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Alver thinks, when he first met Cale —all rough movements and sly, wild comments— that he’s ought to be the younger brother. But he's not, he’s the eldest and he’s too freewheeling to be one.
But he isn’t a spoiled brat, and more similar to Alver than he initially realized. Deprived of a mother, and the signs are there: loose neckties waiting to be fixed, uneven collar screaming for a caress.
Alver once does it for him. It’s a subconscious reaction.
“Your ribbon is crooked,” Alver says, softer than he intends to. “Had your mother never taught you how to tie?”
Cale stares back at him, pupils a little wider, and Alver’s knuckles brush against the skin on his neck. Cale flinches. He ignores it.
Alver pulls back and they’re back to business. “Your report on the mission?”
Cale finds it a funny feeling.
It happens more often, and it’s become out of habit for Alver somehow. He never notices when Cale pulls his collar a little too unnecessary, sometimes even comically buttoning his shirt wrongly. Alver, as keen as always but never keen enough, reaches out and adjusts it for him, deciding if there’s no mother who can do it for him, he’s plenty enough for it.
“You need a touch of a woman in your life,” Alver remarks jokingly, evening out the stray hairs on top of his head.
“Why would I need a woman when you’re right here, your highness?”
Alver’s expression asks him if he’s gone crazy from fighting the White Star.
He hears a meow, and they both dip their heads to meet Ohn’s eyes. She knows more than she lets on, that one, and Cale wouldn’t be shocked if she’s figured it out earlier than Alver.
“You didn’t cause trouble, did you?”
“In fact, your highness…”
By the time Alver hears the end of it, his face is buried in his palms with a headache building up.
This time when Cale teleports to his bedroom, striding toward him like he owns the place and Alver’s the visitor, he faces Alver with fists behind his back, expecting eyes falling into place.
Alver sighs before asking, tell me about the mission, and draws his hand to the collar.
He stops midway.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
Cale merely tilts his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I should just ask Ron then.” He stares at the sloppy collar and decides, defiantly, that this time he’ll ignore it. He sees a split-second terror in Cale’s eyes, and he knows his guess has turned out right. Cale doesn’t have many weaknesses, but Ron, his own servant that can and will kill for him at the drop of a hat, happens to be one of them.
Then he thinks, fuck that , and isn’t this the reason he’s the hyung, after all. Who cares if Cale makes a mess of his clothes on purpose, in the end, it’s all a matter of whether Alver can feign innocence and suppress questions.
His fingers move like a clockwork, deftly ironing it out, cold knuckles skimming over the pale collar bones.
There’s a nervous intake of breath, and Alver’s too curious to miss it. Blue eyes flicker at brown ones. Alver reels back, feeling quite overwhelmed at the intensity of the gaze Cale is giving him. He knows how heavy Cale’s gaze can be, but he’s never been at the receiving end of it before. He’s aware of the ancient power lurking behind it, but Alver doesn’t think it’s the case, right now.
It’s a raw, focused emotion, too strong and inexplicable to be driven by the force of nature trapped in a vessel. It’s something he owns naturally and not the dominating aura.
“I’m sorry about the last time,” Alver finds himself saying. “About your mother, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, you’re right,” Cale cuts abruptly with stormy eyes. “Even before her death,” Alver cringes a little, and then marvels at how nonchalant he is in the way he talks about her, when Alver himself can never , “or after that, I had Ron with me to do all sorts of the trivial and routine tasks.”
There’s something Alver will perhaps understand someday. It’s in how Cale seems like a vault of secrets, taking out single truth one at a time, the rest hidden. How Cale is the way he is.
“I had Tasha teach me to fend by myself. About baking and cooking too.” He motions his hand on the cookies Raon is feasting on, and the little dragon grins up at them delightedly, crumbs around his mouth. Cute.
Cale’s eyes twinkle, and Alver lets out a sigh because he exasperatedly knows what comes next. But he lets it, the air around them tasting less bitter now.
“How inspiring, indeed. To be offered the chance to taste his highness’ cooking, this humble me is very grateful—”
“Oh, cut it .”
Sometimes, Cale wishes the touch would linger. He wonders how much he can get away with before Alver closes off and turns him down, so he repeats the same pattern until they’re too many to be chalked up to accidents or coincidences.
He never admits he likes Alver’s thoughtless consideration of things that everyone else would have ignored. It’s how he maintains his position of course, and Cale’s a little enthralled at the pull of it.
It’s part of his charisma. And the uncalculated quality to it adds to the charm.
Cale turns around to leave, then pauses with dramatic effect. Alver, with the persona of a crown prince gone, just a confused-looking man with a silhouette of a child younger than Cale by thirteen years.
“You’re forgetting something.”
Alver rolls his eyes, voicelessly calls him a headache under his breath, and runs his fingers on Cale’s red locks like brushing away the stray ends. “You’re very childish.”
“Thanks,” Cale replies. It’s not gratitude for tidying up his hair. It’s for the simple touch, how fleeting it may be, that Cale longs for but never says. It’s the promise resting underneath those fingertips.
Alver nods, and one day, he’s going to stop looking tired. “Just get home safe.”