Julius Caesar

Alexander's POV.

I placed my head in my hands, my fingers in my hair, and closed my eyes.

This was the fifth night in a row. The fifth night, my heart was dying in. The fifth night, my c.h.e.s.t was tight and my breathing wasn't right. This was the fifth night he didn't return.

Augustus didn't come back home for five straight days and I felt like dying.

Nothing made sense and I felt like I was drowning in the sea of my mistake. So there I was, sitting on Augustus' empty bed that missed his body's warmth for days, feeling completely numb and breathless. There I was, with a bottle of scotch in my hand, hoping, hoping that it'd make me forget the pain I'd caused my son.

I never meant it. I never knew and he just disappeared. It was cruel. I didn't know if he was happy, sad, alive, or dead, rotting in a ditch in the middle of the woods. And that was enough to drive me on edge. To drive me insane.

I crumpled his bedsheets, thinking of someone who'd want to hurt him, only to be overcome with dread. My heart raged against my rib cage as my thoughts spiralled out of control. And I didn't calm down until I found myself in my car, with my coat's collar raised against the iciness of the wintry breeze.

I knew where to find him.

I stood in front of the suite's door, so very desperate, my gun in my hand and my heart in my mouth. I was terrified most indescribably. It was two in the morning and I couldn't care less because I really needed to find him. I was losing it without him. Augustus.

I curled my shaky fingers into fists before rapping at the door impatiently. The door was then immediately and violently yanked open. I clenched my jaws as my eyes met my other son's lost, dark-green ones.

They were always that lost. Julius' eyes.

He stood in the doorway in only blue sweatpants with his hair standing everywhere, reminding me acutely of his brother. His face was impossibly wiped off of emotion. He was a breathing, blinking, living statue.

I raised my gun to his head and was surprised when he did absolutely nothing but stand there, lips slightly parted. Unflinching.

Feeling anger course through my body at his apathy, I stepped into the suite as he wordlessly backed away. He wouldn't stop staring at me. Pitying, torturing me, with his eyes. His mother's eyes.

"Where is he?" I said, my voice rough and loud.

There was no control now. Control lost its meaning the moment I knew I lost my son.

Julius stared at me, saying nothing, immune to my control over him. And I wondered what could be going on inside his head. What could he be thinking of me?

"Julius Caesar Alexander," I warned as I let my eyes travel up his length. Strong, well-built with a steady, unassuming stance. "I'm warning you. I'll pull the damn trigger if you don't say a thing! Answer me! Where is he?!" I growled and Julius raised his eyebrows.

"I don't know who you're talking about. Father." He added confidently and I suddenly felt stupid.

What was I doing? Was I really exposing my vulnerable self to that pathetic excuse of a son?

"Augustus." I breathed with a stomach lurch. "What did you do to him?" I said. "WHAT DID YOU TO HIM? WHAT HAS HE EVER DONE TO YOU?!"

Julius flinched, recovered, then smirked as some hair strands fell over his left eye. "Nothing. I did nothing." He said simply, hardly moving his lips.

I pursed my lips. "LIAR!" I thundered as I looked into his dull eyes.

He shrugged. "Okay," was all he said before turning his back to me.

"HAVE YOU LOST IT, JULIUS?!" My body shook in raw rage at his disobedience.

"No. Not at all Father." He said coldly, still giving me his toned back as a view. "I'm not the one who lost it. Clearly."

He walked away into a room as I stared at his back incredulously.

I approached him and grabbed him by his left arm. He turned to face me with icy eyes and lips pressed to a thin line as I pressed the gun to the side of his head. How was he capable of acting, being, and looking so inhuman? He shook his head as more hair fell over his eyes.

I felt his body's heat warm my cold hand that clutched his arm as I glared at him.

"What? Going to kill me now?" He scoffed and I blinked at him. "Finally, you decided to take me out of my glorious misery?"

"What did you do to Augustus?" I repeated firmly as his lips curled into a perfect sneer that matched his sharp, unkind features.

"Well, here's what I did. I shot his girlfriend in her c.h.e.s.t and didn't do shit about it. Happy? Happy?!" He yelled in my face before shrugging off my hand, catching me completely off guard.

"I'm not happy," I choked on my words and shook my head. Tears blurred my vision as I backed away from him. "I'm not happy at all."

"Who is, Father?!" He shouted, his arms moving around to emphasize his point. "Everything's just another problem, in the sea of problems that are drowning the hell out of us! We're meant to die drowning or die learning how to swim. And we almost always choose swimming and dealing with our shit without banging on people's doors in the dead of the night and accusing them of it!" He screamed and I felt a sharp, acute pain in my c.h.e.s.t.

"Just leave, Father." His voice was gentle, pitiful. "-and let me forget you ever came here and did all this." He continued as I squeezed shut my eyes. "This never happened." He raised an arm toward me then dropped it limply by his side.

And I found myself nodding at what he said. What else did I expect out of him?

I tried to stand straighter but a sharp pain ripped my left arm. I dropped my gun and held my arm instead, as I screwed my face. I suddenly found myself unable to breathe and that every breath felt like a sharp knife, mauling my existence.

I saw Julius cautiously approach me from my peripheral vision with a shocked expression painted all over the hills and valleys of his face.

I g.r.o.a.n.e.d at the intensified pain and stumbled back only to be held by Julius.

"Dad?" He gasped with a shaky breath as I looked up at his concerned face in a haze. His weary, worry-filled emeralds. It almost made me sick.

Another pain wave attacked me and I found myself breathless.

"F.u.c.k," was the last thing I heard Julius say before darkness took over.

My eyes fluttered open and the first thing I noticed was how dry my mouth felt and the beeping of the machines that engulfed me. I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath.

I examined his dirty, white shirt, sweatpants, and cigarette scars that decorated his limp arms. His hair was a mess and his visage pale. His legs were outstretched in front of him and I wondered how he managed to sleep in such a sorry position.

But what was he doing here? Was he here to humiliate me? To watch me when I was crippled and sick?

Feeling mad, I dared snap. "Julius!"

He woke up with a jerk. His deep, emerald eyes were wide and alert, reaching out for me in ways I never thought were possible with his inhumanity.

"Something's hurting you-?" He started approaching me but I snapped.

"What in God's name are you doing here?" I asked, locking his eyes as his concerned face quickly neutralized, leaving behind a ghost of emotion.

He raised his eyebrows slightly and said nothing.

"Why the hell are you here? Can't you see that I'm doing fine and that I don't need you?" I said, feeling sweat beads form on my forehead despite the coolness of the room.

"You had a heart-" My breathing fastened as I watched his throat move with difficulty.

"So you're here to babysit me?" I said harshly and his eyebrows furrowed.

"No-" He was shaking his head quickly as his lips parted.

"What?" I frowned deeply. "You thought that that was expected out of you for instance?" He silently ran a hand through his dishevelled hair as I pursed my lips, staring at him.

"I don't expect anything out of you." I exploded and looked away. "You have always been controlled by me. I'm your bloody brain. I bring about every action in your life. That's why I know that the moment I leave you, is the moment you fall, Julius." I shook my head disapprovingly.

I then shifted in my bed a bit, feeling the presence of uncomfortable plastic tubings on my arms and torso. I felt like ripping them off. "I expect nothing out of you, Julius. So you needn't babysit me. I haven't asked you to do that-"

"You didn't-" He interrupted with a heavy sigh but I didn't even glance at him. "That was something I thought of. Something you didn't think for me," he added bitterly and I smirked.

"Well. Good job. You've done quite atrociously on your first thought. So let me think you the second one," I said, still looking away. "Leave."

"I shall." His voice was deep and void of emotion. I clenched my jaws. "But we have a lot to discuss, Father."

I ignored his snide comment, then snapped my head to him angrily. "Funny, Julius. Funny how I'm supposed to be looking at my son but find myself staring at a stranger."

Julius' green fiery eyes caught mine as his eyebrows sunk deeply. "Funny I'm hearing that from you. Now." His voice was rough, his hair was a mess, and his eyes... his eyes were just sad. "As if I didn't know."

I ignored him again. "Maybe it's funny. But I know how much you wish you had a family. A caring home. A good future. A normal life. I know how much that breaks you, son. I know how much it breaks you that we're no more than strangers. How much it breaks you, that you mean no more to me than a stranger. I know that it kills you from inside. But it'll always stay that way. I know you, son. I know you more than the shape of my palms."

Julius stared at me with a vacant face and said nothing as the left corner of his lips twitched.

I then lurched forward, taking him by surprise. "And don't you ever think that I'll be expecting your forgiveness." I panted. "That'd be stupid, son. So stupid."

His eyes fluttered close for a second as a painful smile tried pulling the corner of his lips. The smile failed miserably.

"Okay," he then said simply as his voice broke at the end.

I took a deep breath, smirked, and laid back in the bed, looking ahead of me. I soon heard a bit of shuffling before finally, the shutting of a door.

I clenched my jaws and fists.

What? Why are you mad at me? All I said was the bloody truth. Nothing else.