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.

Because Cale wasn't important enough.

Alberu pulled Cale into a tight hug, mindless of the way Cale squawked with rage, and buried his face into the crook of his neck. Breathing in his scent and fighting his own chaotic emotions and memories.

Because Cale was important enough. Cale was so important to him that he could hardly breathe at the idea of living on without him. Because a reckless side of him was ready to throw everything away just to make sure he didn't lose this precious person.

"...a hug won't fix this." Cale said bitterly and Alberu could hear the watery hint to his voice that broke his heart even more.

"I was wrong." Alberu felt like crying himself. His priorities were colliding in a way that they never had before and he was hurting Cale. He had been hurting Cale, over and over, every time that he'd felt apprehension over the nature of their relationship, Cale had noticed and still loved him despite it all. "I was an idiot. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"...I'm the one who's an idiot for thinking you actually loved me."

Alberu's pupils shook as the words stabbed his heart, piercing through his ability to cope with the sheer broken pain in Cale's voice.

And as with the nature of dreams, his arms were empty.

There was no sign of Cale in the empty palace.

Alberu stared into the empty space with a painful certainty.

He really wasn't coming back.

Alberu awoke still inside all of those raw and painful emotions. The idea that the dream might have ended really didn't offer him any comfort at all.

That's what he wanted, right?

He wanted to stop having confusing dreams about Cale Henituse and to finally be free of the confusing emotions that always lingered even outside of the dreams.

He got what he wanted.

Cale had never disappeared like that in one of the dreams and the feeling he'd had as it ended really did have a sense of finality.

He could feel that the dreams were gone. Cale Henituse wouldn't haunt him any longer. After the celebrations were over, Cale would return to the Henituse territory and would likely never return to the capital again. The Cale he knew would probably rather cut off his own legs than be forced to come back here after that.

It was over.

Alberu had never felt so empty after achieving a goal.

...why was it so important that he put an end to the dream...?

Alberu stared up at his ceiling with the growing emptiness expanding within his chest and threatening to rattle up his thoughts.

Of course he understood why he'd initially wanted to be rid of the aberrant and confusing dreams. He didn't know where they were coming from, it was uncomfortable to be having deeply romantic dreams about a person he'd never met, and even if they met there wasn't any future in that relationship. They were suspicious and troublesome and Alberu had a kingdom to lead.

And yet he couldn't help but understand his dream selves thoughts.

Why was all of that important? What did any of that have to do with being in love with Cale? Couldn't he just have both? How would Cale impede him in any significant way, even if their scandalous relationship was made public? He'd be known as an indecent king and it would damage his public image but so what?

He could still run the kingdom well and he could find a way to spin the narrative to suit his needs and was any of it–was any of it worth hurting Cale...?

Not just the man he'd met in his dreams but the real person he'd run into.

He'd known what Cale was up to in the ballroom, seeing him head towards the balcony and his thoughts had been confirmed when he found Cale in the gardens.

Cale wanted to see if it was real.

Alberu did too. Although he dreaded finding out.

He really thought it was the right thing to do at the time. Swallowing his own shock when he saw Cale's wretched form collapsed on the grass and opening up the dialogue for them to put an end to whatever this was. Cale ought to have been thinking similarly to him, right? Who would want to stretch out a strange and unnatural relationship like this.

Clearly Cale wasn't taking the reality of it well either.

So he offered the best solution he had. An ending.

And he'd gotten it.

Alberu stared up at the ceiling with a dawning realization.

"...fuck."

Cale's shaking voice and unsteady footsteps as he walked away. Alberu's own throbbing heart that felt so heavy at the sight.

"...I'm a fucking idiot..."

Alberu Crossman really was an emotionally intelligent individual in a great deal of areas that allowed him to have fulfilling and meaningful relationships with his maternal family and most especially, to understand and use the emotions of others for his own political growth.

There was just one particular area where he became a fool and he'd realized his own foolishness too late.

Was there even a possibility of making this right...?