Slight warning: religious themes.

Sit back, und ENJOY.

"Oh no you don't!" Antonio tightened the grip on the prankster's shoulder so he would not slip away in the sudden darkness. Speaking of which, said prankster was spluttering a wide array of colourful curses – way too colourful to be uttered in a church.

"Hey, stop squirming- how did the lights just all die out, darn it- Sto-!" Antonio did not manage to finish that word before something thin and hard smacked him across the face, making him lose his grip on the prankster's shoulder. As he massaged his chin, he heard the culprit sneaking away, still cursing.

"Hey!" He called out to the darkness, and immediately he chased the sound of curses, which managed to linger into the air long enough so that he could follow them – like some perverse version of Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. "Listen, I just want to talk!" He called into the darkness, in vain.

Soon enough, however, the curses stopped, and Antonio had to come to a skidding halt. Wildly tossing his head left and right, he tried to distinguish his surroundings. He was still wondering where he was – perhaps close to one of the towers? No idea, he could barely see anything, it was a miracle he had not barrelled headfirst into a pillar or crashed into pews and candelabra alike. "Hey!" He repeated. The echoes of his yell had barely died out when he got an answer from the prankster.

"You know what? I've had enough of this shit." The voice reverberated in the empty church.

Antonio was breathless, and satisfied he was finally, somehow, going to face him. That fact was probably the main reason why the filter between his brain and his mouth deactivated.

"Swearing in a church is just rude, you know."

He mentally slapped himself. What an idiotic, patronizing thing to say! The guy would probably not want to face him now.

"What I say is none of your concern, fucktard." The currently bodiless voice responded, closer this time. Antonio blinked. Did he just manage to start a conversation anyway? He needed to get closer to this guy, finally see him and talk to him. Why was he so dedicated in his pranks? Why him? Why in Notre Dame, at night?

Not knowing what else to say, the Spaniard improvised. "Well, the big Boss of the house might have something against it, however." He said, hoping the other would understand what he meant.

A short laugh, which sounded more like a bark, was the answer. "Hah! God? God doesn't exist. And even if he did, he'd be a piece of shit. He probably just died in a ditch somewhere."

Antonio started. Those were dreadful words, especially when uttered in a church. Some otherworldly worry washed over him as he turned slightly to his right, where he had heard the voice come from. It was close, but he did not try and look for him this time. His instinct told him it would break the delicate balance he had just created through dialogue. "Why?"

The prankster did not answer him immediately. Instead, Antonio heard a sigh. "Look, you… whatever your name is, it was nothing personal. I was having fun, that's all. It gets awfully boring in here. Oh, and, apologies accepted." A pause. "Now fuck off and leave me alone."

Now Antonio was even more confused. Apologies accepted? When… "Wait." He suddenly realized. "Did you hear me when I apologized to the church yesterday? So you have been stalking me!" His voice rose accusingly – sudden embarrassment filling him for having been caught talking to the 'spirit' of Notre Dame.

"Technically, no. I just happened to be within earshot when you said it." The voice said. "And yes, maybe I took advantage of it to get a second round of fun with you." Antonio could almost hear him shrug. "But playtime's over, piss off."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know where to go." Antonio replied, sincere. He had no idea where the exit was, and the pitch-black darkness was not helping him.

"Oh for the love of- fine."

Suddenly, the candelabra around Antonio mysteriously lit up, brightening the way towards – presumably – the exit. The Spaniard vaguely recognized his surroundings, and his instinct had been right: he was indeed near one of the towers. He suppressed the shiver that travelled down his spine at witnessing the unnatural phenomenon for the second time. This guy must be good with magic tricks, he thought. Nothing supernatural going on, just some chemicals or something, his brain desperately told him. He slowly started following the lit path. "Name's Antonio, by the way." He said.

Silence. And then, a tentative reply, as if he either did not expect this development or was just not used to it. "Uh, Romano."

Antonio arched an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound French."

"It isn't."

Antonio stopped walking and turned around, towards the source of the prankster's – Romano's – voice. He still wanted answers. And dang it, he was going to get them now. "Listen, Romano. I want to ask you a question. Why?"

A desperate groan came from the shadows. "Why what? Like why won't you just leave?!"

The Spaniard ignored the outburst, as he had come to a couple of conclusions. Romano could have escaped easily in the church, he clearly knew the place, considering the elaborated pranks he pulled in here. Yet, instead of running away, he started talking to him. Despite his apparent dismay at Antonio's reluctance to leave, he did not disappear in the shadows, consequently leaving the Spaniard to figure out the way to the exit on his own. Also, he had clearly hesitated before giving him his – maybe fake? – name. For some reason, Romano must have heard of the stories of the 'spirit' that supposedly resided here, and taken its place for real. That train of thought had brought Antonio to this conclusion: this guy must have been lonely. Despite not wanting him around, he was still talking to him, and not out of politeness; Antonio barely knew him but if there was one thing for certain, it was that this guy was not polite. He tried to push his luck by staying a bit longer, and force the truth out of him.

"I mean, why did you do this. To me. To other people, probably." Wait, didn't the guard tell him the last unfortunate pranked person found was about thirty years earlier? That couldn't have been Romano, he was definitely not that old. He let that detail slide in favour of the supposed legend of the spirit. Perhaps Romano had pranked hundreds of people and just had not been caught. "Don't you have anything better to do? Most people do things that, you know, don't involve strapping other people to cathedrals' ceilings." He grinned tentatively.

The silence that followed his sentence dragged on for so long that Antonio thought he had gone too far. His smile fell, and he considered leaving. Maybe he had been wrong in his assumptions. He had almost taken a step back to turn around again, when the smallest of voices responded, barely more than a whisper.

"I… don't know. It was just… fun." He sounded like a child who had been scolded because he had been caught tearing wings off of flies, and honestly did not know any better. "Like I said, nothing personal." He quickly added afterwards, immediately throwing up walls to shield the moment he had apparently cracked.

Antonio was caught off guard by that. He opened his mouth, and shut it again. Call him crazy, but this Romano guy sounded like he really had some problems. His Nietzschean affirmations, coupled with the extreme pranks and the childish lack of a real motivation for it all, told him this guy had to be nuts in some way. Anyone with a grain of common sense would have walked away and avoided Notre Dame for the rest of his life, or at least called the police. But, Antonio was not really known for his common sense, and plus, he was a kind soul.

"Say, Romano. How about I show you some real hobbies. You know, reading, drawing, knitting… heck, even birdwatching or fishing." He smiled and put his hands in his pockets. "Although, personally I would not recommend those last two. They are awfully boring."

"…What's a… 'hobbies'?" Romano hesitantly asked, at which Antonio's eyebrows shot up. He masked his surprise immediately, however. He did not want to destroy the progress he had just made by being boorish.

"A hobby is, er, something you do for fun." Antonio tried to explain. "Which doesn't exclude pranks per se, but makes them, you know, a bit less dangerous for others. You could have killed me with that stunt a couple of days ago!" He added, and he hoped it sounded jokingly. God knew he had not found it funny when he was hanging there.

"I never killed anybody." Was the suddenly harsh response.

Ouch, the Spaniard thought. He must have touched some sort of nerve there.

"Let's just, uh, say that I will come back tomorrow and show you some real hobbies, ok? Other ways to have fun." He reminded himself he was not, in fact, talking to a child, but possibly some sort of young adult misfit. He hoped the silence meant that Romano was pondering the proposal.

"… I… I guess." Romano finally answered.

Antonio smiled. "Great! Where do you want to meet? Back in here again?"

"Yes." No hesitation this time. "At night."

A thought briefly flashed in the Spaniard's head. Did Romano somehow live here? No, that couldn't be. He must be living somewhere close by, as to have quick access to the cathedral at night. "Nice." Antonio said, clapping his hands together, and he immediately regretted it. The sound echoed like thunder in the empty church. "And with that, I will officially 'fuck off'." And he started walking away. "Bye, Romano!" He even cheerfully added before definitely closing the red door behind him. Romano did not answer, but that did not bother him. He had not even seen the guy's face, yet he was feeling proud of having befriended the enemy, so to speak.

Glancing down at his watch, he gladly discovered it wasn't even eleven yet, the city was still alive. That meant no bizarre questioning the next day if he happened to be seen – by Ludwig especially. He trusted his two friends were to be considered completely knocked out for the rest of the night. For the official records, he'd just been on a walk to clear the fumes of alcohol. Whistling, he started heading towards Macéo.

What he did not know, was that Romano, back in Notre Dame, was trembling against a column. It was not because of the cold, but because of a deep turmoil inside of him. The excitement of something new and the fear of past failures clashed in his head like angry rams.

What had he just done?

Ludwig surprised himself at how easily he accepted the absurd reality of it all. Feliciano seemed surprised as well.

"You don't look… you know…" He started.

"Shocked?" Ludwig helped, looking up.

Feliciano looked away. "Well, yes."

"I fainted barely ten minutes ago. I think I reached my shock quota of today." Ludwig said matter-of-factly. "I already knew you weren't human, now I just know you're just a different kind of inhuman. I guess that is not so difficult to understand once you've accepted it the first time."

"Well. That makes sense." Feliciano nodded.

"Yeah."

An awkward silence fell upon them, uncomfortable like an itchy winter blanket. Feliciano's bare feet shuffled, and Ludwig coughed.

"So." The blond said, after a while.

"Yes?"

"You're a living statue who's been here for centuries. And you can't leave?" Ludwig asked sceptically.

Feliciano's wings and shoulders drooped as he hung his head. "Yep. As soon as I stray too far away from the church, I just feel like I have this leash around my… well, everything. Actually, it's more as if I were hitting an invisible wall." The angel tried to explain. "And, if I force myself through that wall, I start feeling… I guess the appropriate word would be 'sick'. I technically don't think I can get sick, but I definitely do not feel well." He shook his head. "Dark spots start dancing in front of my vision, I get all dizzy, and I feel really unwell right here." He pointed at his gut.

"So, you're sick in your stomach. Do you feel nauseous? Like you need to throw up?" Ludwig did not really know why he was trying to diagnose the symptoms of a living statue, he was not a doctor.

Feliciano threw his hands up in slight frustration. "I don't even know if I have a stomach! It just feels wrong."

Well, Ludwig thought, his eyebrows rising slightly, there goes the mock attempt at a diagnosis. Why did he even try, he wasn't a doctor, and the patient wasn't even human.

"What is your earliest memory?" Ludwig tried a different approach.

Feliciano looked up, his mind travelling back into centuries past. "It's a little vague, but it was… here. Not in this tower, but in Saint Denis. I don't think I ever left this place." His face scrunched up. "Hm, now I remember. I spent the first couple of days in one of the main areas, but then the people in charge – I forgot who they were, my memory is a bit foggy, sorry – they decided my basement was too ugly for them and their church. The next night I woke up in a huge old storage closet, some sort of stockpile area, together with other rejected art items. Ripped paintings, shattered mirrors and the like. Basically, items which were too expensive to repair, but too precious to throw away." Feliciano shrugged. "I didn't mind, I could still walk around during the night because they had a terrible lock on that door. Also, it turned out to be a good thing that I was locked away! About two centuries later – I think – some very mad people destroyed a lot of things: one day there was an abbey, symbol of the royals, and the next day it was just gone. The same people also broke a lot of statues and destroyed most of the interior." He shuddered. "Those were dark times. At least I helped clean up during the night."

Ludwig looked away. The mere thought of being thrown away like a broken toy rubbed him in the wrong way. And the destruction of other statues, who knew what would have happened had they put their hands on Feliciano's marble state. He knew it must have been centuries prior – an unimaginable amount of time for someone's lifespan and memory, for him – but it still slightly surprised him that the living statue could talk so lightly about that. "That… is awful. But, does not really help us. I don't know what to do about that." He lamely admitted.

"It's ok. I wasn't expecting a miracle solution from you, that would be unfair." Feliciano smiled, sighing. "I guess I just needed to talk to someone about it. Maybe confessionals aren't a total waste of time." He pondered. "I definitely feel better now."

"That's good, that's good." Ludwig nodded, smiling a toothless smile. "But I still want to help you. I don't know how yet, but let me just think for a moment." Then, with more effort than he was likely to admit, he stood up from the pile of scarves, and started pacing in the steadily darkening room. Talking out loud and walking always made finding solutions to problems easier for him. "Ok, let's recap. You. Are not normal. A-and I don't mean it in a bad way, it's-" Ludwig immediately wanted to kick himself, but Feliciano shrugged. He continued reasoning out loud. "You're, just, something out of a myth, a story, a fairy-tale. Like dragons, and witches and wooden marionettes turning into real boys. Magic just… isn't a thing." He stopped pacing. "Well. Your bare existence proves wrong everything I just said. Something like that must exist. Otherwise, according to all rules of reality known to man, you…" he gestured at all of Feliciano "Are not physically possible."

The angel propped his chin on his hand and raised his eyebrows. "Please, keep telling me I don't exist." He said, uncharacteristically sarcastic.

"No, listen. People don't have wings. They just don't. And even if they did – which would be evolutionarily improbable – they would not have feathers. And they would not be able to lift an adult human of medium weight off the ground. Angels simply do not exist. Modern-day angels are, and have been depicted with wings and feathers for centuries, but their appearance dates back to the Ancient Greeks. But that's not important. We already established you're not an angel, at least not a 'proper', mythical one. You're a statue. Which, somehow, absurdly, lives. Atoms upon atoms of marble matter somehow turn into living cells in a matter of seconds…"

And with that, Ludwig came to a halt, interrupting his pacing. Feliciano arched an eyebrow. "Yes? Go on."

Ludwig wanted to facepalm himself for not thinking this sooner. "Feliciano. You're a statue. Statues don't grow on trees, someone must have sculpted you."

That realization, somehow, struck Feliciano deeply. In centuries of consciousness, he had never thought about that. "I never thought about that." He lamely admitted, wide-eyed.

Ludwig pulled out one of his rare smiles. "Well, we have some sort of lead to unravelling your mysterious existence, and it starts with whoever sculpted you. Now, to narrow it down a bit, how old are you? More or less." He hastily added at the end.

Feliciano's expression morphed into something between embarrassed and a heck-if-I-know face. "Uh… After a couple of centuries, I stopped counting. Hmmm…" He scrunched up his face in concentration and counted on his fingers. "I would say… about… four? Four for sure. Perhaps more."

The German nodded, understanding. "That's better than nothing, I now am sure that we can exclude the most recent centuries from our search. Whatever sorcery or black magic happened to make you come alive must be discoverable."

Feliciano jumped up excitedly at the prospect. "Yes!" And as quickly as it had come, the enthusiasm melted away. "Black magic, huh?" he muttered. "…Maybe I'm a cursed statue."

Ludwig immediately realized his mistake. Feliciano may not have been a real angel, but he sure almost acted like one, and undoubtedly his moral compass always must have been pointing towards 'good'. "…No, no!" He grabbed the angel's shoulders. "Someone like you can't be cursed. You're not bad, Feliciano."

Feliciano looked up, and smiled. "Thank you, Ludwig."

"Now if you will excuse me, I'll go home and do research. We'll find out what happened, don't you worry." Ludwig's legs were already dangling down the hole and his feet looking for a wooden beam, when Feliciano asked, in a low voice, "Why are you doing this?"

The blond looked over his shoulder. He did not really know how to answer, he was not really sure himself. He just felt like he had to. "I guess… I want to repay you for helping me back then."

The angel nodded. Both knew what he was referring to. "Thank you."

Ludwig nodded back, and then jumped down on the first beam. He glanced down at his watch. Barely half past ten. His brother and those other two were probably out drinking themselves silly right now. He would not have any problems returning home.

Ludwig had barely turned the corner of the road that led to Macéo, when he saw a familiar figure whistling not too far away. What surprised him was that he was all alone, and not with the other two idiots.

"Antonio?"

The Spaniard started, and turned around with stiff shoulders and a clearly forced smile. "Heeeeeeeey, Ludwig!" he said, drawing out the 'hey' way longer than what was socially acceptable between two people that had only properly met a couple of days before. "Wuh- uh- what are you doing out here?" He tried casually.

His unnatural behaviour did not go unnoticed by the observant German. "Museums, remember? After they closed I got dinner and started heading back here." The lie rolled sickeningly easy off his tongue, as he casually glanced at his watch. "Took me a while longer than I expected, I was a bit far out. On the other hand, what are you doing out here, without those other two?" Ludwig slightly craned his neck to look around and see if they were – oh he didn't know, maybe stuffed in a trashcan or something. But even then he would have heard them. No, both Francis and Gilbert were nowhere to be seen.

"Uh, I went to take a walk. They are probably still how I left them at home." Antonio shrugged, visibly less tense.

Ludwig raised an eyebrow. He did not believe a single word he had said. Through his brother's stories, he could say he almost knew him well, and Antonio did not just 'go for a walk'. His sense of direction was terrible, and most of the time he would get lost. Yet, he let it slide. He was not his mother and he was definitely not his BFF like his brother, he was in no position to interrogate him. "Drunk, I presume?"

"You have no idea." The Spaniard grinned.

"Oh joy, I do love dealing with my hungover brother all the time." Ludwig said as they both resumed walking towards Francis's residence. "But why aren't you? Drunk, I mean."

Antonio shrugged again. "I have a higher tolerance, and I walked off the fumes. So I'm golden right now."

Ludwig made a noncommittal grunt as they entered the door that brought to Francis's apartment. This whole business smelled incredibly fishy to him, it was clear Antonio was hiding something. The Spaniard was best friends with Francis and Gilbert, and he meant best best friends. The kind of best friends that made the people around them wonder about their sexuality. When the trio got together, it would have basically been the same if he had glued them together at their hips: they literally did nothing on their own. The fact that Antonio was A) not drunk like those other two and B) walking around at night on his own, told him this was something the Spaniard was hiding even from his friends. Drugs? A relationship? Gambling? What could have been so bad that he did not want to share it with his best friends? It incredibly frustrated him that he was in no position to interrogate him, because now he really wanted to know.

Entering Francis's apartment, they immediately found Francis and Gilbert. The albino was sprawled on the tiny sofa, one hand and both heels touching the soft carpet. The Parisian was snoring on the floor between said tiny sofa and the coffee table. Both were drooling, definitely out cold and would have amazing headaches in the morning.

Ancient Greek Angels: Νίκη in ancient Greek, Victoria in Latin, "Victory" was the name of the winged goddess of victory. Yes, it is also why the sneakers are called Nike, and the logo is inspired by the wings of the statue "Winged Victory of Samothrace". I don't exactly remember where I read it, but supposedly modern representation of winged angels with haloes hails all the way back to the Νίκη.

Damn, that was a quick update.

My faithful readers know by now that I call the Italys Romano and Feliciano. Lovino is a name that does not exist and moreover sounds ridicolous in Italian, sorrynotsorry.

I put the religious warning on top just to be sure, I know sometimes people can be sensitive to this kind of things. My personal beliefs have nothing to do with all of this, but the stances and views of Romano and Feliciano in particular will be explained in the future. As for Antonio, my headcanon is that he is a modern Catholic; Ludwig possibly agnostic - but their stances are not overly important to the story.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! See you soon, ciao ciao

ElizabethScaffie