England clasped his palms together in an attempt to wring out the outpouring of nervous sweat that kept leaking from him. He stood on the ragged old carpet in Allistor's house, whiffing in little traces of cigar clan of brothers sat staring him down with their beady, somewhat impatient eyes.
"I- I wanted to tell you guys that I... Well I.. I like men," Arthur choked out, his eyes trained on the beige floor. What new type of taunting would be unleashed now? He bit his lip when his brothers remained silent, their eyes no longer slightly curious, but piercing through the shelter of his skin.
"Okay, that's nice, thanks for telling us," Wales spoke up after the initial sixty seconds of shock.
Arthur's head perked up a bit and let his bottom lip loose from his teeth. "Really?" his Adam's apple bobbed up and down.
"Yeah," Ireland chimed in. "I'm really proud of you for having the courage to talk to us 'bout this."
"Same here," Scotland added. England's trembling hands dropped down to his sides with relief. His expectations of hate had been, quite thankfully, shattered.
"Thanks guys... This means a lot, actually. You're the first group of people I've told, so if you could, please don't tell anybody," Arthur requested.
"No prob!" they all responded.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ two days later ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allistor leaned up against the hood of France's navy blue convertible. They chatted outside of this month's world meeting headquarters. The two had slowly become friends over the past few months, mostly due to their almost constant disagreement with England.
"So now that little iggyboo finally came out of the closet, I think I'm going to start sending him Playgirl magazines or something as a sign of acceptance. What do you think?" Scotland said.
"He WHAT?!" Francis squealed, his eyes popping open to the size of quarters.
"Damn it, I forgot! I wasn't supposed to tell anybody! Aw, shit man, you can't tell anyone-" Scotland rushed the words out of his mouth.
"I KNEW IT~!" France yelled with a guffaw cluttering his words. He slammed his hands down onto his car with a triumphant grin.
"Will you be quiet, for God's sake!" Allistor hushed him with a slap on the shoulder.
"So... Is he single?"