crossed over (alver x og cale)

Part 5

"This is some serious bullshit."

Cale was somewhere beyond the state of agitation.

After spending just over a day in his new world, he'd gotten a firm grasp of the status quo. Honestly, everything was frustratingly similar to his life in the real world except surrounded by cheap fantasy tropes.

It was kind of annoying, if he was totally honest. While Cale wasn't the biggest consumer of fiction, especially within the fantasy genre, he wasn't ignorant of the entire genre dedicated to teleporting to another world where everything is better because fantasy.

It felt like a pretty low blow that he still had to deal with all of the same family drama only with a new coat of paint. Like, wow, who the fuck wanted to deal with all their traumas but this time magic is real and dragons exist.

It was cheap and annoying and Cale wanted it to stop yesterday.

Especially since his situation with his family had actually regressed.

Despite the fact that he was still twenty-seven years old, his relationship with his family was closer to what it had been like in his late teens and early twenties. As though he'd been stuck in some cruel timeloop of all the shit he'd gone through and done back then.

It made some sense, in a shitty way.

Cale had been determined to maintain his 'trash' persona for his entire life. It had taken a lot of time, therapy, and certain external elements to even trigger a desire to change within him. Or to find a new way to communicate with his family.

His relationship with his family wasn't perfect, there was just too much baggage there, but Cale could be honest with them and he was finally able to let go of his preconceptions of how he was supposed to be and...

Well, there was just a lot of unpacked baggage that had taken so fucking long to deal with properly and he was finally happy with his fucking relationship with his fucking family and then there was this bullshit.

Cale scowled down at his food, feeling his temper flaring up again as his family stared at him with fearful apprehension over what he might do. He wasn't mad at them, he knew why they were like that, he'd done it on purpose. He was mad that he was back in this fucking situation and this time he had even more obstacles to overcome it.

For starters, it was really helpful to have modern expectations of the family dynamic. Apparently for bullshit fantasy realities you just lived with your fucking family until you fucking die.

It was really helpful for Cale to be able to broach these issues with his family and then go home.

Basen flinched as he dropped his fork onto the table and Cale scowled even deeper than before.

It hurt to have Basen scared of him again.

Of course he'd never hurt his brother, he never would, not in any reality, but his behavior had been raucous enough to inspire fear and no one would enjoy being feared by their loved ones.

"I'm not fucking hungry." Cale spat, pushing away from the table and storming out of the room.

He wasn't helping the situation at all, he knew that, but he wasn't ready to help the situation.

What the ever the loving fuck was he supposed to do?

He'd entered a fantasy version of his life where everything was fucking worse.

He stormed into 'his room', glared at 'his decor', 'his alcohol', 'his books'–

Cale knew himself well enough to know it was all his but fuck did he hate it. He hated all of this. He hated being stuck here. He hated his life regressing. He hated that his fucking fiance was apparently some obnoxiously unapproachable prince. He hated that his brother was scared of him and his father didn't know how to talk to him and how everything he'd achieved in his life had become so much nothing–