dreams (alver x og cale)

Part 5

Nope.

He wasn't doing this.

Cale turned around and marched out of the Crown Prince's bedroom, slamming the door behind him and leaving a startled Alberu at his desk.

Cale wasn't talking to the bastard. He definitely wasn't going to fuck him. The two of them were over.

Rushing footsteps chased him down the hall and Alberu reached him slightly out of breath. "Cale?" He asked, confusion and worry lacing his voice.

Cale glared at him. "No."

"...what?"

"I'm not doing this." He folded his arms over his chest and glowered at the increasingly worried man in front of him. "I'm going somewhere else, you go finish your fucking work and all the shit you actually care about."

"Is this about before?"

"What do you think, dipshit?" Cale snapped, taking a threatening step into Alberu's personal space. "This can't continue, was it? So we're over now? Good. I'm done with you and I'm done with this."

Alberu opened his mouth to argue but the incongruent memories provided to him really did present a scene where he attempted to break up with Cale.

It was just that now he couldn't really conceive as to why he would do such a stupid thing. Yes, he knew that their relationship could never hold official recognition and any future to it was nebulous at best but he'd known all that since the very beginning.

He'd decided he wanted to be with Cale despite all the reasons he shouldn't. What the hell had he been drinking to say something so despicable? He reached out to grab Cale's arm just as he turned to storm away. "Wait. I didn't–I don't know why I..."

Cale jerked his arm away, snarling at Alberu with a truly resentful pain.

Cale had looked so distraught when he'd said it. Why hadn't he chased? Why had he just let him go like that? What the fuck was wrong with him?

"Oh, changed your mind now?" Cale hissed, poking Alberu in the chest with a treasonous finger. "That's great because I haven't. Fuck you, fuck everything about you, I hope you die, and I never fucking want to see you again."

Alberu gently took his hand, still painfully wracking his memories to try and understand why he'd hurt Cale so badly and for no good reason at all. He wasn't mad. He hadn't even wanted to do it. He'd just thought it was the right thing to do at the time and stubbornly pushed through the pain.

"I'm sorry, Cale." He closed his eyes as the fear that he might not be able to make this right rumbled inside of his chest and made him raw with pain. "I really don't know why I did that."

Cale let out a sneer. "I do. You're ashamed of me. You like things to be proper and right and you've never liked the 'impropriety' of this arrangement." He let out a bitter and barking laugh. "Do you think I didn't notice? Or that I didn't know that you planned to fuck off if this relationship ever threatened your political position? I'm not an idiot, your highness. I know what I am to you."

Alberu's mouth was dry.

Everything he said was wrong but it also wasn't. There was a part of Alberu that always prioritized his position and political power above everyone and everything else, above even Cale. It was because he loved his kingdom, it was because the lives of the many weren't anything to the lives of the one, it was because he always prioritized what was important.

But it was wrong because Alberu wouldn't...

...but hadn't he...?

What other reason did he have to hurt Cale like that if not to draw a line. To firmly establish that there couldn't be a future because this relationship could get in the way of his priorities.