It was funny, when Abe thought about it. One would have assumed when his grandfather had died, he’d be thrust into the spotlight like his mother always said he would. But ten years ago when it had happened, Salem had taken over instead.
Before that day, Roman had only had to deal with his grandfather’s exceedingly high expectations for him on a personal level. There hadn’t been a real reason behind it, only that his grandfather was strict and kept a good image. So while Abe was panicking now, back then it had been the other way around. Roman had freaked out over his suddenly very real responsibilities and Abe, who had been chastised daily in order to impress his own grandfather, was suddenly free of those expectations.
When Abraham Helios had been murdered and Salem took over swiftly, Roman was suddenly everything but royalty around town. The glamour of that had faded quickly though, and Abe was the one who’d spent the evenings sitting next to Roman while he panicked, attempting to convince his boyfriend that he could manage to carry on his grandfather’s legacy just fine.
Abe, on the other hand, had never had issues with his mother’s future plans when he was younger, minus the ones about his love life. But spending time with Roman was the small act of rebellion he could manage under everything else.
Now as Abe sat in the university dorm room, he wanted to stay right there forever. He wanted to run and hide from his expectations; give up his name or fake his own death. And he had no idea how to tell Roman how he felt about all of it… let alone convince his boyfriend to go with him. Roman had finally accepted how his future was likely to play out; how both their futures were likely to play out. He’d simply planned around it. Convincing him to do otherwise now would be difficult.
