When All is Lost

6.

What starts as day drinking quickly devolves into a night of too many shots, not enough food and ends with Nate vomiting in an alleyway. All hail the future King.

We eventually drag him back to the palace as the sun starts to show its face and once he's passed out in bed we each slip away to our own rooms.

I wake to a pounding noise feeling like I'd only slept for moments. The room is glowing with winter sun though so I fight my exhaustion and sit up. It turns out the pounding is actually knocking, with a groan I force myself up and open my door, a guard is trying to wake Nate. I could have stayed in bed. Adam opens his door a few seconds later, washed and dressed, fixing the cufflinks on his shirt as he peers outside to see what's causing the noise.

The guard turns to us with a slightly panicked look.

"His Highness isn't answering and he's supposed to be attending the council meeting." He says, Adam grasps the importance of this and nods tightly, moving down the hall with purpose. I see how serious he is and understand Nate's late for something big.

We both enter his room leaving the guard hovering in the doorway.

Nate is just as we left him, lying on his side, still dressed. His jaw is slack and he's drooled a little but other than that he doesn't seem to have moved at all.

"Nate!" Adam says sharply, motioning for me to throw open the curtains.

I do so, filling the dark room with bright light, and watching Nate throw an arm over his head. Noticing the guard still watching I go to the door and start closing it, he looks all the more worried at that.

"We'll make sure he gets to the meeting, when does it start?" I say, slowly pushing the door shut.

"Five minutes ago," The soldier says and I fight the urge to laugh, this is my life now, babysitting a child as he tries to run a country. 

I nod and close the door.

A splash and a yell have me spinning back to the bed where Adam has thrown a bowl of water over our illustrious leader-to-be. Nate shoots back across the bed and promptly falls off the other side.

"What the hell!" He calls from the floor.

"You are supposed to be presenting the results of our meeting with the Mer to your father's council," Adam tells him, moving quickly across the room to his wardrobe. "You're already late, so I saved you from needing to bathe." There's amusement as well as frustration in Adam's tone and I can't help but think he's enjoying himself.

"Shit," Nate pulls himself up from the tangle of bed sheets and takes the clothes Adam holds out for him, going behind a screen he starts to change.

While he's busy Adam turns to me, "You're going to have to stay with him," he says quietly.

"Me? Why?" I normally have free time once we're back in the palace, and having fulfilled everyone else's wishes I was really hoping to go to the library and read for a while.

"This is the biggest thing he's ever had to do, he'll need someone on his side," Adam says, checking Nate can't hear us.

"But you..." I try feebly, Adam shakes his head.

"I've said I'll work at the hospital, I want to get some experience in while I can. Who knows where they'll send us next."

I sigh, "Adam..."

He gives me a look that doesn't bear arguing with and I surrender, the library will still be there tomorrow and Adam is right, Nate needs support.

"Fine."