17. Alexander #2
“I was a fool. I should have given it up there and then, stopped the whole thing before it spiraled beyond my control. But something in me truly believed that everything had gone the way it was meant to. They’re my people, you know?
I can greet them by name when I walk through the city; I don’t think Cain has ever left the castle without an armed guard.
And maybe I was just happy that my dad had finally picked me in a way that was real.
I could point to this and tell myself someone in the world loves me more than anyone.
“So I smiled and shook hands and all the while I felt something creeping up on me. Cain hated me. And I assumed we’d have time to get over it—that I would grow into the leader I needed to be and he would learn all he could do without the crown—but it happened so fast.”
“What happened?” Kallias asks, and Alexander suddenly remembers that not everyone knows about his father’s fate. He’d just assumed that the world noticed when the sun went dark, and his life descended into madness.
“I woke up to the servants banging on my doors—I had a girl with me, had to kick her out the window—and when I finally got up they brought me to my dad’s room and it almost looked like he was asleep.
But the air in the room… It was like it hadn’t been breathed for too long.
I don’t even remember what my last words to him were.
“They began planning the coronation right away and I didn’t have the heart to tell them to stop—didn’t have the heart for much beside wine and sex, actually. The way I was, I would have been a horrible king. Maybe Cain saw that. Maybe that’s why.”
Kallias doesn’t say anything, but the question is in his eyes.
“Why he put me on a ship and sent me to die at sea.”
“It was your brother, then.”
“What?”
“The person you loved. But you didn’t trust.”
He recognizes that as the meager explanation he gave Kallias weeks ago in the Library.
He nods.
Kallias visibly hesitates, opening and closing his mouth once before he says, “You don’t think your brother—”
“Killed my dad?” Alexander finishes. “It’s crossed my mind, believe me. But he loved our dad like I loved our mom. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
“But to you?”
“Cain and I have been hurting each other since we were kids. But no matter how much I hate him, I still love him. And maybe, somewhere out there, he loves me too.”
His voice cracks on the last word—only then does he notice that his face is streaked with tears. He closes his eyes and heaves a sigh, dropping his forehead to the table.
It takes him a few seconds to pop back up, and when he does, Kallias is panicking in that subtle way of his. His dark eyes are wide like he’s horrified that Alexander might just break down sobbing. When he rests a hand on Alexander’s shoulder, his brows stitch together in worry.
It’s such a gentle touch that Alexander can’t help more tears. It’s been ages since someone looked at him like this—like he was their whole universe.
“Well, would you look at that,” he says, smiling, but crying still. “I’ve always been a bit of a wreck.”
Kallias scowls at that and Alexander wants a picture. He loves the way his nose scrunches up. “You’re not a wreck.”
“More like a destructive natural disaster.”
“Not that either.”
“Well, whatever I am, it’s up to you to fix it.”
Kallias’ expression turns determined and earnest. “Yeah, okay. How do I do that?”
“Maybe just… stick around,” he says, more vulnerable than he intends. “I like who I am when I’m with you.”
For a long moment Kallias doesn’t respond.
For that same moment Alexander holds his breath.
Maybe he’s finally pushed too far; fallen too deep in whatever it is he feels for Kallias and allowed it to slip out through unmanned cracks.
Alexander is so many things for so many people that he might as well be nothing at all, but with Kallias he finally has somewhere to breathe and just… be.
“I like who you are too.”
He’s never wondered what it sounds like when blue-green ocean and pitch-black night finally find each other on the horizon, but now he’ll never have to. It’s the gentle, twinkling bells of a porch windchime. It’s the violent, glorious crash of a hurricane battering against the shore.
His world half-tilts on its axis.
“So, your brother,” Kallias finally says. He breaks the silence and the tension, but not what was formed during it. “His name is Cain. Like, the biblical brother-killer?”
Alexander barks a laugh. “Yeah, ironic, huh? The universe was setting us up to fail. My mom chose his name, my dad chose mine. I think my dad tried to pick something both Greek and Latin as a form of rebellion. My mom must have loved the opportunity to make it something grim. It ended up being truer than she could have dreamed,” he jokes.
Kallias smiles at that and, oh, doesn’t that make it all worth it.
“So, you’ll really come with me?” Alexander asks as he stands.
Kallias tilts his head and sighs. “Yeah, I think I will.”
“Oh, thank God.” He collapses involuntarily into Kallias, grabbing his hair and pulling him in by the waist. Kallias immediately stiffens under his touch and he realizes he definitely should have asked first. Touch is such a natural form of affection for him, he forgets that not everyone is that way.
Just as he begins to pull back and apologize, Kallias’ arms wrap around him and he buries his face in Alexander’s shoulder.
“You’re freezing,” Alexander whispers because it’s actually worrying how cold Kallias’ skin is. Which reminds him that he’s touching Kallias’ skin and he has to stop his brain from going into overdrive.
“I run cold.”
“I run hot.”
Kallias laughs, and the vibrations speed Alexander’s heart rate a hundredfold. “Sure, you do.”
When Kallias pulls away Alexander has to stop himself from dragging him back.
He’s used to flings and one-night stands and friends who want a little bit more than his company. He’s never been in… whatever this is. He’s addicted to Kallias’ touch alone. To his sarcastic smiles and expressive eyes.
Alexander wants more. He wants to know Kallias inside out—wants to hear an account of every second between Kallias’ first breath and this moment, standing in front of him, close enough to kiss. He wonders whether Kallias will ever let him ask.
“Back to the books then?” he asks to stop himself from saying the one million ill-advised things he wants to.
“It’s almost as if that’s what a library is for.”
He is helpless to do anything but laugh.
Alexander’s affection is overwhelming. He feels it swallowing him whole.