Thanks to bakla and an anon for reviewing.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

EgyPort: Dependence

"Are you doing alright?" Miguel asked.

"Why wouldn't I?" Gupta asked.

Miguel had thought it a good idea to take Gupta to a nearby village to show him around. The Egyptian was visiting his Portuguese boyfriend for a few months, and Miguel wanted to make the most of the trip.

There was a light drizzle, and Gupta had to snicker at the European who insisted on carrying an umbrella.

Gupta looked towards a house, seeing the odd decorations. He wasn't paying attention to where he was walking, and without realising it, stepped on an uneven part of the cobblestoned road, where one of the stones appeared to be missing. His foot slipped, and he cried out in pain as his ankle twisted underneath him, sending him to the ground.

"Gupta!" Miguel exclaimed, crouching down next to him. "Are you alright?"

Gupta tried to answer, but the only words on his tongue were obscenities, so he settled for nodding.

"Here, let me help you up," Miguel said.

Gupta hissed in pain, and an Arabic curse managed to slip out. Miguel looked at him in worry.

"You're growing pale," Miguel said.

"I'm fine," Gupta gasped out. "I just… I sprained my ankle."

"Do you want me to take you to a hospital?"

"It's a sprain. I don't need a hospital. A pharmacy would be nice, though."

"Come on, let's go to the car."

Gupta took a step, or tried to. This wasn't the first time he sprained his ankle, but it was the most painful. Miguel bit his lip, searching for a place where Gupta could rest. He found a shop with stairs, and helped Gupta towards there.

"Wait here," Miguel said. "I'll go get the car."

Gupta nodded, and he waited patiently for Miguel. He also had to wait half an hour later, when they finally managed to find a pharmacy. By the time they reached Miguel's apartment, an hour had passed. And once they removed Gupta's shoes…

"Oh deus," Miguel said. "Are you sure you don't want me to take you to the hospital?"

Gupta stared at his ankle, which looked as though a tennis ball was attached to it. He shook his head.

"I'll be fine," he said. "Really."

…

Two days later, and Gupta was not impressed.

Miguel had finally convinced him to go to the hospital, and they went to get an x-ray, just in case one of the small bones of the foot had been broken. The entire foot was swollen and bruised, and despite his protests, Gupta was ordered to have a cast.

And now Miguel was fluffing the pillows of his bed as his foot was on another pile of pillows.

"Do you need me to get you anything?" Miguel asked.

"You could have argued a bit more against me getting this," Gupta said, indicating the cast. "Was it really necessary for them to make it all the way to the knee?"

"Well, I'm sure the doctors know what they're doing."

"They gave me sick leave. For a sprained ankle! It's overkill!"

Miguel gave a small smile as Gupta ranted.

"Do you want me to get you some coffee?" Miguel asked.

Gupta glared, but nodded his head. Miguel set off to the kitchen.

…

As he was waiting for the kettle to boil, Miguel thought of the situation with his boyfriend. Gupta was an independent person, and he hated to be coddled. Being told that he was confined to the bed would certainly leave a bad taste in his mouth. But Miguel would do whatever he could to make the experience more bearable for the Egyptian.

Though, he could do without the constant complaints of Europeans being weaklings.

The prompt is: 'Person A is usually a self sufficient and independent person. They've recently been in a serious accident and it's limited their mobility and ability to do common every day things for themselves and things they took for granted. Person B is always the one there to get anything they need or help doing things like getting to the shower or sanitary needs. How does A cope with these changes and how does B try to help preserve some of their dignity while A recovers?'

Along with the prompt, I've been drawing from personal experience. A few months ago while in France, I sprained my ankle very badly. I think the fact that I was wearing heavy-duty hiking shoes made the sprain a lot worse (and believe me, I've sprained my ankles a lot of times). I didn't want to go to the hospital because of the sprain, and only agreed to it after the school nurse told me to get an x-ray (I was working at a school at the time). Not only did they put my leg in a cast (and, for some reason, made the cast all the way to the knee), I was given three weeks of sick leave, something that you wouldn't get in South Africa for something like this. When I told my friend, she told me about a colleague of hers that had an accident, and the next day he was at the office in a wheelchair, but in the office nonetheless. Fact is, a sprained ankle or a broken bone doesn't qualify as serious enough for sick leave. I'm also the type of person that hates asking for help. I hated the fact that I couldn't do my own shopping, and I was two blocks away from the store. Another thing that disgusted me was the fact that in a period of a month, they took three x-rays and after the third they said it's just a sprain, the very thing I've been saying since the beginning. If you live in South Africa, you know how sub-par the medical service can be. Regarding injuries, I'd rather go to a South African doctor operating a small clinic than a French hospital. The French doctors didn't even think of checking the ligaments, while a few months later (because my ankle still wasn't properly healed), the South African doctor immediately sent me to get a sonar to check. And because I hardly ever go to the hospital for a sprained ankle and because I don't really get exposure to that, I forgot about one important rule: DO NOT PUT A SPRAIN IN A CAST! That is a guaranteed way to make it even worse. Considering the fact that it took me eight months to recover from an injury that usually takes at most six weeks, I'm agreeing that France messed up.

On a lighter note, another thing I noticed while in France (and a few years earlier in Portugal) is that they're not particularly brave when it comes to rain. The moment it starts, all the umbrellas are out. And what they call rain, we call a light drizzle. We don't bring out the umbrellas until we can actually feel force behind the drops. And in the seven months I've been there, I think I only heard thunder once. And it was a rainy region. Where I'm from in South Africa, thunder and rain are guaranteed to be together.