Chapter Text
World Meeting’s were always difficult to navigate. The thing that was meant to help reach proper conclusions, always ended up causing more conflict. With so many nations in one room caused productivity to drop a significant amount.
Germany wasn’t one to admit that he’d made a poor decision, especially not in front of so many people. So instead of calling it off, the arguing continued, with Germany’s orders to cease being drowned out by the chatter of the others.
Arthur sat near the window, away from where he usually sat. Lately, there’d been a weird feeling in his stomach when he’d sat near Francis. At first, he tried to brush it off as illness from seeing the frog’s smug face, or perhaps he was just coming down with a sickness. Fixing his gaze on a group of birds perched on a nearby tree, he raised his tea cup, taking a sip. The sound of America boasting about things irrelevant to the meeting flooded his ears.
Tightening his grip on his tea cup, he let out a soft sigh. The flock of birds were long gone now, likely scared away by Alfred’s booming voice that shook the wooden table in the middle of the room.
Even as Arthur tried to distract himself, he found that his mind kept wandering back towards Francis. His stupid smile, and his stupidly beautiful hair. The images just continued to flash into his mind, no matter how many cups of tea he poured himself.
He continuously tried to convince himself that the way his face flushed at the thought of the man’s accent was an illness, or perhaps a flush of anger from how annoying the Frenchman was. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the sinful thoughts in his head. It wasn’t natural for a man to have such thoughts about another man. Arthur wasn’t a homosexual, he couldn’t be.
He’d been to church numerous times, he prayed. He was a man of God, and he prided himself in that. He knew that being gay was an abomination, that these thoughts shouldn’t even cross his mind.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It seemed that the meeting had ended a few minutes ago, though Arthur didn’t notice that, being so deep in thought. “Ah, Angleterre. Lost in thought again, hm? Were your pixies speaking to you again?”
England pulled back, standing up from his chair. “Get your hands off me, wanker. I’m not trying to contract more things than I already have from being around you.” He grumbled, his hands already dusting off the spot that Francis’ hand had touched. Usually, Arthur would’ve stuck around to bicker with France.
But this time, he quickly turned around, and stormed away. France was left slightly confused, but brushed it off as England having a stick up his ass again. Arthur quickly entered the hallway to where his room resided. Huffing, he removed his shoes before entering his room, then shrugged off his coat and hung it up.
He felt so filthy, it was like he could still feel France’s hand on his shoulder. The entire situation left him in a state of irritation and internalized hatred. He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers.
Perhaps a hot shower would wash away the feeling of disgust. The nearly scalding hot water hit his skin, hissing through his teeth. He convinced himself that he deserved this pain, for the sins he committed throughout the day.
There were burns marking his skin afterwards, but he simply pulled his sleeves over them. He didn’t deserve to tend to the burns.