The Noble Desire (Peterick)

.•°Twenty.•°

The monarchy was established by God Himself as a sacred ideal for all ordinary people to strive towards. It was to grace and dignify the Earth, to raise the commoners in their wretched lives with the example of nobility and duty. His family had said it was a calling from God, and Pete was answerable to Him in his duty, not the public. He was the direct line to the throne, so he was to be held at the absolute top of how one was to act and aspire to. It was the pressure of such a position that Pete quickly realized that he couldn't become King without all the repercussions of the most microscopic slip up.

He reasoned that perhaps fear was the main culprit in his hesitance to accept the Crown when it was to be due time. The title could not be held without doing nothing, the hardest part of it all. In their constitution, dating back a thousand years, it was stated that a sovereign was to be impartial, but Pete didn't believe he could be such. Impartial was not natural, not human. People would always want him to smile or agree or frown, and the minute he did he would have declared a position. As king he would not be entitled to a point of view, so the less he was to do the less he was to agree or smile or think or feel or breathe or exist.

Pete didn't understand how his father wasn't suffocating from it all. It was fine for the King but where did that leave the prince? It were as though Gerard's only intention was to drill the idea of his future into his head because from the moment he was let into the penthouse, after shoving through the crowd outside, he began the traditional practice of scolding that Pete insanely dreaded. Meanwhile, Patrick was hidden in one of the rooms, strumming away on his guitar, as to not bother the prince and perhaps to put off the fact for himself that he was to be ruined as well if the prince's assistant didn't go about this correctly.

"So you mind telling me why on Earth you decided it was a good idea to lie to everyone about volunteering and take off to Rio instead?" Gerard questioned as he took a seat in the chair in front of Pete.
"I needed a break, Gee, from the wedding and everything. It was overwhelming. I just thought that if I said I was going to go do something good it would help my image without the need for me to even try. You can call me an idiot now; I get it."

His assistant frowned and crossed his ankles, eyes remaining on the shadows stood outside for a moment. He released a breathy sigh as he dropped his sight upon the young prince. There had been a time Gerard could remember that when he would look at him he could see how idiotic the boy was, how careless he was of his actions and how unwilling he was to change any of it, but he saw him now for someone who, though had yet to know the true meaning of responsibility, was aware of the hurt he'd inflicted upon the family, upon the Crown.

Gerard felt as if Pete had done some significant growing set into motion by some force he could only guess to be someone he spent a rather large amount of time with. He could venture to guess that Meagan most certainly was not such a person to have influenced the prince being that his emotions rejoiced in these three weeks he was rid of her. Then the answer appeared when his head was turned to the sound of a pair of feet pattering down the steps. He supposed it was from the day onward since his bodyguard's arrival that there had been a beneficial change in Pete, and now he understood perhaps somewhat why the prince had chosen to have been accompanied by only that employee rather than a larger party, but he was blissfully ignorant of the extent of their relationship at the moment, so he thought them to be good friends as he and Pete had once been before their fight at the engagement party.

Oh, how he had wished to mend their friendship, but he supposed he deserved the detachment after having betrayed his trust. He could imagine how it must've damaged him- to be abandoned by the one person he had relied on for consolation and advice. Now it seemed that Gerard had been replaced by someone who suited that job much better and for good reason.
"I'm guessing you still don't want to marry Meagan, which is why you didn't bring her along. Am I correct in that assumption?"