Each defeat got worse.
With each failure, Turkey grew more frustrated, more prone to anger, more lost in the swirling miasma of his mind. Egypt could see it sucking him in, consuming him from the inside out. He wondered if Sadik was doomed to die.
After they had returned from the battle, Sadik vanished. Gupta had seen him have his wounds tend to, and then at some point in the afternoon, he realized Topkepi Palace was empty of its Nation. Taking charge, he made sure everyone ate, and was in bed before midnight.
When he stayed up late painting a few of his recently-formed ceramic works, he told himself it was not to see if Sadik was going to come home tonight. Allah only knew what kind of revenge bent he was out on now. Sometimes Gupta wondered if the Ottoman Empire had left anything of Sadik behind.
At last, he went to bed, but slept lightly, and was awakened a few times by a cat settling on the bed or pacing around his desk.
Early, early in the morning, long before the first streaks of yellow reached into the dim sky, he heard someone crashing about downstairs. He got up and shuffled silently to the stairway, to lean over the rails and see Sadik groping around in the darkness.
Quickly, he descended the stairs and paused on the third step from the bottom. "What are you doing?" he hissed into the quiet. "You're going to wake everyone up!" It had taken three bedtime stories to get them all to close their eyes!
"…looking for…something…" Sadik lurched closer to him, Egypt recoiled at the smell of spirits.
"You're drunk," he said, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
"I am not," he replied, squinting at Gupta in the absence of light.
"You are. I can smell it." Sadik's hand was clutching his shoulder, and when Gupta looked closer, he thought he saw a smear of something wet. "And you've ripped your stitches open."
"Need to find the needle and thread," Sadik said. Egypt's glare was very hard to discern from his usual flat expression, and Sadik was in no state to do it. When he whirled on the ball of his foot and marched up the steps, nightshirt swishing behind him, Sadik nevertheless followed meekly.
Gupta sat him down in his room and lit a few candles so he could see. He made Sadik open his shirt and pull the collar out of the way so he could attend to the wound. Sure enough, there were a few popped stitches from whatever Sadik had gotten up to tonight (besides his illicit drinking). The empire held silent as Egypt worked, arms resting on his legs, hands loosely clasped together. Silently, he endured the re-stitching of the gash, a few twitches of his eyebrows the only signs of pain.
"You need to be more responsible," Gupta told him, eyes intently focused on his task. Sadik didn't respond, so he dared to go on. "This isn't going to help."
Sadik's eyes watched Gupta's knees, and still he made no protest against the criticisms. It was unlike him of late, and Gupta was troubled. He finished the stitching and tied it off, dabbing at it a bit with a kerchief to wipe away the blood.
"There, it's—" He was abruptly cut off by a clumsy attempt to kiss him. Not just once either, but several times, several sloppy, uncertain attempts to fit their lips together properly. When the empire was done, he sat back on his stool, his abashed gaze once more attentive to the ground between them.
It was the most childish thing Egypt had ever seen him do.
And that was saying something, because Gupta had once watched him have a "I know you are but what am I?" argument with Greece and Cyprus for almost forty minutes.
"You need to go to bed," he said, without the slightest change in his voice.
"Yeah." Sadik got to his feet with a huff through his nose, and Gupta rose as well, smoothing the front of his shirt. Before he could take his leave, Sadik's hand closed around his arm like an animal trap. "You stay," he commanded. Egypt didn't respond, but after a moment he relaxed, and Sadik let go of him.
He shed several layers of clothing and collapsed on the bed, finding a position that didn't make his shoulder seize with pain. Gupta watched him, and they stared at each other through the dark room until he swayed sedately over to take a place on the bed. The mattress wobbled and pitched as Sadik moved closer, until he threw a heavy arm over Gupta. His heart surged with something he couldn't name, but after several tense moments, he could tell from Sadik's breathing he had fallen asleep.
The cracks were growing, widening, splitting off into new spider webs. Sadik was collapsing from the inside, rotting away like all empires did in the end. Gupta wondered how long it would be before he vanished like Rome, or perished like Byzantium.
He wondered if Sadik knew he was dying.
He wondered what he would say, when it was all said and done.
As he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, he said quietly to himself, "I will say he should have been more careful."
AN:
I really dislike the name Himaruya gave Egypt because I don't think it fits at all but I'm also not well-versed enough in Egyptian naming tradition to give him something else…if anyone has suggestions, I'm looking for one. Also since Egypt and Turkey are Muslims, drinking is a no-no, which is why Gupta is kind of shocked. Sadik's not very good at following the rules though.