Hetalia Under The Big Top

Sideshow: New World Flashback

A\N Happy Canada Day and Independence Day to my lovely North American audience! To celebrate I have a bonus chapter for you. A little flashback about a couple of our favorite North Americans.

He sat in his parents' empty house with a newspaper in hand.

"Senator Williams with gay son and his boyfriend..."

Matthew threw the newspaper aside. Yet more news with that headline. He didn't even know that man. Matthew was beginning to wish he was still invisible. Well, he still was, just now everyone was making up stories about him.

While he was still grumbling in his head, "Oh Canada" started playing in his pocket.

"Hey Alfred, what's up?" He answered, after reading the caller ID.

"Sup cuz! Listen, I'm plannin' a backpackin' trip through Europe this summer and I wanted to see if ya'd like to tag along."

"Wow, Europe. I don't know. This is sudden."

"You don't already have plans for the summer, do you?"

Matthew looked over at the newspaper on his desk.

"Nope. No plans. Go ahead and book it."

"Awesome, dude! Meet you at JFK like usual?"

"Yep, sure."

"Awesome! I'll email ya with the deets. See ya in a bit, bro!"

"A bit" came sooner than Matthew expected. Alfred had booked the trip before the end of the month. The two of them met during their connecting flights at JFK airport in New York.

"Cuz!" Alfred shouted, running over to tackle his cousin.

Matthew was well used to this and didn't even flinch when the large man jumped on him.

"Hey, Alfred." said Matthew, pulling him back to look at him, but when he caught sight of Alfred's skin he stopped a moment.

Noticing this, Alfred quickly let go and pulled Matthew along to their terminal.

"Let's go, bro. Don't wanna be late for our flight."

Matthew followed, a little befuddled. He knew Alfred wore make-up sometimes. That was normal. What wasn't normal was how it looked. Alfred was good at applying Make-up, but today it was blotchy and thick.

Alfred slouched into one of the chairs outside of their gate and Matthew took the seat next to him.

"So how'd your folks take the news." Alfred asked, not allowing a silence to fall between them.

"They took it well." said Matthew, then he sighed. "A little too well."

"Whad'ya mean?" asked Alfred, looking at him sideways.

"Well, at first they were really happy. But then they started talking aboot 'winning the gay vote.' Now they've been parading me around, trying to set me up with guys, some of them don't even like men."

"Geez, Matt, I'm sorry. I didn't know they'd do that."

"I'm just happy to be out of town for a while."

"I'd bet."

"Now boarding flight 7174." Blared over the speaker, so Matthew and Alfred stood up to get in line.

After a short wait, their passports were scanned and they were let on the plane.

"We're row J, Al."

"Oh, right." Alfred scratched his head, moving back to the right row and dropping into the seat next to Matthew.

Alfred continued to seem nervous and distracted. Matthew was getting concerned and so decided to pry a bit.