Disclaimer: I don't own anyone.
Rated: M
Warning(s): Slash, Mpreg, etc.

After the third day without Ricardo, or any word from Ricardo whatsoever, Alberto started to worry. No, Alberto Del Rio did not worry about anyone other than himself. Worry wasn't the word that he wanted to use to define this uncomfortable knot in his stomach. Tension, maybe? No, that didn't fit either. So, then, what could it be? And then it struck him like a ton of bricks. Loneliness. Alberto Del Rio… was lonely.

This revelation did not make sense to Alberto. After all, he was a Mexican aristocrat from a world-famous family that literally had money to burn. If he wanted to, he could have any number of women fill his bed. Or, if he truly desired, he could fly his fiancé in and have her travel with him. But he didn't want to. No. As it turned out, the only 'woman' he wanted in his bed was Ricardo. The very idea disturbed him. He wasn't gay.

But the more he dwelled on it, the more he realized the fact that he only cared about Ricardo. It wasn't like he was attracted to an entire bevy of men. Just Ricardo. But, in a way, that made it ten times worse. Ricardo was the help, his personal servant hired by his father to do with as he pleased. He was no more than a toy, with fake emotions to boot. He would feel what he was paid to feel. That was the way that it went.

On a whim, Alberto walked over and opened his suitcase. It was the suitcase that he used to carry all of his punishment equipment for when Ricardo stepped out of line, which, Alberto realized, had been an unfortunate reoccurrence lately. He unzipped the suitcase and looked inside. Immediately, he was overcome with horror. The instruments of painful pleasure were coated in a crust of Ricardo's blood. He had hurt Ricardo.

"Idiota." He hissed underneath his breath, as well as a few other choice names for the servant. "Why did you not tell me that I had hurt you? Are you that afraid of me?"

Immediately, Alberto knew the answer. Yes, Ricardo was afraid of Alberto. Terrified even. And it wasn't really fair. Alberto never tried to have Ricardo be fearful of him, only to have him respect him. But it didn't help that he would use physical means to get his point across that he was not satisfied. Take the incident with Sheamus and the Ferrari, for example. Did he need to shove Ricardo like that? No. But he did it anyway.

"Why do you let me do this to you, Ricardo? Why do you let me hurt you?" Alberto threw the instruments down and rushed back over to the bed, where he collapsed with his face toward the ceiling. He needed to think.

Did Ricardo feel that it was his duty to take all of the punishment that Alberto doled out onto him, even if it hurt him in the end? To be totally honest, Alberto never meant to hurt Ricardo. It was purely an accident that he made him bleed. Or, at least, that was what he told himself. Deep down, he knew that there was a little part of him that had always loved Ricardo, and that part of him wanted to hurt Ricardo so that he could hurt himself.

Alberto's father had never been a man who understood love. If Alberto were to tell him that he loved Ricardo and wanted to start a life with him, he would be disowned so fast that it would make his head spin. That was why Alberto treated Ricardo the way that he did. He used him as a toy and had a lovely little fiancé on the side. When they were married, she would have the appropriate number of children and then become utterly useless to him.

Ricardo's cries of pain made his ears bleed. Why had he been deaf to them until now? "Lo siento, Ricardo. This is all my fault. But I will make it better. On the honor of the Del Rio family, I will fix this."

It was after he made that decision that he attended his first anger management course. It was difficult for him to be around so many people of lower social class, 'peasants' as he liked to call them, but it was all for Ricardo. That was the mantra that went through his head as he returned week after week for the first month. Not once did he hear from Ricardo, not that he expected to. He knew that Ricardo had left and, quite possibly, would never come back.

And even if it was hard to understand that Ricardo had moved on with his life, Alberto would not dwell on it. He would not silently curse Ricardo's decision to move back to Mexico. He would not hate him for leaving him all on his own. That was what his anger management class had taught him. There was nobody to blame but himself. He was the one who had created this mess, and now, he needed to find a way out of it.

That was when his fiancé called. "Alberto! You haven't called me in three days! The wedding is in a week and there is still so much that we need to do and -,"

Alberto cut her off. "There isn't going to be a wedding. I'm calling it off." Alberto told her. "I cannot marry you, not when I only have room in my heart for one man."

"A man? Alberto, that's sick! I'll tell your father and he'll disown you. You'll be broke!"

Alberto shook his head. "If my father truly cares about me, then he'll accept me the way that I am. And as for the money, well, I don't need ten foreign cars that I'll only drive once or twice, do I?"

"What happened you, Alberto? You sound… different."

"I am different." Alberto confirmed "I'm in love."