It was one chilly Autumn night when England found him.
"What do you think you're trying to do there?"
Resignation was etched deep in his voice, with a touch of annoyance, as England patiently observed a small figure trying with all his might to climb the gates which barred the entrance to the Palace of Westminster.
"Oh don't mind me, I'm just doing the dishes", replied Thailand hotly, "What does it look like to you? Not like I'm trying to get into your bloody Parliament or anything, surely."
"It's past the opening hours", England stepped closer and peered up at the struggling man, "You can come back again tomorrow; why are you so intent on getting in anyway? I thought you said you've had enough of politics for a lifetime."
The brown-haired man heaved a sigh and begrudgingly hopped down. Straightening up again, he stood a whole head shorter than England, but still met his gaze.
"I just need to take a selfie in the House of Lords."
The end of the sentence was annunciated with an air of finality, meaning that Thailand seemed to think the statement in itself was plenty self-explanatory.
It was not.
"Care to elaborate?" England offered cautiously.
"I want a selfie", Thailand repeated, confusion evident in his voice, clearly thinking he was making sense, "To show those pesky relatives that I've been there? Okay, look..."
He grabbed his phone and thrusted it into England's hands, and surely enough there it was, a picture of Thailand himself standing on an overcrowded tube, two fingers stuck out in a peace-sign as he made a pouty face.
A couple of pictures later he was standing by the Thames with the London-Eye in the background; another one was of him doing a massive jump in front of the BBC Headquarter, and the last one... That last one England had to give it to him, because it seemed like Thailand had climbed up to the very top of a birch tree in St. James Park to get the best possible selfie with the Buckingham Palace.
He seemed to like the tube one best, however, as England saw that the man had already had it set as his phone's background.
"Please mind the gap between the train and the platform", Thailand mumbled in an over-exaggerated Queen's English, which made him sound like some aristocratic prick from the seventeenth century, before pocketing his phone again.
The green-eyed man had to resist the urge to laugh.
"So", the shorter male cocked his head to the side, "Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me?"
"And get told off by Security along with you? No thank you", England snorted, "Try again and you might even set the alarms off, and I sure won't be around once the police get here."
"Hey, what is life if you don't get issued an Anti-Social Behaviour Order or two? -Ouch!"
Because this time, England did not hesitate to smack him upside the head.
"I hope you haven't been around that American too much", he said wryly, giving the shorter man a sidelong glance, "Such attitude is unbecoming someone like you."
"Yes, father", Thailand was clutching his head but did not skimp on the sassy comeback, "Now what? Since you've denied me the chance to commit a civil offence and take a selfie-in-custody, you'd better be creative with how you make it up to me. I'm leaving the country tomorrow after all."
Make it up to him? How? England knew next to nothing about Thailand. Though, in all fairness, it was not as if anybody knew much about Thailand to begin with, being a fickle country that he was. England had thought he was a shy, soft-spoken man for the better part of the last century, and now look where they were... It was all hipster glasses, selfies on a stick, and enough sass to give France a run for his money.
"Bollocks..." Thailand muttered, "I haven't had Fish 'n' Chips yet either, gonna need a selfie with that."
- As well as picking up the most inelegant slangs. England made a mental note to never take the man up North, the possibilities seemed endless.
"Forget about the Fish 'n' Chips, why don't we go have a proper Sunday Roast?" England was feeling a little clever if he may say so himself. There was no way this cliché-loving man was going to pass up something so traditionally English. Plus, going by how his eyes lit up at the mention of food, he was sure that the love for a hearty meal was at least one thing that had not changed about Thailand.
However, if England thought food was going to subdue the slightly hyperactive country, he had never been so wrong.
It all began with them walking into a pub, and England ordering them a beer each (not Guinness, obviously, Ireland could shove it). It was not a surprise when Thailand got out his phone again and snapped a picture of the foam rising to the rim of his glass.
#Englishbeer #Slowlife #Catchingupwithmisterfrownyface
That last one had England furrowing his brows for a whole minute as he tried to decrypt the message. He was making another mental note to himself never to get Snapchat or Instagram when the Englishman realised the little bastard was taking the mick out of him.
Thailand plastered an awkward frown on his usually smiling face, and called over to the bartender - in what England believed was what Thailand thought Cockney sounded like - for some ice in his beer.
Ice in his beer?
England was ready to pounce and put an end to the blasphemous marriage between two things holy before it even began, but it was too late, the damage had been done. Thailand had unceremoniously dunk a whole glass of ice into his beer and was now sipping on it with a gleeful look on his face, paying no heed to the physical pain he had inflicted upon the green-eyed man.
If only Germany was here...
Then their food arrived, and this time England could not hold back his curiosity when the phone came out again.
"Why are you always taking so many selfies?"
Thailand shrugged.
"They all go on my different social media outlets. Don't you like me promoting tourism to Britain? It's good for the economy, you know. If the money doesn't all go towards MPs' raises and whatnots, one day you might even have an NHS that doesn't suffer constant cuts...-"
"You know that's not what I mean..."
"Then what kind of answer are you looking for?" Thailand smiled again, but the grin did not quite reach his eyes, "That I'm a materialistic snob who lives vicariously through the cyber world, perhaps? Because that would be quite right."
England clamped his mouth shut and decided against pursuing the matter any further, opting instead to offer his companion some gravy to go with the Yorkshire pudding.
"Pudding?" Thailand blinked, looking down and eyeing the food item with a mixture of disbelief and disgust "PUDDING? What is wrong with you people, delighting in this unholy mismatch of sweet and savoury? England! I'd only put ice in my beer just to piss you off, but gravy on pudding is a massacre of flavours!"
It had taken him ten whole minutes of lecture on it's-not-the-after-tea-kind-of-pudding to calm Thailand down. In the end, the brown-haired man looked as though he quite enjoyed the combination as well, which made England just a little proud, not that he would ever admit it aloud of course.
It was well past midnight by the time they made it out of the pub, feeling a nice buzz and giggling like mad men. Thailand was taking a night train from King's Cross to Manchester, where he would be catching a flight to Amsterdam in the morning to continue his Tour-de-Europe. England decided he would at least walk the man to the station.
Upon arriving at King's Cross on foot, they both had sobered up significantly, but England still felt giddy enough to offer to take a photo of Thailand with Platform 9-3/4, knowing the geek would not pass it up if he had already been to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, stormed the BBC Headquarter in search of a TARDIS, and went all the way to Oxford to experience the birthplace of the Lord of the Rings.
What England did not expect, however, was for Thailand to grab his wrist and pulled him close, so that they stood beside each other in front of the magical platform.
"Smile, Mister Frowny-face", said the man, as he himself grinned his eight-million-megawatt grin at the camera. England begrudgingly obeyed, and Thailand snapped a selfie of the both of them.
Before he could moved away, however, Thailand quickly made a cheeky grab of England's own phone in his pocket, flicked on the camera, and rose up on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek.
"This one for memory", he whispered, and took a photo.
By the time England had manage to gather his wits and blink away the flash, he was stood alone in the middle of a near-empty station with his phone hanging loosely in his hand.
The fickle man was gone, though England couldn't help but smile. His smile was contagious, after all...
"For memory?" he chuckled to himself and pocketed his phone, "And there I thought you couldn't get any cheesier..."
If Scotland saw his brother's phone the next time they met, he was wise enough to not comment on England's new background image.