Author's Note: This is based off a prompt by axiul on tumblr.

Chapter 1

A warm breeze swept over the hill, rustling Arthur's hair against Francis's cheek. Francis sighed into the feather-soft, golden locks, muttering sweet nothings into the other's ear.

It was a perfect day.

The two were sprawled out under an old sycamore, tangled together on a handwoven blanket Francis had had for years. Their shoes had been kicked off hours ago and now sat in disarray at the foot of the blanket. A picnic basket, now empty, had been placed carefully among the roots of the tree. The grass beneath them was cool and lush and alive, springing up in a delicate carpet that spread from the tree and eventually bloomed into a vast field of yellow flowers, stretching as far as the eye could see across the French countryside. Sunlight filtered through the intricate weave of the tree's branches, casting dappled shadows onto the pair. Every time a ray of light caught Arthur's eyes, Francis's heart fluttered.

It was surreal. How had Francis gotten this lucky?

Arthur shifted and grumbled something about how Francis was a mushy, romantic buffoon, and Francis smiled, pulling the Englishman closer.

Oh, don't give me that. You love me, poetic words and all.

Arthur only scowled in response, offering no further objection, and Francis knew it was true. He'd always known it, but only now were things finally, finally, beginning to come together the way he'd always dreamed. He glanced down at Arthur's pouting face, which was only succeeding just enough in hiding the hopeless smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was too much, and feeling his chest flood with warmth, Francis pressed soft kisses to the Arthur's cheeks, moving up and peppering them around his nose, his eyelids, his forehead.

Arthur groaned in half-hearted protest, but Francis didn't need to open his eyes to know that Arthur was secretly smiling. All the tension in his muscles eased as he relaxed again back at Arthur's side. He was in heaven, his fingers finding Arthur's and intertwining, as he drifted off for an afternoon nap.

When he opened his eyes, he felt his heart break.

He was not lounging under the leaves and the sun and the cloudless sky, nor was he even in the bed of the countryside cottage, but tangled in the sheets of the bed in his old Paris apartment.

It had all been a dream.

This was just the latest in a long string of dreams. They had begun simply—just a glimpse of Arthur smiling at him from across the room, or Francis walking down the aisle of a grocery store with the feeling that someone else was there with him, just out of sight. Gradually, the dreams had become more complex, evolving from mere flashes of another life to a story that seemed to unfold itself, first once or twice a week, and now, nearly every night.

Francis never really got over the disappointment of waking up every morning to find that the life he thought he had been living had merely been the nightly manifestation of his imagination. It was really beginning to wear on him.

His real life was not so full of sunshine and happiness. In real life, Arthur did not love him. In real life, Arthur was a reluctant companion who did not seem to mind the Frenchman's presence, but made it very clear that he had no desire to return any of his advances. So of course, Francis would always laugh the rejections off—pretend like his flirting was just another way to make Arthur angry. It was cover enough, but it still hurt. As much as Francis enjoyed Arthur paying attention to him—any attention to him—he would have been overjoyed if, just once, Arthur would join him for a dinner date, or accept one of Francis's compliments without objection. In his dreams, Francis found that Arthur, while he was still very much Arthur, returned his affections.

In not a single one of Francis's dreams had Arthur been absent.

Oh, he was so hopeless. It had been centuries since he and Arthur first met. Arthur had always been a part of his life. The only stable, unmoving constant. And it had been the thought of losing him—as the Luftwaffe descended upon Britain in hoards and as Francis sat helpless, his own capital already overrun by the Germans—that he began to come to terms with what he'd always known:

He was in love.

That afternoon, after Francis had managed to drag himself out of bed and get himself dressed, he found himself strolling down a winding, Parisian street. At one time, this street would have been filled with horse drawn carriages, carting around those lucky enough to call themselves nobility. Go back a little further, and it would have been filled with protesters, demanding their rights and a change of government. Go back even further, and it would have been filled with oxcarts, carrying away the dead who had succumbed to the plague. Today, it was filled with cars and pedestrians alike, all minding their own business, unaware of the history that had transpired where they now stood.

Being a nation, as rewarding as it could be, was very, very tiring.

He passed a shop with a television in the window. On the screen were flashing images of smoke and flashing lights, people running and screaming, headlines that spoke of terrorism and death and lives cut short before their time. Though the scenes were not from his country, how could he not feel pain just at watching them? One day, the next war would be at his doorstep, the next fight for his existence staring at him through a haze of dust and smoke. How long until he found himself fighting that war? How long until he would feel each and every bloody death his citizens suffered in the conflict?

It was all a part of the job, he supposed…

But it was so much easier, he thought, to get lost in the world of his dreams, where he never felt the paranoia of a coming war, or the pain of a dying citizen, or the suffering, or the sickness. By now, he'd worked out that in these dreams, he must be human, for he'd never once had to deal with any sort of nation business in his dreams. Wouldn't it be nice, he thought, to live and die as a human? It was such a simple life, by comparison, and when he lived it in his dreams, he was truly happy.

The thought only seemed to depress him more. They were only dreams after all. They would never be real. He would never feel that same simplicity, living in a country cottage with Arthur, with no obligations or duties, having picnics under trees and caressing each other in the sunlight.

As the television cut to another video of an explosion in some far off land, Francis decided he'd had enough, and turned away, content, at this point, to return to the quiet solitude of his apartment.