Look at me and tell me who I am

It’s still very early in the morning when Kurt is woken from a very nice dream in which Blake is actually a prince and they ride off into the sunset together on two white stallions. The real Blake is frantically closing the curtains in Kurt’s room chanting a litany of swear words as he does so. Blake’s dressed in navy blue boxer briefs and his formfitting black polo shirt and if at all possible, his hair looks even crazier, a little bit as if he’s put his finger in a socket. It’s understandable though, with the way he’s running his hands through his hair in what clearly is a nervous gesture.

“Whas goin on?” Kurt slurs, his mouth dry and his head pounding when he tries to sit up

“You have roommates, right? Are they guys or girls?” The room is suddenly pitch black dark and Kurt fumbles for the light on his nightstand. It’s blinding and aggravates his headache but he feels like he needs to see Blake because he’s got no clue what’s going on.

“Yeah, I’ve got two, Rachel and Santana. But I’m sure they are still asleep if they are even home. If you’re quiet I’m sure you can leave without running into them.”

He desperately needs an aspirin and with the way Blake keeps grimacing he definitely needs one too.

“Would either of them pretend to be my girlfriend. I have money.” Blake’s clearly desperate, his eyes pleading with Kurt, but all Kurt feels is hurt. Strike that, he’s pissed. He’s hungover, sore in places he hasn’t been sore in years and instead of just sneaking out and sparing them both the morning after awkwardness, Blake wants to pretend that he hooked up with a girl for whatever reason. He's heard of internalized homophobia, but this is taking it a bit too far.

“You know, I was gonna ask for your phone number because you seemed to like me but clearly I was mistaken. So I don’t know what sick game you’re playing but I want you out of my apartment. I’m gonna count till ten and if you’re not gone I’m gonna call the police,” Kurt says trying to appear threatening in boxers and crazy bedhead but with the way Blake freaks out he must not be such a bad actor after all.

“I can’t go out there! Please don't throw me out. They’ll tell everyone and then he’ll kill me.” Blake’s on him in a flash and grabs Kurt’s hands as if to stop him from calling the cops.

“Alright, you have one minute to explain and if I don’t like what I hear you’re out,” Kurt fixes Blake with an icy stare and the other man backs away until he’s against the window. Blake sinks to the floor, his back pressed against the radiator underneath Kurt’s window, and wraps his arms around his knees.

“I don’t know where to start.” He sounds young and scared but Kurt doesn’t give a damn in that moment, he wants to know what kind of freak he’s taken home with him. And that’s why you shouldn't have one night stands, the angel on his right shoulder chides.

“Why can’t’ you go outside?” Kurt asks. “And don’t lie to me.”

Blake visibly deflates even more. “It’s the press. Someone must have spotted me last night and followed me here. So please, can you ask your roommates. The press can’t find out I’m here with a guy.”

Kurt just shakes his head resolutely even though it aggravates his headache. “Forget it, Rachel’s got a boyfriend and Santana’s got a girlfriend. Also, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if someone really followed you here that means they followed us here, which means they saw who you came home with. And thirdly, I’ve been through too much shit in my life to go back into the closet for some dude I met last night.”

His head is pounding even worse than when he first woke up a few minutes ago - though it feels more like hours ago - and Kurt suppresses the urge to throw up. He’s not leaving his room until Blake’s gone. Blake who’s turned deathly pale.

“He’s going to kill me, no worse, he’ll probably make me ambassador in a country where they stone homosexuals to death. This isn’t happening. How is this happening?”

For the first time since waking up, Kurt considers that Blake may be telling him the truth. The alternative is that he brought home a guy suffering from schizophrenia or something like that and Kurt’s not sure yet which he would prefer. Especially, because there’s this niggling feeling in his stomach that he’s missing something, something big.

“Is your dad,” he clears his dry throat, “is your dad the prime minister?” He should know if their prime minister has kids, but he doesn’t. He was never all that interested in politics so unless their politicians end up in one of Kurt’s trashy magazines he has no clue what is going on in the country. And neither has he cared to know more when no one in politics ever cared about him and his people. Even his right to marry had to be fought out in court because both the Crown and the government opposed civil marriage for same sex couples.

Blake lets out a hollow laugh. “Worse, so much worse.”

And Kurt remembers telling his new friend that he looks a bit like Prince Blaine and how Blake had changed the subject. How Blake told him he went abroad for his education but refused to give Kurt any details. How Blake insisted they talk mostly about Kurt all night. It hits him like a ton of bricks when he realizes who it is that is currently crying on his bedroom floor. And then he’s stumped because he doesn’t even know how to address the guy he’s had sex with only hours ago. A man who’s second in line to the throne after his older brother, Crown Prince Cooper. A man, who as far Kurt knows, is as straight as they come. A man who spent his youth in boarding schools in England and France, spent four semesters studying history at Harvard before training with the military to become a fighter pilot. Kurt looks at the crying mess on his bedroom floor and tries to align it with the last picture he’s seen of the Prince about four years ago, a picture with the caption Prince Blaine out and about in Boston with girlfriend Charlotte of Carolina.

And then he freaks out himself. “Oh shit. You’re messing with me, right? You’re not really… Oh shit, I had sex with the Prince.”

Because yes, that’s who’s sitting on his bedroom floor and now that he knows Kurt can’t believe he ever believed differently because those eyebrows, how many people have eyebrows like that, those big triangles? Did the Prince really manage to fool him just because he let his hair go wild? He didn’t even know the Prince had naturally curly hair. And then he remembers admitting his crush to the Prince and he wants to throw something at him. Would that be considered an act of treason? Could he be arrested if he threw his pillow or the water in his glass at the Prince?

“You let me gush about you. You let me bitch about the King,” Kurt says in a daze because this isn't happening. His one night stand didn’t just turn out to be the Prince, right? The apparently super closeted Prince.

“I told you my father is an asshole. Why would I have stopped you? And I’m sorry, Kurt, but I couldn’t tell you. No one’s supposed to know I’m not normal.”

Kurt bristles at ‘not normal’ but lets the Prince continue.

“When one of my security details saw me kiss a guy at a party in Boston, my dad took me out of school and told me it was time to start training with the military. That was four years ago. Everyone on base hated me because I had a single, but it wasn’t because I was a prince, it was so I wouldn’t share with other recruits. I couldn’t tell anyone that though because it probably would have earned me a beating prince or not. Especially since I’m not the crown prince. And trust me, I’m glad I’m not. If I would be next in line, I’d never be free. But as long as Cooper’s the Crown Prince, I can get a divorce after my father dies and come out. Cooper wouldn’t care, he's the only one who’s supportive.”

Kurt swallows around the sudden lump in his throat, his headache momentarily forgotten. “What about your mo, I mean the Queen?”

The Prince laughs hollowly again. “She’d never go against my dad. So she pretends it never happened and that now that I’m back in the city I’m going to marry my girlfriend and settle down with her.”

“She’s always seemed so progressive,” Kurt frowns.

“Oh, she’s quiet liberal as long as it’s not her own son. But liberal is probably relative. Yes, for our country she’s pretty liberal but read any European newspaper and they all call her ‘staunchly conservative Queen Pamela’.”

Kurt decides not to tell the Prince that he’s never read a European newspaper in his life. That he doesn’t read any newspapers really - at least no traditional ones. Why should he care about what’s happening in the rest of the country or the world, when he’s currently unemployed, the proud owner of two student loans, has no leads on any jobs and has no qualifications apart from an acting degree. Well, he also knows how to do an oil change and change tires, but he’s no certified mechanic. Gosh, what would the Prince think of him if he knew all that. Would he be embarrassed that he didn’t pick someone smarter for a secret one night stand?

He is saved from having to answer by Santana barging through his door, knocking still a foreign concept for her.

“What’s going on?” she asks looking a little disheveled herself. “There’s like fifty reporters in front of our building looking for a tall, slim guy with brown hair wearing skin tight black jeans and eye make up. Remind you of any…?” Santana stops herself mid sentence and gawks at the Prince who’s still curled up on Kurt’s bedroom floor while Kurt’s hands fly to his eyes because he’s totally forgotten to remove the make up last night. Hopefully the shower took care of it and he didn’t have sex with the Prince with mascara all over his face.

“Who’s he?” she inquires. “Is he why we’re surrounded by press.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt shakes his head, hoping to get rid off his roommate before she recognizes the Prince. “He’s just a guy I met last night - you can grill me about it later - so whoever they’re looking for, it isn’t me.”

His other roommate Rachel, a petite brunette, barges into his room as well, dressed in her pink bathrobe and brandishing a rolling pin.

“I heard yelling, what’s going on?”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “It’s good to know that you’d try and save me from a potential attacker, but next time get a kitchen knife, Rachel. And to answer your question, nothing’s going on. Santana just got home and it seems there are reporters in front of our building.”

“Reporters?” Rachel perks up immediately. “I didn’t think the press would be interested in a lowly understudy who’s yet to perform in the role but I’m flattered none the less.”

Rachel dropped out of NYU where she was at Tisch with Kurt two years ago after she was cast in a revival of Funny Girl. After six months, when the woman playing Fanny Brice relinquished the role to her understudy, Rachel was promoted to understudy and even got to play the role a few times. Unfortunately for her, the show closed before Rachel had the chance to advance as well, but she soon got hired again. Currently - and Kurt is jealous as hell - his friend is part of the company of Hamilton, understudying Eliza Hamilton, but she hasn’t gotten to play the role yet since technically she is the understudy to Eliza’s understudy. But still, at least she gets to be onstage every night while Kurt hasn’t even had an audition in like three months.

“No one knows who you are Berry,” Santana drawls and Rachel huffs indignantly.

“Then who are they here for? Obviously not for Kurt.”

“Yes, obviously not for Kurt,” Kurt says bitterly. “Why should anyone be interested in me, right?”

“That’s not what I meant. Don’t twist my words, Kurt,” Rachel protests. “And it’s not my fault that you aren’t willing to go the extra mile to get some acting work.”

“Because I refused to sleep with the casting director you introduced me to?” Kurt bristles, forgetting for a moment that there’s a distraught Prince on his bedroom floor clad in nothing more than underwear and a body hugging shirt. “I’m ambitious, but I guess I’m not as ambitious as you.”

“Maybe, ah, I should give you a moment,” the Prince pipes up from the floor, head cradled in the palms of his hands either because of his headache or to hide his face from Kurt’s roommates.

“It’s okay, they were just leaving anyway,” Kurt glares at Santana and Rachel. “You can give me the third degree when he’s gone, but right now we’re hungover as hell and would like to go back to bed.”

Prince Blaine lifts his head at the ‘we’ and when Santana sees his face she starts laughing almost hysterically.

“I thought you were over your little crush on the Prince, but look at him, he even has the same weird eyebrows. Has no one ever told you about tweezers?”

The Prince’s hands fly up to his eyebrows and covers them self-consciously.

“What’s wrong with my eyebrows?” he mumbles and Kurt shakes his head to try to tell the Prince that there’s nothing wrong with them even though he’s thought the same thing the previous night.

“Maybe the press mistook you for Prince Blaine and that’s why they are here,” Rachel suggests excitedly. “How awesome would it be to meet actually royalty.”

You couldn’t keep your head down and your mouth shut until my roommates were gone, Kurt thinks as Santana’s eyes suddenly widen in shock and her jaw drops almost comically before she curtsies. Kurt’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, because this is Santana. His fierce, take no bullshit from anyone roommate who threatens anyone who looks at her or her girlfriend weirdly with the razorblades she claims to have hidden in her hair. The last person he would ever expect to show deference to a prince.

“Santana, why are you….?” Rachel starts before she understands as well and bows down so far, her nose nearly touches the ground. “I’m so sorry, your Highness. I, we didn’t mean no harm, it’s just, you look very different with your hair like this.”

“Not different enough,” the Prince mumbles before he adds quickly, “and please don’t bow. At least not in private.”

“So they’re here for you?” Santana recovers quickly. “How do they know you’re here.”

The Prince hangs his head. “They must have followed me and Kurt last night. I was having so much fun just going out dancing like a normal guy that I forgot to be careful. And now my dad’s going to kill me.

“Oh shit,” Rachel exclaims. “There was an article in Royal News a few weeks ago that announced your engagement to Lady Charlotte. Does she know that you are…” she gestures at the Prince and Kurt and Prince Blaine shakes his head.

“The Crown still has this antiquated rule that any woman wanting to marry into the immediate royal family has to remain a virgin till the wedding. It’s a shitty, patriarchal rule and once Cooper rules, he’s going to get rid of it, but in my case, it offered an excuse why I wasn’t sleeping with my girlfriend of five years. I feel like the worst person in the word for stringing her along though.”

“Did you promise to marry her when you met?” Santana asks and the Prince shakes his head yet again. “Then it’s not your fault she just assumed she’d be your wife one day. She could just as easily use you to advance. Because lets be honest - the Carolinas haven’t had any influence in this country for centuries. But if Lady Charlotte of Carolina marries the second in line to the throne, then her family becomes important again.”

Prince Blaine shrugs. Kurt knows that King Richard married a commoner, a rich commoner, but a commoner nonetheless, so the princes are free to marry whoever they want, or as Kurt is beginning to understand, anyone female who can guarantee a white wedding. At almost thirty, Prince Cooper is under pressure though to find a suitable wife and start a family if Royal News can be trusted.

“You should tell her, before she hears it from the press,” Kurt says after putting himself in Lady Charlotte’s shoes for a moment. “Because even if she isn’t dating you for love, she deserves to know before anyone else.”

“I,” the Prince shakes his head determinedly, “I can’t come out, Kurt, I told you. I’ll just tell the press that I was meeting up with a friend I hadn’t seen in years, we were drinking and so I crashed at your place because it sounded like the responsible thing to do. We didn’t do anything in public that could be construed as more than friendly, right?”

While Santana and Rachel frown, Kurt wracks his brain, but there are chunks of last night missing.

“I don’t know, I’m sorry your Highness.” Wow, it feels weird addressing his one night stand like that.

“Please, in private no bowing and just call me Blaine,” the Prince protests before he slams his fist against the floor. “Dammit, I can’t remember either.”

Blaine - and it will take some time to get used to calling him that -  looks like he is going to cry and Kurt approaches him slowly, afraid to spook him, and wraps his arms around Blaine’s shoulders when the Prince doesn’t stop him, dressed in nothing but black boxers, but now’s not the time to feel self-conscious in front of his roommates especially Santana who runs around in just her underwear all the time.

“It’s going to be okay,” Kurt soothes the Prince. He’s still angry about the lies, but he understands the Prince’s reasons for giving him a fake name and pretending to be a different person.

“No it’s not,” the Prince sniffles. “If this comes out, then the whole world will know, not just my parents, my friends and maybe my classmates. The whole world. I’m second in line to the throne, I’m not allowed to be gay. My father is the head of the Church of America and if something would happen to my dad and my brother, it would be up to me to keep our line alive. And only children born within a Church sanctioned marriage are permitted to carry royal titles. Maybe one day, when Cooper has children, I can be free to be who I am, but until then, I have to play my part. I’ve told Charlotte that we can’t get married until Cooper does, so that should give me a little more time, but eventually I will have to marry her and start a family. So trust me, anyone who thinks that my life’s perfect because I’m a prince, I’ll exchange my life for theirs in a heartbeat. Because I’m being kept in a cage. Yes, it’s a golden cage, but a cage nonetheless.”

After finishing his little monologue, the Prince starts crying in earnest, and Kurt feels his tears fall onto his chest where Blaine’s head is buried.

Kurt’s so focused on the crying prince in his arms that it takes him a moment to notice that Santana and Rachel are having an argument.

“I can’t believe you did that, Santana. Delete it.”

“No. Remember that kid down the block a few weeks ago who was beaten to death because he dared to kiss his boyfriend goodnight in public. Remember how you freaked out because what if that happened to your dads. Or to Kurt. We know it makes a difference when celebrities come out, you’ve seen the studies too, how people become more open minded when their favorite football player or actor comes out. Just imagine how many people it’s going to help if Prince Blaine of America comes out. If even a member of the royal family can be gay, isn't that all the proof we need to show people, yes they’re really born that way.”

Neither of them is paying any attention to the phone in Santana’s hand. Rachel’s crying as she remembers Todd and Kurt’s trying to wrap his head around the fact that one of his best friends has just filmed Prince Blaine’s confession.

“Your Highness,” Santana addresses Blaine who looks up at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m sorry, but this is for the good of the people.”

And then she presses send, emailing Blaine’s video to every major news outlet in the country.  “I’m sure you’ll hate me now, but one day you’ll thank me for it.”