Twenty minutes later, Northern Ireland's feeling of gratitude has diminished considerably.
He has, over the years, learnt to derive a certain amount of entertainment from watching arguments from the periphery. Given that he has grown up in the company of three people can't so much as breathe the same air as each other without at least one getting affronted by the way the others inhale, developing that particular skill was essential so that he didn't spend his entire life stressed, upset, and scared that he was going to end up the product of some bizarre form of a broken home.
His brothers' arguments do have a fair amount of value as a spectator sport, though, due to their high likelihood of containing smashed furniture, face punching, and the opportunity to expand the scatological portion of his Gàidhlig and Welsh vocabulary.
France and Germany's disagreement, on the other hand, involves far too many facts, figures, and 'I think you'll find it is you who doesn't appreciate the intricacies of the Common Agricultural Policy's and not enough calling each other 'pustulant arseholes' and threatening to ram heads into walls to be even slightly interesting.
Northern Ireland longs to escape, but England's etiquette lessons have proven themselves inadequate yet again, as they have failed to furnish him with any effective ways of extricating himself from unwelcome company beyond inventing polite fictions about urgently having some place else he needs to be. France and Germany haven't let up for long enough for him to throw in so much as a quick, 'Got to go, just remembered I forgot to switch off the cat,' however.
Added to which, France has tangled his fingers in the fabric of Northern Ireland's T-shirt, the heel his palm pressed tight against the small of Northern Ireland's back, as though he's using him as a support to brace himself so that he doesn't get blown off his feet by the magnitude of Germany's misapprehensions regarding wheat tariffs. If Northern Ireland did just put his head down and make a run for it, as he's severely tempted to do, he'd likely snap France's wrist in the process.
His third helping of lunch had helped ease things for a little while, but that's now long gone; nothing left behind but a small smear of spicy tomato sauce. (England had tutted Northern Ireland's preference for licking his plates clean out of him decades ago, but he's desperate enough that he finds himself tempted to revert to bad habits past all the same.)
He looks longingly towards the table his brothers have claimed once again, and he's disheartened to note that England seems to be in the process of emphasising some point or other by jabbing his fork at Scotland. The possibility of not being able to witness Scotland's usual reaction to that sort of behaviour – namely grabbing hold of the offending utensil and then attempting to shove it up one of England's nostrils – at close quarters makes his situation feel all the more bleak in comparison.
Watching it at a distance and thus missing out on all the finer nuances of England's latest horrified expression and Wales' flailing attempts to pry their brothers apart seems like of a worse prospect than not seeing it at all, so Northern Ireland lets his gaze drift away from them.
It wasn't his best idea, it seems, as the only thing that confronts him on all sides are nations smiling, laughing and clearly having an infinitely better time than himself, until finally, amazingly, Ireland wanders into his field of vision, carrying a bowl of something that appears to be wonderfully gooey and drowning in chocolate.
Even more fortuitously, and just as Northern Ireland had desperately hoped she would, his sister glances his way as she passes by.
He fixes her with his most pleading expression, but she simply frowns at him, shaking her head in a bemused fashion that suggests she hasn't got the faintest idea of the information he's silently trying to convey to her.
Northern Ireland has often thought that Ireland deliberately misunderstands him most of the time, but as she's the only ray of hope Northern Ireland's seen from the moment France whisked him away from the buffet table on his nefarious business, he's willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for once.
"I'm so bored that I might actually die," Northern Ireland mouths at her. "Please help."
Ireland immediately turns her head aside and Northern Ireland curses himself as a fool for thinking that was anything close to the right action to take.
From the very first moment they met, Ireland appears to have been entirely apathetic about his continuing existence. She's made a few half-hearted attempts at wresting custody of him from England over the years, but Northern Ireland has always had the impression that they had been made at her bosses' insistence rather than any interest in him as an entity. They go on a few excursions alone together every year to make stilted efforts towards getting to know each other better, but Northern Ireland suspects that they're all actually instigated by his brothers and she would proceed to forget he exists if left to her own devices.
His being struck down by fatal case of ennui would, therefore, probably not trouble her at all.
To his surprise – and unending gratitude – Ireland eventually not only turns her attention back towards him, but her body, too, and she sidles up towards France and leans in close enough to whisper something in France's ear. Something that interrupts his agricultural diatribe, tinges his cheeks pink, and, most importantly, makes him let go of Northern Ireland's T-shirt and say, "Of course, Irlande. I've kept him from you all for far too long."
Northern Ireland can't begin to guess what magical words she might have used to affect his escape, but as he's finally free, it doesn't really seem to matter a great deal. As soon as they move out of earshot, he thanks Ireland more profusely than he's ever thanked her for anything before. (Not particularly difficult, as she's absolute shite at buying Christmas gifts for him, so his thanks to her have always towards the slightly feeble, damning-with-faint-praise end of the scale before.)
"Not a problem," she says, watching him a little warily, as though worried he could be overcome with emotion to such an extent that he might do something excruciatingly embarrassing like try and kiss her cheek in his abandon. "England's started winding himself up towards fretting about you, anyway, and it was a lot easier than having sit there and listen to him whinge."
-
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In the end, Ireland doesn't hang around long enough to listen to England say anything at all; just drops Northern Ireland off at his brothers' table and then disappears off into the crowd again, taking her bowl of delicious-looking dessert along with her.
"I didn't know they were serving pudding," Northern Ireland says, morosely watching until it disappears from view before flopping down in the nearest free seat.
"They've already cleared them away again," England says. His voice sounds a little nasal, presumably because his left nostril is swollen almost shut. "You missed your chance because you were too busy consorting with the frog."
Before Northern Ireland can begin rending his clothes at the injustice of it all, Wales slides him a spoon and brimming bowl across the table. Its contents have bled together, melting chocolate, cream and rapidly dissolving cake combining to produce an unappetising milky brown sludge, but it still smells heavenly.
"I thought I'd best save you some, in case France kept you too long," Wales says, which is exactly why he's Northern Ireland's favourite brother.
Except for all of those times when it's either Scotland or England instead.
"What the fuck are they talking about, anyway?" Scotland asks, peering across the room at the still frantically yammering Germany and France. "Germany looks like he's about to burst a blood vessel."
"Farming," Northern Ireland tells him through his first heaping spoonful of pudding mush. "France is surprisingly passionate about legumes."
Scotland's broad smile suggests that he finds this new-found aspect of France strangely attractive; a revelation so terrifying to contemplate that Northern Ireland's only option is to take solace in sugar. He applies himself to his bowl with renewed vigour.
When he's scraped it clean, England asks, "So, how did you find Germany?"
"Large and intimidating," Northern Ireland says, "just the same as last time I met him. I think we failed to connect on any deeper level, given I didn't get chance to speak to him at all."
Northern Ireland's not especially bothered by the missed opportunity, but it seems to irritate England. He snorts loudly (and then winces, rubbing at his nose). "I don't know why I let myself be persuaded to trust France to do right by you. Bastard can't be counted on to do anything if it doesn't benefit him directly," he says, prompting a curt "Watch it," from Scotland that England completely ignores. "I'll just have to introduce you around myself, I suppose."
He sounds as though absolutely nothing would give him less pleasure than doing so, and seeing as though England doesn't exactly get along swimmingly with most of Europe at the best of times anyway, by all accounts, Northern Ireland can only imagine that his resulting sullenness if he does force himself to do this duty as he seems to think he must will only make it harder to make a good first impression on anyone.
"You're all right, England," Northern Ireland says, shaking his head. "Thanks and everything, but I don't really need a chaperone. I'm sure I can manage on my own."
England looks unconvinced by that – likely surmising correctly that Northern Ireland would simply hide himself away again and not talk to anyone if left unsupervised – but support comes from an unexpected quarter when Scotland pipes up with, "Aye, you want to get meeting some of the other weans, right? Have a bit of fun without one of us lot breathing down your neck the whole time."
Northern Ireland hadn't considered anything of the sort, but it seems as good an excuse as any to grab the opportunity for the good, long bout of solitude he'd prefer. He nods his head vigorously and says, "Exactly."
Wales looks delighted by this false display of enthusiasm. "It'd be nice for you to have some friends your age."
Northern Ireland is sure it wouldn't. Scotland has seemed convinced of the same in the past, too, but to date it's never gone well when he's pushed Northern Ireland into making moves in that direction.
He used to take Northern Ireland out to the park to play with human children when he was much younger, but it had ended badly from what he's been told. Northern Ireland has no recollection of the event now, but he'd apparently given some poor boy a black eye by smacking him in the face with a toy truck then cried so noisily and at such great length that Scotland had been too embarrassed to ever return there with him.
It had seemingly disturbed him so much that Scotlaand didn't try again of for the rest of the century, but over the past couple of years he's been determinedly foisting Northern Ireland off on his mate Duncan's little brother Simon at every opportunity. Northern Ireland and Simon have had one exchange of words during their acquaintance that might be described as a conversation if one were extremely charitable, over the course of which they discovered they have absolutely nothing in common.
Scotland appears to be incapable of retaining this fact, however, no matter how many times Northern Ireland has reminded him of it, and so he finds himself silently playing video games with Simon (or silently kicking a football to him, if Scotland decrees the weather's too nice for them to be cooped up indoors) whenever he visits his brother, even though he's certain neither of them get a single ounce of pleasure out of the experience.
"Aye, it would," he says, though, because he knows it will probably only worry his brothers if he doesn't.