicking his feet in the air and humming to himself like a child in love.
"Hmm?" Antonio sat up and stared at his friend, about to explain himself, but Gilbert cut him off, his albino head popping up from the flowers a few feet away. He had been playing hide and seek with his pet bird for a while now, and the bird was winning.
"How un-awesome, Tonio!" Gilbert chided. "You didn't even tell him that you found a Host?"
"A Host?" Francis kicked himself down from the tree and made himself comfortable next to his friend. "Toni, why didn't I hear about this? What is she like? I bet she's beautiful~"
"W-well, 'she' isn't a 'she' per say…" Antonio mumbled.
"Oh, so it's a man then?" Francis raised an eyebrow in amusement.
"No, not yet…"
That confused the blonde. "…Not yet?"
"Well mi Romanito is still a child-"
Gilbert yelped and tackled his friend. "Tonio tell me you're lying, you un-awesome bastard!"
"Wh-what! Why? What's wrong?"
"A child is the Host?" France asked. "Mon ami, that is dangerous! For both you and the child."
Antonio frowned and pushed Gilbert off of him. "I can protect him! You know that I can. Nothing will go wrong!"
"You don't know that," Gilbert reminded him.
"Trust me, everything will be fine," Antonio assured him. "Plus, don't you think that this place would be amazing with a child's imagination? I mean, sure, this place is wonderful and all, but our last host has grown up. We need a fresh mind, and a child would make it interesting, no?"
Gilbert and Francis exchanged a look before Francis sighed in defeat. "Fine, we won't say anything more, but if something goes wrong, you're going to have to deal with Arthur alone, understand?"
Antonio shivered at the thought of the British warlock but nodded. "Si, I understand perfectly."

"What the hell is a book gonna do?" Lovino huffed, his arms crossed over his chest and cheeks puffed out in cute disbelief. He and Antonio stood in the garden, and the older man was trying to give him a leather bound book. Branded on the cover was a lily and a carnation with their stems intertwined, but other than that, there was nothing to distinguish this book from the hundreds of empty notebooks in Nonno's study.
"Well, it's nothing on its own," Antonio admitted, "But with your help… well, can you keep a secret?"
A secret? Lovino nodded, eyes wide with childish curiosity that made Antonio struggle to keep from hugging him. "Yes, dammit, now tell me what the book does!"
Antonio laughed. "Si, si. With your help, the book can show you a world made just for you!"
Lovino frowned. "Like a storybook?" Was that all this was?
"No, not at all. It will really open up a whole different world! Isn't that cool?" Antonio said excitedly.
"How does it do that?" Lovino asked. It did sound pretty cool.
Antonio flipped through some of the blank pages and showed it to Lovino. "Can I see your hand?" he asked.
Lovino looked at him suspiciously but gave him his arm. Antonio took his wrist into his hand and held him tight, so that the boy couldn't get away.
Spain crept closer to the two, keeping close to the ground so he wouldn't be seen.
Lovino watched as Antonio's fingernails became long and sharp, like claws, and began to panic. The man in front of him seemed darker, his outline blurring and turning into a black smudge. "W-wait! I change my mind!"
"Ssh, it's okay," Antonio shushed him, digging his claws into the boy's wrist and drawing blood, making Lovino whimper and struggle. "We just need a little blood…"
Lovino watched as his blood ran down his wrist and pooled in his palm. He looked up into Antonio's face in scared confusion. Antonio didn't return his look, concentrating on placing Lovino's bloody palm onto the page. Immediately, the page began to glow an eerie green, like Antonio's eyes, Lovino noted. The wind seemed to pick up around the two of them and Antonio pulled Lovino close. "Hold on," he whispered and Lovino felt his gut clench as his feet left the ground. Colors swirled and mixed in front of his eyes and just as quickly as they appeared, they vanished, revealing a flower-filled meadow. At the bottom of the hill sat a forest and from somewhere within it, fireplace smoke curled into the air. At first, Lovino thought it was just another part of his grandfather's garden, until he realized that the whole world was white, like a child's coloring book waiting to be filled. There was no sun or moon, but there was light, and no wind blew through the trees.
"Where… where are we?" Lovino asked, staring in awe at the almost blinding whiteness. He knelt down to touch a black outlined flower. It felt real!
"This is your world," Antonio explained, picking Lovino up and balancing him on his hip, both to give the boy a better view of the area and to wrap up his bloody wrist.
"My world?"
"Si, it's all yours," Antonio nuzzled his cheek. "Whatever you want, it's yours."
Before Lovino could ask anything more, his stomach growled. Antonio laughed. "Let's get you some food first. I have some friends in the village, so we'll go there first, si?"
Lovino nodded and let himself be carried down the hill, too busy looking at the uncolored birds disappearing into the papery leaves of a nearby tree.

Spain followed them closely, refusing to lose the boy so quickly.

"Oi, Tonio, who's that with you?" a man ran up to them, and at first, Lovino thought that the people in this world had no color, either. Did that mean that he would lose his color, too?

But these thoughts stopped the moment he looked at the man's face. His red eyes seemed to see right through Lovino and a small yellow chick poked its way out from silvery locks. The boy whimpered in fright and hid his face from those bloody eyes.
Antonio laughed lovingly at Lovino's cuteness and gave him a small kiss on his chubby cheek. "Gil, this is Romano. Roma, say 'hello'."
"'llo bastard..." Lovino mumbled quietly. Why wouldn't Antonio call him by his real name?
"Language, Roma," Antonio scolded lightly.
Gilbert laughed, his hisses making Lovino even more wary of the strange man. "The boy's got fire; I like him." he gave Antonio a serious look. "Is this the boy you were talking about?"
Antonio nodded. "Si, isn't he cute~" he cooed and nuzzled Romano's face, making the boy whine.
Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Adorable. So what are you two up to? It's dangerous to walk around without a purpose while the world is still unstable."

"Unstable?" Lovino frowned. The ground didn't seem to be moving…

"You didn't explain anything to him?" Gilbert asked Antonio.

"I didn't have time to!" Antonio defended himself.

"Well there's time now," Gilbert nodded towards a small building: a well-kept bar. "It might not be the greatest place for a kid, but we can talk in peace there." He turned on his heel and walked into the bar, with Antonio and Lovino following him. Lovino's eye twitched slightly as he saw that the inside of the building was just as white as the rest of the world. Really, he was getting sick of so much white.

The moment that the two friends were sitting comfortably in one of the many well-lit booths, their usual orders were placed in front of them by a girl who looked a lot like Alice to Lovino. The waitress gave the two men a small smile as she sat the drinks down, but frowned slightly at Lovino, who was staring hard at the colorless liquid in the two glasses. It smelled like alcohol, one like wine and one like Nonno's friend's favorite drink, beer, but they definitely didn't look like those drinks.

Antonio smiled at the waitress. "He'll just have some tomato juice~" he said, trying to shoo her away from the table and more specifically, his Romanito. The waitress just raised an eyebrow and walked away to retrieve the order.

Lovino looked around at the people in the bar. They seemed absolutely normal. What made this world (his world if he believed Antonio) so wonderful, anyway? Really, it was super ugly without color.

Apparently he had been thinking aloud, because Gilbert sent Antonio a look. "You brought him here to be the Host, so you can explain this to him."

Antonio stuck his tongue out at his friend and turned to Romano. "I think the easiest explanation for this world is to call it a dream," the brunette shrugged. "Whatever you want to happen here, whatever you want to exist here, will happen and come to life. You control the state of this world, like if you're sad, it will rain. If you're happy, it will be sunny and so on." His eyes flickered to the window and the white world beyond it. "You can also choose the colors for the world, too. If you wouldn't mind, would you do that soon?"

Lovino crossed his arms and scowled. "Bastard, you're crazy! I can't change any of that just because I feel like it!"

"You can't?" Gilbert challenged. "Prove it."

"Yeah, show us that you can't change the color of the leaves," Antonio encouraged.

Lovino smirked. "Fine. If I can actually change the colors, I say that the trees will be hot pink!" he closed his eyes in satisfaction. These bastards were insane-

There was a collective gasp from the people in the bar and frantic discussion as Lovino finished talking. Confused, Lovino cracked his eyes open and was confronted by the two grinning faces of Antonio and Gilbert. "What?"

"Look outside, Romanito~" Antonio practically squealed.

Nervously, Lovino looked out the window and his jaw fell slack. Outside, the world was still white, but where there had once only been the dark outlines of leaves and treetops, the foliage had been filled in with hot pink. Lovino turned to Antonio with wide eyes. This was a trick! There was no fucking way that he did that!

…Right?

Gilbert whistled. "Why'd you choose pink? It's so not an awesome color."

"Be nice!" Antonio flicked him in the forehead. "It was his first try."

"I… I really did that?" Lovino finally found his words.

Antonio nodded and pulled him into a hug. "Si~! Try again!"

Lovino sat on his lap in thought. He could do anything he wanted. If he willed it, he could make the grass blue with yellow polka dots. The sky could be purple with red clouds and a moon really made of cheese! He stared at the window and watched as his thoughts became reality…

Ew, the moon looked really gross. So did the grass; what had he been thinking? Uh, how about turquoise grass and leaves, light purple tree bark, a light green sky and… let's keep the clouds white…

Slowly, color dripped into the world and the people of the village watched in awe. Antonio gave Gilbert a smug little smirk, and Gilbert rolled his eyes. Okay, so maybe Antonio hadn't screwed up with choosing a Host. Gilbert was still more awesome.

The door to the bar flew open, revealing a disheveled, panting Francis. Upon seeing his friends, he ran up and waved his arms around dramatically. "Mes amis, look! Look at the color!" his voice immediately dropped to a whisper and leaned over Lovino without noticing him and hissed at Antonio. "Where is the Host? Is he safe?"

"Ask him yourself, but be quiet, I don't want anyone else to know he's right here," Antonio whispered, pushing Francis away far enough away from his face so that he could see the poor little kid that he almost crushed against his friend's chest.

Francis blinked, startled at the sight of the child, before letting a small smirk uncurl across his lips. "Ah, so this is the Host that you were so excited about! How cute."

Lovino glared at the blonde man. "I'm not cute!"

Gilbert looked at him with a critical eye. "You kind of are, kid."

Antonio laughed and hugged the complaining boy. "You're adorable!"

As their conversation began to grow louder, Francis' concern for the Host's safety returned. "Perhaps we should continue this argument somewhere safer," he suggested. "People are beginning to notice, and I don't know about the other world, but here, three grown men and a child seem kind of suspicious."

Antonio looked around the bar and nodded. "Si, perhaps we should go. But to where?"

"How about we bring him to see Arthur?" Francis suggested. "You know he'll bother us until he gets to meet him anyway."

Antonio groaned but Gilbert nodded. "He's probably lacking in awesome like always, so we might as well grace him with my awesome presence!"

Antonio sighed and stood up, letting Romano sit on his shoulders. "Fine, let's go see the grouchy little angel. At least his house is secluded; Roma will be safe there."

The trio and Lovino made their way through the village, looking around themselves in awe at the color that now surrounded him.
Soon enough, they reached a secluded little house in the middle of the forest surrounding the village that they just left. Indigo smoke curled out of the chimney and disappeared into the green sky. Francis walked up to the door and knocked lightly. "Arthur, are you home? We have brought someone for you to meet."

There was a loud bang from somewhere beyond the door and after a moment, the door opened to reveal… what was probably supposed to be 'Arthur'.

Lovino recoiled and hid his face in Antonio's back as a tar-black creature opened the door. Large black-feathered wings twitched between the creature's shoulder blades and poison-green eyes stared at the four from under large, pointed boned ridges that could pose as eyebrows.

The creature frowned at Antonio and looked down at Lovino, who cowered behind the older man. Gilbert gave the creature a look. "Uh, Arthur," he said quietly, looking pointedly at the black thing.

Arthur looked down at himself, and if he could have, he would have blushed. "Oh…" he mumbled and closed the door quickly. When the door opened again, a green eyed man with scruffy blonde hair and large – are those real? – eyebrows was there to greet them. The dark wings had been replaced by white feathers, like the wings on the angels that Lovino had seen pictures of back home. He twirled a halo around a finger before allowing it to rest snugly in the air above his head. "I apologize for my indecency," Arthur apologized, wiping non-existent dirt off of his shoulder once the halo was in place. "I didn't realize that you three would have a child with you." He frowned. "Actually, why do you have a child?"

Antonio carefully detached Romano from the back of his shirt and presented him to the blonde man. "This is Romano, the new Host."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Our new Host is a child?" he groaned. "Great, as if this place wasn't unstable on its own, you three decided that it would be a good idea to have a child run it!"
Gilbert and Francis immediately began to deny it. "Woah, don't lump us with him!" Gilbert sputtered.

"Oui! This was Antonio's idea!" Francis continued.

"Guys!" Antonio whined. "Thanks a lot!"

Arthur rolled his eyes and turned his attention onto 'Romano'. He knew that it wasn't his real name, but a Host's real name should never be said while in this world. The blonde highly doubted that Antonio had explained even the basic rules, laws, and codes of the world to the new Host. The brunette was always an airhead like that; and that was precisely why he had never been the one to find a Host before. He always let his heart blind his better judgment…

Arthur knelt down next to Romano. "Has anyone told you anything about where you are, lad?"

Romano swallowed a lump in his throat and shook his head, staring silently at the monster-turned-man. What was this man? Nobody else looked like that! He turned his head slightly to look at the three bickering friends. Nobody else looked like that, really… right?

Arthur sighed again. "I didn't think so," getting back to his feet, he motioned for Romano to follow him into the house. "Come on, lad, I need to talk to you, then."

Romano bit his lip and took another glance at Antonio before following Arthur into his small house.

The two left the other three on the doorstep and sat at the kitchen table. Arthur offered Romano a cup of tea, which he accepted, curling his hands around the warm cup and staring into its brownish depths. They sat in silence for a few moments before Arthur cleared his throat. "So, you are the new Host?"

Romano nodded, eyes trained on his tea.

"Do you know what that means?"

The boy shook his head, gripping the cup tighter. Antonio hadn't told him much of anything, except that this place was sort of like a dream. So what if he could change colors or his feelings could control the weather? That was just weird! It didn't explain anything!

Arthur stared at the approaching storm clouds out the window before starting his explanation. "When we say that you are the Host, Romano, it means that this world relies totally on you to develop and change. Whatever you do here or back in your home will make something here shift. All the people and creatures here are yours, but don't expect them all to act like it. There are plenty of people here that would love to use you just for your power, so you're going to have to be careful." He let Romano take in the little information that he gave, not sure what else to say. "Do you have any questions?" the angel asked. "That might be the best way for me to explain more."

Romano thought for a moment and nodded. The sight of Arthur as a nightmarish creature seemed to be permanently etched into his brain. "That black thing at the door… that was you?"

Arthur stiffened a bit, but nodded after a few seconds. "Yes, that was me."

"Why?" Romano asked bluntly, then regretted his tone and tried again. "I mean, why did you look like that? I've never seen someone do that…"

Arthur sighed, looking uncomfortable. "Has Antonio told you that this world is like a dream?" at Romano's nod, he continued. "Well, where there's dreams, there's nightmares, too. Every 'human' in this world has a dream side and a nightmare side." He pointed at his chest. "For example, this is my dream identity. And as for the thing you saw earlier, that was my nightmare side."

"So everyone has something like that?" Romano asked.

Arthur nodded. "Yes, but some people have more control over their nightmares than others. That state is very unstable, rooted in negative emotions unlike the dream state, which is the positive side. It is the job of the Host to keep the dream side alive and keep the nightmares from taking over. Do you think you can do that?"

Romano wanted nothing more than to say yes or at least nod, but he was frozen. How was he supposed to do any of that? He was only a kid! They couldn't possibly expect him to do that!

Arthur seemed to notice his panic. "You won't be alone in this, you know," he said. "We – those three and I plus others – will be helping you keep the balance as well. Plus, all you really have to do is be happy… or at least calm. Now do you think that your task is so impossible?"

Romano took a deep breath before shaking his head. "I'll do it!"

Arthur sighed around his tea cup, taking a sip. 'For everyone's sake, I hope you're right, lad…'

A/N:

*looks up at chapter* grr why does the formatting still seem off? Ah, well, I'll fix that somehow...

So yay, more of the plot is revealed! The chapter was going to be longer, but it was already long enough, if you asked me at least. And that means that I actually have a good part of chapter three done!

Review por favor? X3

Ciao~!